Main theme: Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Arc theme: Can't Trust Anyone by Jeff Williams
Theme: Lepidopterophobia from the Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Soundtrack
The end is here
Scribbled note found in the ruins of Beacon, written over and over across the paper
The baby in her arms was calm.
Soft pale skinned and with fragile bones, a tiny form new to the world cradled in her grasp, pawing at the air above it. It had stopped crying, on the verge of sleep. It looked up into the eyes of its mother, and the connection was made immediately.
Helpless, small, and perfect, the baby was. The mother loved it.
She turned her head up, to the father beside the bed. The soft lock of blonde hair atop its head fluttered with each movement big and small.
"What should we name her, Ghira?" Kali asked softly, "What should we name our child?"
For the first in a long time, Neon lifted her head.
Her throat felt raw and her head felt dizzy. The slit mark in her neck had been closed through Jaune's aura (another reason to love him) and was now simply stained a dry red. Her skin was pale from the blood loss, and her entire body felt heavy.
But still, she looked up, and opened her eyes.
The auditorium was shattered and filled with the dead and the mourning. A thin wisp of smoke filled the air as a heavy downpour of rain poured in through the giant hole in the domed ceiling. Bodies ran from left to right, counting casualties and carrying out the wounded. The crowds were dispersing themselves as doctors and medics treated the injured whilst volunteers carried away the dead. She turned her head to the side to see that two plain clothed volunteers in maintenance gear (workers from Beacon's recycling pits, probably), and realised that they had been waiting for her to move away from Flynt's body.
Flynt's body.
Flynt's body.
Oh yeah.
Flynt was dead.
Her first friend in Beacon, one of the few friends that she had in this place, and in all her life on top of that...
Was dead.
Gone.
Removed from this world.
…Fuck.
It didn't make any sense to her... it didn't make any sense at all.
How could it? How could it make any sense at all?
One second Flynt was there, alive, awake, living and breathing, and the next, he just wasn't?
How could that make sense? How could it at all compute in her mind, be believable, be anything other than fictional?
But it was real. It was here and it was real.
And it still didn't make any sense to her at all.
"...Where's Jaune?" her voice was raspy and raw, and she had to repeat the question to get the attention of the two taking away Flynt's body.
She needed to find Jaune. She needed him. He would help her make sense of everything that is going on around her and to her.
"Please..."
She looked around, trying to find him. Where was he? Where were Melanie and Ruby? Where were all the guards and soldiers? Why weren't they helping them?
One of the volunteers answered, "He went after Watts. I think the Guardsmen went with him."
…
What?
The glass beneath them shattered.
Jaune, Ruby, and Melanie jumped back in fright as the monstrous abomination, the fusion of Watts and DJ and a certainly unhealthy amount of Grimm matter, rushed forward and slammed its arms into where they had just been standing, crackles of electricity sparking across its body (some sort of bioelectricity, like an electric power generator made from DJ's remains) as it broke the glass beneath it and forced them onto separate breaking shards.
The trio aimed their guns and opened fire, a dozen rounds embedding themselves into the Mastermind's red flesh as the Chimera's two faces let out a dual roar. The beast trudged over the thick shards of glass in the rain, the splinters of glass and metal beneath it bobbing under the water of the lake from the hybrid's sheer weight as steam hissed off its form from the rain pouring onto it. A cocktail of red and black blood wept from its fresh wounds as it surged forward, electricity bouncing off its skin and into the water.
The three Hunters jumped from their platforms as the electricity surged toward them, smothering the water around their platforms in hissing energy as the rain continued to pour onto them. Ruby and Jaune were caught in the field and screamed as electricity smothered them, their wet armour being excellent conductors as they fell onto their platforms, smoking and groaning.
Melanie, meanwhile, simply allowed her semblance to absorb the bioenergy and return her own volley, her enlarged gauntlets flinging blue balls of energised fire into the beast, burning its repurposed skin and leaving threads of muscle cauterised and dangling, hissing smoke and drawing a cry of pain from the beast. From her waist, Melanie grabbed at the throwing knives at her sides and-
The Mastermind's two mouths opened and vomited out twin torrents of Grimm matter, arching up and down at Melanie, the girl barely jumping onto the mangled floating metal platform as the trails of blackened puke splashed into the water around her, rising up to the surface and solidifying into chitin, a black solid surface solidifying like an island atop the lake, marked by white bone and glowing red bioluminescent patterns, before growing like fungus, peaked strands and mushroom growths sprouting upward before merging together into simplistic blocks and floors lined with glowing silver, red, and purple lines running through them.
"Gross," Melanie couldn't help but say out loud as she pulled the throwing knives at her sides and pushed her semblance into each of them, cyan light imbuing the hilts and blades as she flung them toward the Mastermind and embedded them into its chest, the heated metal stabbing into the beast's rubbery flesh and detonating like grenades. The beast screamed as a torrent of blood and gore was sent flying, smoke billowing from its frayed skin as beads of flame licked at tendons of flesh and cauterised its opened arteries and nerves.
The Mastermind threw another volley of electricity at her, coupled with another stream of Grimm matter, and Melanie threw herself out of the way of the sludge as she absorbed the spikes of energy into herself, whilst on their own platforms, Jaune and Ruby picked themselves back up onto their feet and glared down the monster before them.
The Mastermind roared and leapt upwards, throwing its hands down at the fragmented ground as it landed on one of the giant glass shards, kicking up sharpened debris in its shockwave as a torrent of water and fragments shot up from it. The trio shielded themselves as best they could from the flash flood as their armour was soaked and battered by water and shards (the latter of which embedding themselves into their armour), but were left with little time to recover as the monster pulled a long metal shard out of the ground and hefted it over its shoulder like a club, before bringing it down onto the buckled metal that Melanie was precariously placed on-
{SLAM}
{SPLASH}
-And flipping it over.
Melanie was sent flying through the air with a scream of surprise, landing on a wet shard beneath her and sliding across the glass before slipping off and splashing into the water.
Ruby and Jaune cried out to her, the latter jumping from platform to platform to get to her, almost slipping up several times as he did so whilst the former continued to throw rounds at the monster in their midst, silver slugs flying out from her bracelets and embedding themselves into its bloody flesh. The beast swung the jagged metal bat in its hands at her in a swipe, and Ruby burst away in a rush of rose petals to escape it, reforming on the platform next to it as she-
The warped tongues and tentacles nesting in the mouth-slits within the Mastermind's stomach shot outwards, each nested mouth letting out a scream as the tendrils, barbed by metal and bone and jagged teeth, attempted to grab at her. The blades on Ruby's arms extended out as she parried and sliced at the tendrils, spitting out black phlegm and saliva, snapping and trying to wrap around her as she tried to evade them.
Jaune, meanwhile, pulled Melanie out of the water and placed his hand on her chest, pushing his aura into her and bringing her out of her shaken stupor. Thankfully their helmets' oxygen filtration systems and sealed body gloves prevented the threat of drowning, but that didn't stop drowsiness from hitting them.
"Ugh... never doing that again."
"I should hope-"
{SNATCH}
"-AUGH!"
"Jaune!" Melanie cried out as Jaune was caught by one of the bladed tongue/tendrils, lifting the boy high up into the air as bioelectricity spread upward from the tentacle's mouth in the stomach of the Mastermind-
{CRACKLE}
-And all across Jaune.
The boy screamed as electricity surged across his body, but the monster slammed him into one of the shards floating above the water before either Melanie or Ruby could free him. A singe of smoke fluttered up from his body as the Mastermind tossed him to the side like a child's broken toy, slamming him into Ruby and throwing them both into the shattered wet ground beneath them.
One of the faces on the Mastermind's head let out a low groan as the giant beady eye in the centre of its head narrowed at Melanie, the elongated tongues stretching out from its stomach-mouths shooting out and wrapping themselves around her, shooting bioelectricity into her-
{FWOOSH}
-Only for her semblance to absorb it into herself and expel the excess energy through the vents in her arms, burning the skin of the monster and sending its tendrils flying back, smoke rising from its burnt black and red flesh as it let out a dual roar of pain and pulled a clump of acidic-like purple puss from its dripping skin with its free hand and throwing it at her. Melanie was able to dodge it as ashy smoke flowed from the vents in her arms, but some of the luminescent sludge splattered onto her as it splashed onto the ground and began to burn away at the paint on her armour, leaving blackened trails across the metal covering her.
