Behind the Wall
Sunset stared at it. So far away and yet so large. How huge was it? What did it look like up close?
She wasn't sure that she really wanted to know the answer to that.
A dragon. A grimm dragon, she was almost certain, even at this distance. A real dragon would have been almost as bad, or perhaps even worse, but she was certain — as certain as she could be, at any rate — that this was a grimm. It was too black, and too white besides, to be anything else, a dragon — at least the dragons of Equestria — would not be so mismatched in its colour scheme.
A dragon. A grimm dragon. Sunset had seen the bones in Mistral when Pyrrha had brought them there, but she hadn't really thought about what they might mean, that just as you had beowolves and ursai sprung out of wolves and bears, so, too, you could have … this.
Sunset stared at it, rooted to the spot not with fear — it made her nervous to see such a thing, but it was as yet too far away to be truly scary, at least too far to induce the kind of fear that would hold her in place — but with a sort of hopelessness. What could she do against something that size? What would she be but a light aperitif for it? What power of hers could match such size, and the strength that would go along with it? When it drew near, and she beheld in all its gargantuan size and truly comprehended her insignificance by comparison, what power could she set against it?
What, then, was the point? What could she do, where could she go?
What move could she make that would make the slightest bit of difference?
There was a light. A bright, brilliant white light, closer to her than the dragon by far. It was Weiss' ghostly beowolf, and Weiss herself upon its back, as it leapt over the shattered gates and into the grounds of the power plant.
The summoned, spectral beowolf bounded across the open, tarmacked space towards Sunset, turning aside at the last minute and coming to a brisk halt before her. Weiss leapt from the beowolf's back, and the ghostly form began to dissolve, just as a grimm itself might, leaving nothing behind it but wisps of white ectoplasm that floated through the air a few feet before they vanished from view.
Weiss stood before Sunset, not even remotely beginning to block out her view of the grimm dragon as it flew from Mountain Glenn northwest towards Vale.
She turned, facing the same direction as Sunset, both of them now looking at the same thing.
"Do you know what it is?" Weiss asked.
"A very large grimm," Sunset said.
"Obviously," Weiss snapped. "But … it looks as though its coming from — it is coming from the southeast. From Mountain Glenn." She glanced at Sunset. "Did you—?"
"No, I didn't see it!" It was Sunset's turn to snap now. "If I had…"
If I had, we might not have made it back?
If Salem had this all along, why didn't she use it back then?
Because it wouldn't have fit down the tunnel, I suppose.
It could have flown over the tunnel.
Because … because this attack is more important to her? Because this is the big push? Because she absolutely needs to win here, and so she's pulling out all the stops? But why? Why now? What's so important about right this moment that she's willing to throw the kitchen sink at us when she didn't before?
Sunset licked her lips. Don't … don't tell me that Cinder was telling the truth. The truth about Amber.
Don't tell me that she really has betrayed us, and that she's going to give the Relic up to Salem.
That … that would explain going all out, wouldn't it?
"Sunset?" Weiss asked, her voice intruding into Sunset's thoughts. "Sunset!"
"What?" Sunset asked, shaking her head a little. "Yes, what?"
"Yes," Weiss said. "What?" Her voice dropped a little. "What do we do?"
"You're asking me?" Sunset demanded. "I…"
I don't know. How should I know? I've got no idea. What are we supposed to do against something like that? I mean, have you seen the size of it? If that's what it looks like so far away, then what do you think it looks like when it gets closer?
"Hit me again," Sunset said.
Weiss raised one eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"Slap me again, come on, I need you to knock some thoughts out of my head," Sunset told her.
Weiss' eyes narrowed, and she hesitated for a second, before doing as Sunset asked and slapping her across the cheek a second time. The blow stung, but not as badly as it had done before; it was as though—
Huh. My aura's coming back.
Assuming Weiss didn't just break it again.
Nevertheless, though her aura was creeping back like a cat slinking back home after a weekend in the seedy, swinging back-alleys, Weiss' blow still stung. Which was good; that was what Sunset had wanted.
Even as she rubbed her cheek with one white-gloved hand, her mind felt a little clearer now than it had done before, the shock of the dragon's sudden, dramatic appearance in the sky above fading, or knocked out of her, just as Sunset had wished.
Yes, her mind felt clearer now; she could think … not about what to actually do about that thing, beyond hope that someone else could kill it, but she could think clearly enough to not be rooted to the spot just by its mere appearance.
Nothing had changed but the presence of one more grimm. Pyrrha, Penny, Jaune, Ruby, everyone else was still fighting, somewhere, out beyond the city walls; the grimm were still attacking Vale; Amber might have betrayed them to Salem.
Flash was still badly wounded, up on the Atlesian medical frigate.
Councillor Emerald too; they might still be operating on him, or they might, if he was lucky, have gotten the bullet, and he was now in recovery somewhere up on that ship.
Either way, he'd been wounded too, shot for the love of his country.
Sunset was no less bound to do what she could than when she had leapt from the medical frigate. Just because there was a new, larger, more powerful grimm about tonight, that didn't really change anything.
"I think," Sunset said as she looked at the grimm dragon once more. It was headed towards Vale, getting larger in her sight. Not much larger, not yet, but there was already a perceptible change from when it had first emerged out of the mountain. "I think," she repeated, "that the time has come for us to join the battle outside the walls."
"Are you sure?" asked Weiss. "There might still be work we can do here."
"Perhaps," Sunset allowed. "But … if that thing reaches the battle lines outside the city—"
"Then Atlas will stop it," Weiss declared, with absolute and unwavering certainty in her voice.
Sunset snorted. "If you're such an Atlesian patriot, then why aren't you an Atlas student?"
"For … personal reasons," Weiss replied. "It doesn't mean I don't have a healthy respect for the power at General Ironwood's command, his ships, his weapons. To deal with such large grimm is why we have large guns."
"Hmm, maybe," Sunset replied, as she started to walk — briskly, forcing Weiss to almost run to keep up with her on her little legs — out of the power plant and towards her bike. "But, well, that would be good, if we got there and that thing had been blown up by some missiles or whatever, but if not—"
"If not, then you have a plan?" Weiss suggested.
