And Then There Were

The door closed behind Ciel, and Benni Havens' was plunged into silence.

As they stood there, in the quiet, in the dark, waiting for Ciel to lead the grimm away from them, Penny wished — she really, really wished — that she had kept her mouth shut.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. It had worked when they needed to get to the tower and bring Ruby to Professor Ozpin and tell him about Amber. The thought of Professor Ozpin added to Penny's discomfort; she hadn't known him very well, but she knew that Sunset had a very high regard for him, and Penny had hoped to get to know him better. Now, she never would. That wasn't much of a reason to be sad, she knew, but the professor was dead, and people that she knew and liked or cared about — not only Sunset, but General Ironwood too — were bound to be very sad when they found out that Professor Ozpin was dead, and that, in itself, was sad.

Anyway, the plan had worked that time. Jaune's plan, to have Pyrrha distract the grimm so that he and Penny could sprint across the square and get to the tower with Ruby without having to fight their way through all the grimm. So why wouldn't it work this time too? She hadn't been about to ask Pyrrha to do it again, because Pyrrha had already done it once, because it wasn't so important that whoever was doing the distracting be faster than the people who the distraction was for, and because Pyrrha was the one they really needed to be in the lead to confront Amber — especially since Blake and Rainbow Dash weren't here. If they had been, then maybe Pyrrha could have been the distraction even though she'd done that already, but they weren't, so she couldn't.

Without Rainbow or Blake, they just didn't have anyone else who could go on the front line the way that Pyrrha could. Penny was better a little bit behind, since Floating Array was supposed to keep her enemies at a distance, and Jaune was more use with his semblance than his sword and shield, even after he started using dust.

And Ciel was a sniper, she was supposed to be at the back; that was her whole thing.

No, they couldn't do without Pyrrha in this fight, but with Jaune backing her up and Ciel shooting from a distance, they could do without Penny if they had to, while she could use Floating Array to fend off the grimm even if they got all around her.

She hoped so, anyway.

That had been her plan. That had been in Penny's mind when she had suggested that she would do what Pyrrha had done earlier that night and lure the grimm away so that Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ciel could sneak past and reach the Vault without having to fight.

Because otherwise, they would all have to fight their way through the grimm, and they might still be fighting the grimm when Amber and her new friends came out of the Vault. That was what Pyrrha was afraid of, why she hadn't liked the idea of waiting for Amber to come out when Ciel suggested it.

That had been Penny's idea, and she thought that it had been a pretty good idea too; Sunset probably would have hated it, and maybe it wasn't a really good idea, but it didn't seem like they had time to think of really good ideas, so they'd have to make do with a good idea at the time.

And then Ciel had stolen her spot.

What made it worse for Penny was that she couldn't really argue with anything Ciel said, but that didn't stop her good idea from seeming like a bad idea, one that she wished she'd kept to herself, so that Ciel hadn't just walked out there to face all those grimm by herself.

First Rainbow Dash, and Blake, and Sun. Now Ciel.

Did it have to be this way? Was there another way, a better way, and I just wasn't smart enough to see it?

It was all very well for Ciel to say that a leader shouldn't do everything themselves, but Rainbow had done that at the bottom of the road, so why shouldn't Penny now?

Mind you, Ciel didn't always seem to think that Rainbow Dash was a very good leader.

Penny wished, she really wished, that Ciel hadn't gone.

She wished that Ciel had let her go instead.

That way she wouldn't feel guilty for it having been her idea that put Ciel in harm's way like that, whereas now…

Now if anything happened to her, it would feel like Penny's fault. Penny's fault from Penny's idea.

But she hadn't kept her mouth shut; she'd spoken up and told everyone her idea, and now, it was too late. The door had shut.

She felt Jaune's hand on her shoulder. "Worried, right?"

Penny looked at him. "Is it that obvious?"

"Kinda," Jaune replied, almost smiling at her.

"And…" Penny began, but then stopped, because she didn't want Jaune or especially Pyrrha to think of her as some kind of coward or anything like that. But at the same time, she kind of wanted to say it, wanted to tell them, even though they might think all kinds of bad things about her. She wanted to say it. She wanted to get it outside, but at the same time, she didn't. Did that make any sense at all? She wasn't sure if it did.

Emotions were weird sometimes.

She wasn't just worried for Ciel, although she was. She wasn't just worried for Pyrrha and Jaune, although she was. She was … she was worried for herself too. She was … scared, a little.

There had been seven of them, and now, there were only three of them, and they were going up against a Maiden. Or sort of a Maiden, anyway; she had some of the magic. She had as much of the magic as Cinder had, and while they'd beaten Cinder last night, they'd had Ruby with them then, and Cinder had been all on her own, letting them gang up on her, while Amber had friends down there with her too, as well as magic.

She had more friends down there than they would have, now that they'd left Rainbow, Blake, and Sun behind, and now that Ciel had gone.

And they'd already killed Professor Ozpin, who … Penny had never seen him fight, but he was supposed to be really good. He'd been a really good huntsman when he was younger, that was what people said; he'd led that battle that had saved Vale, and you didn't get made headmaster for nothing, after all.

But they'd killed him, Amber and the others. And now, Penny, Jaune, and Pyrrha had to go down there and fight her and her friends.