"Dammit..." she swore to herself as she aimed her ML-17 pistols at the monster and began to throw blue rounds into the beast, darting back onto a platform behind her as the Mastermind lunged forward and threw its club down onto where she had once stood, shattering the glass and letting the small shards drift away into the lake. She fired again and-
A bolt landed on her shoulder and sent her twisting in the air, slamming down hard as her spaulder sizzled with a line of slash-burn. Melanie groaned and picked herself up, only to see that, as the Mastermind continued to vomit out torrents of Grimm matter into the water, itself solidifying into more blackened platforms of simplistic architecture, each one crackling with bioelectricity, odd shapes were beginning to pull themselves out of the bubbling pools in the centre of those platforms.
Disciple Grimm. Not the normal variant as well. These ones were monsters, abominations just like their creator. Whereas normal Disciples were Grimm through and through, these things had Human skin and tissue woven into them, covering their bodies. Red meat had been sown into their forms, leaking crimson blood as jagged shards of bone jutted through their new red skin. Inside the six vents in their necks were teeth. Not sharpened and alien, but human molars. The obsidian parts of their skin seemed paler, and their eyes white and pinpricked.
And they were all screaming. Each step was accompanied by a moan of agony, as if their bodies were tearing themselves apart and stitching themselves back together at the same time. They were unstable monsters and they knew it, and they were in pain because of it. Their existences were torturous suffering.
"Disgusting..." Melanie muttered to herself, before turning to Jaune and Ruby as they picked themselves up and yelled, "Jaune, Ruby, take out the Disciples! I'll handle this fucking thing!"
"Are you sure?" the cries of the Mastermind and its hybrid Disciples made it hard to tell who yelled that.
"Yes I'm sure!" Melanie cried back, "Now get to it!"
Soon enough, red and silver shots were ring out across the surface of the Wishing Well lake, and Melanie found herself staring down the two faces of the Mastermind itself, all its five beady eyes glaring at her.
Melanie glared back.
"You know... I can't fucking wait to kill you."
The Mastermind roared in agreement.
A blue bolt of light flew across the room, and another rogue AK-PD went down.
Razor stepped over the smoking droid as he continued to lead Ciel and Weiss through Beacon's empty hallways, dodging rampant Grimm and malfunctioning robots all the way as Yang, Rancor, and Omega followed close behind.
The corridors echoed with the faint sounds of gunfire and violence. The smell of oxidising metal invaded Weiss' nostrils as she ran, following one of the few friends she had in this place as they made their way down to the hanger below.
Her mind was still rattled, wracked by shellshock. Her body was running on autopilot, with no real will behind it. Her vision was still blurry, her ears were still ringing, everything around her was still muted, awash in dull greys, everyone were murky shapes that held no outlines, no discernible detail.
Everything and nothing was running through her thoughts at the same time, a living contradiction, a paradox that was tearing her head apart. She was thinking of everything (the deaths of her peers, the blood on the walls, the blood on the floor, the blood all over her-), and yet, she was thinking of nothing (dull, void, absence, emptiness). She couldn't focus on anything at all.
Everything around her felt as lifeless as those that had lost their lives before.
So many gone.
So many dead.
So many people had died today, and only one thought could cross Weiss' darkened mind.
How many more are going to die before the day is done?
The Obsidian Guard sergeant, Ferdinand Staultwold, stood outside the door to the medical bay, gun at his side. Around him, his gathered force of both Obsidian and Crimson Guardsmen stood ready at the doors, their guns at their sides as well.
Communications were still scrambled to hell and back, and when his commanding officer, a lieutenant who's name he couldn't remember, sent two men up to the central command node to try and activate the lockdown, one of them had run back to report that the systems required to do so were shot. Thanks to that, Beacon's entrances and exits, including the hanger bay, were still wide open. They'd already received reports from their assigned couriers that multiple Grimm had used their renegade droids as a distraction to escape. They'd been able to recapture most of them, but the rest had fled the former academy and headed off into the wildlands around them. They'd need to make it a mission to recover their lost prisoners, either dead or alive, once all this was over.
But for now, he had his current mission: secure the supplies needed from the medical bay and run them back to the auditorium below. Despite the amount of men he had, he knew they wouldn't be enough to carry all the surgical tools and med kits needed to help stabilise all of their wounded down in the blasted remains of the troop inspection below. They'd need to do a lot of return trips.
No matter. They had their orders, and like good soldiers, they would follow them to the letter.
No matter what.
He rapped his fist against the door, "Open up! We need med kits, asap!"
No response.
"I said open up!"
Still no response.
Then, he smelt it.
It was a mixture of decomposing bodies, the metal scent of spilt blood, and many other awful things. He recognised it from his time as an Atelsian army corporal.
It was the smell of death.
Immediately, he pulled his gun off his hip and made a motion with his hand, calling forth his soldiers. The Obsidian Guardsmen around him wordlessly stacked up by the door, and the Crimson Guardsmen, in all their inexperience, hesitantly followed behind with a confused movement to them. They still fell in formation, but it was clear to see how green to combat scenarios they were.
Ferdinand began to count down with his fingers, closing them with each passing second. Five, four, three, two... one.
A split second later, the door was kicked down, and they all barged through, guns high and-
The medical centre was filled with the dead, blood splattering the walls and staining the sheets and ground. Smatterings of blood covered the walls and ceiling, trailing and dripping down in soft drops and landing with softer taps onto the ground below. The sounds of a fly interrupted the horrifying silence as it buzzed around the room, the lights above flickering from the slash marks running through them.
There were people lying crumpled in beds or splayed out on the floor. He recognised a few of them, he did. Harrower was tilted down on his bed, laying still. Medico was on the ground, curled up uselessly. A few others he'd recognised from one of his previous units, either comatose or on the verge of recovering.
All of them were missing their heads.
And then, up above, impaled onto the walls...
Lavender screamed in pain as the blade went through her, pinning her down to the ground. A red torrent of blood erupted from her side as her arms began to paw at the sword spearing through her torso, piercing her stomach and mixing the acid inside with her spilling blood, kicking up an awful smell as she writhed in agony on the ground.
It had all happened so fast. One second she'd opened the door, the next she'd been sent flying across the room and into the wall, and before she could even fall to the ground, she'd heard the sounds of screaming and bodies and heads hitting the ground before she'd been stabbed through the gut. She never had any time to react.
And now here she was, bleeding to death and surrounded by the already-dead and crying because everyone around her was dead and there was nothing that she could do about it, and now she was going to join them in whatever afterlife awaited them.
And then there was her attacker, standing above her.
Smiling.
"W-Why...?" she gritted out as blood began to flow out of her mouth.
"Harrower was a traitor. He abandoned our cause, and got what was coming to him. As for everyone else," the attacker shrugged, "Collateral, nothing more."
Liar. They killed everyone because they enjoyed it.
Lavender began to pull the blade out of her. She knew it was a bad idea, medically. When someone is stabbed, you don't take the knife out the wound. That would only quicken the bleed out.
But she wasn't thinking clearly. Her brain was rushing on adrenaline from the pain and the fear of dying. She had no intention on going out like a punk.
"J-Just so you know..." she growled out as she tugged at the sword, "I'm t-thinking of a- ah, ah! All the ways I'm going to pull this sword out of me, heal my wounds, and- augh! And beat you over the head with it," a groan of pain, "Just so we're clear."
"Oh, we're clear."
The attacker grabbed the handle of the blade and pulled it out of her. Lavender screamed, but no one heard her.
"So let's expedite the process."
Lavender held up her hand, "W-Wait-"
Too late. The sword came down, and-
There was Lavender, loftily held up on the wall, her wooden spear stabbed through her. The top of her head from the jaw up was gone, exposing her teeth and tongue. The rest of her head planted on the ground, her eyes bugged and bulged outward, staring up as her hair, stained with blood, laid splayed out onto the ground.