"What?" Sunset asked. "No! I've got no idea what to do about that thing. But…" She thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. "Now that my aura is coming back, now that I can be more of a help than a hindrance, now that I don't have to worry about anyone needing to protect me in my aura-less state … and now that this thing has upped the ante so dramatically, I would face this peril with them than cower any longer behind these walls."
"Well, when you put it like that, you make it hard to stay away," Weiss murmured. "Alright, then, we'll go together, out onto the battlefield." She put one hand upon her hip. "We will prevail, you know. As large as that grimm seems, even from here, we will bring it down."
"We as in Atlas?"
"We as in someone," Weiss said. "One of us, one of our friends, an Atlesian warship, someone fighting to defend Vale, someone on this battlefield, someone will bring it down." A corner of her lip twitched upwards. "There'll be no need for you to join your friends inside the belly of that monster."
Sunset blinked. "What makes you think—?"
"You have that sort of personality," Weiss said. "A bit too melodramatic, and a little too deeply attached."
"You don't know me well enough to say that!"
"You overestimate how much of an enigma you are if you think you're hard to know," Weiss replied. "How long did it take you to get over your boyfriend again?"
"That is…" Sunset trailed off, because as annoying as it was, Weiss had her bang to rights. Mostly. "Do you really think there's such a thing as an unhealthy attachment? Is it not a good thing that we should love and cherish one another?"
"Not to the exclusion of all else," Weiss said.
Sunset shrugged. "Well, anyway," she replied. "Whence comes this optimism on your part?"
"When my grandfather looked at the state of Mantle after the Great War, it must have seemed incredible that any one man could lift this beaten kingdom, broken by war and tyranny and revolution, up out of the mire of despair and make of it not just a great kingdom but the greatest kingdom," Weiss said. "How could one man do all of that, reverse the tides of history by his efforts? But he did; with the sweat of his brow and the work of his hands and the strength of his spirit, he lifted Atlas on his back and hoisted all our greatness. When we put our minds to it, we can do anything."
Sunset didn't reply to that; she imagined that it might have stirred something in Blake or Rainbow Dash, but while it didn't exactly bounce off her soul, it wasn't something that she found hugely inspiring either.
Still, it was good to be optimistic, and so she didn't say anything against Weiss or her attitude either as they clambered over the tangle of cars that had smashed through the power plant gates and made their way back through the detritus of the battle.
Through the bodies that the battle had left behind.
It wasn't something they could take care of right now, but hopefully, someone, at some point, would come to take all these people away.
Hopefully, someone would think to arrange it, at some point soon.
Sunset looked at Weiss. "How's your police captain? Did you get her to a hospital?"
"She's a lieutenant," Weiss corrected her. "Although if almost dying in the line of duty isn't enough to get you a promotion, I'm not sure what is. Yes, I got her to a hospital; she's … I hope she'll be alright. They were taking care of her when I left, but I didn't stay to see how … I couldn't say. Lieutenant Martinez wouldn't want me to hang around outside her room while they were performing surgery. She'd want me to be out here, or even out on the battlefield. She'd want me to be somewhere, doing something. It's not like I could help her get better by my presence." She paused. "But that's another reason why we — why someone — will stop that grimm: because we have to. Because if we don't, then the Lieutenant will be torn to pieces in her hospital, and it won't matter a damn what I did to get her to a doctor. I refuse to let that happen."
They reached Sunset's bike, and Sunset grabbed her helmet and pulled it on over her head as the two of them climbed aboard. She felt Weiss' hands around her waist as she started up the bike, skidding it around on the ground as the engine hummed.
Turning her motorcycle around so that it was facing towards Vale, Sunset could see — again — the dragon in the sky above. It was still getting closer, only now … now, she could see flashes of light in the sky around it, or at least, she thought that they were around it. Green flashes, and some red, and lights in the sky like twinkling stars. Or explosions. Was someone shooting at the dragon already? Was it the Atlesians, like Weiss had said?
Sunset's helmet blocked out a lot of sound, but not all of it, and Weiss was sufficiently close by, sitting behind Sunset with her arms around Sunset's waist, that Sunset could hear her muttering from behind her.
"Come on. Come on, get it done."
Yes. Yes, do it. Kill it. Destroy it. Bring it down. Take care of it before we get there.
Make good all that boasting.
It didn't seem to be the big airships firing — Sunset thought that she could see them elsewhere in the sky, distinguished by the lights on their hulls and by the immense quantities of visible fire pouring out of them as lasers and missiles hammered the ground below or exploded in the sky above. It wasn't them, but maybe it was the smaller airships, the fighters or whatever, maybe they were engaging the dragon already.
Maybe they would take it out far from Vale, before it ever became a problem.
They could only hope, as Sunset pulled down her visor and started to accelerate her motorcycle.
She pulled away, leaving the power plant — and all the destruction that the Grimm cultists and the Valish Defence Force had wrought there — behind.
Heading instead towards the walls of Vale and to the battle that was raging beyond, hoping that the dragon would be gone before they got there.
As they rode through the streets, it seemed that those hopes might be in vain.
When Sunset had driven Councillor Emerald through the Valish streets from his residence towards the command centre, the streets had been clear; when Sunset had driven through the streets towards the airship crash that had turned out to contain Weiss, the streets had been clear; even when she and Weiss had driven towards this power plant, the streets had been clear. The curfew imposed by General Blackthorn, the confusion and fear that this whole mad situation generated, it had all combined to keep people off the streets and in their homes, leaving the roads wide open for Sunset's motorcycle to roam whither she would, as fast as she could. But now, the roads and streets were beginning to, not fill up again — that would have been an exaggeration — but they were beginning to be less empty than they had been before.
And the dragon was responsible. Though Sunset's helmet muffled the sound, she was still able to hear the dragon's roars, even at this great but shrinking distance, carrying all the way from beyond Vale into the city itself. How much louder they would have sounded if she hadn't had the helmet on, how loud they sounded to Weiss sat behind her, Sunset didn't know, but she did know that the roaring was doing what the sounds of battle, the Atlesian missiles exploding and the guns firing, what none of the rest of it could do and bringing people out of their houses.
