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It happened really fast. In the sort of way some things happen quickly and seem choppy on retrospection. But you know that they must have been smooth because that was how time at least appeared to work.

I was walking with Weiss and the robotic sentries around us suddenly bowed their heads. Their faces flickered a familiar red and they drew their weapons and I, recognizing it with horrible familiarity, drew mine. It gave me flashbacks as things became fluid. I knew in my gut that something was fucked. Just like Beacon all over again.

I crushed the machines as they trained their weapons on us. I just reached out and pulverized the head of one with my left hand as I pulled my broadsword from my shoulder with my right.

Ever vigilant I activated my semblance and became fluorescent. I swept my weapon in a long slash that bisected two of the machines like butter.

Weiss jumped in surprise and the flare of her eyes flickered to life subconsciously. She went for her own weapon, she too, recalled the red hue of the machines' face masks from Beacon. We were both burdened with terrible memories.

We went hand in hand and ripped through the eight sentries which had trained their weapons on us. Gunshots rang out through the rest of the academy followed by screaming and shouting.

Weiss took off in the direction of the closest screaming, ready to save and serve people. I caught her wrist and she looked back at me, protest in her blue eyes and on her lips as her silvery-white plait swished behind her head, matching the white trimmings of her mostly blue dress.

I shook my head. "They're coming for you. You and Penny both and anybody else who could be a maiden. The relics too. We need to get you to a bunker."

Her lips trembled. Her jaw worked for a moment. "I can't run. I can't do nothing. I'm no coward."

"Keeping you safe keeps the relic of creation safe which keeps the city in the sky. They get you, they get the relic, the city falls, Mother wins. Maybe she wins forever. Across the whole planet." I tried to make her understand. "You're the king in this little game of chess now that they are making their play. You're not the queen."

Weiss had drilled retreating to a bunker in case of emergencies since the death of her sister. Since she became the winter maiden. She knew where to go to keep the power safe from the enemy.

She looked away and chewed her lip in a way that in any other situation would have made me want to kiss her.

A group of robots came around the corner and the first row knelt behind a second and they formed a firing squad. I ripped my shield free of the broadsword and sheltered us both from the hail of oncoming projectiles. Gun roared and traditional bullets pinged off my shield and left marks in the soft grey walls around us.

The visors of the robots glowed crimson as they opened up on us in the empty hallway.

I spent my semblance on a blade-beam which bowled into them and snagged them in the blender of energy that the Limit Break provided. It tore the metal up and slammed their plastic bodies against the walls.

I rushed in on them in a hovering fashion and swung my sword from low to high and cut one in half vertically. Then I stuck my sword and I flew in a tight circle that slammed them back as they tried to get to their fight and cut them limb from limb in a blitzing fashion. Weiss pounced on one, launching herself from a glyph and landing beside me and pierced through its white body with the tip of her rapier. Then she cut down another in a tight well precisioned slash that swept the very top of her blade deep through the white chassis of a machine.

Why now? Who else was involved in the attack. I peeked around a corner and saw no hostile combatants. I pulled Weiss along after me. I just had to hope that wherever Ruby and the others were that they hadn't been caught by surprise. The attack came upon us so suddenly and only my sixth sense had allowed me to fight back quickly. It had strummed through my body like the strings of a guitar with an amp. Ruby sixth sense was good. She would be safe. Especially if these were all the enemy had to bring to bear.

These plastic dolls were no match for hunters like us. Of course there would be more to the attack than this. I felt something. A distant pull. An unmistakable tug through the grey and blue balls of the academy.

My sisters were here. I could detect their presence. I rubbed my face. A headache was coming on. Something not unlike I had felt when I first ran into Saphron, Violet, and Lavender.

"My sisters are behind this," I told Weiss. "And…" I wasn't confident… " and there are more of them."

"You're sure?" Weiss wondered.

"Yes. I can feel them," I determined. "My Mother is making her play."

The day was growing dark. The sun, which barely crossed the horizon on these winter days, was already dipping back low. The moon was out and pale, I could spot it through tall windows we passed. The shattered visage loomed harsh with a glare. The shadows were long. The artificial lights over our heads were unnaturally white and harsh and did nothing to disguise the sun's betrayal to long winter nights in the far north.

I gleamed a touch of finality with my senses. There were things about to end. Things I would, in time, look back upon and miss sorely and with deep ache.

The academy was suddenly rocked by an explosion. The windows we ran along shattered inwards along with the columns of grey material and small raptor like drones armed with still more missiles hurtled by as Weiss was knocked flat by the nearby blasts. I hit the far wall from the windows with the flat of my back. I slumped back down to the floor where I sat for a moment just stunned by the discharge.