Melanie had never liked Watts.
It wasn't terribly difficult to do so. Watts just had that kind of energy behind him, you know? That smug persona that just screamed 'I'm better than you and I know that I'm better than you'. The way that he walked, that he talked, that he spoke, that he acted, that he simply was? All of it was carried and done with a narcissistic attitude that demanded that everyone think of him as the smartest person not just in the room, but on the planet as well.
So, this?
This felt good.
The Mastermind roared as it threw another glob of acidic sludge at her, the girl raising the bulky slabs on her arms up to shield her from its impact, steam hissing off the metal as the paint melted, right before a violent storm of cyan fire exploded out from the vents in those same slabs as she threw her arms forward and fired her twin pistols at the monster, leaving smoking dots and holes across its skin.
If that attack had any effect, the Mastermind didn't show it. The beast just lunged upward and threw itself and its club down, shattering her platform as she ducked out of the way and leapt onto the next one aside her. The Mastermind did the same, and this time when it threw its weapon down, Melanie brought up her arms, pushed all her aura into them-
{SLAM}
-And caught the blow on her shielded arms, parrying the attack and sending the beast rocking back. Another roar from the Mastermind, another twin trail of Grimm matter vomit. Another dodge and another abstract platform forming in the water. Another pair of screaming Disciple hybrids pulling themselves out of black and red pools, another pair of red and silver rounds going through their heads and ending their torment.
Rinse, dry, repeat.
Sickly strands of bioelectricity stretched out towards her as she absorbed it into herself, venting the excess energy out through her arms as she holstered one of her guns, pulled a pair of throwing knives off her thighs and held them between her fingers, charged them with the energies inside her semblance and threw them at the beast. The two knives embedded themselves into the Mastermind's skin and exploded like grenades, sending chunks of smoking red and black meat scattering from it and dropping into the water, trails of blood following after it. The smoking shreds of Grimm body mass disintegrated in the water. The red slabs of stretched and rotting Human meat did not, leaving pools of blood growing out in their wake and dyeing the waters of the makeshift battlefield an ugly crimson.
The beast roared, the brain mass and muscles on its back pulsating and letting out snaps of electrical discharge like synapses as it leapt onto her platform and threw its club back down at her. Another parry from her, only to be grabbed by the mass of tongues and tendrils shooting out of the mouths in its stomach and be lifted into the air. Melanie let out a cry as she was shocked by torrents of bioelectricity, enough to kill anyone other than her as she used her semblance to suck up all the electricity and send it through the vents in the arm.
This time, the Mastermind did not let go.
"C'mon..." Melanie muttered to herself as she lifted her legs up and over the tendrils wrapping around her arms and torso, pumping as much of her aura into both her legs and the blades along their backs as she brought them down like a guillotine. They didn't go through all the way, caught on the bone inside of them, and Melanie had to hack her way through the tendrils to get them to release her. After a few moment, as the Mastermind was reaching for her, intent on grabbing her by the head and pulling it off her shoulders, she was able to cut through the tongue-tendrils and drop her down to the ground, a circle of black and red blood around her as she picked up the tendril by its end, covering her gauntleted hands with a cocktail of blood, and then swinging the barbed and smoking coil of flesh like a whip and slamming it into the beast's head, the barbs cutting into the creature's skin and ripping out strands of muscle and tendons.
The Mastermind let out twin screeches of pain as it grabbed the severed tendril in its hand and pulled it from Melanie's grasp, slamming it back down into her before grabbing her in its other arm and throwing her down in a punch. Melanie let out a cry of pain as her aura fluctuated under the blow. She tried to use the exoskeleton covering her arms to free herself from the monster's grip, but all that did was piss it off enough to lift up it arm once more and-
"Sergeant?"
{WHAM}
-Slammed her back down into the twisted metal beneath them.
"W-Who the hell...?" Melanie gritted out as, through the Mastermind's grip, she wormed her hands down to her waist and grasped a throwing knife in each hand. Someone had spoken on her radio. She channelled her semblance into the blades. She thought Beacon's communication lines were still scrambled.
"It's the central tower," the man on the radio spoke again, "We've undone Watt's interference with our radios. We're re-establishing lines of communication with the rest of the facility as we speak."
Melanie grimaced as she overloaded her throwing knives with her semblance. When they exploded (fuck, that hurt), they severed the black and red fingers from the hand holding her and sent her skipping across the water before regaining her footing and straightening herself. Her armour was singed and smoking, blackened and steaming in the rain, and the Mastermind roared as it stared at her immolated hand, torn and burnt and with several of its bones sticking out, jagged and smouldering at the edges.
"Good timing too," she heard Ruby speak over their helmet comms, and spared a glance to the side to see her thrust her swords, Blossom and Wither, into the chest of a half-breed Disciple and kicking it into another, knocking them both into the water, "I was almost about to call for back up. We might need it."
"Nah, we're fine," Melanie shot back with a smirk as she threw another throwing knife at the Mastermind, only for it to swat it away with its giant metal club and let it explode in the water, kicking up a wave, splash, and cloud of steam as it did so, "We're kicking ass and taking names. What do we need backup for?"
"A lift out of here?"
"Fair point."
"Guys, please," Melanie didn't get the chance to look to where Jaune was as she was engaged once more by the Mastermind, "Fight first, banter later."
"Right."
"Spoilsport."
A grunt of exertion across the radio, the distant sound of a stretched, nasal cry as something, probably the same thing making the squeal, splashing into the water, and then Jaune called out, "Central tower, what's the status on all other systems?"
"Still scrambled. We've only just been able to untangle the communication feeds. We've feeding reports back to the Guardsmen and establishing proper defensive formations now, but the lockdown and cameras are still inoperable. We can either focus our efforts on restoring our cameras or the lockdown, but-"
"Reactivate the cameras. I don't like the idea of throwing us into lockdown and trapping any of our men in areas that are overrun with Grimm and droids."
"Copy that. It'll take us a few minutes to get the cameras online, but we'll get it done," Melanie noted to herself that the man on the other end of the comms didn't say anything about the interruption.
Good man, she thought to herself as she dodged another landing blow from the Mastermind, now swinging its club in a single hand, At least someone knows to respect authority around here.
Leadpipe had spent a long time pacing across Beacon's underside hanger bay, his mind a swirling cocktail of worry and panic. So far, he'd done two full laps around the edges of the hanger and the ships inside it, and was about to do a third before he came to a realisation.
He needed to seal the hanger's doors.
"Come on, come on," he muttered in frustration as he continued to tap away at the emergency override panel to the massive opened doors before him. He growled as the code to seal the door failed again, and he attempted a new one, "What the hell is the code to this thing? Why's it so many bloody digits?"
He knew that Beacon Academy had a lockdown system. It was one of the first things that had been proposed into Beacon after the Surge, and had finally been installed at the same time that he had left. It was supposed to completely seal the former academy and turn it into something akin to an impregnable fortress, and it was supposed to shut the damn doors to the hanger bay to keep whatever enemies they were facing from getting in... or from traitors and deserters from getting out.
And yet the lockdown hadn't been activated. Even after the sudden shockwave that he had felt and the echoes of gunfire that he had heard earlier, the lockdown still hadn't been put into place.
If the lockdown wasn't put in place soon, and if the massive pair of doors to the hanger bay wasn't closed, then whoever was attacking the former academy could send reinforcements into the Beacon Militia's base without any resistance, or flee into the city below, spreading chaos wherever they went.
They needed to be stopped, and he wasn't going to let them if he could.
He may not be part of the Beacon Militia anymore, but that didn't mean that he wanted anyone else to die.
He wouldn't let that happen.
Not if he could do anything about it.
But, as it turned out, there might not be anything he could do about it.
Not if this blooming code had anything.
"Why can't it ever be simple?" he grumbled as he tried, for the third time, to type in a code that he knew nothing about, "Why can't it ever just be one-two-three-four-so on and whatever? Why's it always have to be so-"
{BEEP}
Third attempt failed and- great. Now he was locked out for trying to enter the code too many times.
