The Haven quad was utterly quiet. The battle was over, but the joy of reunion, and the calm brought on had been perverted as those red eyes cast their pall, staring fixedly at the warriors from Namek. His smile was predatory, his eyes slightly too wide, even as one was obscured by the strange red monocle he wore.

Every other pair of eyes had found their way to his silhouette atop the roof of Haven Hall. Ruby Rose dared to glance and see if any of the others knew the same dread as she felt. She knew she was sweating. Raven was one of the few who seemed to appreciate what stood before them, a lone flash of movement as she drew her blade and held it stiffly in defense. Her teeth were bared, and her eyes were huge.

Most telling to Ruby was Gohan, Vegeta and their bald friend. She had seen the gentle child's seemingly limitless powers, yet his mouth was agape with fear. Even Vegeta, who Gohan told her was vastly more powerful, looked as though every ligament was pulling his body taut as he sneered.

They were all afraid.

She felt numb. Nobody spoke, moved, the breeze was the only real noise. Even ignorant to what Ruby understood, the others seemed to grasp the same feeling that this thing exuded the air of some apex predator. And like a lion circling a field of buffalo, there was an instinct that any move made to single themselves out, draw attention or otherwise stray from the herd would trigger the chase at last.

"Well!" he boomed conversationally, splitting the silence at last. "Now isn't that lucky… I cast my stone and strike not one or two, but all three quails quivering in the brambles…"

None of them knew what to expect it to sound like, but there was only the slightest rustle among the heroes of Haven as the high pitched tones hit them a second time, as if they only now confirmed that the creature had been the one to speak earlier in this polite manner. Qrow in particular was beginning to piece its identity together, as was Ozpin. His sister flinched. That for its bizarre appearance, the thing was so well spoken was disarming.

Raven's clatter of movement had drawn the beady eyes to her, and she very nearly stumbled as his eyes widened in recognition. "And the cowardly sparrow as well… This is a treat…!"

His finger curled as his visage turned thoughtful, setting it under his strangely prominent lips. "I had hoped to run you all down one by one," he noted with vague disappointment, a general shiver running through the crowd as he so offhandedly admitted to his intentions. Ultimately he set his hand down, giving another shark-like grin as he sighed. "Ah well… best laid plans…"

He paused but for another moment. By now, those who knew his name already understood the delay was his own personal torture.

"You know, in light of what you three have done to me, I must applaud my own well of self control!" he said brightly. "I've been holding quite a bit down, particularly given where we are… Did you know? We're in fact standing in another galaxy entirely!"

This finally prompted a response. Vegeta grunted his surprise, Gohan and Krillin daring to look straight at each other. The others began glancing between the newcomers. Yang scanned Krillin, as if she'd never seen him properly before.

A vein throbbed on the villain's temple, his smile twitching. "You've deigned to ruin not only my bid for immortality… but stripped my very claim upon my Empire…" His eyes seemed to bulge as the smile slowly slithered into a scowl. "I have been delivered to an incongruous backwater, where the name 'Lord Frieza' is neither known nor FEARED!"

To any who recognized the name, this final pronouncement was the final brick in the tomb, as well as their stomachs. Ruby Rose shuddered, and could feel her teeth grinding. Weiss froze, somehow stiller. Ozpin, Qrow and the survivors of Team JNPR recoiled, and Yang could only stare as something prodded at her mind.

'He's a sick-headed nightmare turned solid and real... He's a walking, talking death sentence. You don't want his full attention. Even half can get you killed.'

She barely noticed a metallic groan and a whine of servos as the tips of her steely fingers began to dent her palm, squeezing with inhuman strength.

Eyes bulging, the now insane-looking smile briefly returned to Frieza as he chuckled to himself, before his nostrils flared with inhalation.

Something like bright, glowing, blood-red smoke seemed to rise off of him like steam. The smile vanished as rage overtook his face.

And then the black-streaked power blasted out in a torrent like wind and fire, howling past them like a living storm had been conjured, and his voice rang off every surface as he screamed. "YOU SNEAKING, FETID, FECKLESS COCKROACHES!"

At last weapons were drawn and movement rippled through the heroes as they fought to stay upright against the force.

"YOU'RE GOING TO WISH THAT DRAGON HAD SENT YOU TO HELL THAN HERE WITH ME!"

Cracks begin to bloom all across the old building, creeping as the rest of Haven Hall creaked with the load.

"YOU'RE ALL GOING TO PAY IN BLOOD!" Frieza vowed, forming a fist before his own face, one foot forward as he barely restrained himself.

With that, there was a final gust as the terrific force ended seemingly all at once, the remaining energy and dust shaken from the structure pluming into the sky as it drifted apart like smoke after a raucous fireworks display. Haven itself still echoed and rattled as a whole, as silence took hold once more.

Taut with rage, Frieza finally regained his composure as his breathing slowed, returning to stand upright as he put on a strained smile. "Never let it be said I'm not a sporting man though!" he said, eyes brightening… before his smile deepened and gave him away. "I'll work through your party favors as a start…"

The words only wrought a confusion in the crowd, as sinister as they sounded. Krillin finally found his voice as he croaked, "Party favors…?"

None of them had even seen Frieza move despite the lot of them looking directly at him, and so not a soul could have explained how Ilia had reacted so quickly when the alien overlord appeared before Blake Belladonna, his hand reared back…

Perhaps he cared so little that Planet Vegeta's vanquisher let it happen, but Blake grunted as Ilia shoved her suddenly out of Frieza's reach before the purple hand plucked the freckled faunus from the spot she'd stood.

Blake wheeled around to see it, Frieza's diminutive form clutching her friend by the neck and somehow holding her off the ground. Just by looking at her, Blake could tell Ilia was floored by the force at work, the ferocity as her pupils shrank and her mouth went slack.

Yatsu ga kuru…

Jigoku sarasu...

Osoikuru...

Yume mo kōru...

"B-Blake…! Run…!" she breathed.

Frieza squinted as his smile widened, and he gave a grim chuckle. "Pop…"

They all only glimpsed a violet flash as Ilia's limbs went taut before all view of her was obliterated. A rust and black plume of smoke and soot burst into the air like a grenade. They couldn't be sure if the high pitched, sinister sound that it made didn't also contain a shrill, human scream.

And then Frieza's grip was empty, and Ilia Amitola was gone, like some stage magic act.

Having a front row seat to this, Blake couldn't quite process what had happened, except that something hot had struck her from the front, like dust stinging her eyes. It was on her hands, already drying. She looked down.

Scarlet coated her, like the leftover mist from spray paint carried on the wind. She felt it, sticky on her face. Blood.

Blake Belladonna shuddered and shook, but stood rooted even as the petite monster, horns not even reaching her eye-level slowly stalked past her. He sported a wicked grin, not even meeting Blake with his eyes as he effectively spared her. Somehow the message was clear: it didn't matter to him whether Blake was alive or dead. She didn't matter. She was a fly to be swatted or ignored on a passing whim.

Frieza barely made it a few feet past Blake when something charged his blind spot.

"NEPTUNE, DON'T!" Sun dared to shriek from behind as the blue-haired boy leapt the last few feet to lunge with the trident, Tri-Hard.

Neptune stumbled, confused, as he phased right through Frieza. His head whirled left and right… but then he froze as a hum of laughter sounded behind him.

All that beheld it barely saw Frieza appear behind Neptune, at his back, hand reared back in a knifehand position. And in a purple flash, that hand zipped from low to high across Neptune's middle.

Neptune's eyes were pinpricks as he failed to grasp what had just happened to him, and indeed for an instant it seemed that nothing had… Not until, mouth falling open in horror, his legs gave out beneath him… and his entire upper body from the navel up simply fell off his waist altogether.

"NO…! NOOOO!" Sun cried fingers clawing at his own scalp.

But by the will of whatever cruel forces were at work, even as Ruby stared in shock, Neptune Vasilias was not dead. Somehow his bisected body was not bleeding, and his arms worked in panic and agony as he wailed to crawl and escape his own fate.

Ruby stared helpless at the horror before them. It was the most awful thing she'd ever seen. It was all happening again… Blake's friend had just escaped the White Fang, and now she was little more than blood and memory. Now Neptune stood murdered before them, but hadn't quite seen fit to truly die. Another friend Ruby had taken for granted, barely known as well as she would have liked. Another Penny Polendina. Another Pyrrha Nikos. She'd learned nothing from them… She'd rebuffed Neptune's advances as he sought to know her better. Sure, she couldn't really see herself with him that way, or anyone really… but now that door was closed forever. She'd never know.

I'm a horrible friend…

What remained of Neptune found the unwilling eye of Weiss Schnee, even as she desperately sought to turn away from her one-time crush, hand over her mouth in shock and nausea as her eyes welled with tears.

"Pl-lease h-help me! Oh god, somebody help me…! Please…! PLEASE…! I-I can't…! I don't wanna… I don't want to d… I don't…"

And like that, Neptune slowly went quiet, like some macabre wind-up toy losing steam and coming to a rigid stop.

Frieza hadn't moved, nor said a word, simply admiring his work with sadistic leisure even as Scarlet David and Sage Ayana stormed his position on wings of ill-conceived vengeance.

Sun couldn't find it in him to do much more than reach his hand out silently in protest as it happened. Frieza himself lazily raised a hand across his collar and over his opposite shoulder, as if to brush off dust.

Instead, the quad was bathed in violet light as a roiling beam of energy engulfed the remaining subordinates of Team SSSN, skimming the floor and not stopping before it had punched through the south building facing the same distant mountains Cinder had been banished to. The structure was flattened in a cacophony of breaking glass and creaking, smoldering wood that served as ejecta while the beam flared itself out into the Mistral skies.

Even looking back on this day, none who survived could have told who fired the first shot, but in seconds every weapon in the quad had opened up on Frieza. Ruby shook as she readied Crescent Rose and joined in as the air snapped with gunfire. Nora's grenades exploded over the tyrant, who hadn't flinched, and pink smoke obscured his form as everything clattered off the white body or deflected with a whizz. Ruby knew that it was a fool's errand, shocked though she was to see rounds glance harmlessly off what seemed like soft flesh… but if Frieza was going to kill them all regardless, what else could they do?

But as the smoke was repeatedly blasted away, they could see Frieza on the move again… and then Ruby's blood found a way to become still colder, as those red eyes were now staring at her.

But then golden hair swam in her vision.

"Ruby, get behind me…" Yang ordered, not taking her eyes off the demon himself.

No… please no…!

He laughed. "Oh yes, listen to her, dear girl. Certainly I couldn't topple her like all the other trash."

Ruby nearly screamed as Yang grit her teeth at the threat, sweating and plainly terrified, only to succumb to her nervous energy and wind her steely fist back as she sucked air through her teeth and stepped forward to slug him.

But then Frieza stood between both of them, his back to Ruby as his sharply nailed fingers closed around the golden arm just below the elbow, arresting Yang mid-backswing. She could only glimpse him from the corner of her eye.

With barely a gesture of his hand, the arm fizzled as it crumpled in his grasp like it were made of cardboard and tin foil. He released it, only to circle around to admire as Yang collapsed to her knees, watching in disbelief as the entirety of her smashed limb bent under its own weight and broke off to clatter on the floor with the rest of the mess of silicon and plastic shards. She held the end of it in her remaining hand, mouth hung open and eyes huge with terror as she started shaking.

Frieza clucked his tongue. "Oh fie," he lamented, shaking his head, "seems somebody else has beaten me to the punch."

Ruby was frozen again. She was about to lose her own sister… and she couldn't move…

"But not to worry, my dear gilded flower," Frieza offered brightly, before his smile turned predatory once more. "You've at least three more petals to choose from…" He lazily held three fingers up, the thumb and forefinger on his other hand miming the plucking of the others as the chosen finger curled low. "He kills me…" His smile widened. "He kills me SLOW..."

Ruby finally found her legs obeying her, and slid in front of Yang, arms thrown around her. It wasn't a plan… but it was the only thing on Remnant she wanted to do at that second.

But before Frieza could do or say any more, a shriek of splitting air heralded two shapes that dove at Frieza from either side. It was Gohan, and his bald friend in the strange outfit, finally snapped free of their own fear and come to their aid.

Their fists however were caught in the crossed hands of the evil emperor, who growled at this interruption before slamming both of them into the floor on opposite sides to skip away like stones, a torrent of force exploding as Ruby and Yang were buffeted back towards the others like ragdolls.

Frieza's wrath sought an immediate target, and after blowing the sisters away, the closest in his sight was Weiss Schnee. She could only tremble as he raised a shining finger…

Behind her however was Jaune, who leapt before her again, willing his semblance to aid them again.