Fight Amber and Dove. That didn't bother Penny as much as it probably bothered Pyrrha, and might bother Jaune; Penny hadn't been as close to Amber or Dove as they were; she was … if you imagined a star system, one that you could see from far away through a telescope, like the one in the observatory in Canterlot — astronomy telescopes had to be in backwater places like Canterlot because there was too much light pollution in Atlas or Mantle — with a star in the centre, or twin stars even, binary stars, that was what they were called, wasn't it? Imagine a star system with binary stars called Sunset and Pyrrha. And then imagine planets orbiting those stars called Jaune and Penny … and Amber. That was what they had been to one another, nothing special, just planets orbiting the same star, both part of the same circle around the same centre, but not really anything more than that. Penny didn't dislike, hadn't disliked — no, didn't dislike — Penny still couldn't really say that she didn't like Amber, even after everything she'd done because … because it was all just so weird, all just so sudden; Penny hadn't really had a chance to stop and think about Amber, and she still didn't now; they weren't going to be here that long.

Mostly, what she felt about Amber now was nervousness about her power — and her friends. Tempest Shadow was supposed to be pretty good; she was nothing on Pyrrha, obviously, but Pyrrha might be a little busy with Amber, which meant…

Cinder had been strong, but they'd taken her down together. Amber was as strong, at least when it came to magic, and they wouldn't be able to take her down together because it almost seemed like Amber and her friends might be taking them down together if they weren't careful.

So, yeah, Penny was kind of nervous. She didn't want to admit it, though, because Jaune had been nervous on the way to fight the Apex Alpha, and Ren had made fun of him for it.

Mind you, if Jaune had been nervous then, then maybe he'd understand now, and Pyrrha … Penny didn't think that Pyrrha would make fun of anyone.

"I'm a little nervous," she admitted.

"And you think that makes you unique?" Pyrrha said, without any unkindness in her voice.

Penny glanced at her. "You too?"

Pyrrha nodded.

"I think," Jaune began. "I think it's okay to be … a little afraid. What matters is what you do in spite of being afraid."

"I hope you're right," Penny murmured. She paused for a second. "Did … leaving Rainbow and Blake and Sun behind, letting Ciel go … could we have done this better? Is there something else we could have done so that they didn't have to—?"

"If we knew that, I daresay we would have done it," Pyrrha replied. "But I certainly wouldn't say that this is the best road we could have taken. I wouldn't be so arrogant."

"But I can't think of what else, not after the airship went down," Jaune said. "We were where we were, and we've just had to—"

He was interrupted by the sound of Distant Thunder from outside, its deep, booming noise unmistakable, at least to Penny.

"She's started," Penny murmured.

Please be alright, Ciel.

Be alright, or else a lot of people will be really upset.

Do you even realise how many?

"She said to wait," Penny added, in case either of them was thinking about heading straight for the door. "We need to give Ciel time to draw the grimm away."

She looked around Benni Havens'. She looked at the fake beowolf by the door, the ursa's head on the wall above the fireplace on the other side of the restaurant; she looked at the photographs next to the beowolf. She looked all around the dark and quiet and empty restaurant.

"Things are going to be different, now that the CCT is down, aren't they?" Penny asked.

"I … haven't really had a chance to think about it," Jaune admitted.

"Beacon will be different, if nothing else," Pyrrha added. "And the rest of Remnant…" She trailed off.

Distant Thunder boomed out again, and Penny thought it sounded a little further away now than it had been.

"We should go," she said as she started towards the door. She stopped and looked at the others over her shoulder. "If there are more grimm in our way that didn't go after Ciel," she said, "and we have to fight them, don't use your rifle, Pyrrha. My lasers are pretty quiet, but Miló's rifle mode is a bit loud, and the grimm might hear. If we have to shoot anything, I'll do it."

Pyrrha nodded. "Understood, Penny."

Penny walked out the door, out of the restaurant and into the darkness in Ciel's footsteps. Jaune and Pyrrha followed behind her. Penny had the best night vision of the three who were left, and she looked around, unable to see any grimm close by. The grimm that she could see, up in the sky, were heading towards the cliffs, just where Ciel had planned to lead them.

Good luck, Ciel. I mean … the Lady's … Lady's Favour? Lady's love? Lady's protection? Lady's Grace, that's it; the Lady's Grace go with you.

And God too, if that's okay.

"Pyrrha, you go first," Penny whispered, although Pyrrha probably would have taken the lead anyway, because she had already, when they were coming up the road, and she'd even led them into Benni Havens' so they could talk for a second and come up with a plan.

But then, Penny had been the first one out the door, so maybe it didn't do any harm to let her know that she wasn't going to keep doing that.

Anyway, Pyrrha nodded silently and took the lead, her red sash fluttering a little bit at her waist, brushing against her leg, as she brushed past Penny and started the last short distance towards the school.

Penny glanced up at the broken tower, the dark tower with no lights shining, and thought for a second that she could see something moving up there, on the stump, amongst the broken fragments of stone.

"Penny?" Jaune murmured.

Penny looked down and saw that Pyrrha had stopped and was looking back at her.

She looked again up at the broken tower, but she couldn't see anything; it must have just been the shadows, or the fact that she was a little nervous was making her jumpy. There was nothing up there; Ciel had led them all away.

Penny could still hear Distant Thunder roaring, the sound getting fainter as Ciel got further away, but still sounding loud enough to let Penny know — to let them all know — that Ciel was still there, still fighting.

They couldn't waste what she'd given them.

"It's nothing," Penny said softly. "Let's go."