Perhaps it helped, or didn't help, that the city seemed so much safer now than it had been; that the Councillor Emerald had proclaimed the resolution of the nasty business with General Blackthorn, that most of the city was now free of Grimm cultists, that all the trouble now seemed to lie beyond the walls, not within.
In any case, as Sunset and Weiss rode through the streets, Sunset noticed more and more lights turning on in the houses that lined the roadside, lights turning on in the tall apartment blocks that climbed towards the sky, lights in the terraces and the red brick townhouses, lights everywhere that had been kept off or concealed behind the drapes as people who had huddled in their homes and waited for the dawn now found a little courage to demonstrate their presence to their neighbours and the world.
The lights came on, and the doors opened, and people in dressing gowns and slippers, in faded jeans and fraying trainers, in old T-shirts and Vytal shirts of this year or of some years' past came stumbling out into the streets to turn their eyes with gasps of horror towards the great dragon that was getting larger and larger as it headed inexorably towards Vale.
There were people on the rooftops of the apartment buildings as well — Sunset could see them when she looked up — and like the people down in the streets below, they were pointing, probably gasping too, all of them staring in shock as the dragon came closer.
But it was the people in the street that bothered Sunset. They were blocking her way, whereas before, she had been able to race through Vale unimpeded, now, she had to crawl along at barely greater than walking speed, or slow down so much that it was actually quicker and easier to get off and walk the bike than to try and keep her balance while going so slow, or else there was no way forward at all, and she had to try and find another way around through a street that wasn't half obstructed by gawping people spilling out of doors.
"Get out of the way!" Sunset shouted at them. "Go back inside, clear the road! Stop…" She searched for a form of words that would make what they were doing sound suitably heinous that they would be shamed into stopping it. "Stop obstructing the King's Highway!"
They didn't take any notice. Not a blind bit; no matter how much she raged at them, they barely seemed to listen at all. Well, okay, that wasn't entirely fair; some people shuffled out of the way and let them pass, all the while staring — either at Weiss on the back of her bike, or else at her bike itself because everyone seemed to have an opinion upon that these days. Perhaps they even recognised Sunset, although she was wearing a helmet, so that would be difficult. But some — a precious few, a precious and well-regarded few for whom she was very grateful — moved aside and cleared the middle of the road to let them pass. But not enough, not nearly enough.
Vale was a big city. Sunset had heard the story — Dove had told it, with a degree of chagrin, after Amber had prompted him to tell it again one evening when they were all hanging out — about how Dove, country boy that he was, had once tried to walk clean from one end of the city to the other, convinced that it couldn't possibly be as big as all that. He had failed — and failed quite badly by the sounds of it — because it turned out that, yeah, actually, Vale really was that big. In terms of sprawling size, it was bigger than Mistral or Atlas, although both of them built down as well as across, and it might have taken some time to get across the city all the way to the wall — and then beyond — in any case, even if she'd been able to race straight there at top speed.
As she wasn't able to race straight there at top speed because of all these people in the way, it might take a little while.
The worst part might be that she couldn't even really blame all of these people for blocking the road, because with the dragon roaring and snarling and shrieking too and flying towards Vale, getting closer all the time towards Vale, she couldn't blame the people of Vale for being concerned, for coming out, for wanting to know what that sound was and what was going on.
Sunset was concerned herself.
And it wasn't helping that the dragon seemed to be blowing through all resistance to its triumphant progress. The lights of green and red that had lit up the sky were gone, the flashes of explosions that had twinkled in the night like brief stars had faded, and the dragon had kept on coming. Then it had been the turn of the Atlesian airships to light up the night sky, their red lasers burning through the dark, and again, Sunset had heard Weiss whispering beside her, her words reaching beyond Sunset's helmet as she urged on the Atlesian air power to victory.
Her words were vain, as Sunset's hopes were vain, as all the Atlesian firepower was vain as they watched the dragon … it was hard to make out the details exactly, but the Atlesian firepower, their crimson laser beams that lit up the night, began to fade from view, wink out of sight, replace by great explosions blossoming in the darkness.
And Sunset could still see the dragon, larger still though still so far off from her as to seem like a toy, like an expensive toy like Bramble's Amity Colosseum that Councillor Emerald had brought for him — just as the real Amity Arena seemed like just such a toy as it hung in the skies over Beacon — still, it was visible, and larger than it had been.
If it was in amongst the Atlesian airships, then it must be close now, no? It must be so close that it was right over the battlefield, unless the Atlesian warships had ventured out beyond their own lines to engage it, and even then, they wouldn't have ventured very far.
It was close now.
It was closer to Sunset's friends than she was, stuck in Vale as she was, trapped by the crowds as she was.
Trapped as she was by the crowds that seemed to be growing more fearful by the moment.
Someone has to do something, Sunset thought, but who? Who could speak to these people? Who could calm them down?
Not her, certainly; who was she to them, a mere huntress, not even that, a mere student huntress, a girl, someone they might have seen on the television in the four on four round of the Vytal Tournament, someone whose name they might have caught on the news.
Someone they might remember had only lately been accused of putting the whole city at risk.
She wasn't Councillor Emerald, or any other elected official, or Professor Ozpin or some such trusted figure of authority, to address them, to bid them be calm, to ask them to go back inside and wait for everything to come right again.
As much to the point, even if she wanted to stop and get on a soapbox, unless she planned to turn away from her journey to the wall — their journey to the wall, for Weiss was here too — and travel around the city instead addressing crowds wherever she found them, then the most she could do was affect the small number of people in front of her at the moment, blocking the roads.
That wasn't likely to change the mood in the whole city, and it might not even change the mood in this one street if she couldn't find the words.
Yes, it wasn't good that there was what felt like an increasing amount of fear out on the streets of Vale tonight, but considering that there was already a massive grimm attack aimed at the city, it was hard to see how fear could make things worse.
The best thing that Sunset and Weiss could do for all these frightened people was not to tell them to calm down, but to get out onto the battlefield and join the fight, because if the grimm broke through the defenders, then whether the people of Vale were scared or not probably wouldn't make a lot of difference to the outcome.