Wonderful.
The white, blue, and purple Techion let out a growl, "Useless thing!" as he slammed his hand on the panel and then turned himself around. The central control station to the hanger was in the walkways up above. He just needed to get up there and manually-
Someone stumbled through the entrance to the hanger. Leadpipe recognised him immediately.
What was Razor doing here?
Yang grunted in frustration as she ran through the door to the hanger bay, trailing behind Omega and Rancor before they skidded to a halt.
Nothing had been going her way recently. Or at all.
Ever since she had arrived in Beacon, nothing had been going well for her. Discounting all of the crap that she and Ruby had been through in the two years before they'd been picked up by Ozpin for Beacon (losing Patch and their father, having to live in an orphanage, everything that happened with Iris...), her life had been nothing short of hell ever since coming to Beacon.
The Initiation Massacre, the Battle of the Sleeping City, the Surge, and now here, the troop inspection and its bombing... six months in Beacon Academy and she had been shot at, blown up, had a sword through her spine and paralysed, had her entire nervous system replaced by cybernetics (on top of getting her beloved hair cut from long flowing locks to a shoulder length disappointment), technically making her a Techion, and after all that, after all that she had gone through, all that she had done and all that she had suffered...
Her own sister had seemingly forgotten about her, and she had been relegated to manual labour. Mechanical work.
Grunt work.
It wasn't fair.
Putting aside all her skills in fighting, all her skills in killing Grimm (she had ripped Ares' heart out of his chest, for God's sake), hadn't she suffered as much as the others? Hadn't she been through as much as the likes of Jaune Arc, Neon Katt, Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren, and so on, so forth? She had been stabbed, shot, and scarred. She had been stabbed in the spine and paralysed. She had been turned into a cyborg. She had been sent to fight and die again and again, gaining scars and wounds as tribute to this war they fought in, almost dying many a times...
And for what?
To be sent away to some dusty corner of Beacon?
To be regulated to breaking down and repairing vehicles for the rest of her career, for the rest of her life?
To be left in an old workshop, gathering dust as she was forgotten by everyone, including the only family member (worth mentioning) that she had left?
And Melanie. Melanie Malachite. The girl who she had fought in a bar before, the one who's ass she had kicked, along with her twin sister... now sat atop the Beacon Militia's preverbal food chain, praised by soldiers and workers alike as one of the best leaders, one of the best soldiers, with one of the best semblances to boot...
And Yang had beat her.
And Melanie had forgotten her.
It wasn't fair.
Yang had been the best in Signal (barring her sister, of course) before it had fallen. Yang was one of the best fighters in the Academy. Hell, Yang had one of the best semblances around, even Moreso now that Pyrrha Nikos had disappeared to who knew where.
But more than that, she had been through just as much as the others. She had suffered just as much. She had given up as much as the others. She deserved more than this.
She wasn't just someone to be forgotten and discarded like yesterday's bad rubbish.
She wasn't just some... side character in someone else's life.
She was a living Human being, one who had been amongst the bleeding and the dying for Vale and Beacon and Remnant, and she deserved to be treated as one.
Fuck, they all did.
They all deserved more than this.
She looked to the side, past Omega and Rancor, past Weiss and Ciel, and past Razor to see a lithe blue, white, and purple Techion with red luminescent patterns running across its frame running towards them. Though she hadn't seen him for a long time, Yang recognised Leadpipe from a mile away. Then again, Techions who went all the way into converting themselves almost entirely into machines tended to make their frames as distinctive as possible, so that wasn't exactly difficult.
"Razor, is that you?" Leadpipe called out as he stopped in front of Razor and asked, "Razor, what's going on? Who's shooting up there?"
"Beacon was bombed," was Razor's answer.
"Beacon was bombed?!"
"Yep."
"Wha- why- then why hasn't the- the lockdown come down?!"
"No idea."
Yang shifted her gaze over to Rancor and Omega. Why had she followed them down here? Oh yeah, to make sure that they didn't do anything stupid. She loved them to bits, sure, but by God the two of them weren't the brightest of the bunch. Meatheads, they were, with a serious overprotective streak to them as well.
Gods above, they had been stifling during their first days at Beacon. She felt coddled with them constantly looking over her at every moment of the day, treating her like glass. She hated that. She hated being treated like glass. So what that she had been injured? So what that she had been hurt? She could pick herself back up, if only she'd been given the chance.
And no matter how well they meant, the two of them had never given her the chance.
No one had.
Rancor and Omega were cool with their heavy weapons and stuff, but by god they weren't the smartest. They'd probably throw their own lives away to stop her from stubbing her toe if she could, so they needed someone around to keep them in line.
And right now, Razor, their former teammate, wasn't doing that, so for once, instead of them looking out for her, she had to be the one to look out for them.
She turned herself over to Weiss and Ciel? As for them, well, Rancor and Omega had wanted to help out their former team leader, and that meant helping out Weiss and Ciel was well.
Weiss... Yang didn't like her. Not one bit. Forget all the crap that had happened in Atlas (or Mantle, or Solitas, or... or whatever) with her father and the SDC and all of that. Everything about her dislike for the former heiress was personal. Weiss had been a cruel person to her sister during the first three months of the war, back when they were still in teams and such (Ruby in Team RSBL, Yang herself in Team RXOR). She had been harsh to her sister, who had been favoured as the leader of her team instead of her. She had been pushy and demanding of her...
And she had struck her, right out in the open, right where everyone could see her, and had the gall to feel sorry for it after the fact.
So yeah, Yang hadn't thought terribly kindly of Weiss Schnee in the past, and she still didn't to this day. No matter how much the white-haired girl might want to try, Yang wasn't going to give her the time of day to do or say anything to her, whatever the motive behind it might be.
As for Ciel... well, Yang knew next to nothing about her. As far as she knew, she was nothing more than Weiss' bodyguard and Melanie Malachite's former teammate in MNCC, before all the teams were rendered defunct by the Beacon Militia. That was it.
Ciel Soleli was a blank slate. Yang didn't even know what her semblance was (and something told her that Ciel would rather keep it that way).
Her gaze turned back to Leadpipe and Razor as they spoke, "Well, at least," leadpipe paused, finding his words, "Help me get up to the- the control room up there," he pointed his hand up to the railings near the ceiling of the hanger, "Up above, I mean. If the lockdown is- isn't going into place, then we need to- need to seal the hanger bay doors manually. Don't know the code to the override down here, I don't. Do you?"
"Nope," Razor said, "And it's not my concern."
"...Eh?" was Leadpipe's eventual response, "What does- Beacon's under attack, isn't it? Isn't that what all the gunfire is about, or whatever you say? How is- how is that 'Not your concern'?"
Razor pointed his thumb back to Weiss and Ciel, "They're my concern. I'm getting them out of Beacon."
Yang shot a raised eyebrow to him, and Leadpipe asked the question that was on her mind, "What? Since when were you friends with Weiss and, and-"
"Ciel."
"Ciel, yes. When were you friends with them?"
"Since not too long ago," Razor said, "And now I'm getting them out. You got a problem with that?"
"If it out of Beacon by- I-I mean, I suppose not, but," Leadpipe paused for a second, his hands flexing nervously. Then, he lifted his hand up to point to the rafters up above, "Look, just- help me switch the- help me close the doors to the hanger, alright? Please?"
"No can do. Need to get these two out of here, pronto."
"Wait, just- Razor. We can't leave the doors to the hanger bay open. Anyone could get in or out, and I-I don't know the codes. I-"
"Why are you even here if you don't know the codes?" Ciel asked him, "Speaking of which, why are you here in Beacon, Leadpipe? You left the Militia months ago."
"I- Blake," Leadpipe got out, "Blake invited me. Gave a place to stay after Choir attacked the Farmlands."