Despite saying that, she hung back a little bit, letting Jaune slip in between her and Pyrrha; that was probably a better place for him than at the back, where he couldn't boost Pyrrha with his semblance if she needed it, and couldn't do as much with his dust either, if he had any. Penny could stay at the back. The swords of Floating Array hovered around her head and chest in a circle, moving with her like the little fighters flying escort around a big cruiser. Sort of; if she were the cruiser, then she'd have her own … never mind.

They crossed into the boundaries of the school. It was so quiet; not silent, because Penny could hear Ciel blazing away with Distant Thunder, and she could hear the grimm shrieking and howling as they attacked Ciel — please take care, Ciel — the same way that she could just about hear Rainbow Dash and Blake — not Sun, but she didn't think he had many shots in his staff, so he'd probably used them up by now — fighting the grimm down the road, what seemed like a long way away, even though it wasn't.

She wished they were here. But then, if they were here, then the grimm would be here too, wouldn't they?

It was all very difficult. It didn't feel like things were going great, but at the same time, like Pyrrha said, it was hard to think of what else they could have done.

Not crashed their airship, maybe. But then, it wasn't as though Rainbow had meant for that to happen.

They were where they were, in Beacon, just about, where it was quiet, with only the sound of Ciel's Distant Thunder and all the grimm trying to kill her.

Penny had almost preferred it when there was a big grimm attack trying to take the whole school, because then, there had been a lot of noise to show that people were alive in here and fighting back.

Now, even though the grimm weren't right here right now — thanks to Ciel leading them away — it still felt as though they'd taken Beacon. People had abandoned it, everyone had left — to fight on the Green Line, or to go into Vale and fight there instead — or they'd been killed, like Professor Ozpin. The grimm had destroyed the tower, the grimm had landed in the grounds, and there had been nobody to stop them.

There was no one to stop them; even they, now that they'd come back, weren't here to stop them or take back the school but just to sneak through it so they could deal with another problem.

But someone will take it back, won't they? Tomorrow, or when this is all over, someone will take the school back from the grimm: Professor Goodwitch, all the students, General Ironwood's forces.

If they can.

They were so lucky that the dragon had gone, but what if it came back? What if it didn't come back because it preferred to stay in Vale? Who could stop it? What if … what if Beacon wasn't the only thing that was lost tonight?

Then … then everyone will have to come to Atlas and live there instead. She wasn't exactly sure if there was room, but they would find room, somewhere, in Atlas or in Mantle. It occurred to Penny that some people might prefer to go home to Mistral instead, and there might be room there too. But Atlas was a better academy than Haven, so all the Beacon students would probably be better off there.

It would be kind of funny, after everything.

Maybe not so funny for everyone who'd just lost their home.

Maybe it won't turn out that way. Maybe it'll all work out, maybe someone will find a way to kill the dragon and save the day.

Whatever happens, it'll all be much worse if Amber takes the Relic away and gives it to Salem.

Penny realised that part of the reason she was thinking like this was because everything was so quiet, no life, no sound, and she couldn't talk to the others because they didn't want to alert anyone who might still be around to their presence. She was stuck in her own head, and it wasn't fun.

She wondered if it was any more fun for Jaune or Pyrrha to be stuck in their own heads, with their thoughts rattling around in them. She didn't dare make enough noise to ask.

Up in front, Pyrrha had stopped; now, it was her turn to look at the tower, as though she wasn't sure whether she wanted to get closer to it or to avoid it.

She headed away from it, moving quickly, loping across the grounds, heading towards the Valish side of the grounds, towards the … well, towards the Vault, obviously. Which was past the docking pads, further down, so away from the tower, really.

Plus, Penny wouldn't be surprised if Pyrrha just didn't want to get too close to the tower, considering that it was broken and destroyed and … Penny didn't want to get too close to it either. It didn't seem like a good place anymore.

The tower had always been there, since she'd been at Beacon, and it had been there before that too, but Penny hadn't been there to see it, so … anyway; the tower had always been there, and the lights had always been on; it had always been looking down on them.

But now … now, the tower was still there, just in a different way. A very different way. The broken tower was there, and it was still watching them, or at least Penny felt like was still watching them.

It didn't feel like the good kind of watching.

But it didn't feel as though they could get away from it just by keeping their distance.

But they kept on going, following Pyrrha towards the dorm rooms, towards the building where they had spent most of their time, where they had found Ruby earlier tonight. Once they got there, it would be straight on, through the square, towards the Vault.

Towards Amber.

It was a little weird; if Amber wasn't there waiting for them, that would be bad.

If Amber was there, that would be dangerous.

Penny really wished that they weren't alone out here. She really wished that … that Sunset was here. Sunset would have known what to say to make her feel better, like she had at Mountain Glenn.

Penny couldn't think of anything to say to herself or anyone else, and even if she had thought of it, she wouldn't have had the courage to say it.

She kept quiet and tried to remind herself of what Jaune had said, that it was okay to be nervous, it only mattered what you did with your nervousness.

Think about it too much.

Pyrrha had stopped again, and this time, it was easy to work out why: there was a growling sound from up ahead; Penny could hear it as well as Pyrrha could. All her floating swords pointed in that direction, the blades folding up so that she could fire the lasers, as she waited to see what was making the sound.

It turned out to be just one beowolf, a young beowolf, that must have come from the dragon's goo or whatever, a beowolf that was all black except for its head, and kept its body kind of hunched over as it slunk towards them, growling from between its teeth.