I stood up and shook glass from my shoulders. I found Weiss kneeling and coughing on dust. I pulled her to her feet. She looked up at me and her pale ice blue eyes met mine. I took in the sight of her long beautiful scar. Her cheeks were marked with grey ash. I had no time to wipe her chin with my thumb like I wanted to.

I heard a swooshing noise that sounded the return of the avian curved drones. I ran with Weiss alongside me.

I stumbled as the building was blasted again. Looking out for black and white went hand in hand with wondering why now. What did my sisters gain by striking at this moment. I stepped out into a hallway deeper in the complex. I detected something to my left. It was my sisters. An ocean which threatened to flood my dikes. Deep and a part of a greater whole. I could feel it.

"Right. You go right," I decided with finality. "My sisters are to the left."

I couldn't let my sisters find what they hoped to get. I could feel them homing in on me like a targeting ballistic. They would get me instead. Not Weiss. But why now? What were they hoping to win? How could I fight them if I didn't even know why?

"What about you? I won't leave you," Weiss protested.

"I'll be fine. I have to fight them."

"All of them?"

"It's my destiny," I returned. "Someone has to stop them. It has to be me."

Weiss gave me a long look like she wanted to argue.

"Go. Find Ruby and your team. You'll-"

Grimm like I'd never seen before with long lizard-like tails and pantherine bodies and long alligator faces came racing down the hallway from the left. I slipped my sword into my shield with a smooth motion and rotated my blade and cut straight down vertically into the first one's face. It discharged into grey and black ash. They were on us fast and I swept my blade to the right and cut down the next one before the last leapt onto me with long zygodactylous talons.

Weiss cut it off of me as it's eyeless face bent down low over me and ready to take a deep bite out of me. I floated back to my feet to find five more of the wicked fast things coming rapidly down the hallway.

I cut through the first two with wide horizontal swings of Crocea Mors from one side to the other which also tore up the hallway with the enormous reach of the blade. Then I hovered forward and brought my blade down in an enormous overhead strike that pulverized the next. Then I thrust forward into the next beast. I shot into the air and came down again on the very last in a straight line. I shuffled several floating steps to Weiss.

"You're still here. Go!" I half ordered-half pleaded. I wished to see her safe.

"You're not taking them on alone. I just had to save your butt. So don't try and think you can convince me you're a one man army. You're not."

Several uniforms came around the corner to the right. Aceops and the rest of Team RWBY. All of them. Clover took the lead. The ten of us were together in the long hallway.

"The maiden is secure. Good work. Come with us. We're going to escort you to safety."

I shuddered and turned around. Trying desperately to put my finger on a rapid terrifying caprice.

At the very far end of the long hallway to the left stood Saphron in her red long coat. And she wasn't alone. There was Lavender in blue and Violet in purple. But there were more girls rounding the corner. They were there. All of them. All of my sisters. Little Lily, dressed in matching white. There was Kolumbine in orange. Juniper in yellow matching her hair and lastly Iris in green.

I stared at them all.

"Jaune, oh, Jaune!" Iris called out to me with a wave. "We've come to save you!"

I shuddered again.

Beside me the Aceops raised their weapons with team RWBY. I put a hand to my head. Seeing them all burned me harshly. Saphron strode forward a few steps and held a small glass ball in one hand. She threw it and Aceops and RWBY all threw themselves to the side.

I stood stock still in motionless horror because out of the mist and slime a monster was emerging. A great opaque bowl for a head took shape below which several tentacles sprouted. It drifted forward towards where I stood motionless.

A voice poured from the orb on top of the horrible thing's head. It was my Mother's voice. As I heard it once, I'd heard it in a hundred nightmares. Maybe more.

"Ah little Jaune. My darling son… You neglected to bring me the relic of knowledge. You shall regret that..."

The voice boomed into me despite the hush of it all. The sound rocked me on my feet nearly as much as the missiles had earlier.

My brain and body burned with the zenith of pain a human body can feel. I choked on nothing. My hands grasped at my throat and I thought I might rip my ears off with a minute application of torque. If only to not listen to that voice for a moment longer.

"You can make it up to me, however. You want to make it up to me, don't you, darling."

It was like a drill was being forced into both ears and the agony behind my eyes was insurmountable.