So they kept on going, heading towards the edge of Vale as fast as frightened crowds and the engine of Sunset's bike would carry them. In the meantime, as they travelled, the dragon dropped in and out of sight, swooping down beneath the walls of Vale that loomed in front of them. Sunset wondered what it was doing, only to find to her discomfort that it didn't take a great deal of imagination to conjure up the dragon bearing down upon the battlefield with claws and teeth and that terrible weapon that leapt from its mouth, the weapon that they had seen lighting up the night sky, the dragon unleashing fire to rival the lasers of the Atlesian warships.
And now, that fire, and that strength, all the power that had smashed airships and torn through all opposition in the sky was no doubt being turned upon Sunset's friends on the ground. On Blake and Rainbow Dash; on Pyrrha, Penny, Jaune, Ruby. On the Atlesians and the Beacon students and the Haven students and the Shade students and the Valish Defence Force and anyone else who might be unlucky enough to still be out there.
It was unleashed on all of them. How could they stand before it?
Sunset felt Weiss' grip around her waist tighten and thought that she heard — the helmet made it hard to be sure — a little muffled sound from her, a … not a whimper — Sunset would not call it a whimper; she did not want to make Weiss seem weak — but … something like it, or perhaps a sob, a sound of fright or worry or … or despair.
It might be hard to recall that all things were possible to they who had the will to dare them when the prospect of friends dying at the hands of mighty grimm loomed before.
Sunset was ever more eager to reach the battlefield; if they kept this up, this constant journeying, this dodging the crowds, this trying to find a way forward that wasn't blocked by frightened people, then they would be undone. The more time they took to reach the walls, the more time fear had to creep back into Sunset's heart, and Weiss' heart, and take the hearts of both of them.
As they rode, Sunset thought for a moment that she saw a bright light from beyond the walls, perhaps even a silver light … but then the dragon rose up into view once more, and Sunset thought that she must have imagined it, a last gleaming of hope within her breast manifesting as the gleaming of a light before her eyes.
What she had not imagined was the dragon rising through the air and heading for Beacon.
Behind the visor of her helmet, Sunset's eyes widened as she watched the enormous dragon soar through the night sky. Amity gleamed bright above the school, and Sunset could not help but think that it was lit up like a target ever-so-tempting for the grimm. Was there nothing they could do to move it to some safer place? Probably not, not at this stage.
Her hands trembled as she watched. She didn't want to watch, but she could not look away, couldn't tear her eyes away from the dragon as it flew through the air and turned its fire, not upon Amity Arena, but on the Emerald Tower.
A great blast of yellow light erupted out of his mouth and struck the tower in the middle of its height, and the tower, Beacon Tower, the Emerald Tower, Professor Ozpin's tower … it was destroyed.
The emerald lights that had shone in the darkness, that had been a constant presence in the night sky when out and about at Beacon, or in Vale when one turned eastward, the lights that burned in night and day, the beacon of the school if anything could make a claim to such … the emerald lights were snuffed out.
The tower was gone.
"The CCT!" Weiss cried.
The CCT? Hang the CCT, what about Professor Ozpin? Had he gotten away in time? He had to have gotten away in time, right? He had to have seen that coming from his office high up in the tower? Or perhaps he hadn't even been up in the tower when the dragon attacked; perhaps he'd been out. Perhaps he was even out on the battlefield, with the students. Far from the tower. Far from the grimm that now sat on top of the tower, roaring so loudly in its triumphant pomp that they could hear it in Vale.
The gasps of the people rose louder still, they cried aloud in shock and fear, but for all that they had cause to gasp and point and even cry out, Sunset would have given up the tower and the CCT and everything else gladly to know for sure that Professor Ozpin was safe.
Everything else, they could manage without, muddle through somehow, but without Professor Ozpin … Sunset hoped, she so hoped, she very much hoped that he was alright.
Please, Professor, please be okay.
The grimm was sat on top of the ruined tower; it perched there as though it was its nest, but it was still far too close to the Amity Arena for Sunset's liking; who was up there still, anyone? Were the crowds who had flocked there for the finals still there, Lady Nikos? Sunset did not like it being so close; it looked so vulnerable, like a nice juicy apple placed next to a hungry horse. How long could the dragon possibly forebear to taste?
Then, as Sunset watched, she saw something emerge from out of the Colosseum. She couldn't exactly see it very well — it was too small — but it must have been some kind of airship, because what else would be flying out of the arena except an airship?
Whoever was flying it, they had some nerve; they flew up to and past the dragon, which began to pursue them, mouth agape, away from Amity — and over Vale.
The dragon grew larger and larger, no longer a large toy in Sunset's eyes but a powerful grimm in all its might and majesty, the vastness that had been apparent even far away becoming clearer by the moment. The dragon flew over the walls and over the streets of Vale, swatting aside the two gallant but foolhardy Atlesian airships that tried to intercept it, enduring their very large missiles the same way it had endured the lasers of the larger warships.
It swatted one of the Atlesian airships right into the original — ornate, almost certainly Mistralian — airship that it had followed over Vale in the first place. The back half of the airship disappeared, destroyed in an instant, and the remainder began to tumble through the sky.
Sunset changed course.
"What are you doing?" Weiss demanded.
"I'm going to see if they're okay!" Sunset shouted. "If there are survivors, we can't just leave them!"
"No," Weiss agreed. "No, I don't suppose we can."
The dragon was circling above as Sunset headed towards where she had seen the careening airship go down. That was getting people out of the road; where the dragon's roaring had drawn them out of doors, now its roars — and the fact that they had could see it huge and imposing right on top of them — drove them back inside, or else sent them flying away from the dragon towards some place that might be safer. Either way, Sunset and Weiss made better progress than they had done for a while, racing through the streets as they had done earlier that night, turning around a corner to see the wreck of the airship sprawled across the road, and all its passengers sprawled out also, lying amongst the debris, and amongst the … puddles.
There were puddles on the road, puddles of black ooze, of some sort of gooey substance, puddles that were falling from the sky.