Pyrrha struck before Penny could fire, throwing Miló — it was in its spear mode — and nailing the beowolf square in the chest. The grimm was thrown backwards, down onto the ground with Pyrrha's spear going straight through it, in one side and out the other, and then it dissolved, and there was just Pyrrha's spear, buried in the grass.

Pyrrha dashed forward, and Jaune and Penny ran as well; Pyrrha yanked Miló quickly out of the ground and back into her hand, but she didn't slow down, as though now that she knew that not every single grimm had gone chasing after Ciel, she felt the need to pick up the pace.

Penny got it, or guessed she got it; she couldn't exactly ask Pyrrha to be sure that she got it, but she was pretty sure that was why Pyrrha had sped up. Or maybe she thought that they'd just wasted too much time being cautious and wanted to reach the Vault before Amber got away with the Relic.

Penny looked around. It should be okay. Even if there were a couple of grimm here, Ciel had gotten rid of most of them, and if they were all immature like that young beowolf that they could kill them quietly and then—

Again, Penny saw something on top of the tower, a dark shadow among the ruins.

More than a shadow.

"Get down!" Penny cried, breaking the silence that had prevailed since they entered Beacon, shouting as the giant nevermore swooped down on them from the ruined tower, spreading its dark wings across the sky.

Pyrrha didn't fire; like they'd talked about, she kept Miló in spear mode in case the sound of her rifle alerted any other grimm. Penny fired though, her lasers making only soft hisses as she fired green beam after green beam towards the flying grimm as it flew down towards them. She hit it, she hit it more than once, her green lasers slamming into its feathery chest, but the grimm must have been too big or too old because it didn't really seem to feel it very much.

It didn't die; it didn't even shriek in pain, although it did stop flying straight towards them and fly over them instead, over the top of them, blocking out the stars. Unleashing a storm of feathers down on them from above.

Pyrrha danced gracefully across the grass — Penny wished that she could have had more time to admire how elegant and nimble she was — as the nevermore feathers slammed into the grass all around her without ever hitting her.

Jaune raised his shield over his head and covered himself with it, dropping to his knees. The feathers thudded down all around him, and some of them slammed straight into his shield with a sound like heavy rain on a metal roof. And some of them hit Jaune; Penny heard him wince in pain.

Some of them hit Penny too; she didn't have a shield cover herself with it, and she wasn't quick enough on her feet like Pyrrha to be able to dodge the feathers; she tried to use Floating Array to parry them and bat them away, and she got some of them like that, but they were just too fast, and there were too many of them, and Penny felt some of them slam into her, knocking her back, slicing into her aura.

The nevermore was silent as it came around for another pass.

Why doesn't it make a noise and let the other grimm know? Penny wondered. Does it want us all to itself?

Penny jumped to her feet, and fired again at the nevermore, hitting it again and again with her green bolts, but again, it didn't seem to cause the grimm much harm, because this time, it didn't even turn away; it just kept right on coming.

Penny thought that it was coming for Jaune, and Pyrrha must have thought so as well because she threw herself between Jaune and the approaching nevermore, with Miló drawn back to thrust or — no, to throw it; she was holding it overarm, she was going to throw it, probably.

But at the last moment, as Penny's lasers hit the grimm again and again, the nevermore changed course, beating its wings so that the air hummed and the air currents washed over them as it flew not for Jaune but for Penny herself.

The nevermore moved too quickly for Penny to get away; by the time she realised that it wasn't Jaune in the nevermore's sights but her, it had grasped her in its black claws and lifted her off the ground, soaring rapidly through the air back towards the broken tower from which it had come.

"Penny!" Pyrrha shrieked, sounding as much like a pained bird as any nevermore did, the name running out of her mouth in spite of the need for quiet that they'd observed so far. Pyrrha raised her shield hand, stretching it out towards Penny, and for a second, Penny thought that Pyrrha was just reaching out hopelessly for her, but no, she could feel Pyrrha's semblance grabbing her as firmly as the nevermore's claws had, pulling on her, wrenching her back towards Pyrrha and Jaune.

Penny felt a prickly, uncomfortable sensation in her chest, a tightening, a stabbing pain that paid no attention to her aura. The nevermore slowed in the air, but it kept on beating its wings, beating them faster and faster and all the more furiously as it looked backwards at Penny, or at Pyrrha, with glowing red eyes that seemed angry.

Penny could hardly move, even to move Floating Array, because she felt … she'd told Pyrrha that having Polarity used on her was uncomfortable; Pyrrha must have thought that it was worth it in order to get Penny back and out of the nevermore's claws, and that was nice of her to try, she guessed, and maybe Penny would have agreed with her if the nevermore had let go easily. But the nevermore wasn't letting go; it was tightening its grip on Penny's arms and shoulders as it fought against Pyrrha, its sheer strength pitted against Pyrrha's semblance, and caught in between the two was Penny like a rag doll, feeling her limbs stretched, feeling her chest tighten. This did not feel good at all.

She wanted it to stop.

Freedom kicked in, half intentionally, half driven by instinct, by Penny's dislike for the pain that was spreading throughout her body. Polarity slipped away from her, sliding off her like … like something sliding off a slippery thing, unable to get a hold on Penny when she didn't want it to.

Sorry, Pyrrha, but you were really hurting me. Please don't be too mad.

Unfortunately, Freedom could only free her from the tight hold of Pyrrha's semblance; it couldn't set her free from the claws of the nevermore as it carried her up and up, through the sky, towards the broken tower that got closer and closer.