The first thought that Yang had was about the Farmlands in Vale being attacked by the Choir of Silver. She was then reminded of rumours in the disassembly workshops of a faction of Choir of Silver fighters attempting to ransack one of those giant warehouse-sized greenhouses that had been setup in the Farmlands. Harrower had been injured in the fighting, and more rumours had spread about a Techion, once affiliated with the Beacon Militia, roaming the halls for the last few days, so that had all but confirmed it.
The next thought that crossed her mind was that of Blake, her one-time partner and the aloof former member of the once-Team RSBL, Ruby's team. She was a supposedly stoic girl, disinterested with the world around her and absorbed into her own thoughts. She had been unaffiliated and uninterested with the rest of her supposed teammates, only ever bothering to speak with Leadpipe and no one else.
Yet, underneath that passionate dispassion, there had been something else rolling underneath, bubbling and boiling. There was a smugness to her, a cruel animosity towards everyone around her. She had hated Weiss, far more than anyone else, and had been dismissive of Ruby and her orders, much like many had been of their team leaders back in the day (including her, somewhat. Trauma was a hell of a demotivator, wasn't it?).
Plus, there was just... something off about Blake. Something different. Something more that underneath the surface. Something red and raw and eager to be unleashed.
That worried Yang more than anything.
And speaking of which...
"Where even is Blake?" she asked.
"I-I don't know," Leadpipe answered, "I haven't- haven't seen her. In days. For days."
yang frowned. That just raised even more questions-
Wait.
The bombing.
Don't tell her that-
"We don't have time for this," Razor said as he pointed to the Bullhead next to them, "I'm getting these two on the Bullhead, now."
"At least help me-" Leadpipe stuttered, trying to find his words again, "L-Look, we need to sh-shut the doors. Gates to the hanger bay. If we don't, then whoever- whatever is attacking Beacon will escape through it. Or call in backup through it. We need to close it, now."
"Not my problem."
Yang paused, blinked, looked at Razor with wide eyes.
"'Not your problem'?" she asked, outrage in her voice. Next to her, Omega and Rancor stepped back in shock, and even Weiss and Ciel's eyes widened in surprise, "'Not your problem'!?"
"What the hell- you're Beacon Militia, aren't you?!" Leadpipe spluttered out, "Shouldn't it be your problem?!"
"And it's yours?"
"Harrower saved my life back in the Farmlands!" Leadpipe shot back, "The least I can do is return the favour!"
He relaxed himself, letting his hands fall to his sides.
"Besides... I don't want anyone to die... I don't want anyone else to die."
They all quietened down for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts, trying to process the things that had been said to each other. Weiss' mind was, from the looks of it, lost in a shock that hadn't faded away and probably wouldn't for a long time.
Eventually, Yang found the will within her to speak.
"Razor... who's side are you on?"
It was a genuine question, one that she couldn't help but think as she mulled over Razor's previous words.
Behind her, she heard a scuffle, of feet hitting and running across the ground.
Razor sighed.
"Whoever's paying me, I suppose."
Before Yang could do anything - react to Razor's words or to the sounds behind her-
A sharp pain in her torso.
She looked down to see a sword, covered in blood, piercing through her gut.
Hunter Amata had a very mercenary way of going about things.
Fitting for a mercenary like him, really.
His parents had grown up in the Atlesian military, and so he had as well. His early childhood had been regimented and portioned out into schedules and timetables, obeying a strict military-esque lifestyle that dominated his childhood as long as he could remember.
He hated it.
He felt like he was in a prison, a prisoner with no parole. He wanted so badly to escape, to flee, to find freedom in the world away from the stifling demands of those whom would call themselves his betters, his parents, his mother and father, the army men and generals of his world that they were.
But he was young. Young and naïve and scared of disappointing his parents, as any child would.
So, for the longest time, he went along with whatever his folks said. He went to the military academies that they went to when they were young, he went to the boarding schools that they went to, he learnt the military protocols and procedures that they learnt when they were his age, and so on, so forth.
And he still hated it. He began to grow a little more comfortable with it then he would've liked, but he still hated it.
When the renegade group of former Atlesian soldiers known as the Outcasts made their defection from the kingdom known, Razor had been all the more willing to join them. He wanted to get away from the suffocating needs of his family and those around them, from the choking standards that made Atlas the hellhole of a kingdom as it was.
At the time that he left, he had stopped being scared of disappointing his parents. He'd stopped caring about what they thought about him a long time ago.
So, he joined the Outcasts as they became a mercenary force for the highest bidder. He was with them as they took out various contracts from the most unlikely of bidders, from the SDC to the Bandit Confederation, to the Brotherhood of Two to the cultists of the Sleeping City. He helped protect as many villages and settlements as they subjugated. They raided and pillaged convoys alongside the same bandit clans that they were tasked with destroying the very next day. It was a whirlwind of assignments and orders, missions and operations...
And he loved it.
There was a freedom to being a mercenary. Sure, they were operating in the same kind of rules and procedures that he had run away from back in Atlas, but there was a looseness to them, a sense of freedom of movement and expression, a liberalness to how one carried out their orders, without any oversight or direction from those who commanded him.
As long as he fulfilled the task given to him, he could do whatever he wished in the meantime, and he was loving every second of it. He never went as far as a lot of other Outcasts did in how they went about their orders, but he still did a lot of things during his time in the PMC outfit...
Some of which he regretted. Dearly.
When the Outcasts eventually entered into a partnership with the Acolytes of the Ascended a few years ago, Hunter hadn't thought much of it. Back then, not much was known about the Acolytes, other than that they were a sort of sub-faction or splinter of the House of the White Wolves, and were particularly worshipful of Azul Primus and the White Fang, of which the House of the White Wolves themselves were based on. To Hunter and everyone else, they were just another client, and nothing more. All they had to do was supplement a few of their operations against Atlas and the SDC, and train a few of their members as well.
To him, it was just business as usual.
Until suddenly it wasn't.
All of a sudden, the shooting in Onus Square happened, and Hunter began to realise that the things that he had been doing beforehand were not as fun anymore. All of a sudden, he was beginning to realise the costs of his actions, the people that he had harmed, and the lives that he had snuffed out.
His conscience had finally caught up with him, and with that came the regret.
All of a sudden, he no longer wanted to be a part of the Outcasts, and the horrors that they had wrought upon the world.
But he couldn't. He couldn't leave. Before long, the Acolytes and the Outcasts had become so intrinsically intwined that it was impossible to tell the difference between the two. They had become one in the same, and if he tried to leave the Outcasts, he'd be trying to leave the Acolytes, and they had no tolerance for those who wished to depart from their ranks.
He had heard horror stories about those that tried to desert the Acolytes, and he didn't want any part of that.
He didn't want to die.
So, he stayed with the Outcasts. He stayed with the Acolytes. Was he a coward for doing so? He didn't know. He just didn't want to die. He didn't want to be chased and hunted down like a rat for wanting to leave this band of psychopaths.
And besides... the Outcasts were all that he had known for a long time. They were something that he had grown up in, for lack of a better word. He knew no other life outside of them and the life of a soldier, mercenary or not.
He didn't want to change that, no matter how scared it made him. He'd grown comfortable with that life, and he had no wish to abandon it.
And he hated that about himself more than anything.
Then, he'd been given a special contract, one for him personally. The big boss of the Acolytes, Taurus or Adam or whatever the hell he called himself nowadays, had hey-you'd him and given him a set of special orders: work with one of his personal agents, infiltrate Beacon Academy as one of its students, and kidnap Weiss Schnee and her bodyguard (who had been reported to be attending the academy from a leak given by an Acolyte sympathiser in Atlas' ranks). He'd wanted to turn it down, but the look that Taurus had given him had informed him enough that he didn't have a choice in the matter.
It didn't help that the partner that he'd been sent in with was a... special sort of person.
And so, whilst the Acolytes and Outcasts began to make connections within the city of Vale, he and his new 'Associate' (for lack of any kinder words) gave themselves new names. He changed from Hunter Amata to Razor Azure, and his fellow infiltrator stole the face and name from a completely different person. He couldn't help but feel bad for them.