"Yyyyyaaaaaaargh!" Frieza screeched, as alien a sound as they had heard from him. Even Jaune was certain the effort was meaningless as Frieza fired a thin blazing beam and his ethereal shield manifested, the violet light bright enough to leave spots in their eyes... Yet as it met them, seemingly as fast as light itself, it did little more than ripple as the energy rebounded like a mirror.

Frieza grunted in surprise, wincing as his own attack struck his armored temple, leaving a smoking black weal just below his right horn. His teeth grit as whatever equivalent he possessed to eyebrows shot up, his pupils drifting high as if to examine his own head. Arm still extended, his firing finger curled… and then his gaze returned to the two, their mouths dry as Frieza began to tremor with rage…

He growled before every player nearby was knocked clean off their feet as power exploded from him with a shriek of indignant rage, cracking the floor beneath him as turbid energies fountained into the air.

"Hey, FREAK!" A gruff voice called at last, standing alone against the chaos.

Teeth still bared, Frieza turned to find nothing less than Vegeta standing before him. "Step away from my protege, and come get the first real fight you've ever had!"

The villain turned fully towards him as his blood cooled slightly, power still roiling over him, before the Prince's words struck him, and he turned with vague interest to meet Weiss' still terrified eyes. "Protege, huh…?" he drawled to himself, mouth barely opening. He turned his eyes back to Vegeta, wicked sneer returning. "And I suppose you were this cavalier about facing me before, but somehow failed to track me down and finally put paid to all that bluster…? We're not about to start making excuses now, are we, Vegeta?" he laughed.

The two titans exchanging barbs was surreal to the captive onlookers. With as readily as Frieza had seen fit to slay four of their number inside of a minute, and how impossible his might seemed, the idea that a comparable force had walked among them this whole time was bizarre.

Vegeta seemed to growl and sigh simultaneously. "I couldn't care less for your opinion, Frieza! I have risen, with the power of a Super Saiyan within me! The warrior of legend! The incarnation of the fear that led you to destroy my race!"

Frieza's eyes darkened at the suggestion, as the surreality peaked for the onlookers. Weiss vaguely recalled Vegeta using the term once before… to think at one time, she might have rolled her eyes at these apparent ravings…

Vegeta smiled. "You've failed, Frieza! That warrior stands before you now, his fallen and forebears at his back!" Electricity snapped around him, and the ground rumbled as the Saiyan warrior began to glow. A few of them that dared to look away noticed bits of loose stone and detritus standing on end, and others still drifted off the floor entirely. All of Haven Academy rumbled.

"Feel their FURY…!" Vegeta growled, grinning in confidence as his fist clenched in front of his face.

With a tremendous war cry, the ground shook as Vegeta launched over it at the tyrant in miniature who stood his ground. They met as Vegeta's fist met Frieza's forearm and the subsequent burst of pure force rattled them all to their knees.

And then a few distant pops drifted up to them.

"W-what…?" Yang asked, daring to take her eyes off the two fighters even as they flashed, before disappearing before their eyes.

"I'll ensure your 'fallen and forebears' hear your screams ring from every crack and corner of the great beyond!" Frieza's voice cried, the sound emanating from multiple places as they moved.

Blake wobbled towards them, still sticky with blood, her eyes distant. "It's… the bombs! We…"

Bulma's eyes lit up with fear. "We disarmed them all, but they're still susceptible to shock! If they keep this up…!"

The wind blasted from multiple sources as Frieza and Vegeta fought, either of them visible for instances only as otherwise it was like they'd vanished without a trace.

"Haven has stabilizers—" Ozpin began.

"They were disabled!" Bulma retorted. "This whole thing is gonna collapse!"

"The controls, they're in the headmaster's office," Ozpin said, knowingly.

Ruby turned to face Haven Hall. Between them, concrete was being torn up, seemingly at random. "Wish me luck!"

"RUBY, NO!" Yang cried, but she was already a blur of petals, and before any of them could take a step, a wash of scorching violet power barred the way as Frieza fired it from the right, Vegeta on the left vying against it, barehanded, before flinging it over his head and into the sky like a rocket.

Ruby burst in through the blown doors, the cavernous hall taking her aback a moment. Windows blown out, scorch marks everywhere. The statue was replaced by a rubble-strewn hole, and part of the second floor had collapsed.

But a shake of the foundations and a handful of pops from below refocused her, and she darted up the steps and into the halls. The office door was shut, but a boot to it granted entry as she drew Crescent Rose.

"Professor Lionheart, you— Oh my god…!"

It looked like a crime scene, and it may well have been. The back of the office was entirely inaccessible. Three separate pillars in the back of the room had been felled, and the light of day streamed inside from the ceiling collapsing directly onto—

"Professor, I… what happened?!" she asked, trying in vain with the scythe's pike end to pry off the wooden beams and debris pinning the old faunus. Blood ran down his face from a gash on his forehead.

"A debt… is settled," he answered. "Leave me, girl, it's no less than I deserve."

Ruby nearly lifted some of the more solid ceiling planks when a crack finally announced its surrender to the strain, the mass piling back onto him. "I-I… Haven is going to fall apart! I need you to tell me how to turn the… stable… no… stable-risers…? I don't remember what it's call—"

"The stabilizers… W-Watts ensured after the sabotage that they would take days of repair… exactly in case I were to have a change of heart…"

Ruby paled. "Then… it's too…?!"

"GO, child…! Go before you too are consumed by my sins…!"

"I…!" But Haven shook, dust and wood falling from the ceiling.

"GO!"

Ruby turned and bolted, only sparing a glance as she cleared the doorframe.

Something caught her eye. Something white and black, watching her beyond the ceiling planks where the old Headmaster lay. Red tentacles drooped down beneath it.

But most haunting of all… a stark white face she had never seen before upon the thing's melon… leering at her with red, snakelike eyes.

Frieza and Vegeta grappled, fingers interlocked as their energies towered, tongues of spiritual flame washing over the stony quad as the stone beneath their feet gave way. The scouter chattered away as Vegeta's power rose, not relenting.

Three-hundred-fifty… three-seventy-five…! Four-hundred-thousand! From a Saiyan worm?!

But as the other onlookers beheld, the popping of charges beneath the school amplified in number, and Frieza himself was removed of his offended revery as the device ceased chattering, delivering a flat tone and some warning he couldn't read before the red glass cracked and the rest of it shattered dramatically in a burst of smoke and ceramic shards.

Beneath, the crowd of would-be heroes stared as there was an awful series of steely shrieks muffled by the structure, before the very ground they stood upon appeared to warp for but a split second… before cracks formed and fell away to reveal chasms fit to swallow the surface.

Weiss, Blake, and Yang… Jaune, Ren and Nora… Qrow, Raven, Oscar, Sun… Gohan, Krillin and Bulma found their eyes wandering in shock as the chasms grew and more material fell into them. The CCT tower was jolted by the shock and its top half couldn't keep up with its base, tearing off to topple away from them and smash on the other side, rolling slightly before sinking largely out of sight. The tree-dotted park at Haven's north side saw the old growths toppling one by one, thinning the artificial forest as though some monster were tearing through it, unseen. School buildings on the west side appeared to be disintegrating. It was like the very world was ending. And all the while, the Emperor and Saiyan Prince were a fixture floating in midair as what remained of Haven sagged.

And then they were all blown off their feet, as Haven Academy finally died.

Ruby heard and felt the colossal shocks as she crossed Haven Hall, stumbling as daylight suddenly streamed inside, debris clattering on all sides as the ceiling was pulled apart in a crack that followed down both walls. Her hesitation kept her from tracking straight into the fissure that crumbled open in front of her, but barely allowed her the momentum to hop across, even as she beheld it all in disbelief and shock.

It wasn't enough, however, as the edge of the gap wasn't safe either. Like a staircase, the floor before her sloughed off layer by layer, and she screamed as she fell back with it into the gaping chasm.

But a similar tale was unfolding all throughout Haven as gravity usurped what remained. Pieces rotated idly while others smashed each other like meteors. Busted gas lines breathed fire into the open air. Enormous steel braces and girders fell freely, vaguely connecting the largest surviving pieces, but as the Gap of Mistral narrowed with their descent, even these bowed and weakened.

At the edge of this, Bulma screeched as she slipped closer and closer to where the other edge of the structure was grinding against the cliffs, eating away at them like a rock crusher. A ribbon snapped over her wrists as Blake came to her aid, feet planted on one of the few benches still bolted to the crumbled ground as she tugged to draw the spacefaring bluenette up and into her arms. None too soon either, as the debris they fell with found an outcrop in the cliff, which erupted suddenly into the spot Bulma had clung to from below to spray stone and dirt everywhere. She only screamed louder, clinging to her savior.

Yang struggled, kicking between islands of debris as she desperately fired the lone Ember Celica to slow her fall. But without its mate, the effect was deadened, and the lopsided nature of it was tending to send her into a clockwise spin with every shot. A chunk slammed into her back. And who should come to her aid but Sun Wukong, himself fighting for balance without his tail. Linked arm in arm, they were finally able to stabilize.

Weiss spawned slowing glyphs to aid Jaune and herself as she tried repeatedly to summon the Lancer, but the chaos didn't permit it. Raven desperately held Rufina's body, even as Qrow's corvid form fluttered after, and Oscar leapt neatly above the falling stone as best he could.

It was a similar story all around. Ruby herself managed with Crescent Rose's recoil, but in the air she could see the chaos punctuated by swaths of additional destruction as Vegeta and Frieza made their way down as they fought.

From these heights they had to stave off terminal velocity, which was made all the more difficult by their choice of strategy. Even Crescent Rose wasn't perfect, as the barrel would eventually overheat despite the airflow. Regardless, they needed to be well above the falling detritus, both to avoid getting caught in the impact and because the bits and pieces would reach terminal velocity once they reached the ground. Diving down to help Blake, Sun or her sister would mean diving faster than gravity. All the same, she swirled into a crimson smear on the sky as she tried…

But there was a flash, and she saw Gohan grabbing Sun by the wrist and tossing him high with Yang. Krillin then did the same with Raven, and Blake, and soon nearly all of the free-fallers were at level with each other as a huge chunk of Haven, further from the rest, slammed overtop some buildings in the highest foothills with a dusty crunch.

Ruby heard and felt the rush of air above her, and saw Gohan again, this time reaching for her hand. She took it, glancing to Weiss and offering her own. Krillin had done likewise with Yang, and in moments they'd linked arms as a whole while the two otherworldly fighters slowed their fall as the debris finally fell away.

Even then, the cacophony of Haven smashing down into the bottom of the Gap of Mistral could be felt in their bones. Grey and brown soil sprayed up at them, obliterating all sight as they descended into the cloud. Steel rang, but most of it was a singular explosive rumble that felt like it would persist forever.

But ultimately it faded, as one by one, they finally made landfall, blindly. Despite their best efforts, Ruby felt it in her throat when she landed flat on her backside, which half sank into the loose rubble.

There was coughing all around, and none of them could see, but then something else landed amongst them, and a bright surge of power blew the dust away to reveal Vegeta standing tall —metaphorically— and waiting.

Ruby stood up to see the others more or less safe, but she stumbled against a great mound of concrete sticking out of the earth, leaning against it as she beheld a landscape transformed by Haven's calamitous fall. She recalled the canyon floor being full of some of the grander structures in Mistral… and all was twisted steel and stony rubble. There wasn't a sign of any intact structure.

Then she heard them. They all did. Even after Vegeta cleared the surrounding air, natural vents in the debris they stood on breathed smoke… and carried distant, muffled cries on the air.

People were alive and buried underneath. They were suffocating… burning… They sounded so far down…

Without a word, she began trying to dig through the rubble, eyes full of tears. But the vent was burning hot to the touch, and it only seemed she was filling the holes as she tried. She heard the sobbing of a child underground even as Qrow's hand found hers and tried to pull her away.

The rest of them beheld the scene… the impossible nightmare as they stared up to confirm that Haven was conspicuously absent from the sky, bits of it heaped upon the mountainside. Mistral was transformed.

The heroes pupils had shrunk, their movement largely a zombified shamble, shellshocked.

In particular, Oscar's white knuckles shook as they gripped his weapon handle. His teeth were on full display, eyes scarcely taking the scene in.

But then, opposite Vegeta, a distinct shadow appeared in another dust cloud, similarly blown away as Frieza revealed himself. His brow was high, the anger gone from his face. "My my… perhaps it's not a bluff after all. Why… if a 'Super Saiyan' were there that day, do you suppose the monkeys might have survived my cull?"