But without Polarity's hold on her, without Pyrrha's desperate attempts to pull her back, Penny was — after catching her breath a little bit — able to do something about that herself. She felt better now, felt more in control of herself.

Felt able to get a grip on Floating Array as the swords hung limply down from her back.

The laser beams hadn't worked too well, so Penny used the swords, the blades unfolding and stabbing upwards over and over again, stabbing it in its breast, on its wings, its neck, everywhere that Penny's swords could reach, as far as the wires would stretch. She thought about trying to wrap the wires themselves around the nevermore's neck and try to strangle it, but if that didn't work, then she could end up stuck, trapped by her own wires around the grimm, and she didn't want that at all, so she just kept stabbing and stabbing and hoping that would be enough.

It was enough to get the nevermore to drop her, and Penny felt herself falling, falling through the sky, turning over and around to see that she was dropping down onto the ruins of the Emerald Tower.

She twisted and turned as best she could so that she landed on her back instead of her face. She landed with a slamming thud and a feeling like some of her insides were starting to rattle around as her aura sent shockwaves through her body; it was not a good feeling. She landed in the middle of a ruin; it looked like this might have been a computer room, but the dragon's breath hadn't just burned away the walls and destroyed the tower; it had charred the floor mostly black and destroyed most of the tables and chairs and the computers so that there wasn't much here beyond jagged bits of wall, ash on the floor and a few bits of rubble, either from what had been here before or what had fallen down here when the tower was destroyed.

Bits of stone and metal had fallen so heavily on the floor that it was buckling in places, sagging down; there were even some holes around her that Penny could see.

Or maybe that was the dragon's claws when it had made its nest here, or maybe even the claws of this nevermore, the one that now perched on the edge of the jagged remains of the wall and looked down at her.

Penny couldn't decide if it looked angry or hungry. Neither made her feel great.

The nevermore stayed quiet; it didn't shriek at her, it didn't cry out, it just clacked its bony beak together as it pushed its head towards her.

Penny slashed at it with Floating Array, her swords glancing off the red-striped bone of the nevermore's skull, cutting at the flesh of its neck. The nevermore drew back, but only for a second; it thrust its head forward again, mouth opening and closing as though it wanted to swallow Penny whole.

Penny scrambled backwards, ash on her fingertips — and probably other parts too — as she smudged it across the floor. She kept on slashing at the nevermore, but that still didn't seem to be killing it, and it wouldn't even hold it off forever.

Penny looked around, looking for something to— the holes in the floor!

Penny kept some of her swords focussed on the nevermore, jabbing at it, prodding it, trying to keep it away from her. The nevermore clacked its beak as it started to circle, stalking around the broken wall at the edge of the tower.

With her other swords — or with her other lasers as Penny folded those blades up in half to reveal the carbines inside — she fired at the floor, around where dragon or nevermore had already dug into the floor so deeply that they'd cut through it. Now, Penny's lasers burned through it too, burned through it like a circle, or a ring, like in cartoons.

Unlike in cartoons, Penny wasn't standing the middle of the ring that she was making with her shots; she had to get up and run, trying to fend off the nevermore with her swords while she did so, and jump, landing in the middle of the damage that the grimm and her lasers had done and hoping it was enough.

It was enough; the floor gave way beneath her, and Penny fell through the gap to land flat on her face on the floor beneath, smashing a desk and a computer beneath her.

She rolled, ignoring the way that her aura felt — bad — as she formed Floating Array into a tight grouping in front of her, aimed at the hole she'd just made.

The nevermore's head appeared there, and it descended down, trying to force its way through the gap and into Penny's floor.

The tips of Penny's lasers began to glow as she charged up her heavy laser.

The nevermore clicked its beak and retreated, out of the hole and out of sight.

Penny had no target to aim at. She held the charge, ready, waiting for when she did. She could hear the nevermore up above, just, but she didn't really know where it was. She just knew that it was up there, waiting.

I'm sorry, Pyrrha. I'm not sure I'll be able to get back.

Jaune sheathed Crocea Mors in his shield in a single fluid motion, freeing up his right hand to catch Pyrrha by the elbow as she started in pursuit of the nevermore that had taken Penny.

"Pyrrha, wait!" he cried, unable to be quiet despite the circumstances because quiet, he feared, would not get through to Pyrrha. "Pyrrha, you can't."

Pyrrha rounded on him. Her eyes were wide, emerald islands surrounded by expansive and expanding seas of white, corners of her mouth turned downwards, lips twisted in discomfort. She looked how Jaune felt: like this was turning into more of a nightmare by the moment, a nightmare that had them in its grip and was tightening its claws around them.

There had been seven of them in the airship. Now, they were the last two left, the last two who were not facing … uncertain fates, to put it mildly. Rainbow, Blake, Sun; then Ciel; now Penny.

Pyrrha stared at him as though she hardly recognised him. "We can't just leave her," she whispered.

"I … I think that's exactly what we have to do," Jaune said, his own voice dropping. He felt sick to his stomach to say it, but at the same time, he felt like he had no choice but to say it, as much as he hated it — and hated himself for it. He couldn't see his own expression, but he could feel the way that his brows were twisting above his eyes, feel the way his mouth was drooping on either side; he knew that he didn't look happy about this, just as he didn't feel happy about this. But just because he didn't like it, just because he hated it, didn't mean that he wasn't right about this, even though he didn't really want to be. "How long will it take to save Penny, or even help her?" Jaune asked. "How long will it take to get to her? And what could Amber do in that time, while we're not there, while we're not even looking that way?"