It should've been an easy enough task, in all honestly. Get in, nab Weiss Schnee and her bodyguard (no idea why that Ciel girl was needed, but when he'd asked, he'd been told to just shut up and do his job, so what did he know?), and get out. They'd not been able to do so before Initiation (too much security, too many people, stuff like that. Plus, he'd got himself distracted with making friends with Omega and Rancor. They had big guns and were big and dumb. They were just too much fun to mess with), so they'd have to do it afterwards, on their way back to Beacon after the event.
But then the Initiation Massacre came to pass. Suddenly everyone was broken and wounded, he was not in any condition to fight, nor did he have the will within him to do so at the moment after seeing so much death. His partner was making goo goo eyes at some random kid with them (same age as them, actually, but he certainly acted like a kid), and all of a sudden he had been admitted into Beacon as an actual student and had been made a leader of an entire team.
It was all really sudden and he had no idea what to do with it.
Plus, he had been made the leader of a team, and he had hated it. He hated the idea of being a leader. It reminded him too much of how his parents, despite all their best intentions, had attempted to raise him and he had no desire to replicate that, or even step close to it.
Besides, he knew better to not get attached to them. His was to be a traitor to their ranks, and that meant that he would be coming into conflict with them soon enough.
So, he did his best to distance himself from the role. He dismissed the entire idea of being a team leader, he pushed away being teammates with others, he did his best to keep them beyond arms length.
And yet the Surge came and went and so did all the violence that wed itself to it. Suddenly he was fighting alongside those that he tried to keep away from himself, becoming a brother in arms with them, saving them, laughing with them, and-
And he'd become attached to them.
Dammit. The one thing he shouldn't have done, and he had gone and done it.
Soon enough, as Beacon Academy evolved to become the headquarters of the private military contractor known as the Beacon Militia, he had forgotten about his role in the Outcasts and the mission that the Acolytes had assigned him. Suddenly he had been made a leader all over again, a sergeant, and was being tasked with protecting settlers and convoys, weeding out Grimm insurgents, and so on, so forth...
And he had come to enjoy it.
It felt good, the role that he had been given, and the friends that he had made in Beacon and the Militia. It felt good to protect people and provide them sanctuary. It felt good to beat the bad guys instead of being one.
It felt good to be good.
He sunk into his role. He let himself collapse into it, and look away from the reality of his past and those that he had entered into Beacon with.
Until soon enough, his partner in Beacon told him of the new allies that their contractors in Vale had made, reminded him of his task, and set him to work on doing it.
Razor hated them for that.
So, he get to work. Whilst his associate worked with their new allies in Watts and his little minion (Esper, he should've known...), he made himself a friend with Weiss Schnee after saving her from Harrower, and he...
Dammit, he got emotionally attached again.
Weiss was a good person. Flawed as all hell, sure, but she was directionless, friendless, and desperately trying to find a way to make up for her past actions, all the while she walked the world without a purpose anymore.
She didn't deserve what was coming to her. None of them did.
…Razor didn't want to think about it anymore.
So yeah, the bombing of the troop inspection came to pass, Razor led Weiss and Ciel down to the cliffside hanger bay, his former teammates followed, they met Leadpipe, and, well, here they were, here he was...
Putting stun rounds into Weiss and Ciel, and watching them drop unconscious to the ground.
"What are you-" Leadpipe didn't get any chance to finish his sentence as Razor sent a stun round into him. Blue and yellow electricity danced across the Techion as he let out a yelp of surprise before he dropped to the ground, flinching slightly before falling still. To the side, he heard sharp movements, wet splatters, and the sounds of screams cut short, and looked to the side to see-
There was Yang, splayed out onto the ground as blood leaked out from both the front and back of her torso and pooled onto the ground, the lights across her arms and back flicked off as the blade that went through her spine shut off her artificial nervous system, leaving her without any motion function, without any ability to move her limbs. Next to her was Rancor and Omega, laid out still on the ground, blood seeping through their broken armour and from the stumps that used to be their necks, their heads rolled away on the ground and draining crimson onto the ground. Above them, their attacker ran their blade across their forearm to clean it of blood, and sent him a look.
"Are you okay?"
"You didn't have to kill them," Razor couldn't help but mutter.
"No witnesses."
"What difference would that make? They would already know we'd turned against them anyway."
His partner kicked Yang, who let out a low groan of pain, "She's alive," for now went unsaid.
"You... fucking traitors..." Yang got out through sharp breaths, but was ignored as his partner ignored and stepped over them.
"Don't tell me you're getting emotionally attached to them."
"No," he lied.
"Hunter."
All of a sudden, he hated that name, "You aren't?" Razor asked, gesturing to the prone Leadpipe beneath him.
Silence was the answer.
Hypocrite.
"Let's just get them onboard," his partner said as they began to drag Weiss and Leadpipe to the Bullhead next to them.
Razor shot them a look through his helmet, "Even Leadpipe," once again, he received no answer.
He should've come clean weeks ago. Months ago, in fact. He should've marched up to Goodwitch, or Rainart, or even Malachite or Rose. He should've told Jaune back before he'd been taken off to Atlas, and instead of giving him that stupid advice about being assertive or whatever the fuck he'd been talking about, just come clean and told him everything that he needed to help bring down the Outcasts and Acolytes once and for all, and-
A hand grabbed his foot.
Ciel. She wasn't quite unconscious.
A glowing pair clock hands on the palm of her hands came into existence, and began to spin.
No.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-
His mind began to split apart, break apart, flay and destroy itself. He wailed in pain.
The wail of a man became a teenager.
The wail of a teenager became a child.
The wail of a child became an infant.
And then the wail of an infant became nothing.
Darkness.
Silence.
Death.
"We're just about to get the cameras working again, and I've sent a squad to secure the hanger bay down below."
Melanie skidded across the wet shard beneath her, her heels digging into the glass and leaving deep scratches in them as she halted and righted themselves. The Mastermind let out a loud screech as it leapt from platform to platform after her, sending strings of bioelectricity (of which she absorbed) and torrents of Grimm matter vomit (of which she dodged) at her before it jumped up, swung its jagged metal club down, and shattered her platform into a thousand pieces.
"Good," she said over the comms to the main tower in Beacon as she jumped onto a desiccated metal platform next to her. She reached for some more throwing knives on her wrists and-
Damn, out of knives.
She pulled her pistols from their holsters, aimed them at the Mastermind, and-
Damn, out of ammo as well.
She holstered the empty guns with a growl and surged forward, rearing one of her hands back, balling it into a fist, and-
The Mastermind swatted her out of the air with its bat and sent her crashing into the water. Melanie let out a roar of anger underneath her helmet as she swam up to the surface and clambered onto a large shard of metal, made from rows of broken computer consoles. With a crack of her neck, she-
{SLAM}
{FIZZLE}
-Punched her hand into one of the shattered monitors and let the electricity within shock her, her semblance absorbing the energy into herself as she shot the Mastermind another glare.
The Mastermind roared and charged forward once more.
Once more it swung its club down, and once more Melanie parried it, sending the beast stumbling back a step and allowing Melanie to force all her aura and semblance into her closed fist and land a bludgeoning punch into its leg. She heard the sound of bone breaking underneath as the Mastermind's kneecap shattered, blood and gore spraying over both her and the Mastermind, red and black covering the surface of the water around them. The Mastermind screeched and tried to swat her away with its immolated hand, but Melanie vaulted over the offending arm and send a ball of fire from the palm of her hand into the centre of the hybrid's head, its gigantic eye.
The ball of cyan fire impacted the creature's eye, right in the pupil. The Mastermind let out a screech of pain as the brain matter spread across its back fired off bolts of electricity like synapses, sending bolts of bioelectricity flinging across the battlefield as Melanie jumped back, only to notice the limp in her leg. She must've injured it in the fight.
It was only when the Mastermind was reeling back and trying to nurse its wounded eye with its burnt, fingerless hand that Melanie realised just how winded she was from this fight. She was tired, bruised, bloody, out of ammo and blades, and out of steam and will to keep going.
She needed to end this fight, and she needed to do it now.
