Qrow dropped to his knees, his wings falling limp behind him. Pyrrha stared into his eyes; she was satisfied. Joyous, even. He could see her beating heart behind her eyes. Her cold smile latched onto his throat, shutting out any words he could possibly beg with.

Yang hit the ground, the hold on her hair released. Blake rolled in the dirt, gurgling as she tried desperately to reclaim air.

Pyrrha dropped Qrow's weapon into the dirt, just far enough that he wouldn't be able to grab it before she could disembowel him. Even as she let her irreality ease, he could only see a scythe. Summer's eye tore at his soul.

"So soon," Pyrrha tutted, "I expected more from you."

Qrow wasn't listening. All he could see was Summer's pleading gaze. He could only hear the promise, the sound pounding against his bone-dry brain like a chisel on stone. Qrow fumbled at his belt, his hands shaking.

After some blind grasping, he managed to extract one of many dark glass bottles hanging from sheathes on his belt. This one had a stout neck and a large, round body— a falernian wine, sealed with white wax. He tore at the seal with his teeth, then ripped the cork out like a rabid dog.

Qrow poured the white drink directly down his throat, taking heavy breaths as he struggled to breathe around his desperation. He guzzled the stuff like water, uncaring of how much spilled over his cheeks and down his chin.

Pyrrha watched him drain the entire bottle with disgusted amusement. It was supremely pathetic, especially when he ran out and let it roll from his shaking hands.

"S-Summer…" he stared into the eye, his gaze pleading and desperate. "Please, forgive me."

Pyrrha sneered. Blake, even as she choked and writhed, had enough energy to spare a look of rage at the Huntsman.

The Knight Captain took a few more moments to drink in the sight, but decided she'd seen enough when he began searching for another bottle. She came a little closer to the old man, one hand cupping his chin.

She tilted Qrow's head up, squinting in focus as she observed the shape of his skull, her other hand tightening around her rod. She could probably get him with one good crack, straight through the Aura— assuming he could even muster one in this state. She tilted him a little more, then gave his temple a few taps with her baton. His soul failed to rise. Excellent.

Pyrrha pulled the metal cylinder back, her other hand keeping the man's head in place; she could smash through his entire skull, just as long as he let her. He looked deep into her eye, his eyes blearily swimming in alcohol. "Summer?" He worthlessly muttered.

The Knight Captain sneered. This hardly felt sporting.

"Oh well!" Pyrrha shrugged, bringing the baton down. His skull would crack like an egg, spraying his last feeble thoughts all over the writhing shim— she wouldn't even be able to scream in horror. Pyrrha's lips pulled from her teeth, baring her cruel joy.

She swung with nothing, her empty hand arcing over the man's face. Pyrrha turned, her eyes tracing along a line of rose petals.

Ruby the Red emerged from a plume of red, letting out a loud yelp as she landed. The girl lost her balance and tumbled, her cloak spreading wide as she fell prone. Her arms splayed out on impact, her grip on Pyrrha's baton faltering and sending the thing somewhere beyond the treeline. She shuffled under the widespread, frayed umber cloth, then collapsed once more with a long groan.

The Knight Captain stared, dumbstruck— so dumbstruck, in fact, that even her bodily dissonance faltered, causing her skull to crush into itself once more before restoring Pyrrha's face as a whole. "Ruby?" She called, her voice singular once more. "Is that really you?"

"Eh… that depends," Ruby groaned her answer, then tried to get up again. She collapsed with another grunt. "Will you leave us alone if I say no?"

Pyrrha stared. She stared and stared, watching the idiot girl try and fail repeatedly to even stand. It wasn't a particularly amusing sight, it was just a far cry from the last time she'd seen her. Well, before she'd been nailed, at least. "Did you… hurt yourself?"

Ruby tried to look over, but her hood blocked her sight. "My, uh… what did she call it?" Even if her face wasn't visible, Pyrrha could practically smell how hard the girl was thinking; with a few more seconds of this, she was sure smoke would come out of her ears. "Paramour!" She suddenly declared, raising one hand triumphantly."My paramour stabbed me in the leg!"

Pyrrha blinked, waiting for the punchline. When one didn't come, she started to slowly approach the girl, departing Qrow with a casually-crushing blow to the side of the head. Blake had just begun to recover from her helpess squirming, but her first good breath was punctuated by the impact of Pyrrha's boot with her skull. She left the unconscious worms behind.

The Knight Captain continued its slow trudge, gaze set on Ruby the Red.

"We will need a plan, you know," Weiss stated, the two slowing down as they neared the campsite. The din of combat was extremely loud— steel clashing against steel and iron, the distinct screaming of Ruby's sister, along with a constant background noise that sounded like staring into a deep abyss.

"I know, I know!" Ruby fussed.

"You really can't beat her," Weiss argued.

Ruby growled. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"I'm… not sure," Weiss admitted.