No, not falling from the sky, falling from the dragon; as Sunset looked up once more, she could see what distance had obscured before, that the dragon was leaking, black goo dripping down from it like a tap that hadn't been turned off properly.
What was it? Was it blood? Was this evidence that the Atlesians had wounded it?
No, not blood. Sunset knew that it could not be blood, because drops of blood, even grimm blood, would not have started to form other grimm the way these pools of darkness did.
Grimm in Vale. Grimm behind the walls of Vale.
Grimm like the beowolf that was forming out of the pool right beside one of the survivors of the crashed airship.
Medea. It's Medea Helios from Team JAMM, the one who came around to talk to Pyrrha.
The beowolf was standing over her; it looked young, very juvenile, no armour at all.
But its teeth looked sharp nonetheless.
Sunset accelerated, the motorcycle roaring down the road.
"Weiss, I need you to loosen your grip," Sunset called.
Weiss didn't question; she relaxed her grasp on Sunset's waist, so that Sunset could draw her sword free, holding the black blade in one hand.
Sunset turned, the tyres of her motorcycle skidding loudly on the road as she sliced off the beowolf's head in a single smooth stroke.
Weiss dismounted at once, Sunset a step behind.
"See if you can reach Professor Goodwitch; tell her we need an ambulance," Sunset said, pulling off her helmet. "And tell her … tell her there are grimm inside the city."
Grimm inside the city. Grimm behind the walls. Grimm in Vale, again, and this time with no Atlesian army to stop them.
On the plus side…
No, I'd better not say it.
"Right," Weiss murmured, fumbling for her scroll. "This night…" Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by another beowolf trying to claw its way out of another pool of the black goo that the dragon was dripping down like so much snot out of a runny nose. Weiss killed it with a blast of dust from out of Myrtenaster.
Sunset knelt down beside Medea. "Hey. It's Medea, isn't it?"
Medea let out a soft groan from between her lips as she nodded. "I would say that I'm at your service," she croaked. "But you seem to be rather more at mine at present."
"Where does it hurt?" Sunset asked. "I take it your aura's broken?"
Again, Medea nodded. "It hurts … everywhere, more or less. Which might be a good thing. If there was anywhere I couldn't feel, that might be rather more worrying." She groaned, more softly. "My … my teammates…"
"Right," Sunset said. "Right, I'll go check on them."
She stood up. Weiss had her scroll out now, holding it one hand as she kept hold of Myrtenaster in the other.
"Professor Goodwitch?" she asked.
"I hope this is important, Miss Schnee," Professor Goodwitch said. "As you can see—"
"Yes, Professor, that's why I'm calling," Weiss said. "Sunset and I are at—" She was interrupted by the roaring of the dragon as it flew directly overhead. Weiss flinched, half-ducking down as it obscured the stars above them before turning away.
More droplets of that black ooze, that grimm essence that somehow produced more juvenile grimm from … from themselves, fell like rain down on the street.
"We are…" Weiss tore her eyes away from the pools of grimm ooze, looking upwards instead. "We are…"
A boarbatusk began to emerge from out of a nearby pool. Sunset drove Soteria downwards into its neck before it had even finished emerging. The half-formed boarbatusk, its legs and lower jaw still invisible, let out a muffled squeal, shook the visible part of its body, and then … and then turned back into the pool of ichorous black substance that lapped against the toes of Sunset's boots.
Sunset took a step back, closer to Medea once again, and watched as another grimm — a beowolf this time — began to emerge from out of the pool, the black gooey substance contracting as the grimm appeared.
This time, Sunset let it come, let it fully emerge and show itself before she ran it clean through the chest with her sword.
Gratifyingly, it turned to ashes.
"Don't bother killing them before they've come out," Sunset told Weiss. "They just go back into the pool and then come out again as something else."
"Miss Shimmer?" Professor Goodwitch asked from out of the scroll.
"There are grimm behind the walls, Professor," Weiss explained. "That large grimm is dropping — or it's dripping — some sort of black substance down onto the ground, and grimm are coming out of it. There's another one over there!"
Sunset saw it. It was emerging right in front of her after all. This was a big puddle, and a large grimm was emerging from out of it in consequence, an ursa. A small ursa by the standards of the breed, a juvenile obviously, but an ursa nonetheless.
It didn't rise out of the black depths so much as it clawed its way out of it, so that it seemed less like it was being formed and more that the ursa had always been there somewhere, trapped beneath, and was now taking the opportunity to escape.
Once again, Sunset let it come out all the way, shaking as it came, its claws making marks in the concrete of the road. It opened its mouth to let out a wide roar of anger.
Sunset charged, firing a couple of low-powered blasts of magic from her fingertips, not aiming to kill the ursa so much as to distract it and save magic in the process. The little blasts of power burst on the ursa's bony head, the only parts of bone on its whole body, striking close to the eyes, blinding and disorienting it as Sunset rushed in.
Swift turns and dainty twirls on toes were more Pyrrha's style than Sunset's; Sunset was near as heavy-footed as Jaune by comparison, but she would give it a go regardless, turning as she charged, not twirling — as cool as that might have looked — but turning aside and skidding the last few feet, past the ursa's head and jaws before she hewed down on its neck with Soteria.
She severed the head in a single stroke, and the body flopped down and started turning to ashes immediately.
"Where are you, Miss Schnee?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out, Professor," Weiss said, with a touch of sharpness in her voice. "Sorry, Professor, we're at Germane Street; there's been an airship crash; there are … Sunset, how many people are injured?"
Sunset searched the wreckage, picking her way through the debris and detritus of the shattered airship — pausing to deal with another boarbatusk that had just emerged, squealing, out of a pool of black ooze — that lay strewn across the road to find the other three members of Team JAMM. Jason lay underneath a pole, a metal pole of some sort to which he was fastened by a line. He was unconscious, his eyes closed, but apart from that, Sunset couldn't see any visible injuries, although that was no guarantee that he didn't have any injuries lying out of sight just below the surface.
Sunset telekinetically grabbed the pole, her hands and the metal object both glowing green, as she lifted it off Jason and set it down with a thunk on the road beside him.