She spared a glance to the side to see Ruby and Jaune still bogged down by the half-breed Disciples, fighting an unending tide of screaming hybrids. However, that didn't stop Melanie from pinging Ruby over their helmet radios and going, "Ruby, I need a flash!"
"On it!" Ruby said as she whirled her head around to face the Mastermind and lifted up her helmet-
{FWOOSH}
-A bright wash of silver light flowing from her good eye and into the Mastermind, causing it to scream loudly as the three platforms made from Grimm matter around it turned to stone and sunk to the bottom of the Wishing Well lake, disintegrating as it did.
Super convinient, Silver-Eyed Warriors. Always handy to have one around.
Unfortunately, that didn't stop the unstable hybrid as it stayed knelt down on the ground, dropping the club in its hand so that it could peel the jagged bone off its body with its only good hand, groaning with pain as the stone, born from its own body, pulled off strands and entire sections of muscle and gore alongside it, leaving the unearthed sections of its skin looking like chopped meat as the peeled skin left rivers of black and red blood leaking out of fields of gored skin.
But, in the few seconds that it did so, Melanie had an idea.
Silver-Eyed Warriors shot out beams of energy, made from the powers of the God of Light himself.
And her semblance could absorb energy.
"Ruby, I need you to shoot me a flash! Directly on me!"
Ahead of her, the Mastermind had given up trying to peel the slabs of stone grown into its skin like chitin and reared its head back to her, its two faces sneering at her.
"What?! Why?!"
"Trust me!"
Ruby didn't hesitate again. As the Mastermind picked up its club and charged forward, the red and black-haired girl lifted up her helmet, shot a beam of silver light directly at Melanie, and-
She felt like an angel.
As her semblance absorbed the unearthly energies of a Silver-Eyed Warrior, even as the excessive amounts of energy within her began to burn her skin under her armour and break apart the artificial nervous system that gave her control of her arms, Melanie felt no pain, no hurt, no anger, nothing of the sort.
She felt warm, like she was covered in a thick blanket on a cold winter's day, laying down by the fireplace. Or like she was sinking into a warm bath, washing all the sins away from her like dirt.
She couldn't help but close her eyes for just a second as she suddenly felt at peace, warm, blessed, beloved by the world as her mind was enraptured by the ethereal feeling of being part of something larger than herself. It was as if the world was melting away, and all her problems and dilemmas had slunk away into the darkness where they deserved to be. It felt like a being of pure light had enraptured her, planting kisses on her lips and body and whispering sweet reassurances into her ears, leading her into a brighter future and granting her the pleasures of life that went beyond the silly needs of flesh and into existence itself.
It was holy. It was godly. It was beautiful.
Then she heard a roar, and remembered where she was.
She opened her eyes (one a bright glowing blue, the other a luminescent silver), and leapt forward.
The Mastermind rushed forward with a limb and swung its club down. Melanie parried it with a sudden effortlessness, a web of silver rock growing across its arm. The Mastermind stumbled back, and Melanie rushed forward, silver rock spreading across its chest like a spiderweb.
And as the Mastermind stumbled back and collapsed onto its gored knee, pressed down under the weight of the rock and mineral growing across it, Melanie used her semblance to boost herself up into the air-
"Did you forget who I am?"
-And pushed all of the surging energy through her and into the fins on her back.
Just like during the Initiation Massacre, around the Grimm Tidings and against the Brother of Darkness, one of the two Brothers Grimm of the Ascendant Court, the energies flowing from her back resembled angel wings.
She balled one of her hands into a fist, the knuckleduster gauntlet forming around it as her voice became unearthly, like an angel of war. Her voice became something else, something other, something godly.
"I am Melanie Malachite!"
In a rush, she threw herself downward, landed on the head of the Mastermind, knocking it back. She clasped the rubbery and toothy flesh around the Mastermind's massive eye that was its eyelid with her free hand and threw her fist back as it burnt with cyan and silver light, before launching it right into the eye of the Mastermind and piercing through the skin, right in the pupil.
The Mastermind screamed as blood wept from its eye and bubbled around her boiling fist, and reached its hands up to grab at her, but Melanie didn't let that happen.
She pushed all the energies into her hand.
And then-
"I!"
-She let it-
"Am!"
-BURN.
"THE GOD KILLER!"
All of the energy within her, collected electricity and the unearthly energies of a Silver-Eyed Warrior, flowed out of her fist and into the beast, filling its veins with the spiritual will of a god and burning all the unholiness within them. The Mastermind let out a bellowing roar as it began to split apart, the Grimm matter within its burning away into a cloud of dust as Melanie's armour began to singe and melt and burn, flaking off and glowing with heat, melting into slag as the Mastermind screamed in pain.
Around her, the platforms made of both Grimm matter and Human flesh disintegrated, fading away into clouds of dust as the stretched Human meat within them remained floating in the water. Same with the hybrid Disciples, their forms collapsing and falling apart as the Grimm matter turned to dust and the rotting meat and bones fell into the water, spreading webs of blood out into the water as all the life in them faded away.
A wash of blue and silver light flowed from Melanie as she killed the Mastermind, the fowl beast letting out an equally fowl roar as it fell apart, pieces of meat falling off its bones as the Grimm matter holding it together faded away. Torrents of red blood fell from its body in a water fall as it died, its stretched skin sloughing away like an old coat as it collapsed onto both its knees, the stone on its body falling off and sinking to the floor as its dual faces melted away into red sludge and black dust. The metal inside its body clanged off the floor beneath them alongside the shards of bone as the tendril-like tongues in the mouths across its potbelly stomach wriggled and writhed in the air, all before falling still and melting into red puss and gore on the floor. Purple sludge hissed and steamed like acid before it faded into sharp violet mist. The beast continued to writhe and twitch and scream as its cries became gurgled and bubbled like froth...
Until finally, it fell still, and silent.
Melanie felt the energies within her leave her form (her eyes turned from blue and silver back to olive green) as she fell to the ground, letting out a loud {CLANG} as the boiled metal that covered her hissed and cooled in the endless rain from above. She found the energy within herself, having lost all motion in her arms from the artificial nervous system in them burning up (Velvet did warn her about that, she remembered), to tilt her head to the side to see the remains of the Mastermind, a mutilated skeleton with strings and clumps of red meat hanging to it, slump off the smooth platform, slick with rainwater and blood, and sink down into the lake below, all the way down to the bottom.
Thus ended the tale of Arthur Watts.
…
She should be happy that Watts was dead. She should be jubilant, ecstatic even. She should be cheering for the death of her enemy, for having avenged those who died in the auditorium, for wiping the smug look off Watts' face and giving him his rightful punishment, that being the death he so thoroughly deserved.
But she didn't.
She couldn't.
All she could think to herself, all she could say to herself was, "Find peace, DJ," as she began to slip into unconsciousness, not having the energy within her to even give an eulogy to their departed comrade.
And then, as Jaune and Ruby leapt over platform after platform in the waters of the lake and rushed to her side, Melanie heard flickers of talk over her broken, malfunctioning radio.
"Just got-" {FZZZZZ} "-Cameras online-" {FZZZZZ} "-Hanger bay and-" {FZZZZZ} "-Wait a minute..."
"W-What?"
"It's-" {FZZZZZ} "-Betrayal."
A pause, and then:
"It's-" {FZZZZZ} "-She's betraying us."
The last perpetrator of the troop inspection bombing loaded the last body, Ciel Soleli, onto the Bullhead, stomping hard on her head to knock her out before she could do the same thing she'd done to Razor to her. Just when she was about to close the doors to the Bullhead's hold, she was stopped when a squad of White Guardsmen ran into the hanger bay, weapons armed and loaded.
"Hey!" one of them yelled - another grabbing Yang's still breathing body and rushing her out of the hanger bay and down the adjacent corridor - only to be silenced when she aimed her pistol at his head and let a blue bolt of light fly through the air, right into the lens of his helmet and sending him flying back, dead before he hit the floor. The other Guardsmen retaliated by sending rounds of blue light into the Bullhead, only for her to seal the doors to the Bullhead and enter the cockpit.