Vegeta grit his teeth as his world's fate was thrown so casually in his face, but watched as the tyrant's face lit up with perverse glee.

"Shall we test this together?!" Frieza cackled, floating suddenly as a lone finger rose level with his brow. Upon it, a brilliant marble of orange power gleamed into existence. "Feast your eyes! The very technique that carried Planet Vegeta and the Saiyan apes to the furthest reaches of oblivion!"

"P-Planet…?!" Yang dared.

"Oblivion…?!" Weiss added. "That's…!"

"Impossible!" Yang finished, no conviction whatsoever in her.

Frieza's teeth gleamed as he chuckled madly. "Then let this serve for a metaphor, AS I EXPAND YOUR FEEBLE MIND…!" he shrieked, and before their eyes, the little point of light expanded to the size of a beach ball… then to the size of a house… and then its scale began to dwarf the ruins, dominating their sight as it towered. All the while, Frieza cackled as all but Vegeta shrunk back in fear and disbelief.

"What the hell...?!" Yang cried over the rhythmic, otherworldly pulsing of the orange mass as it generated its own windstorm. "WHAT THE HELL!"

Even slumped onto the floor, a number of them crawled backwards until they were obstructed by debris. Ruby's eyes were still wet as Qrow and Yang shuffled near without seeing her, and then she heard her uncle.

"God… oh please, no…!"

As he got near enough though, she and Qrow locked eyes, and a split second later, she felt him wrap her in a hug as she was pulled into his side. His hand covered the side of her face.

"Ruby, don't look…" he told her. "I'm sorry…! Oh god, I'm SORRY…!"

She did what she could to appreciate the warmth of his embrace despite the cold chill she got from his words and his tone. Sorry that his encouragement led them here, and with nothing but to stay ignorant of their fate… certain they were going to die.

It was hard to argue the point, but all the same, Ruby glimpsed under Qrow's arm as Frieza's finger flicked forward to point their way, and the enormous sphere made an odd, distant gurgling as it crept towards them. The wind burst and howled louder.

But Vegeta's silhouette stood against it, and as his blue Aura soared, he grit his teeth and launched at it with a cry.

The sound was enough that even Qrow grew curious, and they beheld the absurd image of the man taking off into the air to meet the sunset mass with his fist in a staggering right cross.

Ruby had no comprehension of how a mass of spirit energy the size of a skyscraper ought to behave, but there was a delayed reaction as the oddly solid surface —rather than fluid like she expected— bent inward as though sucking in its metaphorical gut. And then, they heard a deep '*BOOMF!*' as the ball popped back into shape, but sprung in the opposite direction and towards the sky, drifting swiftly higher.

Indeed, they all dared to look as the noise grew distant, the sphere like a miniature star casting dimmer light down as it burst through the clouds and found itself in the high atmosphere. Ruby glimpsed Frieza, whose head was craned high to watch its progress in surprise, his firing finger still held vaguely aloft. He locked eyes with the Saiyan Prince, who stared back, his fist still smoking.

And then a blinding glow pierced down through the clouds, which vanished in a ring before a hurricane force and noise descended upon the two mountains, blasting a haze of dirt and loose stone as they shook off. Several cliffside structures clattered down as well. It all swept down upon the foothills like an invisible avalanche, and then the heroes were slammed by it all at once as a sound like a rocket launch hit them out of nowhere. There was no resisting the force of the explosion. Ruby Rose felt herself carried off on the air as she and most of their number screamed.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally hit the floor and tumbled over the valley grass. Ruby looked up to see her friends scattered over a hundred yards, largely on the grounds of some agricultural property along the city outskirts with a large, fixed windmill. An empty garage and a thrown open gate suggested the place was largely abandoned, recently. And given the boiling sea of black near the distant treeline miles off, that looked to be sound logic on the part of the owners.

But even as there was a momentary peace, Remnant's defenders hit the dirt again as Gohan and Krillin touched down among them faster than most of them could have expected.

"Everybody okay?!" Krillin asked.

"No!" Nora, Sun and Jaune shouted

"Are you kidding me?!" Qrow added.

"Why are you wasting time with that MONSTER around?!" Bulma demanded, pulling herself free from a mass of chicken wire.

Yang shot to her feet, nodding as she looked to Krillin in desperation, her missing limb still ragged with loose wire. "Yeah! I remember what you did back at the camp! You gotta stop that thing!"

Krillin almost couldn't bear to shake his head. She really thought that highly of him? "This is out of my league, Yang, I told you about Frieza. Vegeta's the best shot we have right now! I don't know how much Gohan and I can do on our—"

But before much else could be said, there was a whistling, and Frieza himself planted directly across from all of them. "What an insufferable delay," he told them with a sigh, "but not to worry! The show must go on, my dear human dregs! I am ever the holdout as it pertains to presentation."

There was a heavier drop as Vegeta brought up the rear, flattening grass as his power burst. Once more, all present were ready to drop at the barest sign.

"We're not done, Frieza!" Vegeta told him, two fingers pointed accusingly. "This is the moment! I've overcome what you are, and even what you're hiding! I'll crush you no different from your lackey! Transformation didn't save him in the end…"

Frieza's eyes lit up as he turned. "Oh! Why Vegeta, have you guessed my secret then? I must say… if you had any idea what you spoke of… you would find such provocations unwise…"

"Show me, Frieza!" Vegeta ordered, undaunted. "End this charade and transfo—"

"ARGHHH!"

With a shout and a flash from the alien, his bio-armor cracked and burst like a lightbulb, and everyone ducked as the shards turned into shrapnel. Most noticeably, two smoking exit holes had blown through the windmill, which ceased turning all at once.

When eyes had returned to the beast himself, Frieza appeared mildly different. The swooping pauldrons of his armor were gone. In fact, the entire chest had changed, revealing a hard, stark white series of pectoral plates. His shoulders and sternum held single purple masses like his head which might have looked soft but were no less armored than the rest of him.

There was silence, as even to the Remnant natives, this didn't look like much had changed at all.

"What was that?" Vegeta asked, tilting his head. "Is this the payoff to those veiled threats?"

Frieza chuckled. "Ah-ah-ah! I know it's a virtual impossibility on your part, my dear Prince, but I might exert a touch of caution before you're left eating crow."

In spite of themselves, a few eyes turned to the Branwen brother, who managed to croak. "Could you rephrase that?"

Frieza ignored him. "As it stands… Indeed, you're correct, Vegeta. What you see before you is the least of myself. A slight, comfortable form to wall-in the maelstrom… I admit, it is difficult to hold back my full power elsewise, a deathly hazard... But if you so insist, it will be worth doing, if only to wipe that insufferable look off your face."

"What…?! You're telling me this thing gets worse…?!" Qrow added, giving voice to what the rest of them were thinking.

"There's no way!" Gohan said, even as the rest of them started to back away as slowly as they dared.

Vegeta however stepped forward. "Enough stalling!"

Frieza laughed. "Indeed, but first… there's a bit of wisdom I like to impart upon the condemned…" He closed his eyes, standing straight, hands out before he made to catch the eye of everyone present. "I am Lord Frieza… None surpass me… No one even comes close!"

Ruby felt a hand close over hers, only to glimpse Blake, prepared to turn and run. But she was rooted to the spot, like Raven… like Oscar…

"Etch this into your skull!" Frieza ordered. "I am Emperor of the Universe! The likes of you are only fit to grovel at my feet!"

Frieza's hands closed into fists, and the earth cracked around his strange toes.

"Or better still, to die...! In disgrace...! AT THE HANDS OF YOUR MASTER!"

Both his fists pumped as he hunched over, and every seam of his body glowed as his torso bulged with a sickening creak of flesh. The soil beneath them started to shake, and indeed was shaken from the nearby mill as well. His every feature began to bulge as violet power ran out in electric rivulets, a scream of rage and effort echoing across the plains.

Then his entire torso popped out, multiple times its previous size and proportioned for pure heft. His normal-sized limbs and head looked comically tiny against it, but there was nothing funny about the expressions on the North Galaxy fighters.

"No way is this the real thing, right?!" Krillin demanded. "He's gonna be twice as strong as before!"

Vegeta grunted, shaken from his revery as he blasted into action, taking off suddenly for that still-tiny head even as Sun and Bulma were knocked away by the takeoff force.

But the bloated body twisted with shocking speed, and one of those arms had Vegeta around the throat and choked into the ground before the rest of them could blink. Stone and grass erupted from the spot as Vegeta cried out, and the tyrant's voice laughed amidst its screams. There was another loud pulse through the freakish body, and the banded pink limb gripping the Prince erupted into a proportional hulk of muscle several feet long, which only slammed him harder against the ground.

And the laugh deepened as that tiny head too expanded with its neck, and the stubby horns lengthened and twisted to become more deadly. All the while Vegeta choked, and among them all Weiss in particular watched it in horror.

"KIENZAN!"

The field's attention was drawn instantly as the ragged golden disc buzzed through the dirt while it arced for the stationary target. But Frieza was far from helpless. He lifted Vegeta by the throat, directly into the Kienzan's path…

"Damn!" Krillin shouted, as the disc dispelled into energy shreds just before Frieza could hurl the Saiyan bodily through it. As such however, this left Krillin perfectly placed as Vegeta's form barrelled into him, dragging gouges through the grass as they tumbled to a stop.

From that point another pulse of violet power kicked up dust and cracked the earth as the legs and lower body practically popped into form… and with a whistle of wind, a relative calm returned as the horned specter finally stood up to full height. Frieza chuckled, his affect unmistakable, but broader in tone than his previous high pitch. "My apologies for leaving you all so rapt with anticipation… I know a few of you quite lost patience."

They all gazed upon Frieza's transformation. He was more than double his original heft, and double his height at a monstrous eight feet tall, if one counted his horns.

"Brothers help us all…!" Ozpin said under his breath, unable to take his eyes off it.

"I can't feel my legs…!" Nora noted, terrified.

Krillin and Vegeta managed to stand slowly, their eyes all but bugging out of their heads.

"What I'm feeling's not legit, right?!" Krillin asked. "It can't be, what the hell IS this guy?!"

Frieza laughed. "If you'd like, I could quantify that sensation for you! Sadly my scouter was inadequate for the task, but per my estimation, this form rounds out to an even one-million…"

The figure was lost on the Remnant natives, who could only look to their alien allies. Krillin and Gohan had a vague appreciation for it after their sojourn through Namek's tormentors, and their jaws dropped. Vegeta held a stronger reaction altogether.

"What?! No! That's insane! No transformation can do that, not without a massive change of size! You've barely grown!"

"Ahahaha… Foolish Prince," the tyrant gloated. "Zarbon's paltry change has colored your expectations I think… And if you expected me to bloat in proportion with some moonstruck Saiyan ape, then you truly never grasped that I am of an infinitely superior stock… and a mold broken besides."

Frieza stared between Vegeta and Gohan, the deadly smirk never leaving. "Such a shame, even the half-breed is without the means to provide that tenfold— Hmm…?"

Frieza stopped, glaring behind Gohan to find Sun Wukong, glimpsing his twitching, tourniquet-laden ruin of a tail.

"Is this the other?" Frieza asked idly, as Sun's teeth grit and he stepped back in surprise. The alien's eyes turned back to Gohan. "No resemblance… But no, Saiyan hair is black… Boy! How are you called?"

Sun froze, still glaring. "What's it to you?!"

Frieza's eyes widened. The smile returned. "Ah, the tone of a champion… or a dead man."

"I'm the faunus leader of the team you just wiped out, YOU EVIL PRIC—"

Blake pounced across the distance and tried to stop his smoldering tirade. Frieza looked to her as well, noticing her ears.

"Ah, but of course, the local beast-men," Frieza noted. "I have become familiar with their ilk, they're quite the common sight in the domain of Vacuo… I've busied myself establishing a Frieza Force from the seat of their Academy."

A number of the Huntsmen exchanged glances, but Sun's jaw fell open before his eyes burned. "You've been messing with Vacuo?"

And before Blake could redouble her grip on his wrist, Sun sprinted at Frieza, who only laughed as his hand reared back across his chest.

Multiple things happened at once. In a blur of scarlet, Ruby was behind Frieza, the stave of Crescent Rose under his chin as her feet planted against his back. Blake's shadow gave her the burst of speed to tackle Sun as Bulma brought up the rear. The Prince and the Earthling warriors watched on in horror.

"Fools, what are you doing?!" Vegeta demanded, himself perturbed by the thoughtless provocation.

Frieza's hand gripped the massive scythe and wrenched Ruby off with it, a creak of steel as his fist closed around the weapon and swung it around as she dangled before him.