She hoped that was the right thing to do; it didn't look to be stopping any bleeding on his part, and it couldn't be healthy for someone with no aura to have a heavy weight pressing down on them like that, could it?
There was a noise from inside: a rustling at first, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps; it was coming from one of the buildings on the side of the road, what had been a business of some kind, although when the crashing airship had smashed through the front, it had also smashed through the sign that would have identified what kind of place this had been. Sunset's nightvision spell allowed her eyes to peer into the gloom within and identify work tables and motorised tools — and something shambling out of the darkness towards them.
That something, or someone, turned out to be another member of Team JAMM, Meleager if Sunset recalled their names correctly, shaking dust out of his hair and off his shoulders, his flame-coloured cape trailing dirt and splinters after him like a wet dog dripping on the carpet. He was swaying a little, but he was on his feet, and moving quite steadily considering what he'd just been through and the state of his teammates.
He blinked. "You … you're Pyrrha's teammate, aren't you? Sunset … Glimmer?"
"Sunset Shimmer, but close," Sunset replied. "How are you feeling?"
"I'll be fine," Meleager said. "How are the others?"
"Jason's unconscious," Sunset said. "Medea is conscious, but her aura's broken; other things might be broken too; she'll be out of it for a while."
"And Atalanta?" Meleager asked. "Atalanta?"
"No need to shout," Atalanta snapped. "You'll bring the grimm down on us." She winced in pain.
Both Sunset and Meleager rushed towards her; she was the furthest from Medea, where Sunset had begun; she must have thrown the farthest by the crash, along with the most distant, scattered parts of the ship's debris. She was sitting up — Sunset guessed that she had pulled herself up — against the wall of a taxidermist's, sitting with the top of her head resting against the glass of the window, the window in which were displayed a small menagerie of stuffed animals, and even a few fake grimm like old Fluffy.
Jason and Medea had both looked outwardly unharmed, though all their aura had gone. The same could not be said of Atalanta: her leg was broken, at least, twisted in an unnatural-looking direction, there was no bone sticking out of her skin, but that was about the only good thing that could be said about her condition.
"Atalanta!" Meleager cried as he rushed to her side. He knelt down beside her, taking one of her hands in his. "Atalanta, are you alright?"
Atalanta gave him an incredulous look.
"Right, right, yes, stupid question, sorry," Meleager muttered. He looked up at Sunset. "We need to get her to a doctor."
"I know; we're arranging it," Sunset told him. "Weiss, we've got three in need of medical attention."
"Right," Weiss said. "Professor, we have three casualties from the airship crash; they can't move on their own, and we don't have the ability to move them all a long distance. Can you send an ambulance to get them?"
"Of course, Miss Schnee; I'll arrange it at once," Professor Goodwitch replied. "I take it they cannot protect themselves."
"One might, somehow," Weiss said. "The others, definitely not."
"Then protect them until the ambulance arrives," Professor Goodwitch instructed her.
"Yes, Professor," Weiss said. "And what about the grimm?"
"We'll just have to deal with that as best we can," Professor Goodwitch answered. "At least we don't have anything else to focus on in the city. Take care, Miss Schnee, and take care of your charges too."
"Will do, Professor," Weiss said, before Professor Goodwitch hung up on her.
"Jason," Atalanta grunted. "Jason is alive, then?"
"Yes," Sunset said. "Yes, he's out cold, but he's alive."
Atalanta closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm glad," she murmured. "It gladdens my heart." She took a breath, her chest rising and falling.
"You shouldn't speak," Meleager told her. "You should save your strength."
"You are not my master to command me," Atalanta told him. "I'll say what I like and spend my strength however I wish."
"I know that," Meleager replied, sounding a little hurt. "But—"
A slight grin, given a somewhat rictus quality by the pain, appeared on Atalanta's face. "I thought you liked that about me."
"I do, normally!" Meleager cried. "But in the circumstances—"
"Medea," Atalanta called. "Speak to me again, so that I know you haven't died since I heard you last."
Medea groaned. "Be nice to Meleager, for the love of … for the love of love itself, and of Psyche of the swift shafts, for he speaks only out of care for you."
"Precisely!" Meleager shouted. "Thank you, Medea, fair judge of hearts. Would you be this mean to me if I was the one who was dying?"
"I'm not dying!" Atalanta snapped. She glanced up at Sunset. "Am I dying?"
"No," Sunset said. "At least, I hope not, although you should probably take advice and not struggle too much." She paused, and said to Meleager. "How are you still on your feet when the rest of your team is … like this?"
"Because he's a cheat," grunted Atalanta.
"My semblance, Inner Fire, allows me to recharge a small amount of my own aura, even after it's broken, so long as I have the will to keep going," Meleager explained. "It's not a lot — I'm in the red, and if this were a tournament match, I'd be eliminated by depletion — but it keeps me on my feet … so long as I want to be."
"Impressive," Sunset said.
Meleager shrugged. "If a grimm broke my aura, it could probably kill me before I had a chance to recharge."
"All the same, it's pretty impressive," Sunset told him. "I wish I—"
The dragon roared, drowning out the sound of Sunset's voice, and all other sounds in the city too. Sunset looked up, but she couldn't see the grimm; it wasn't—
The dragon passed overhead, still roaring, seeming to almost glide on the wings spread out on either side.
A single drop of black goo dripped down from the dragon's torso and landed in the middle of the street, just beyond Atalanta, Meleager, and Sunset.
Sunset stepped closer to it, keeping her eyes on it, waiting.
A juvenile beowolf emerged from out of the pool.
Sunset ran it through the chest with Soteria and watched it dissolve into ashes.
"What?" Meleager gasped. "What was that?"
"We don't know," Weiss said softly. "Except it seems this grimm has the ability to … well, you saw it for yourself; it drips. And what it drips becomes new, young grimm."
"Gods," Meleager muttered, shuddering.
"We did it, then?" Atalanta muttered. She winced. "We lured that beast away from Amity."
"That was your plan?" Weiss demanded. "You wanted to bring it here?"