Soon enough, the Bullhead was lifted off, under fire from a dozen guns, and she let its cannons roar. Green beams of light shot into the soldiers as they tried to spread themselves out across the hanger bay, only to be wiped out by heavy firepower as the Bullhead shot at both them and all the ships inside, punching holes in as many ships as it could and destroying many more, filling the hanger bay with death and fire.
And then, it turned itself around and began to fly away, to the city below. Behind them, several anti-air cannons, probably manned now thanks to the battling after the bombing, turned their guns towards the Bullhead and began to spit angry red tracer fire at the ship, only for the girl controlling it to weave around the incoming fire and dodge all of it.
And then, as she continued to fly, she pulled something out of her pocket.
A detonator.
She pressed down on the flashing red button in its centre, and let the charges that she'd been spreading out across Beacon in the time before she'd slit Neon's threat detonate.
In Beacon, the explosives began to detonate and blossom like flowers into fireballs. Several locations, such as the armoury, the barracks, anti-air cannons, vehicle repair bays and depos, and even the CCT and comms towers (across the academy, everyone heard the screams of all those inside the tower as they died, immolated by heat and flame), were consumed by fire and smoke, flinging metal and bodies across the ground and triggering further explosions that spread columns of fire and smoke across the reconverted campus.
She didn't look back to it, flying to the city below as Beacon was consumed by flames.
Melanie saw it all from down below, in the Wishing Well lake far below the old school.
As Beacon was shrouded in smoke and fire, and as the Bullhead flew away to the city below, she gave one last order.
"Hunt... them... down..."
And then she slipped away, into darkness.
Leadpipe groaned as he began to wake up, looking to the cockpit of the shuddering Bullhead and to who was piloting it.
His breath escaped his synthetic throat. His eyes, under the visor of his helmet, widened at the sudden betrayal.
"B-Bla-"
He didn't get another word in as the traitor of Beacon Academy silenced him by aiming her pistol at him and-
The blond-haired, red-eyed man known as Ghira Oscura looked down at his wife, Kali Oscura, and smiled.
"Her name should be Kira."
Blake Belladonna had another name.
Kira Oscura.
And she hated it.
Soundtrack:
Main themes:
Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Q by Calliope Mori and Gura
Let You Down by David Podsiadlo
I Really Want To Stay At Your House by Rosa Walton
Who's Ready For Tomorrow By RAT BOY and IBDY
No Save Point by Yankee and the Brave (Run the Jewels)
4ÆM by Grimes
Beacon Militia:
Feed the Machine by Poor Man's Poison
High Command/Big Three (Jaune, Melanie, Ruby):
King by Ironmouse
This Fffire by Franz Ferdinand
Misfit Toys by Pusha T and Mako
Wolf Totem by The HU (feat. Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach
Metamorphosis by Yugen Blakrok and Gorgon Madonna
Jaune Arc:
Cruel World by Phantogram
Providence by Poor Man's Poison
Sarcasm by Get Scared
Melanie Malachite:
The Thief and the Moon by Shawn James
Necessary Evil by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Hollow Mind by Eminence and Q'AILA
Ruby Rose:
She Who Brings Gifts by Christopher Tapia de Veer
Eyes on You by Shurk
Firestarter by Torre Florim
Chosen One by Valley of Wolves
Neon Katt:
Wanted Dead or Alive (cover) by Empara Mi
Devil's Price by Poor Man's Poison
Nora Valkyrie:
Hell's Comin' with Me by Poor Man's Poison
War Child by Hollywood Undead
Yang Xiao Long:
The Forgotten Song (cover) by Nanashi Mumei
Leadpipe:
Friends with the Enemy by Poor Man's Poison
Ciel Soleli:
Secret by the Pierces
Only Getting Younger by Elliphant and Skrillex (Leviathan remix)
Weiss Schnee:
I Need a Friend by James Arthur
DJ:
Far from Any Road by The Handsome Family
Ozpin:
Fractured Minds theme song
Hephaestus (the Tinkerer):
The Bad Guy by Omega Sparx and SWATS
Destiny 2 Darkness Theme Remix by ToxikTyson
Blake Belladonna:
Who Are You, Really? by Mikky Ekko
Animal in Me by Solence
Esper Fyre:
Murder by Soulji
Razor Azure:
All Eyes on You by Smash Into Pieces
Arthur Watts:
Evil by Interpol
Ego by Willy William
Reviewer response time:
MilitiaMasker: Wow, that's a pretty dep way of going about it... huh.
Someguy2000: Honestly, it was the general usage of Jaune Arc as a main character in a lot of the FNDM's best fanfiction stories that prompted me to use Jaune as one of the main characters. Plus how easy he slot into the roll as well. Plus plus, it helps that he's one of my favourite characters due to how much he struggles and how he evolves and grows from it, especially considering the more... recent happenings in the show.
Saint Lazarus: Aw, thank you! It's nice to know that you think so highly of this fic!
Someguy2000 (again): That's a lot of things to consider, and I'm glad that you did! Truth be told, I haven't actually considered that much of what you've talked about, despite me writing it, so thanks a lot for that! It's something I'll need to think about in the future.
MilitiaMasker: If you think I'm stopping at freaky Grimm zombies, then you ain't seen nothing yet, son.
smolhauz: I do love writing grotesque gore and war! (though that doesn't mean that I'm good at watching or seeing it, of course... I'm squeamish, okay? One time in science class I had to go outside for half an hour before I almost threw up at the sight of everyone dissecting pig hearts.)
Baneis: Thanks, it's good to be back!
Saint Lazarus (again): Yay, thank you! Ruby is both a joy and a pain to write, so thanks for the kind words!
N-Lorin: Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm going to keep it up. I think of it as a sort of original sin, so I feel like it's better to have it up for everyone to see rather than just cut it out and delete it from existence. I put a little forewarning before the author's note of that chapter where the rant is, so I think it should be all good now.
This is it. This is one of the biggest moments in Ascendancy's story that I have been waiting for, been eager for, been building towards it for so very long.
Show of hands as to who was surprised!
…
What, really, no one? Damn.
Oh well. Next time I want to put a twist in, I'll put in no foreshadowing at all. None whatsoever.
Anyway, it all began with a simple question:
What if Blake Belladonna never left the White Fang?
In the beginning, when I was first writing Ascendancy, getting my boots on the ground and getting a feel for the sort of story that I actually wanted to tell, I didn't have anything in the way of plans. Everything was off the top of my head and the seat of my pants. I was just writing as I went, and as such, I didn't have anything in the way of grand plans and narrative beats that I wanted to show off. Just a general premise and a few rough ideas.
That's all changed now, but at the time I had no idea what to do with a lot of the characters that I had made, especially the main original cast (except for Jaune and Ruby), and particularly the likes of Weiss, Yang, and for this particular beat in the story, Blake. They had their potential for the story, yeah, but I wasn't focused on them. I was more focused on bringing side characters like Melanie, Neon, and Miltia into the forefront and giving them new characterisations and arcs and stories over the original cast.
However, when I begun to think of this part of the story, I got the idea of this arc and there being a traitor in Beacon. My first thought was for it to just be Razor, and have Blake confess her past in the White Fang (at that time, the concept of Faunus Houses hadn't embedded themselves into my mind. I was doing a lot of rewriting and reediting back in the early days of Ascendancy) and have it be done with.
But then that question suddenly came into my mind.
What if Blake Belladonna never left the White Fang?
It's a fascinating question, and it's one that I don't think enough people have been asking themselves and writing stories about.
And so, I decided to take a crack at it, and, well, here we are.
Blake Belladonna has changed from a small side character in this story to one of its central antagonists, and I can't wait for you to see what I've made of her and the things that she'll do in the future, both to the story, to the people around her, and then to herself.
On the other side, how's the recent episodes of RWBY been treating you, because oh man... wow, it hurts. It hurts so much.
I have to agree with those that say that the content warnings at the beginning of the last two episodes wasn't enough, because holy shit I was not ready.
Leave your thoughts in the reviews and comments, and with all that said and done, please follow and favourite, share your thoughts and feelings, and I shall see you all next time!
Titanmaster 117 out!