"Brave…" Frieza chuckled. "Bold… and stupid."

In a flash, he'd released Crescent Rose and wrapped his massive hand around the back of the young redhead's red head.

"I made mention that I tend to overdo it in this form," Frieza reminded her. "I wonder how long before I pop your pretty little head by mistake…?"

"AUGHHHH…!" Ruby shrieked in shock, eyes shooting open as her very skull was tested like an eggshell by long pressing fingers. "AHHHH…!" The force was so palpable, and her Aura was the only thing keeping it all from crushing her.

Half a dozen shouts preceded movement as her loved ones threw all sense and caution to the winds and leapt into action.

"RUBY!"

But none of them, not even Vegeta quite saw it as the purple streak slammed into Frieza's spine, his teeth bared in surprise as he released the crimson teen to the floor.

Gohan barely landed after the ferocious headbutt, wreathed in white flame as ferocious as his eyes, teeth bared in a font of blind rage. As Frieza turned to behold this miracle in equal measure of astonishment and outrage, the pint-sized Saiyan halfling pressed the attack, fists and feet swiping as to effectively stun-lock the swollen tyrant as he was pushed back.

Finally, a screaming uppercut teased an audible groan from Frieza as he was launched in an arc several hundred yards across the plains, like a grand slam ball sent out to the parking lot.

Gohan's hands raised up, palms out as they aligned over each other, fingers fanning as he held them over his forehead. Like a radial rain of tiny lasers, golden power streamed seemingly from thin air to a point over his hands.

"MASENKO… HAAAA!"

As the titanic tyke threw his hands down and out, the air sizzled as a jet-like cone of gold heralded a javelin of light twice as thick as the boy was tall. It caught up with Frieza in less than a second, but even from where they stood they could see him on his feet, struggling against the beam's power as Gohan's fury sustained it.

"Brothers almighty…!" Raven uttered, statuesque as numerous others raced past her towards the spot where Ruby fell and presently clutched her head. Even as Qrow reached and cradled her, Yang and Weiss immediately on both sides of him, none could take their eyes off what was happening.

Frieza groaned in fascination and frustration as his claw-like feet formed the start of a trench as the blast pushed him, despite his efforts. However, he was beginning to regain ground, nearly stalling it.

Gohan was flanked in moments by Vegeta on his right side and Krillin on his left, both already pooling respective fuchsia and cobalt hued power to their sides in both hands.

"GALLICK…!"

"KAMEHAMEEEEE…!"

Their final refrain was lost to the noise as their smaller, still ferocious energies fountained alongside Gohan's, and the mass began to bulge in a multicolor swell.

"Ruby…!" Qrow shouted over the noise, carefully rocking his niece. "C'mon kid, you okay…?!"

"Is… is my scythe…?"

There was a silent sigh of relief, but Jaune was the one to answer.

"It's, uh…" he stammered, hauling the weapon into view. "Bit of a fixer-upper…"

As Ruby's eyes drifted, so did the others. "Ohnnn… nooo…" Ruby groaned drunkenly. Jaune set the weapon within arm's reach, and she took it. The heavy blades and head mechanism were effectively untouched, but the barrel and loading system were crushed, pinched shut in places, and otherwise bowed as to be useless as a ballistic weapon.

They could see Ruby's heart drift lower in real time. Not because it couldn't be repaired, given the chance... In a world where she had suddenly become so small and helpless, her friends and family in peril again, the last means she had to protect them —however futile— was benched. She was benched…

Blake saw it before Bulma, the brief freezing of Sun's anxious body. And indeed, she grabbed his wrist just as he tried to bolt towards the billowing energies where Frieza was being pushed.

"Let GO Blake!" he demanded as they then struggled, her kusarigama nabbing his other arm. Bulma caught up, seizing it as Blake redoubled her grip.

"Sun STOP IT!" she shouted back, unable to get the fear out of her voice. "KILLING yourself won't bring them back!"

"I DON'T CARE!"

"...K-kid…!" Bulma whined, blinking, disarmed that the bright and cheery boy would adopt such a sentiment.

"Don't you do this again," Blake warned. "I just lost friends too, Ruby almost DIED for you! You care about that?!"

Sun bared his teeth, but guilt filled his face, and he glimpsed back at Ruby, still shellshocked after coming to his rescue. His resistance faded.

Blake brought a hand to Sun's face, nudging it towards herself as she looked him in the eye. "Sun… I'm going to give you something… and you'd better appreciate it…"

"Wha —?"

But as both he and Bulma widened their eyes in surprise, Blake's lips pressed firmly against his, the battlefield freezing for but a moment before she leaned away with an inaudible chirp.

"...Something to live for," she clarified, as he stared, speechless. "Now let's go."

She began to pull him towards the others, but at that instant the bulge of energies bloomed before the point where Frieza stood detonated like a white-hot dome, wind howling and obscuring the area with flying clouds of dirt that nearly blotted it out. Every human being was tossed off their feet and thrown yet again, if not as far. The damaged mill fell over, pulverized, and the homestead nearby lost part of its roof even as Qrow, Ruby, Weiss and Nora were blown into its wall, immediately losing track of the others.

Ruby clutched Crescent Rose tightly as she blundered to her feet. The dust and smoke were patched in places, and impenetrable in others. The others stood up, scanning the area.

"Can't see a damn thing!" Qrow remarked.

"Where are the others?!" Weiss asked.

Nora had altogether different priorities, shaking like a leaf. "That did it, right?! That had to do it! Nothing could survive something like—"

But then she saw it. The others noticed too. In the eerie ink of the dust, a vast horned shadow stalked between the gaps towards the spot the three super-warriors had stood.

Qrow's eyes shrank. "Get inside… right now."

"But—"

"Now!"

They followed reluctantly, barely slamming the door shut behind them before sounds of combat began again, shudders in the earth more akin to war, shaking dust from the rafters. Every light was dark, the owners either absent or in some hidden bunker. A false taxidermy of a Boarbatusk was mounted over a black fireplace, and with every jolt from outside, photographs of an old grey couple and their three children threatened to fall off the walls and onto wicker furniture as they clattered. No windows kept out the whistling winds, all blown in from the concussion before.

"What makes you think we're any safer indoors?!" Weiss asked, less confrontational than she was earnestly curious.

"Ren… the others, they're still out there with that THING!" Nora cried, sinking to her knees as their shaking overcame her.

"We're not staying, we need a plan," Qrow explained, fingers holding open the blinds as he stared out.

"What other plan is there?!" Nora demanded. "We find the others and we RUN!"

Qrow shook his head. "Running's not a plan."

"The hell it's NOT!"

"Nora, calm do—" Weiss offered, but this only set her off.

"Don't tell me to be CALM, I want out of this nightmare! I didn't think it could get worse than Beacon, I CAN'T TAKE THIS! REN!"

She made a break for the door, the rest of them grabbing at her as she threw it open and screamed his name into the howl as they finally made out drifting figures in the air, vanishing, popping seemingly into existence, the air trembling with a crack of noise that defined every impact.

And then the pattern broke as a thin, white-hot purple ray missed one of the figures and traced a line from a hundred yards in front of them up to the house itself.

If not for being Huntsmen, they'd have lacked the reflexes to leap away as the house was cut in half. Nora was frozen in shock as it had come between herself and Weiss. The light of it passing by was enough to singe their skin like a sunburn, and Nora dropped to her knees, shaking.

"Everyone okay…?!" Ruby asked, barely willing to take her eyes off the battle again.

"I'm so stupid…!" Qrow barked suddenly. "Raven! We need to get to Raven before she takes off herself, come on!"

Qrow began to move, but Nora was rooted in place as Weiss tugged on her arm. "Nora, what are you…?!"

Ruby was on her other side. "Nora, we can't wait!"

"I...I…" Nora muttered, eyes shut, face gone pink. "I think I…"

Qrow noticed and came storming back as Ruby and Weiss looked at each other, before noticing the porch wood beneath Nora's skirt was darkening out from under it. At last, Ruby recognized Nora's expression as one of shame.

Qrow finally approached in rabid disbelief, but one closer glimpse of the situation stopped him in his tracks. "Oh… Uh… Kid, nobody's judging you… if there's a time for that, this is it. But seriously, we need to make tracks, NOW!"

"Come on, one foot in front of the other," Ruby whispered delicately, finally helping Nora to her feet as she nodded.

"Please… please, Ren," she whispered to herself.

"He's okay… He has to be…"

Raven, Blake, Yang, Bulma and Sun ducked behind a rock formation jutting out of the hillside. Hardly shelter, but anything to be placed between themselves and the raging battle was precious.

"What the HELL have they gotten us into?!" Bulma shrieked. "Pissed off some alien monster freak, and we're all stuck in the middle!"

Raven pulled out her crimson blade, startling the bluenette. She still held Rufina's body over her shoulder. "Nobody's going to agree with you more than I; that thing destroyed my tribe… I won't let it do the same to my daughter."

She locked eyes with Yang. With a zip of the odachi, a scarlet portal yawned wide, and she cast Rufina through.

"Taiyang!"

The sandy blonde stared blankly off at something neither the roused Bartholomew Oobleck nor the frustrated corgi beneath him could see. The former poured and sipped from the pot of coffee in an instinctive flash even as he investigated his host, seemingly hypnotized by the gold and azure trinket hung before his eyes by his own hand.

"Snap out of it, man, what's become of you?!"

He firmly patted Taiyang's cheek, whose eyes fluttered but remained dull. Then there was a growl, and an audible chomp as the little dog attacked his master's ankle and shook.

"ACKK! ZWEI! Down, let go!"

Taiyang came-to in an instant, dropping the lamp even as Oobleck caught it.

"I'm alright, buddy! I'm alright… Barty, when'd you…?"

But the historian was enraptured with the glowing trinket, if perhaps not in the same sense that his friend was.

"Taiyang, this piece, where did you discover such a thing…?" he asked, tone hushed as he twisted it in his sight. "What is this haunting glow? So pristine, so immaculately preserved, yet this ornamental patterning is likened only to artifacts referenced in pre-feudal antediluvia!"

Taiyang blinked, his eyes still swimming with images, ears still buzzing with voices he did not know. The distant voice of a child…

"Knowledge… to never fear the unseen, or the invisible… To Create, OR Destroy… THEY will have the Choice…"

Another voice, adult, soft… Somehow it seemed unlikely they were taking part in the same conversation.

"It alerts us of course! Upon which time we can nip on down to see just what sort of society they've rebuilt, and whether it has earned the right to continue..."

Taiyang blinked. "Uh, yeah… Thinking the same thing… I think… I think Raven sent it through."

Oobleck's eyebrows rose as he froze in contemplation. "Grave-robbing is… a strange enterprise for her. Still, lad appears on your doorstep so near to this, seems an odd coincidence, in any case."

He offered the curious trinket back, as Taiyang turned to see Goku, still outside. His expression turned fierce, agitated, a flicker of fear on his features as he gripped the railing.

"Yeah… It doesn't fit her M.O., but I can't shake the feeling she's connected to this somehow."

At that instant, however, a blood-red portal spawned abreast the two and the dining room table… which collapsed with a smash as the body of a punky brown-haired girl fell through and upon it as the two teachers stood up with a screech of chair legs dragging.

"My word!"

"RAVEN! What?! What the hell is going on?!"

Raven grabbed Yang's arm. "Come on, go, it'll take us home!"

Yang wrenched away. "So we can leave Qrow, Ruby and all my friends here?!"

"I'll find my brother," Raven assured her. "And bring anyone with him."

The blonde stepped back. "No way, I just found my friends, I'm not leaving them here!"

"Do you not see what we're dealing with?!" Raven cried.

"And that's why I can't leave them!" Yang fired back, as another shockwave from the battle blasted them all with dust.

"We don't have time for this." Raven turned to the rest of them. "Well? Come on, who's next?!"

"Bulma," Blake said, hand on her shoulder. "Hate to say it, you're tough, but this is too dangerous for you."

Bulma took a step, hesitating at the sight of the swirling red void, but snapped her head with a scowl. "What about you?! You're not exactly on par with that craziness either!"

Blake managed a pained smile. "No, but I'm done running. I'm not losing another friend today… Sun, you should go too."

"Nuts to that, after what you…" Sun flushed. "After what you said to me…?"

Raven growled, seizing Bulma by the wrist. "Alright then, GO!"

She vanished with a yelp as Raven tossed her through and the portal vanished. In but moments, her sword slashed, and another formed in its place.

"This will bring us to Qrow, hurry."