"We meant to have it follow us out to sea," Meleager replied. "We couldn't take the risk that it would destroy Amity Arena; we promised Pyrrha that we would protect Lady Nikos, and the ambassador, Lord Wong."
Sunset briefly looked up, although she could not see the Amity Arena from here; the buildings rose too steeply on either side of the street; they almost seemed to lean inwards, towards each other, reducing the avenue for the passage of moonlight to a narrow slit between the teetering rooftops.
Probably an optical illusion, but it felt real enough, and she could not see Amity Arena.
But Lady Nikos was up there still, and little doubt that she was not alone up there. Sunset was glad to hear that she was still safe; for all that had passed between them, it would have been hard on Pyrrha to lose her mother, and Sunset had a great deal of respect for Lady Nikos in her own right. Had she perished, were she yet to perish, then Sunset's heart would have grieved it.
As it was, with the dragon out of the way, Sunset had some hope that her ladyship would be out of danger for the rest of the night.
"That's all very well and good," Weiss said, sounding less enthused. "But now, there is an enormous grimm loose in the skies over the city, it's disgorging other grimm down into the city, and there isn't anything we can do about it!"
"Not our intent," Medea murmured.
"Nevertheless, it's what you've done!" Weiss snapped.
"We have done our best, and we have paid for it," Meleager declared, getting up, though he remained at Atalanta's side. "Should we have stood on the Arena and waited for the dragon to devour it and all aboard so that at least it would not trouble Vale for a little while longer?"
"Weiss didn't mean that, did you, Weiss?" Sunset asked heavily. "There's no point or purpose in our fighting one another when there are grimm behind the walls to fight. We can acknowledge that things are less than ideal without apportioning blame or pointing fingers."
Weiss hesitated for a moment, still and silent as an ice sculpture. Eventually, after a few seconds had passed, she coughed into one hand. "I, of course, do not wish death upon any of those still sheltering in Amity. It's as Sunset said, things are not ideal, though that's no one's fault. Except for the fault of the grimm itself." She paused once more. "Did you call it a dragon? Have you seen such a grimm before?"
"No," Meleager said. "Nothing like it, but—"
"There are bones of a creature called a dragon in a museum in Mistral," Sunset said. "It looks very similar to this monster."
Meleager nodded. "Precisely."
"No sense of how to kill it, then?" Weiss asked.
"If we knew that," Atalanta said, "we would have tried, at least."
"There must be a way," Meleager said. "Mighty grimm have been slain by heroes in the past, and many great tales are told of the slayings."
"Do those tales give details?" asked Weiss.
"I fear not," murmured Medea. "I am afraid to say that, over time, certain aspects of our stories became somewhat mired in formula. The deaths of grimm are often written in a very similar fashion."
"That might not be formula, but truth," Sunset suggested. "There are only so many ways to kill grimm. If I cut the head off every beowolf to come out of those pools, it's not formula; it's just that that's a very good way of killing them."
"It does show somewhat a lack of imagination on your part, swordbearer," Medea murmured.
Sunset rolled her eyes. "What is this formulaic description?"
"Cutting off the head," Meleager said. "Or a large spear thrown to the chest, particularly to a weak spot in the creature's armour; it penetrates between the plates of bone, and the grimm dies."
"As simple as that?" asked Weiss.
"No, it's not simple at all; there's usually a lot of effort involved to get to that point," Meleager said. "The grimm do not reveal their weak points lightly."
"This dragon doesn't look armoured enough to have a weak point," Sunset said. "And it's neck seems too thick to be cut through."
Although Ruby could do it, especially if Jaune were charging her up beforehand.
"Perhaps," Weiss said. "If we were to attack into its—"
She stopped, holding up her free hand to quiet all other voices.
"Listen," she whispered ever so softly.
Listen Sunset did, her equine ears pricking up atop her head as she listened very carefully.
She could hear, as Weiss had heard before her, growling, snarling, snuffling, the sounds of prowling grimm as they had been unleashed upon the streets of Vale by the dragon.
They were coming from the bottom of the street. No, from the top. They were coming from both ends.
Atalanta grimaced and fumbled with one hand for the bow that had fallen just out of reach.
Sunset mouthed Weiss' name and gestured for her to take the top of the street, while she moved as quietly as she could past Meleager and the injured Atalanta towards the bottom of the road. She sheathed Soteria across her back and slung Sol Invictus off her shoulder.
Sunset cocked the rifle and raised it to her shoulder, conscious of Meleager moving behind her.
She waited. She could still hear the grimm, although she couldn't see them. She thought that they were coming from the left, not from the right, and so she turned that way, rifle barrel pointing outwards, ready to fire.
They came from the right first, a trio of small young boarbatusks skidding around the corner, trotters tapping on the tarmac. Sunset turned, but Meleager was a little swifter than she and unleashed his flamethrower on them first, a jet of fire erupting out of his gauntlet to consume the leading boarbatusk in flame. The other two squealed as they shied away from the fire, and Sunset shot one in the head.
The second, she skewered on her bayonet as it leapt at her.
Then the beowolves came in, from the left, as Sunset had expected they would; from the roaring, she thought that they were attacking from the other side of the street as well; she could hear Weiss' rapier blasting dust at them.
It was far from the hardest fight that Sunset had ever fought; there were not so many beowolves, and they were only young, no armour to speak of, their bony skulls the only patches of white on otherwise black bodies. Those same black bodies pressed all around her for a moment, a mass of oily, greasy blackness illuminated by the muzzle flashes of Sol Invictus as Sunset fired and fired again, and fired a third shot and emptied the cylinder of her rifle before thrusting with her bayonet and laying about her with the butt of her rifle like a club. The claws of the beowolves lashed out, slashing at Sunset's recently regained aura, but one by one, Sunset took care of them all, and without any great expenditure of magic either.
Or without losing her aura a second time.
Sunset turned back to see if Weiss needed any help, just in time to see Weiss skewer the last of the young beowolves upon the tip of her rapier. She delicately shook the ash off it as the grimm dissolved.
"I think we might have done some good," Weiss declared. "Better those grimm should pick a fight with us than with others less equipped to deal with them."