Pyrrha kept on staring at him. She didn't look at him as though he was a stranger to her anymore, or at least, that was how Jaune took the change in her eyes, which were still wide but … not as much so, maybe, it was … maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see.

No, definitely not that. If he'd been seeing what he wanted to see, he definitely wouldn't have seen Pyrrha looking like this. She looked a lot of things, but nothing like he wanted to see.

She still looked unhappy, uneasy … frightened. No, nervous, call it nervous; it sounded better.

She still looked all the things he felt.

Jaune didn't feel better for the sharing.

Pyrrha was supposed to be the one who knew what she was doing, after all: the tournament champion — even more so now — the hero of Mistral, the sword of their team. That she looked like she shared his feelings about this was a sign … a sign of nothing good, but also a sign that his own feelings were not based on nothing.

Pyrrha didn't exactly argue his point; instead, she said, "And so we … but she could—"

"I know," Jaune admitted. "I know, but Amber could get the Relic. Can we just let that happen?"

Pyrrha's mouth opened and closed, or kind of it; it had started open, and it never really closed, but it opened up from where it was then closed again. "You are cold," she whispered.

Jaune flinched, even as he said, "I know. I don't like it, but … maybe someone has to be."

He thought he saw the faintest beginnings of tears welling up at the bottom of Pyrrha's green eyes. "I think I prefer the little world of the arena to this wide world," she said softly. "Though it is only a little world, a play world some would say, it is also a simple world to live in. No shadows, no deception, no good nor evil, no right nor wrong; no weighty choices that test the heart and shatter it."

Jaune didn't say anything. He didn't really understand about the arena — how could he? He'd never been a tournament fighter — but he understood wishing that things were simple. Who could argue against that? Who wouldn't wish for such a thing?

Who would want to be in their position right now?

Pyrrha shook her head, just once, back and forth. "Very well, though the gods condemn, let us go. We must go." She glanced down at the golden band on her arm, and then at the tower to which the nevermore had carried Penny in its claws. "Tyche Agathe, Penny; I hope that we will meet again, though you hate me when we do."

She said not another word to Jaune — that was fine with him; he could understand if she didn't want to say anything to him right now — and began to run once again, wielding Miló in sword form as she cut aside the nevermore feathers that lay all around them, cutting a path for herself and for him to follow her.

There were no other grimm, no other nevermores dropped off the tower — or at least, he didn't see any other grimm, though without Penny or Blake to see in the dark, they might have been there, waiting patiently. If they were, they were very patient, not making a sound or making a move, and it was more likely that they just weren't there at all, that Ciel had done her work well, and that the one nevermore that had scooped Penny up and away had been one outlier that had decided not to join the hunt for whatever reason.

It had been a pretty big nevermore, really big; maybe it was so big and so old that it guessed that something might happen, that Ciel was just a diversion for something else.

If it had been that smart, it looked like it had been the only one, because there weren't any other grimm coming down on them or out of the darkness as they covered the rest of the ground to the dorm buildings.

They ran around it, around the scarred brick of the dormitories and reached the courtyard, where they found Ozpin.

Pyrrha gasped when she saw him and staggered to a stop. Jaune stopped too, and not just because Pyrrha had.

The headmaster was lying in the shadow of the plinth of the statue, the statue that had been wrecked during the first fight for Beacon earlier that night. Only the plinth was still there, and a few bits of stone that had been the feet and ankles of the huntsman and huntress. Ozpin lay beneath the plinth, eyes closed, his body unmarked.

What there was was a rag stuffed in his mouth. They'd suffocated him and then left the thing that they'd suffocated him with. They could have taken it out. Just because they'd killed him didn't mean that they had to treat him like that.

If they'd taken it out, he might have looked like he was sleeping, like he'd lain down for a nap and never woken up. With the rag left in, shoved in his mouth, stuffed down his throat, it looked … it looked like he'd been murdered, obviously, but it looked like they'd humiliated him too.

It looked as if they'd left him that way so that he wouldn't look impressive when people found him.

That was probably the reason why Pyrrha knelt down and pulled the rag out of his mouth, holding it with as little contact from her fingertips as she could manage before she threw it away.

Jaune hadn't liked Ozpin much, after what he'd asked of Pyrrha, what he'd try to do to her, but then, Pyrrha hadn't liked Ozpin much either after that, but that didn't mean that it wasn't shock to see him like that, dead, and dead like that. It didn't mean that it wasn't a shock to see him treated that way.

Whatever his faults — and he'd had some pretty big faults as far as Jaune was concerned — he'd still been … still been their headmaster, still been the leader of the fight with Salem.

If they could kill him, then…

"We should cover his body," Pyrrha murmured.

"With what?" Jaune asked.

"I … don't know," Pyrrha admitted.

"We have to keep moving," Jaune reminded her.

"I know," Pyrrha said, sounding like she was almost sobbing the word, her whole body wracked. She took a step away from Ozpin's body and around the statue.

Then she stopped, turning back to him.

"We are too few," she said. "Too few to be sure of success; when there were seven of us, then, it was different, but … but another group, now that the dragon is gone, another group might have more luck flying here. I will go on ahead, but you need to call for help first. Call General— no, he'll be busy; first, call Professor Goodwitch, then General Ironwood if you can—"

"I don't think I have his number," Jaune said quietly.