Ruby turned to her with hope in her eyes. "What about your magic? You're super strong!"

Weiss cringed. "I'm, er… middling, at best. Besides my natural aptitude for ice, my knowledge is very generalist and utilitarian."

"Weiss, you know I don't know what that means."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I can wield ice, go invisible, pick things up with my mind, and do a myriad of other things that will be extremely unhelpful against Pyrrha."

"I remember that!" Ruby cheered. "That's how you threw my hammer so good!"

"So well, Ruby," she mumbled, knowing full well that correcting the girl's grammar was a moot point. "I doubt that'll be much help, here."

"I think she can do that too," Ruby postulated. "I remember when I fought her, she somehow stopped my knife with her open hand. Maybe it's like that?"

Weiss hummed. It wasn't a bad theory, but, "I don't see how that helps us."

"You can't do anything about that?"

"Counter magic only works on some things," Weiss explained, smirking a little as she mentioned, "like when Neptune pinned you."

Ruby nodded, then tripped over herself as she processed the statement. "Wait, what do you—"

Weiss flashed her a cocky grin. It was a sufficient answer.

They approached the treeline of the campsite, where the sound of combat suddenly became much more intense, then cut out almost completely.

Weiss and Ruby crouched among a dense tangle of thinner trees and thicker shrubs. The two parted a clump of leaves, allowing them to peer unseen into the campsite.

The sight almost immediately ruined their cover as both girls covered their gasps with their hands. They had arrived just in time to watch Pyrrha hit Blake in the throat, her other hand dragging an unconscious Yang by her hair.

For Weiss, just looking at Pyrrha was difficult. The air itself had a sickening distortion, making her sore eyes beg to be relieved of the sight. She couldn't see her face from their angle, but she was incredibly thankful for that— just trying to comprehend her presence made her stomach roil. Her height and build shifted constantly, her body flickering in and out of existence as if her mind was simply refusing to show her some of the woman's forms.

The Huntsman, Qrow, kneeled before the Knight Captain, leaving a gurgling Blake to helplessly watch as Pyrrha easily plucked the messer from his hands. His eyes were wide and pleading, and he looked to be bleeding from a shallow chest wound.

Ruby barely even noticed Pyrrha. All she saw was a broken Qrow. Her own uncle— the man who had been her father when Tai couldn't, the only man in her life who had ever helped her be close to what Summer once was— made to kneel. For all his talk against authority, here he was.

She watched him fumble around his belt, and her heart fell even deeper when he pulled out a dark green bottle. He ripped the top off like an animal, then drained it just as fervently. Ruby turned away from the shameful sight, only to find that Weiss had done just the same. Their gazes met, a shared melancholy passing between them.

"What do we do?" Weiss whispered.

"I'll distract her," Ruby answered. "You help them, do some magic healing thing or something."

"M-magic healing—" Weiss shook her head. "Ruby I can't—"

"Oh, use that stuff!"

Weiss blinked. "What… stuff?"

"The stuff! Remember?" Ruby motioned to her own face. "The stuff that you tried to burn my face off with?"

"I did not— it was an accident!" Weiss nearly got too loud, but managed to keep herself in check. "Besides, it's in the camp, with the horses."

Ruby nodded, undeterred. "That's what the distraction is for."

Weiss squinted at the girl. "You're not that distracting."

"Maybe not," Ruby gave her a cheeky grin, "but I don't need to be."

"You're not making sense."

Ruby spread her hands out towards the heiress, like she was blind to the answer. "Just go invisible! You told me you can!"

Weiss opened her mouth, but no argument came forth. It was a terrible plan, godawful, actually, but she couldn't think of anything better.

Taking her silence as support, Ruby smiled and placed a fist over her heart. "Alright! Wish me luck, uh…" she faltered in thought for a second, before finishing with a weak, "darling?"

Weiss recoiled. "Not that. Please, not that."

"Love… ly… one?"

"Sweet bloody Shepherd, Ruby…"

"What! What do I call… us?"

"I don't know! Paramours, or something! Now's not the time for that!"

She burned that word into her brain— paramours. Ruby took a deep breath, tightly gathered herself, then shot out to kiss Weiss. She wrapped her arms around the heiress' neck, pulling her as close as she could before finally letting go. "Wish me luck."

Weiss wished that idiot hadn't snatched the breath right out of her lungs, because all she could muster was a tiny nod. Ruby beamed at her with a smile like the sun gleaming off a church bell, then disappeared. She left nothing but rose petals behind.

Weiss snatched one, barely managing to give its soft texture a single stroke before it faded, then sighed. She focused on her soul, on the magic in her veins, and prepared to exhaust it more than she ever had before. It wasn't that scary of a thought anymore— so far, every day with Ruby had been a continuous string of never-done-befores, and sneaking past a psychotic aberration from an infinite voidscape would just be another one.

She hoped as much; she had to. At this point, she didn't have a choice.