Yang gave an exasperated sigh. "Nice try. Do what you want, I'm not setting foot in there till we've got the others!"

"It's not— YANG, DAMN IT!"

But the burning brawler had already begun sprinting from cover, eyes scanning the lowlands for signs of life as the others chased after. The black treeline once so far away seemed to move towards them, dotted with glowing red eyes.

Bulma tore through the other side, toes stamping as she fought not to fall on her face from Raven's toss, only catching herself on a warm kitchen counter.

"What the…?!"

She snapped to see two men with sandy and green hair watching her.

"OKAY, what's Raven doing?!" the blonde demanded, his kindly voice at its limit as they stood over the short-haired corpse on the destroyed dining room table. "She finally get into something she couldn't—"

Then the sliding door opened, and a mass of messy black hair hobbled swiftly through in a tizzy, as if he knew someone had stepped suddenly into the room before seeing them. Their eyes met. "Nn! Bulma!"

The two men from before stared at each other, nonplussed. Her eyes brimmed, and a smile glowed across her face. She charged. "GOKUUUU!"

The gi-clad warrior's teeth clenched in concern, arms raised in warding too late as her arms wrapped around his barrel of a chest. He winced as he tried keeping it together, but they fell in a painful heap all the same.

Vegeta cried out with every blast as he remained on his back foot —so to speak— peppering everything in front of him with a battery of golden blasts as he sailed backwards, instinctively weaving between lone towers of natural stone dotting the otherwise barren rolling hil—

He'd blinked, and suddenly the gleaming, armored white chest was inches from him. He recoiled as he barely caught the glimpse of that predatory smile before Frieza faded away.

Again, the instant he noticed the shadow overhead it was too late to evade the plummeting hammer-kick crashing down upon his skull. He fell into a tailspin, destined to hit the ground, but then something arrested his movement almost as abruptly.

Frieza had appeared below, just in time to grip between his spine and armor like a schoolyard bully tugging the collar of a shirt.

"Fret not, Prince… the pride first… Or do you despair so soon?" His laugh came in soft, but became a cackle as he pitched his arm back with Vegeta limply in tow, a light gleaming against his back before he was hurled like a rock. Vegeta cried out in pain as the light on his back detonated, billowing black smoke as he was thrown, tumbling over the grass to an all too sudden stop at the feet of three others.

Frieza didn't miss it, head tilting as his shark-like grin widened in his approach. "Now now, boys, that isn't yours."

With a sudden burst of courage or madness, Jaune leapt between them, his new lustrous Aura shield manifested.

"Mister Arc!" Ozpin cried in fear as he and Ren raced in behind.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this thing!" Jaune told them, the shield expanding behind him to bubble his allies in a sphere of protection.

"Jaune, you've seen what he can do!" Ren said, careful not to step on Vegeta, who murmured below.

"I… don't… NEED your protection, damn cannon-fodder…!" Vegeta managed, struggling to lift himself.

"Mister Arc, this might not have been the most… sound course of survival."

Jaune was sweating, but stared ahead, determined. "This guy was the only one of them to even fight on his level. If we let him die…"

Frieza laughed as he took the last few steps near. Flanking him, a gleaming missile swooped in from the side, but an imperceptible motion sent the battered form of Gohan skidding along a trench of his own making on the other side.

"Such a fleeting hope," Frieza remarked. "And so deluded, after all he's seen here. Confounded me once, that's no small feat lad. I think it clear your abilities are not limited by the physical…"

One of Frieza's massive hands reached out, and the three recoiled as it pressed in against the fluorescent bubble, blinding sparks igniting before it was thrown off with a flash. Frieza examined it. "Yes, quite the boon… Can you keep me out forever then? I'd wager not."

Suddenly, Jaune lashed out with his sword, and the cutting line burst out in an arc as it carried Frieza with it in surprise.

The tyrant gripped the invisible force as it pushed him, realizing in moments that it would not yield to force. He rolled as it passed over him and etched a perfect line into the hilltops behind him with a crack of earth and plumes of dirt. He let out another chuckle, before a single leap at shocking speed brought him looming over them.

"Yes, force beyond force. Useful, were you not facing the mighty Frieza."

"Arrogance is ever the downfall of the strong," Ozpin dared.

Red eyes found him as he circled, and Vegeta staggered to his feet. "Ah… the refrain of the beaten, insistent that they'll laugh last. It bores me, old man."

There was a jostling through them as Oscar's eyebrows rose.

Frieza closed his eyes. "Yes, your words and tone, always that of the frail, protective elders. No matter the world, the same rebukes, the same would-be champions… all assured that they are exceptional."

Ozpin pointedly blinked. "You clearly take such enjoyment in the suffering of the meek… such is the nature of cowards."

Frieza's eyes opened slowly, and his teeth flashed as he smiled. "Pick on someone my own size then? But my dear man… there are no others my size… Only insects."

There was a sudden whistle on the air, and Frieza's great horned head swiveled as Krillin's flying punch missed, instead raking one of the horns across his armor as he passed, before a massive arm shot out and closed over his head. Frieza used the bald warrior's own momentum to spin, orbiting him around the alien marauder before slamming his face against the glistening shield, comically distorted before its occupants as his armor crumpled to leave only a skintight black suit.

"...And insects get squashed," Frieza finished, rearing Krillin back to slam against the shield.

But at once, Jaune dropped the shield just as Vegeta leapt underneath Frieza's arm to sink his fist into the armored gut, shoving Frieza back as he dropped Krillin to barrel onto an unsuspecting Jaune Arc. Frieza grunted as Vegeta kept laying blow after blow, the alien hunched over as he absorbed all of it. He slowly lifted a hand to strike, but a youthful cry emitted as Gohan returned to join the brawl, diving at Frieza's face and slugging him left and right.

"REN!"

As the three recovered, four others stormed over the next hill, the ginger-haired girl taking the lead.

"Nora…!" Ren breathed, before sprinting towards her.

"Guys! You're okay!" Jaune noted, unable to contain the relief in his voice as he slid out from under the miniature monk.

"What are you all doing?!" Krillin demanded as he stood back up. "Get out of here, as far as you can!"

"REN!"

But Nora went board-straight as she met her partner since time long passed. There was no tackle, no chuckling, just Lie Ren wrapped in a tearful hug as Nora Valkyrie gently squeezed him like he might fall apart.

"Nora…! Are you alri—?!"

"I love you…!"

There was a pause, only the noise of resurging combat evident before he answered. "I love you too… Are you sure you—"

"No…!" Nora said, head shaking as her face pressed into his chest. "I mean I LOVE you 'I love you…!' I could never say it 'cause I was afraid to lose you, but then we were separated and I was so afraid, and I…"

Ren watched her, his eyes inscrutable. He let her continue.

"I… I don't want to be apart from you, ever again, j-just… promise me you'll stay…?"

Ren put a finger under her chin, lifting it skyward as their eyes met. "I promise."

Nora's gasped silently, eyes aglimmer.

"Time and place, kids!" Qrow growled, storming past with an intrigued Ruby and crossing the distance to Oscar. Weiss passed with a warmer offer of "Congratulations…!"

"Oz, you seen Raven…? Yang?!" Qrow asked.

"Nothing; she could be destroyed in the ensuing battle or merely fled with Miss Xiao Long."

Ruby's head snapped to Oscar. "Yang wouldn't do that! She came all this way!"

"Not willingly…" Qrow added, ominously.

In the distance, a purple flash shook the ground as they all turned to see a stadium-sized swath of power carve through a hill. The debris, doubtless the size of cars despite their scale against the energy plume, cast ray-like shadows as the Sun looked dim by comparison. A counterattack of golden bolts peppered the source, changing targets wildly as they moved beyond detectable speeds.

"Only take getting mixed in by that once for us to get flash-fried," Qrow told them. "We don't have time."

"All the more reason you guys need to RUN!" Krillin insisted, one eye on the fight.

Qrow turned to him. "No good, but my sister can portal us out of here, we need to find her!"

Weiss approached as Ruby shared the same idea. "Wait, you're like them, you can SENSE people, right?!"

"Yeah!" Ruby agreed. "If you could find them, we'll at least know where to go!"

Krillin's eyes widened, but he shook his head. "I can't. For some reason I've never been able to sense Raven, not even when we fought back at her camp."

"You what…?" Qrow drawled, surprised.

"What about my sister! Anyone else?!" Ruby asked, desperation creeping into her voice. "You seemed to know each other! They might be together!"

Krillin nodded, concentrating. "Yeah, that I can do…" He closed his eyes, scanning the battlefield. It was a tense few seconds, fire running down her spine as Ruby briefly considered the possibility that Blake and Yang were already dea—

"There!" Krillin said at once, looking towards the most distant trees to the West before he opened his eyes and his mouth fell open. "Ggg…! What the?!"

Yang, Raven, Sun and Blake were indeed sprinting towards them, but they were not alone. The black horizon transpired to be a swarm of Grimm, boiling from the distant trees and filling the valley like a living flash flood. Red eyes dotted the mass that appeared amorphous, though a keen eye could see it was just that the beasts were occluding each other as they sought the fear and misery of Mistral, as well as its alien source.

Tusks the size of bridge beams swept their own aside and gouged ruts into the dirt as Goliaths trumpeted their fury, trampling the grasslands as they made themselves the tip of the spear. Flying leonids swept forth in search of victims. Massive skittering legs of scorpions the size of dump trucks pitted the dirt with stabbing legs in their blind rage, ripping divots the size of post-holes.

The four missing members of the group were barely ahead of the horde, and there was an instant question of running to their rescue or following their example, lest they be overtaken.

"Oh my god!" Qrow seized Ruby's wrist. "Run, GO!"

"But what about—?!"

"What are those things, I couldn't sense them at ALL!" Krillin blurted, visibly disturbed.

Nora gasped. "Sense?! Ren!" She cried, tugging his collar.

He bared his teeth, nodding. "Right!" The quiet warrior kneeled suddenly, palm to the ground as the color seemed to fade from their spot on the hill. "This will hide us…! I'll keep it going as long as I can!"

Ruby nodded. "But they need cover, they won't make it!"

Indeed, Yang and the others were at constant risk of being overtaken, even as they took shots behind them, and Blake left clones as tripmines for the ones getting close, bowled over as they struck stone or flashed in a fiery blaze.

All the same, they were hardly a match for a charging pachyderm with legs the length of a city bus and a proportionate stride, and the beast roared as it went in for the kill…

"GWAAAARGHH!"

The beast bellowed in short-lived pain as Krillin's head struck it right between the eyes, stopping its charge dead and forcing its own head into its chest cavity before the entirety of it burst into inky black smoke.

"Krillin!" Yang shouted in relief, barely pausing as she locked eyes with him, the fighter from Earth leaping back to land amongst them as both hands charged with golden power.

"Get to the others, I've got you covered! ...SCATTER BULLET!"

A swell of energy surged out from him, aglow and formless, before the mass split into a half-dozen missiles, swarming the black hordes with great purpose. They melted all in their path, a light blotting out shadows, swathes of smoke billowing where they met the ground to leave a much greater head start for the Huntsmen.

"So to top it all off, he was going easy on me?" Raven added bitterly as she ran. "If we survive, I'm going to kill your friend in his sleep! Follow me!"

She swiped open a portal and leapt through, leaving Yang, Blake and Sun a split second to choose the same. To Yang's relief, Qrow and Ruby were on the other side. She wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulder as Qrow balked.

"If you were looking for us, why didn't you try that sooner?"

Raven sheathed her blade, head swiveling between the Grimm and the pitched battle close by. "Because if you were being murdered there was no telling if that might have net us the same fate. Once we saw you, that wasn't a problem. "

"Real heroic…"

"Heroes have a high mortality rate…" Raven snarked. "Speaking of…"

Another portal opened, and she stood expectantly. "If you plan on living, let's GO already!"

A few of them made to move, but Ruby spoke up. "Wait…! We can't just leave them here!" she said, regarding the super warriors.

Yang patted her back. "She's right. If we all go, they'll never find us again."

Raven's shock was instantly apparent. "And that's a bad thing?! Yang, THIS," she said, pointing out at the flurry in the distance presently toppling whole hills with raw force, "is too BIG for us! SALEM was too big for us!"

"You're right," Ozpin added, stepping forward. "It's too big to escape, too big to hide from. None of us asked for this conflict, but we're involved now, all of us."

"We might get away, but this is gonna find us again, one way or another! And it ain't gonna be measured in lifetimes," Qrow told her.

Sun turned to Blake. "You got any idea what they're talking about…?"

Blake shook her head. "I'm half convinced I landed myself in a coma days ago, and I really want to wake up."