"Then Ruby, Sunset, anyone!" Pyrrha cried. "Someone has to get here in case … in case we fail but there is still a second chance to stop Amber."

"In the meantime… you're going to go alone?" Jaune asked, not quite believing it.

Pyrrha shook her head. "You'll be right behind me."

"Not right behind you," Jaune pointed out.

"Have we any other choice?" asked Pyrrha. "Putting the hopes of all entirely on ourselves, we two? Or me idling here while you call for help. You said yourself, we have no time."

Jaune's mouth tightened. "You—"

"I'm not sending you away," Pyrrha told him. "I'm not asking you to leave me behind, to run from Beacon, to not fight; I want you to join me as quickly as you can because I … I do not want to do this alone, with all my heart I do not, but … do you really think we can do this alone? Are you certain of it, not hopeful, but certain, certain enough to hazard all upon it?"

Jaune didn't answer, and in his silence, he answered loud and clear.

He hated this. He hated what she was suggesting. But it made at least as much sense as leaving Penny behind and was a lot less … brutal. She was only asking him to hang back for a second. Compared to what he'd asked of both of them, that was nothing at all.

And it was hard — impossible, really — for him not to agree that someone else coming up here might have better luck.

"Okay," he said. "Okay." He took a step towards her. He wanted to reach out to her; he wanted to kiss her; he wanted to take her in an embrace and hold her tight, their chests pressed together as his arms wound around her. But there wasn't time. They wasted too much already; they had none left for a goodbye.

And this … this wasn't goodbye. This was just… "I will be right behind you," he vowed. "Just…" He forced a smile, whatever it actually looked like on his face, "Just don't win until I get there, okay?"

Pyrrha managed a little kind of smile in return. "I will try and restrain myself," she said. For a moment, he thought that she was going to say something else, that she wanted to say something else, but then she turned away from him, without another word in the end, and set off, away from the courtyard and towards the Vault.

Away from the courtyard and away from him.

Away from him and towards the danger.

Towards Amber, and Dove, their friends who had betrayed them.

He couldn't think about that right now, couldn't stand here dwelling on what had been said and done and what it meant and how he felt and all the rest of the stuff that he could go over with Professor Goodwitch when they restarted their therapy sessions tomorrow. Right now, he had a job to do: call around for help, make all the calls as quick as he could, then get after Pyrrha.

It's a good thing she told me where the vault was after Amber showed it to her that night, he thought as he folded up his shield into his sheath configuration — Crocea Mors was already sheathed in it, where he had thrust it to grab Pyrrha's elbow after Penny was taken — and fastened it upon his belt.

His hands trembled a little as he pulled out his scroll, and he was so torn between eagerness and nervousness that he dropped it, sending the device bouncing a couple of steps across the ground to rest beside Ozpin's body.

He picked the scroll back up again — and stepped away from Ozpin, because being that close to the dead man was … eeh — and tried to control his hands as they kept on shaking.

He opened the device up, flicking quickly — trying to flick quickly, but trying to be quick made him slower at times; he missed the screen with his finger once, and then another time, he pressed too hard and accidentally started up a mobile game; a get a grip, come on! — through to his contacts.

As he'd told Pyrrha, he didn't have General Ironwood's number, but he did have Professor Goodwitch's.

He'd put FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY next to her name in block capitals, but if this wasn't an emergency, then what was?

He tapped the green button with his thumb, maybe a little harder than he needed to.

He looked away as the scroll attempted to reach Professor Goodwitch, looking for Pyrrha; he could still see her, although she was getting further away from him, sprinting across the grounds towards the Vault. She was getting further away, but he could still see her, he could see the moonlight glinting off her armour.

He looked back down at his still-silent scroll, where it hadn't yet made a connection to Professor Goodwitch.

"Come on, come on," Jaune muttered. Yes, the CCT was down, but with the relay towers in Vale, he should be able to reach the professor in Vale, right?

Right?

He hoped so, anyway.

The scroll was trying to connect. Whether it was because of the tower being down that it was taking longer than usual or because Professor Goodwitch was too busy to answer, he didn't know, but it felt as though it was taking longer. And yes, sure, he was impatient, he wanted her to answer already, but it wasn't just impatience that was making this take a while; it was actually taking a while.

Perhaps he should hang up and try again? Or hang up and call Sunset or Ruby? But then he'd lose all the progress he'd already made, if he was actually making any progress, that was. Did he want to start from the beginning again, with Professor Goodwitch or anyone else, having waited this long already?

Perhaps I should say that I tried, couldn't reach anyone, and go after Pyrrha.

That was what a part of him wanted to do, but he couldn't do it. For one thing, they might be glad of the backup.

But if Professor Goodwitch didn't answer soon, then…

If she didn't answer soon…

Jaune's finger edged towards the red icon that would hang up the call. It inched, or half-inched or fraction of an inched, closer and closer to the icon without ever quite reaching it. Jaune couldn't stop hesitating. The longer he waited, the more he felt like it was hopeless, but at the same time, the more he waited, the more it also seemed like he'd sunk so much time into waiting that he couldn't just give up now. After all, in spite of the poor signal message in the top left of the screen, his scroll hadn't actually told him that it couldn't reach Professor Goodwitch at all; low signal wasn't the same as no signal — he must be in range of at least one of the relay towers — and taking a while to connect wasn't the same as unable to connect.