I collapsed and leaned my body against the wall of the hallway. I said nothing and stared in transfixed terror. The voice which hounded my nightmares echoed through my skull. It was here. The moment in which my resolve would be tested had arrived. The motion sickness seemed fit to wash me away as I was spun to cyclopean heights in a heartbeat and plummeted back to the earth like a meteor.

I was unprepared. I was so small. And standing across from the monster and my sisters I realized how little I had divorced myself from them. I could feel it inside of me. A growing and malignant tumor I was helpless to fight against.

I was too weak. I was too little too late. How could I resist this? No Cetra could tolerate such pain. It was all just too much. I could feel my sanity slipping through my fingers like quicksilver.

"Now my boy, won't you kill the winter maiden for me?"

Her voice was soft like she was asking me to hand her something from the top shelf. It hit me like a tsunami of motion sickness. My stomach lurched and my vision faded and tunneled.

My body turned of its own volition in the direction of Weiss.

"There's a good boy. Kill her."

With a shaking hand I raised my sword. My throat burned and tears poured from eyes to the point I could hardly see through them. It hurt so badly in every cell of my body.

"Jaune don't listen!" Ruby shouted. I tried to avail myself of Ruby's charms but it was all so dizzying. There was an overwhelming desire to fall into harmonium with the voice.

I trembled with my weapon raised. My whole body was wracked with a horrible shaking as I tried to resist my own corporeal form turned against me. My mind had become my traitor.

How could I fight this? This force which turned me into a doll. I was a plastic manikin as much as any of Atlas's toys. I was nothing. I breathed deeply but it was like inhaling ink black waters as I was pulled under the surface by dark gripping tentacles which wrapped around my legs and yanked me down with unbelievable force. I choked.

I was drowning. My face was growing flushed and I couldn't exhale. I took a step towards Weiss and it was like inhaling a fresh whiff of air after minutes of being under deep water. The relief that filled me was undeniable as I moved to carry out the will that was not my own. But why shouldn't it be my own?

I looked at myself and felt my body entrenched in a web of flesh that did not belong to me. I felt myself as a membranous appendage of a much greater whole. Rather it was that I belonged to it. I was little more than a tributary of a vast ocean. I was embedded, my whole body and mind, inside of an alien form. It was like I was stuck on flypaper. Except I was made out of the flypaper too. I was made out of it! I was made out of it. I was made out of it. My form was the ink I was drowning inside of. It was me. I looked inside of myself and felt only me.

It annoyed me to feel on my back frightful glances. They cooked my body and seared my mind like a hot skillet. Why can't they all shut up? Ace ops and team RWBY both. And my sisters down the long hallway, their gaze penetrates me like that of a basilisk. I am stone. And I lose the form of a man and become like a dog. I stand unmoving yet I crawl on all fours. I bow my head subserviently and wag my tail happily under my master's attention with a steady thump thump thump. I want to tear it off with my teeth. I was tired.

The walls between myself and my Mother and sisters died down and vanished. Soon I felt a blurring of myself as my ego died and there was only the greater whole. What was I becoming? What was I already? How could I be? Just a member of a larger monster whose very flesh I was trapped screaming inside of.

There was a dying light as I began to fade and the agony drained from my body. Giving in felt so right. It felt so natural. What else could there be? Something shrieked deep in my soul as I slowly became.

I was made from monstrous flesh. Black ichor flowed through my veins. Could I deny my nature? Could I deny my nurture? Could I resist what I already was? The shrieking grew louder.

My own thoughts betrayed me and terrified me as I examined myself and felt a warm comforting presence wash away the pain and like a dog being stroked I leaned into the touch of the gentle goddess. The motion sickness eased slightly And my vision came to buoyancy. I was simultaneously aroused and sickened by my own actions as I leaned affectionately into the greater desire. I shivered in revolution and disgust as I felt a need to pur in pleasure. I craned my neck so that I could be scratched behind the ears like a house cat. Barely more than a rat was I. I wanted to throw up from the disgust I felt at the pleasure which coursed through me and wiped the pain clean from me.

I knew what was happening to me. I was being conditioned like a dog with a bell. But that didn't make it easy to fight. My thoughts turned traitorous and demanded that I give in. It would be so easy to give in. There would be none of that usual pain which came from my revolts against the dark mistress.

Vertigo pulsed in my head and I had no idea what to do. My means of resisting were crumbling as my very sense of self died. Taking my willpower with it. What was I left with when all that was gone? There was only Mother and her will. There was only her power. There was only that great monster which I was a fragment of.

"Kill him," Clover ordered after I stepped forward. "He's turning on us." He whipped his body forward with his fishing rod weapon.

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-WG