Qrow sighed. "Look, I'll stick around and flag 'em down, you and the kids get out of here!"

"I'll stay too, Vegeta knows me," Weiss offered.

"Me too," Ruby added, "Gohan—"

"Ruby, NO!" Qrow growled.

"He knows my Aura, he'll pick me out easier!"

"I'll come!" Jaune told them. "My semblance can give you some cover!"

"J-Jaune, what about—?" Nora asked, but Jaune put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll be alright, you and Ren go, go now!"

The orphaned kids glanced at each other, then obeyed with visible discomfort.

"Be safe…" Ren told him, as they leapt through.

"Sun, I've got to watch my team, you go," Blake said, nudging him towards the portal.

"Nnn…" Sun hesitated. "I know, you won't run… Just don't run out on me yet either." He stepped through, but Yang turned towards Blake.

"Blake, I get it, but there's no reason for you to—"

"There's no reason for any of you to stay here! Especially not you kids!"

"WHAT ARE YOU GUYS STILL DOING HERE?!" Krillin shouted suddenly from the melee. "There's too many of these things to hold off forever!"

He blasted another herd of beasts, even as others flowed around his position. The group prepared to turn tail, but then a markedly different beam of red light carved its way low to high, vaporizing Grimm, before the warriors turned to the source.

Against the sky, a small crowd of sharp silhouettes loomed, steaming towards them at cruising speed far closer than seemed possible granted their size. The two most prominent were knife-shaped Atlesian Cruisers, defined by their underslung bridge and six stabilizing fins trailing from the aft end. Swarming the pair were the sleek, multipurpose Manta craft, already inbound, their sights set on the Grimm hordes.

But drawing a gasp from Weiss was the unique craft beginning a wide circle of the battlefield and helming a scouting role, a sleek white craft with four contained nacelles on its X-aligned wings, each trailing featureless banners like some technological jellyfish.

"This is Special Operative Schnee of the Atlesian Military, commanding the Argus Naval Defense Arm, Company C… We are here for your protection. All citizens should seek local shelters and avoid the lower levels of the city if at all possible."

"Do we move her, or what?" Taiyang asked, the four of them having moved outside where the wind was still whistling.

Oobleck shook his head. "Best we wait to see how this proceeds."

"Barty, there's a dead body in my kitchen," he emphasized. "Look, I'm not in the business of being my ex-wife's body disposal service, but I don't think the local police are going to solve this one."

"Oh, decidedly not."

Suddenly another portal opened nearby, and through it stepped the childhood survivors of Kuroyuri.

"Who now—" Taiyang began, arresting himself as he considered. "Wait, you two are familiar…"

"Mister Ren! And Miss Valkyrie!" Oobleck cried, at once in surprise, explanation and greeting. "Yes, you'd likely have seen them at the Festival Tournament, of Team…"

Oobleck stopped himself, a sympathetic frown crossing his features. There was quiet as the pair briefly stood statuesque, suddenly recognizing that they'd been here once before, when the lands were veiled in snow.

"Of course…" Oobleck said quietly.

Taiyang was deep in thought himself, but his old friend's reaction had him all ears. "Of course?"

"Mister Ren and Miss Valkyrie were accepted into Beacon on a scholarship of a nature I can't in good confidence divulge, but suffice to say alternative means of honoring it were in the works among the faculty after the Fall… when suddenly contact with them ceased, along with any that might have been privy as to why. That would include… your youngest, Tai."

Tai's eyes widened as his mind worked.

Nora finally dared to speak. "Uh… hi… Mister Ruby's Dad…"

Interrupting anything further, another portal parted the group as Sun Wukong emerged, facing the wrong direction. "Wha… Hey guys…? Bulma…?"

Taiyang took a step forward, stern as he'd ever seemed. "Where is my daughter?"

Bulma had barely stopped crying, still on the porch with Goku, who seemed unsure what to do.

"G-Goku, you've gotta help them! Gohan, Krillin, those kids, they're all right in the warpath of that… THING!"

"I know," he told her, brows furrowed in frustration. "I've been following it. My body isn't ready for that kind of fight yet, I got yanked out of that healing chamber when we showed up here."

Bulma's eyes widened. "Y-You… you're too hurt to help…?!"

She slowly slid down onto her bottom, eyes unfocused. "What are we going to do…?"

The godly battle slowed as its participants took note of the airships asserting themselves, the smaller fighters unleashing missile volleys and gatling cannons upon the encroaching Grimm swarms.

Vegeta huffed as he landed, daring to divert his attention. "Hmph… these again."

Frieza likewise cracked the earth as he planted down upon a stone like a dais. "Ah, a proper martial force… My kingdom for such structure in place of the desert ragtags. Alas… for the moment, they're quite the eyesore..."

Winter Schnee observed the cool blue holographic representation of the battle below on the desk-like projector with a frown, even as her scroll was alight and buzzing, forgotten at her seat.

"Ensign Hawkins, what are these readings?" She demanded, tracing the high-energy pulses represented on the map.

"Signatures are neither Grimm nor Dust-based," the younger lad in uniform said, eyes locked upon the data stream in his station. "Almost the wavelengths of Aura emissions, source unknown. Seeing intermittent radar profiles, either unprecedented stealth tech, or something too small for anything but trace detection."

Winter brushed an errant strand of her tied-back white hair from her vision as she frowned. "Better than our tech? That's as unlikely as this being a semblance." She reached up to her earpiece, but the brown-haired Hawkins interrupted.

"Permission to speak freely, Ma'am?"

Winter frowned. "Make it quick."

"We haven't technically engaged the enemy aside from incidental Grimm as yet. If we turn now, this can be deemed field reconnaissance. Otherwise…"

"Otherwise we're in direct violation of recall orders, and I can be stripped of my rank… Your concern is noted, Ensign," she said, for what felt like the thousandth time. Winter engaged her earpiece. "This is the Eiswind; requesting data-link and collation."

"Slate Five," identified one of the larger ships, a baritone male, "our sensors and Slate Three's are detecting no discrepancies. Readings are accurate."

Winter sighed explosively, marching up to the cockpit window and gazing out. She scanned the site of the unseen battle, punctuated by flares of colored light with no clear source. As the Eiswind circled, she put the phenomenon aside. "Keep the fleet clear, focus on the Grimm and see to the survivors."

"This is Manta Five-One; forming a defensive perimeter around the group near the southern end of the valley. They look to be Huntsmen."

Winter frowned, taking a look out the window. Indeed, there was a group of colorfully dressed persons caught in the crossfire, dangerously near to the Grimm incursion. Curiosity took her.

"Screen, engage optic tracking," she ordered, as cameras now followed her pupillary motion. "Magnify."

The window overlaid a screen, showing the spot outside where the group was congregated, at extreme optical zoom from the ship's external cameras.

Her face went slack, mouth parting with a ragged breath. Among a group of children, and other familiar faces, her own sister was staring up at her ship with fear in her eyes, holding her scroll to her ear.

Winter looked down to her seat. Her scroll was buzzing, Weiss' name blinking on its screen. She snatched it up and flung away her earpiece.

"Weiss!"

The girl's face lit up on the screen, a slight delay as the mouthed words reached her ears. "Winter, I'm down on the ground! You need to get those ships out of here!"

Gohan was forced onto the defensive, weaving away from Frieza's latest attack as he stood his ground, eyes lighting up as thin lasers traced by in rapid succession. He neatly missed one of the small grey ships as it buzzed by. Vegeta had been slammed into the ground a few moments before and the boy hadn't seen him since.

All Gohan could do was take small blasts at the tyrant, exploding into black smoke on impact. It wasn't doing anything, and by this point Frieza wasn't even evading. Even the eye lasers were so constantly coming so close he was beginning to suspect Frieza was missing on purpose.

"Dance dance, monkey spawn!" Frieza laughed, confirming his suspicions. "As though your life depends on it!"

Vegeta erupted behind him from seemingly nowhere, rearing up with a double-ax-handle, spraying splinters of stone everywhere as he literally emerged from the earth.

"AGKKK!"

The Saiyan Prince only flew off to Frieza's left as his tail caught him in the shoulder like a huge muscular whip, sending him skipping over the ground until he collided with a plateau, embedded as the resulting landslide further buried him.

Frieza chuckled to himself, as Gohan had stopped attacking altogether and was merely waiting on his next move. "Getting a touch stifling, is it not? What do you say we clear the air?"

There was an untold menace behind his words, and Gohan's fear-addled mind raced to decipher it. Then the Zeni dropped.

"Wait! NO!"

Gohan charged Frieza head-on, whose chest puffed out as he took a deep breath, looking past the boy. He'd nearly reached his target when the fiend's blackberry lips pursed and he found himself tumbling uncontrollably back.

Frieza's breath was a whirlwind, a maelstrom, but more. It was a wind that swept out into the greater sky, not merely a push of air, but tinged with pink hued energy which wafted out towards the flying craft.

The Mantas were blown back as if shoved by a massive push broom. A few were redirected with such speed they detonated instantly from pressure alone. A few struck the fuselage of the knife-shaped capital ships, which themselves were caught in the wake of the energy storm. They lurched, twisting violently, the second to be struck spinning around with such speed that the metal frame was like cardboard being swung through water. The air pressure alone flattened the cutting edge, but its one-hundred-eighty degree spin hadn't even completed before the blade-like front tore away, flames and sparks erupting as the entire starboard end became a lone hinge connecting it with the reinforced aft.

"What are you doing down—?!" Winter stopped herself. "Weiss, stay where you are, we're coming down to pick you up!"

Hawkins' perked up as he heard this. "Ma'am, there isn't space for a group that size."

"We'll jettison the Knights, put us at those coordinates!" Winter snapped, returning to the call as the Eiswind lurched.

"No!" Weiss cried, head shaking violently. "You don't know what's here, he'll destroy the fleet, they don't stand a chance if he—!"

"Weiss, you're hysterical; WHO is going to 'destroy the fleet?' "

Weiss' mouth gaped and her eyes bulged out. "WINTER LOOK OUT!"

Winter Schnee was forced to look up as the magnified view of her sister was obstructed, the picture-in-picture closing as the shorn bow of Slate Three swung towards them. Her pupils shrank to points. "EVASIVE ACTI—!"

It was too late. From below, the heroes watched in horror as the Eiswind scarcely changed course before it sank into the rending hull of the larger vessel, a gout of flame erupting from the opposite side before the mass had turned in full during its chaotic plummet to the valley floor.

"NOO-O-O-OOH!" Weiss wailed, tears gushing down her face instantly as she clutched her scroll tight enough to risk crushing it. "WINTER?! WINTE-ER…!"

But the call had already dropped, even as the prow of the huge warship struck the dirt and split its way through, tossing earth everywhere and even destroying Grimm on the way down. The others beheld in shock and pity as the other ship pitched backwards, flung by Frieza's force like it weighed nothing at all. The aft fins disintegrated on impact with the ground until the engines struck, and immediately a blinding light filled the valley before the sound of enormous Dust stores, armaments and fuels igniting roared as the ship slowly fell over. Its own flaming innards overtook its shell, snapping and spitting as the sonic shockwave ultimately reached them, knocking the lot of them off their feet even as fire plumed into the air. Nearly forgotten was the frame itself, almost silently toppling amongst the show-stealing flames.

Weiss made piteous noises as she grit her teeth and tried to stop crying long enough to form a glyph beneath herself and launch out towards the first wreck before anyone could even object, stumbling over herself with every other stride. All the while, the smaller fighter craft were slamming into the earth like meteors. The meager handful still in the air twisted on the spot in full retreat, speeding for the northeast horizon even as their fellows burst against the valley floor one by one at lethal speeds.

"Weiss, WAIT!" Ruby called, preparing to race after, but before she could even bend her knees the blue-eyed girl was scooped up by a flying tackle that turned into a full Nelson as Krillin lifted her off the ground.

"Let GO! P-put me DOWN, she needs my help!" Weiss demanded, barely able to see for her tears, struggling, attempting to kick, elbow and smash him with the back of her head even as he drifted back to the group. "I said GET OFF!"

"I'm sorry, I don't sense ANY life energy in that ship anymore," Krillin told her, as delicately as he could manage while restraining her. "Whoever they are, they're gone."

Weiss sprayed tears as she shook her head violently, even as they landed among her teammates. "NO, I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!" she shouted, gasping loudly as she shuddered to replenish her spasming lungs. "She CAN'T…!"

Ruby couldn't help wrapping her arms around her partner's neck, as Krillin leaned away in surprise. But then her teammates flanked him, and the bald warrior decoupled carefully from the group hug that had formed as Weiss descended into quiet sobs.