The dragon let out a low and almost mournful hooting sound as it flew overhead, passing above them before turning back, wheeling in the air and passing once more in their direction.
And it was getting lower too, descending like the crashing airship of Team JAMM, coming down and looming larger and larger as it came down, following the line of the road as it pointed like an arrow towards them.
Sunset dropped Sol Invictus, the rifle clattering to the ground beside her, as she raised both hands and conjured up a shield of magic protecting her and everyone behind her. A wall of black glyphs, each one obscuring the view ahead somewhat, appeared before the shield; Sunset didn't need to look over her shoulder to picture Weiss conjuring them up with her semblance.
Whether shield or semblance would stop the dragon was a question to be asked, but what choice did they have but to try and stand in its way? It wasn't as though they could get Team JAMM anywhere safer in time.
The dragon landed heavily upon the ground, breaking the tarmac of the road beneath its weight, its claws digging into the ground as it skidded to a halt. Its tail lashed out from side to side, sweeping through the shops that lined the street and gutting them, knocking down the insides and doubtless smashing whatever lay within.
Eventually, the dragon stopped, finally halting its skidding progress, the dust of its landing and approach settling around it as it stood upon the broken ground and looked down upon them. On the end of its long neck, its head — such a head, such a great head, larger than a Skyray; in fact, large enough to swallow such an airship whole, to say nothing of a huntress — was raised high above Sunset's shield and Weiss' glyph barrier.
It didn't drip; no puddles of ichorous black goo emerged from its immense bulk to scatter young grimm out across Vale.
Can it control it? Can it stop doing it, if it wants to?
The dragon looked down upon them. Its red eyes burned brightly in the dark of night.
Sunset's breath caught in her throat. She tried to look away from the burning red eyes, maybe … maybe she could find that weak spot that the Mistralians had mentioned, the weak spots that big grimm so often had, supposedly.
She couldn't see anything; there was no chink in the dragon's armour because it hardly had any armour in the first place; it was all just black flesh, speckled with little plates of bone here and there, concentrated on the shoulders.
But then … what about … what about underneath the bone? Since it had so little armour, then perhaps the armour that it did have was concealing something. Like that one particular patch, on its chest, a plate of white bone standing solitary, just below the right shoulder, above where the dragon's foreleg would have been if it had had forelegs. A plate of bone standing proud, on the breast. Could it be that beneath that, if they could get it off or shatter it, then … then what? A heart? A grimm heart? Was it really plausible that the means to kill such an immense grimm would be lurking behind a single plate of bone?
In the circumstances, can we afford not to give it a try?
In the circumstances, how likely is it that we'll be given the chance?
The dragon laughed, or it certainly sounded like a laugh, a sawing laugh, a back and forth sound that grated against the grain on Sunset's ears. It laughed as it regarded them and the obstacles that Sunset and Weiss had thrown up in its path, and Sunset could not help but think that it found them pathetic.
The dragon opened its mouth.
There was a shriek, a shrill sound cutting through the air as another grimm approached, a griffon with a claw missing on one toe. It shrieked loudly as it swooped through the air, landing on top of one of the buildings on the left-hand side of the street.
It kept on shrieking, bobbing its head up and down.
The dragon swung its own immense head in the direction of the griffon, grunting something at the smaller grimm.
The griffon leapt up and down, gesturing with its white head back eastwards, towards the walls of Vale.
The dragon made a sound that was hard to classify; neither roar nor growl perfectly fit what Sunset heard; the dragon's pitch rose and fell.
The griffon chirruped in reply.
The dragon let out a low hooting sound, then raised its head as a bellowing roar erupted out of it straight to the skies, a roar so loud that it made Sunset's ears — all four of them — hurt, a roar so loud, it was as if the dragon was trying not only to strike the moon and stars but move them with sheer volume out of their spheres.
The dragon spread its wings and took off, shattering the ground some more beneath its feet as it headed east, back towards the edge of Vale and towards the battle beyond it.
The griffon followed behind, tucked away beneath the dragon's wing, and as the two flew off, the dragon once more began to drip black ichor down upon the ground of Vale below it, black drops descending like a narrow band of rain sweeping across the city.
Sunset recovered her rifle and hastily reloaded, letting her shield collapse — Weiss' wall of glyphs likewise disappeared — as she began shooting the grimm as they appeared, emerging from the puddles the dragon had made.
She had just shot a boarbatusk, the last grimm to come out of the nearby puddles, when she heard the roaring sirens of an ambulance, before the vehicle itself screeched round the corner. It was a yellow vehicle, with blue lights flashing on top of the cab, and on the roof sat a young man, young enough to be another Beacon student, though Sunset didn't know his name, with a red bandana tied around his brow, a lamellar cuirass strapped across his chest, and a staff in his hand.
As the ambulance slowed to a stop, he leapt down off the room.
"Hey, guys," he said, as though he knew them.
Weiss' eyebrows rose. "Do we know you?"
"Apparently not," the boy muttered. "I'm Fuji Klein, the leader of Team Frappe."
Weiss and Sunset both stared at him.
"That doesn't mean anything to you, does it?" he asked. "I'm in your year, you know."
"Wait a second," Sunset said. "Are you the one who led the charge during the leadership exercise during the first semester? You attacked the grimm horde head on."
Fuji grinned. "That's me. I volunteered to escort this ambulance, though it looks like we got here just late enough, huh? It's safe to come out now, fellas!"
The ambulance doors opened, and two paramedics emerged.
"They're in good hands," Fuji assured her. "You don't need to hang around if you don't want to."
Sunset wasn't entirely sure that someone who had thought it was a good idea to meet the grimm horde head on was necessarily 'good hands,' or at least not necessarily the safest hands, but he had a point that they couldn't just hang around here all night getting nothing done.
"I'll stay with them," Meleager said. "They're my teammates; I can't just leave them."
Sunset glanced at him and nodded. "Okay then, take care and good luck. Look after them," she said to Fuji. "Weiss, we should get moving."
"Alright," Weiss murmured. "But where?"
"We're going to follow that dragon," Sunset said, "and kill any grimm it's spawned along the way."
Until they reached the walls of Vale.