Meanwhile, Qrow and Ozpin were still fixed upon the devastated Atlas forces.

"By all things under Heaven… I never imagined," Ozpin said, barely a whisper as his gaze turned to Weiss. "Winter Schnee… your thoughts must comfort her now."

Qrow shook his head. "No way she came here on orders… Rotten reward for growing a conscience."

"But not uncommon," Ozpin added. "A heart is frequently a liability as much as a blessing."

"I'll drink to that," Raven offered, bitterly.

Krillin watched the conversation, jaw slack.

"Do you people not CARE if you live or die?!"

Raven let out a growl. "We're staying behind to help you get out of here."

"Me…?!"

"You… all!" She clarified. "You freaks with your freak powers!"

Qrow stepped forward. "We've gathered this fight isn't exactly going your way, and if you bite the dust we wager Remnant's not far behind."

"I…" Krillin began, but went quiet. "I can't argue that… Thank you. You're all incredibly brave."

Raven scoffed. "Don't thank us… I voted we leave you here. They demanded different." She nodded towards the kids, still forming ranks around Weiss as they watched the scene below. Plumes of smoke dotted the landscape, which was shredded by the still-clashing powers. The hulking wrecks of the Atlesian ships were already melding into the scenery, like they'd always been there. Mistral in the distance, bereft of the bridge of Haven between its peaks, jutting like horns over the grey ash of the school pooled in the gap between.

Then there was a hitch in the godly fight, and the sound of heavy impacts echoed back at them as an object streaked towards them like a missile.

"Hey WATCH IT!" Krillin warned, before the earth shook with impact as Frieza landed before them, dirt spraying as both Gohan and Vegeta were choke-slammed into the ground, crying out only a moment before being lifted up like weights as the monstrous despot throttled them.

"Gather, all!" Frieza ordered, smiling wickedly. "For the finale of our show is well underway… Have a SEAT, gentlesimians!"

He hurled the pair into the crowd, Vegeta's body bowling over Qrow and Oscar while Krillin managed to catch Gohan, the both of them gasping with exhaustion.

"Gohan, how y'feelin' kid…?!" Krillin whispered.

"Ohhh…"

"Yeah, I figured… I've got one trick up my sleeve here… maybe two."

Frieza stepped forward, delighted as the lot of them took a step back. "I must say, Vegeta, I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. It would seem you're too frail for the well of suffering I yearn to inflict."

"G-go to… hell…!" Vegeta muttered, standing himself up as he risked crushing Qrow's supportive shoulder.

Frieza looked over the heroes, curious. "There are fewer of you than I recall… yet still not few enough to cast about rumors and bear witness as I should like… To tell of the terror of Lord Frieza." He brought a finger to his lips in contemplation, before his eyes lit up. "Perhaps if you all fought to the death, the surviving three might be spared to this end!"

Blake stood up. "You're an animal!"

Frieza tilted his head, and raised his hand. "Hmm… Irony. But volunteers are just as well."

But Krillin leapt before them all, two fingers on each hand pointed near his temples as he shouted. "Look away! Taiyo-Ken!"

Only Gohan, Ruby, Weiss and Qrow managed to heed this warning before a blaze of staggering light glared from Krillin's focus, and there was a cry of surprise and pain from the others. But none exceeded that of Frieza, whose hands both reached to sooth his overwhelmed eyes as his head pitched high.

With a cry of effort, Krillin dove low and hand-planted himself into a springing double uppercut kick, sending Frieza sprawling a hundred yards off to tumble and stand in the wrong direction as his wrath took shape.

"DAMN YOU! I'll not be forestalled by this AGAIN, EARTH WORM!"

Frieza turned blindly, and began peppering the land to his left with low yield energy bolts, striking grasslands like artillery. The few who could see guided the others to their feet and quietly fled for the treeline as Krillin raised his palm.

"Kienzan…! Come on…!" he grunted, as energy manifested and faded. But it was no good. He was spent, expended the last of his reserves in tossing Frieza away from his targets to fumble in the metaphorical dark. He sprinted away as the opportunity came and went, helping Raven even as her blade whirled in defense.

"W-Who goes there?!"

"Shhhh!" Krillin intoned, lowering his voice. "It's me!"

Yang staggered beside Raven, turning at his voice as her eyes tried to open against the blaring sensitivity of her optic nerves. "Krillin…? I can't… Did you flashbang us?!"

Krillin almost nodded, but mentally berated himself. "Kinda, it's a move I picked up from a friend of ours, explain later. That won't stall Frieza for long, we need to make tracks!"

"I seem to remember… Kakarot using that back on Earth," Vegeta noted, teeth grit as he stumbled along.

Weiss held Blake's hand, dust stuck to the drying tear streaks on her face as she turned to him. "Vegeta… do you need…?"

"No," he said firmly, "I can still sense you… A warrior has to rely on more than just their eyes, don't you remember?!" He took a moment to stare back at Frieza who bellowed as a pulse of energy swept over them, tossing the nearby forest like a wave. "Frieza's as blind as his men without that scouter, but I'd mind his other senses, so the lot of you keep the chatter down!"

In moments they all found themselves behind a cluster of trees, watching Frieza rage at nothing as his vision slowly cleared, as well as their own.

"This is pathetic…!" Vegeta complained, peering out between the leaves even as he winced at the sunlight. "Heir to the Saiyan lineage, reduced to hiding in some trees like a child?!"

Qrow didn't dare to turn away. "You got any better ideas?"

"I-I might," Yang said, still rubbing her eyes. "Mom, this is as good a time as any."

Raven blinked as she tried to watch Frieza, who had stopped attacking at random and was peering across the valley. "Maybe, but my semblance is conspicuous, might give us away."

Ozpin considered. "Would it matter if we make it fast?"

Raven sighed. "The portals don't close instantly. Back at the camp it was chaos, and there was nothing better to try, and we had fallbacks. If he notices and follows us through… we're stuck with him. I don't have any other links besides you two, and Tai."

"Keep on, deeper into the woods then!" Ruby suggested. "Until we're sure he won't—"

"THRICE ACCURSED COWARDS!" Frieza's voice boomed, as if he were right on top of them. Every single member of the party snapped to attention, expecting the worst. Yet Frieza still stood more or less where they left him, now staring at the trees. "You think me a FOOL?! That there is ANY place on this fetid human hovel that can save you from ME?!"

Even from the trees, they could see the veins in his bloodshot eyes… and see them shrink as his chest puffed with an enormous breath. He slowly blinked.

"Because I have more news for you! Besides being moored in a far harbor to sail 'neath stranger stars… we find ourselves on an unspoiled, pre-space, terra incognita! There is no escaping this world, and so there is truly no escaping me…"

His eyes scanned the wood, and they all held their breath until he spoke again.

"In fact… I think I'll let you have this one, Vegeta! Congratulations, Prince of Apes, you keep your life another day!"

Even the Saiyan himself let out a disbelieving breath. "What…?!"

"No tricks!" Frieza explained. "By all means, scamper to whatever burrow you wish, and seek me out again, once that adored hubris of yours is rebuilt! As you are, I'm afraid there's naught but lowly tatters left of that pride… Left of you… And I so wish to treat you to the full measure of my HATE!"

"He's… seriously letting us go?!" Blake asked, not daring to hope it was true.

But Frieza raised his finger, as if to halt a conversation he couldn't hear. "However, let us not presume that your lives are returned freely! There shall always be a cost… And if not of yourselves, then I shall seek alternatives from which to transact…"

That same finger began to glow as an orange pinpoint of light became a dense marble, twinkling at them like a distant star. They watched with bated breath. Raven's blade clattered quietly as she prepared to open her portal and flee. But as they watched, Frieza's grin grew all the more wicked… and he turned his back on them. Turned to the wounded Kingdom across the valley.

"No!"

Ruby was the first to understand, and had nearly leapt out of hiding when Jaune and her teammates each grabbed her as a quiet struggle took root, all the while Frieza took step after step forward, twirling the little light on his fingertip.

"Ruby stop!" Qrow whispered, as Ruby groaned, somehow making progress as the others tried to hold her still. "There's nothing we can do! There's no point!"

"We can't just watch!" Ruby managed, wrestling her wrist away from Weiss and lifting off her hood, whose cape Yang and Blake were holding. As they fell back in surprise, Jaune was the last one with arms around her waist.

"What do you even think you could—?!"

Ruby's eyes turned on him in sudden anger. "You wouldn't have stood and let HER die again!"

Jaune's eyes blanked, and he'd released her without even realizing it.

She'd nearly burst from the trees, when her left arm went taut. She whirled around, prepared to fight… but saw nothing less than Gohan, gripping her wrist, eyes down in shame.

"Gohan…?" She muttered, betrayal on her face. "Gohan… let go! Gohan please, it can't happen again! I can't let this happen! I NEED to stop it!"

Gohan couldn't meet her eyes. "I can't let you get hurt either… I'm sorry…"

She yanked, and pulled, but even at his weakest, Gohan was impossible to overpower. The others watched, defeated as she struggled… until she took the damaged Crescent Rose, and aimed above her own wrist.

There was a collective gasp, but before the blades could come down on her own arm, Krillin had dashed in, stopping them short with his bare hands.

"I know," he told her, as their eyes met. "Ruby, right? You're a hell of a kid, just like your sister said… but it's not your fault… It's his."

"Don't talk like it's already HAPPENED!" Ruby shrieked. "We can stop him! We HAVE TO—"

And with all of them watching, Frieza finally set the little marble loose. It was like a twinkling fairy in the distance, a shooting star. It crossed the plains of grass and Grimm and wreckage, the old mill and other homesteads, above the wreckage of Haven and between the Two Lovers in the Gap of Mistral… and the fairy became a demon.

The little orange marble expanded too quickly to truly be detected by human eyes, as a brilliant, perfectly spherical mass of power simply swallowed everything. The widest edge of the sphere was wider than either of the mountains, and so the peaks began to collapse into the gap, but the sphere flashed one final time as it burst like a lightbulb. The resulting shockwave blasted the peaks away as they disintegrated into arcs of grey smoke launched across the horizon. The valley, and nearly everything between the city and the heroes was seared in the flash, structures catching fire, the grass turning ashen as its blades twisted and died in the heat. Steam rose in plumes from the grass as well as any source of moisture, reaching towards the sky like arms in reverence to a wrathful god. In moments, the idyllic hills were reduced to a hellscape, and even the surviving Grimm which plundered the Atlas wrecks for meat were stampeding back to the trees… towards them.

As the light went out, Ruby, numb with disbelief, only just caught sight of Frieza's eyes. They watched her, gloating… satisfied.

"A new board… the same game. I await your next move! But take heed… you can't sacrifice the pawns forever."

And with that, violet flame surrounded the horned brute, and he carried off over their heads, ripping south. Only the three tracked him as he left, his energy signature looming but at last… distant.

At this point, Gohan and Krillin finally loosened their grip on Ruby, who could only stumble forward and onto her knees. The others were barely different, their faces taut with the shock of it, Blake and Yang staggered ahead step after step. Absolute horror and bitter grief fought for facetime.

As the dust billowed away, Mistral was revealed to be little more than a crater, almost volcanic in appearance. The foothills of the two peaks were all that remained, the destructive sphere having not so much burned but atomized everything it had touched to form the almost perfect caldera, complete with a raised rim.

"It's all gone…!" Yang rasped, her voice strained like none of them had ever heard before. "It's all fucking GONE, man…!"

Her vulgarity was utterly lost as Oscar fell to his knees, his face incomprehensible. Gohan was torn between the tragedy beyond and the new friend who couldn't look away, yet couldn't seem to grasp it.

Weiss simply said it out loud. "This isn't happening…! This has got to be a bad dream! A whole city! A whole Kingdom…!"

Qrow shook from his own revery to glimpse the black shapes still storming their way. "Hey, EYES UP, this ain't done yet! RUN!"

A few of them listened, others like Weiss slow to stir, but Gohan only tugged on Ruby's arm as she sat there, too meek to force her. Qrow noticed and turned back, sprinting to reach his catatonic niece.

But then her eyes brimmed with tears, and her teeth ground as she whined before letting out a blood-curdling scream.

There was a gleam of purest white light streaming forth from Ruby's Silver Eyes, twin rivers that flowed out before her in a torrent with an unearthly thrumming. Not a single soul could turn away, and despite its utter brightness, the light was not blinding. It was like fog, but those witnesses found their sight clearer for it. It might even have been calming, were its source not the mournfully howling teen, beset with guilt and grief.

"What in the…?!" Vegeta began to ask quietly.

The black beasts beyond were destroyed utterly, made as ash, turned from Sodom's fire, yet turned to salt all the same. The few creatures of Grimm that stopped short turned tail with whimpers and shrieks of fear, as if the gates of Hell had swung wide before them.

"Ruby…?!" Blake wondered in astonishment and fear. Weiss held onto the familiar sensation of the light. She had looked upon Beacon Tower that night and seen it once before…

"Gohan, do you feel it…?" Krillin asked, his tone hushed as if glimpsing something sacred.

Gohan didn't turn away, his hand still on hers, looking distraught from his friend's distress. "I… I don't feel anything…"

Krillin nodded. "Yeah… Like her power just vanished."

Before their eyes the twin rivers coursed, whipping through the air almost aimlessly, but almost seemed to take shape as the screams intensified, growing ragged and more solid and still.

But all at once the light sucked back into her skull, and her scream faded into a whimper as she collapsed, as if truly struck by the rebound. Yang and Qrow were at her side in seconds, Blake and Weiss standing over them in acute concern as Ruby shook. Gohan stood aside, feeling like a stranger, intrusive and unwanted.

They stood, all, before the cinders of Mistral in despair…

Oscar flared green but didn't change, exhaustion finally catching up with his pounding adrenaline. "Before we return, we should—"

"We shouldn't do anything," Raven seethed. "Give them a moment… Then we'll discuss your damn war."

END OF ACT 1

A/N: Well… I hope it was everything you dreamed it would be.

With that, the first phase of "Transposition F" ends. Our heroes triumph over Salem's forces at Haven only for defeat to be snatched from the jaws of victory as Frieza leaves all in tatters. A Kingdom annihilated… Ilia, Team SSSN save Sun himself, and Winter Schnee are lost in the horror amidst thousands of others.

They are spared only because Frieza was dissatisfied. He would be left to this world with no drive but to escape it, his vengeance hollow.

Meanwhile, the survivors he leaves behind are crushed, and the war against Frieza is personal. JNR come out less defeated, but virtually no other is spared. Ruby watches in self loathing as she sees everything she fought to prevent happen regardless. Weiss loses her own sister. Blake saves Ilia from her dark path only to be saved in kind, and loses her anyway. Yang, having fought her way back to confidence and strength finds her power stripped yet again.

Sun loses his closest friends, Raven lost her whole tribe, even Ozpin too watches that which he helped create crumble into nothing.

They will need to heal, to overcome, and ultimately rise to meet this impossible challenge ahead…

That's the dramatic take anyway.

Oh yeah, also Yang drops an all-out F-bomb. Don't get used to that. I treat this story like a PG-13, and every PG-13 gets ONE F-bomb. I gave it to Yang, because YEAH, that's a pretty devastating thing to have witnessed, thousands of voices all cried out in terror and suddenly silenced...

I've been writing EVERYTHING to reach this point, and I hope that's apparent, planning and nudging and setting the stage. I hope it's clear now why the story started "slow," drip-feeding Frieza moments and largely putting the Z warriors on the backburner… until it all comes exploding to the forefront.

Of course, that's not to say I didn't write this chapter by and large from the perspective of the RWBY cast, lurking and fleeing the utter chaos erupting around them. The battle with Frieza is something they can barely SEE or comprehend. Midair humanoid dots leap around like fleas as the environment almost randomly explodes.

It's written to underline just how large the gulf is between these characters. I liken it to the recent Godzilla Monster-verse films, where we see the titans fighting, but from a human scale and perspective to make it all seem HUGE.

I understand a lot of people criticized those movies for that too… but that's because nobody really CARED about the humans on the ground compared to the Kaiju they came to see? Hopefully that makes up a lot of the difference.

You might notice little touches like how Frieza loses his scouter here. This permits the Z characters to use their full power without fear of being found by Frieza, so no more sneaking on their part!

We also get two romantic moments, which I honestly didn't plan for, it just sorta happened. Things like that happen when you let the characters loose. It might seem odd, but confessions happen when you think you might not see tomorrow. No regerts, right? Blake's was less confessional though, I guess, as she was being roughly honest but largely trying to shock him out of his mood.

You might notice how Frieza invokes the same speech from the end of the original Namek fight in Kai. Funny story there…

My first encounter with the Chris Ayres' Frieza was actually in Resurrection F, and it was only AFTER this that I watched the Kai version of the Namek saga and really fell hard for this take on the character. Yes, I actually heard LittleKuriboh's Team Four Star voice long before, and was confused during the Bardock special when TFS did a fakeout of the Linda Young voice and settled into this (at first) generic alien voice.

So… In my first viewing of the saga in Kai, I SWORE Frieza had bookended the fight with that "at the hands of your master" speech, saying it beforehand, and saying it again before Goku defeated him. On subsequent viewings, I realized I'd made that up in my head.

...But, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

So, I'm basically making that speech a mantra, a fixture, a pronouncement to inspire fear and bolster his own ego. I don't often crib from the canon for lines, I prefer my own… but when I do it, I make sure it matters.

Taiyang also has an… experience with the Relic of Knowledge. But then, he DID ask it a question…

If I feel bad about anything in this chapter, it's two of the deaths.

Neptune might have chosen fight over flight to tragic effect, but I almost feel like nerves alone wouldn't quite bid him to think he had a shot at the guy who just made a faunus explode into red mist… It's one of my less justified losses of the story, and I couldn't think of much better. Hopefully there aren't some hardcore Neptune fans who think I did him dirty enough to cry foul.

Still, his was easily the most brutal end to date, and… yeah, I'm keen to maintain Frieza's total lack of mercy. If he loses his menace, if he's not taken seriously as a threat, then the magic is gone.

And, of course, poor Winter… She's barely in the story and almost dies the same scene she's introduced in.

I do honestly apologize for this one, but… this might just be a failing of MINE, but the best use I could make of Winter was really through her death, and the effect this has on Weiss, Ironwood, Jacque and even Atlas itself. Maybe it's just that I only ever found her limitedly compelling in the first place, made all the worse when I KNOW she has fans. I'm sorry I couldn't do better, but truly I would have wasted her character MORE by latching her to James' side and only tangentially involving her in later encounters with the Schnees. Here at least, she has a ripple effect. She becomes a source of Weiss' power, and scenes to come regarding this actually make my eyes runny. Stay strong, fam.

I think that's something I need to emphasize though. I don't ax characters due to some kind of preference or personal vendetta. My way of dealing with problem characters if they haven't already made themselves irredeemable is usually to write them differently. I found Vernal bland, so I gave her a drive, some beef, and some racey jokes. V5 Raven was not just a crummy person, she was annoying. I tried to make her more sympathetic. Adam Taurus was never going to mend his ways, but I could at least make him fun and threatening instead of bordering on petulant.

People give Neptune a lot of crap, but I never found a reason to dislike him, and even got some mileage out of him in Chapter 12. It's really more that the SERIES hasn't made effective use of him that's the root of his unpopularity… or, at least I THINK so.

Really, this incident at Haven is the galvanizing moment for the cast, and TOO many characters can be a bad thing. Volume 6 clearly agreed with this, sending Ilia and Sun on their way, and heck, even JNR were set aside to focus more on the core group for half the season.

It was really surreal to finally write out this chapter after all the planning that was done since the start, all the lines Frieza got to say after trying to distill his character to its purest expression. These to date are my favorite encounters with Frieza, as he acknowledges the RWBY crew or ignores them on a whim, only vaguely interested in the scurrying of vermin. And of course there's that classic banter between Frieza and Vegeta, which I tried to simultaneously emulate, and evolve somewhat, including the famous Super Saiyan posturing.

I also tried to eliminate the tropey "sit still while the villain powers up" cliche. Vegeta and Krillin attack Frieza mid-transformation, resulting in this cool bit where he STILL fights even as his limbs are contorting and bulging.

Oh, and yeah… Still no Ginyu. Full disclosure, Ginyu's cameo early on was to foreshadow his presence in Act II. Sorry, but I do try to set things up well in advance.

So… Yeah! Happy Halloween, even if all you do is read this chapter, pop in some scary movies or celebrate Ruby Rose's birthday!

I'm thrilled to finally be at this stage in the story, because the good stuff has only STARTED!

COMMENTS!

TF2 Crossover Man: Thanks again, man! I look forward to your thoughts.

Edward4555: No shade my dude, but you NEED to know that your comment was the subject of DEEP amusement between myself, Xman and Cruzer. Hopefully it's clear now why, but yeah… I'd been planning this encounter from day ONE, and your framing of it like I was making the story up as I went couldn't be further from the case. Some details always emerge as I write, but the lion's share is ABSOLUTELY premeditated.

Jackalope89: Yes, you can definitely argue that Frieza getting the drop on them on Namek was only AFTER they already recognized he was headed their way in the first place.

I could have done better at suggesting this, but they already KNEW Frieza was puttering around Raven's place. The way I see energy sense, a power like Frieza's (at least when you're not used to it) only feels SUBTLY different from certain distances. It's like staring at the sun, you'll really only feel it when it's RIGHT on top of you or coming from a specific direction.

ThePolishSausageRoaster: Hope it WAS good! Glad you were excited!

NianPoletech: Oh dang… Uh… "Sí, Frieza se suavizó más cerca de la intensidad tardía de DB Piccolo podría hacer eso. Siempre es importante mantenerse actualizado en la historia de un personaje."

I'm counting on Google Translate not to mangle that.

darkromdemon: Better than you feared, worse than you hoped?

RadBman21: Thanks! Can't credit it as a "triumphant" return, since I was the only thing holding it back.

Mr.J316: Good to hear! Hopefully this was too, even if I tried to shorten the gap this time to reward your collective patience.

As you can tell, this was HARDLY ever meant to be the kind of rolling encounter from the Namek saga, with Frieza relentlessly attacking until it was over.

This time Frieza lost out on MORE than immortality… Simply killing them just isn't good enough. True suffering takes time.

Son Kenshin: Nor I! Salem might not be a fighter, but she is certainly a player in this game.

X3runner: Yeah, Bulma DID see that… but I feel like she doesn't count freaky alien genotypes in the same way as humans. It's different to her for Gohan to witness a young woman dead and bled out.

We DID get Gohan raging out this chapter after threatening to split Ruby's head open like an egg…

G119: Oh dear god…

Yeah, I feel cruel to give my ideal ending to Volume 5's finale, only to strip it away like this. Regardless, they're together, they have each other's strength. They'll weather this as a family.

I try not to go hard on puns with Yang. I kinda want them, when they happen, to come off a little forced on Yang's part. Like she's trying to get over what's happened to her, but she's trying too hard to return things to normal. Plus, she also wants to rebel against Raven's insistence that the trauma she experienced (and Raven didn't stop) was GOOD for her, made her more "mature." She'll act out a bit in an attempt to reclaim her classic, bubbly self… Nothing is that easy of course.

TheB: Heh, I'm just glad it's apparently believable that Cinder COULD survive that…

Honestly, Vegeta doesn't care enough about Cinder to confirm a kill. He just wanted to set the record straight.

Also, yeah, I know that's more of an "Earthism," but Frieza has also made reference to things like kittens. It's in this spirit that I don't barr expressions like that.

Kage-kitsune9001: Eh, I went Kai soundtrack on this one… *Stares at chapter title*

c10Guest: The moment DRAGONBALL ITSELF is this precise about speed and power gaps, so too will I be… I'm still waiting.

Wolf1741: Why do you want Remnant to blow up? I feel like you have a bias…

Blinded in a bolthole: Well… yes

Scott Kanouse: That's actually a really interesting parallel I hadn't considered.

...But no, that's really Frieza. They're fairly boned.

Batthan the Dark Knight: I can't say Ruby was in sorts to appreciate it specifically, but I dunno, where do you draw the line on godly spectacles?

Oddmegaman99: Thanks so much!

"Rage semblance?" Not sure I understand…

Yeah, with no Piccolo to buffer the fight with second form Frieza, it's pretty much TPKO all day long.

Don't marry yourself to the canon though. Some things are inevitable, but I wouldn't bother writing this story if it just came down to SSJ Goku fighting Final Frieza alone on a crumbling Remnant.

Sadly no, none of the kids attain Z powers in the heat of battle. I'm going with the idea that becoming a Ki user REALLY requires you to use and think about your body and power in ways that aren't really intuitive. Weiss so far managed ONE instant of sensing to figure out Emerald's Shiva trick, and that was unlikely to start with.

I hope at some point I can deliver on these animations. I WILL produce SOMETHING, but yeah, there's a lot involved.