But if it took much longer, then he … would probably still do nothing and wait, rooted to the spot, desperate for it to work already.

It worked! Professor Goodwitch's voice emerged out of the scroll crackling and distorted, but audible, just about.

"Mister Arc?" she asked. "Is something—? Where are you?"

"Professor, you need to get to Beacon right away," Jaune said, the words running out of his mouth so fast that he was practically babbling them, joining them all together with no spaces. "Bring help if you can, but you need to get up here and tell General Ironwood!"

"Mister Arc, calm down," Professor Goodwitch replied. "You're hard enough to make out as it is on this line with— did you say—?"

Jaune winced. "Did I say what, Professor, you're breaking up!"

"Where are you, Mister Arc?"

"I'm at Beacon!" Jaune shouted, not caring if anything heard him so long as Professor Goodwitch did. "You have to get up here before Amber steals the Relic!"

"Amber?" Professor Goodwitch repeated, her voice crackling.

Right, I guess no one must have told her about that. "There's no time to explain," Jaune said. "But P—"

Something landed on his back heavily enough to knock him to the ground. Jaune let out an 'oof,' breath expelled out of him as he landed on his front, his head cracking against the courtyard stone hard enough to make his aura flare up and pass enough of the pain on to make him cry out. His scroll slipped from his hands — again — and skidded across the courtyard.

"Mister Arc?" Professor Goodwitch asked through the static. "Mister Arc, are you—?"

A white bone claw stepped on the scroll hard enough to shatter the screen. The device flickered, and then died.

The griffon to whom the claw belonged looked down on him in every sense.

It chirruped in anticipation.

Jaune tried to get up and draw his sword, but where some might have managed that in a single swift and graceful motion, he was slower and more heavy-footed, and was still trying to get up off the ground when the griffon went for him. It didn't bite him; instead, it closed its beak around the hood of his hoodie and picked him up like a rat in the mouth of a dog, shaking him furiously from side to side so that the world blurred around Jaune before throwing him away.

The courtyard spun, and the moon circled for a second above him before Jaune crashed through the wall of the dormitory, shattering bricks and breaking wood and tearing wires as he was thrown hard enough to not only go through the outer wall but through one of the ground floor common rooms and make a hole in the plaster of the far wall of the room as well.

The griffon stalked inside through the hole it had just made, though it had to squeeze and wriggle a bit, being broader shouldered than Jaune was.

He should have attacked it then, but he was too busy prying himself free from the wall and staggering out, and by the time he was ready, the griffon was in.

Still, tight quarters, it couldn't fly away; that should give him an advantage, right?

It wouldn't be a disadvantage for him, anyway.

Jaune drew his sword and drew it back for a high stroke; with his other hand, he folded his shield and gripped it tight, held before him to cover his chest and the lower half of his face.

The griffon stalked around the edge of the common room, kicking a green sofa out of the way with an imperious shove of one leg. It kept both eyes on him, its head turned in his direction. It was a little bigger than he was, but its head bobbed up and down a bit as it walked, so that sometimes, the difference didn't seem as big.

Jaune also found himself circling, picking his way around the edges of the room, avoiding the sofas and chairs, keeping the griffon in sight. He glanced at his own sword; there was fire dust stored in the pommel; he would have preferred ice or lightning, and ideally ice, but it wasn't as though he couldn't change it now. He should have done it if he wanted to.

Did he even have any ice or lightning dust left?

Unfortunately for him, even the fire dust that was there was looking … kind of used up; there wasn't a lot left.

He heard a soft growling as another grimm entered the room: a young beowolf, with no armour. Its eyes gleamed in the gloom, with the lights off in the common room.

The griffon squawked at it; the beowolf shrank down and slunk to the edge of the room.

Jaune kept his attention fixed on the griffon; he could take the beowolf, no doubt; a single stroke would kill it. The griffon was what he was really worried about.

The griffon reached out with one of its foreclaws, digging them into a chair that sat in front of it. It hauled the chair up and threw it through the air at Jaune's head.

Jaune raised his shield — covering his eyes for a second, and then used it to batter the chair away before it hit him, only to see the griffon bounding across the room in its wake, claws outstretched.

Jaune's shield was out of place, but he tried to sidestep, sliding out of the path of the grimm's onward rush and bringing his sword down into the griffon's shoulder. Crocea Mors bit into the griffon's black flesh, making it squawk with pain as it rounded on him, lunging out with its bone beak to him square on the chestplate. Jaune staggered backwards, stumbling into another sofa and falling onto it as though he was going to collapse and watch some TV after a hard day's work.

The griffon reared and descended on him with flashing claws. Jaune raised his shield up just in time; the griffon's claws skittered off the white surface, then gripped at the edges, trying to pull it down or away from him. Jaune thrust upwards with his sword, jabbing for the griffon's face. His blade skittered off the bone when he caught a glancing blow, but then Jaune thrust again, firing a blast of the fire dust still in the pommel.

The griffon darted backwards, twisting its body sideways, smashing through a coffee table in the centre of the room. It snarled at him, clicking its beak together, swishing its tail from side to side.

Jaune got to his feet, kicking backwards with his left foot to push the sofa back a little bit so as to give him more room.

He waited. As much as he wanted to finish this quickly, he'd be no good to Pyrrha at all if he got himself killed by rushing in.

The griffon took a couple of steps forward, and then a couple of steps back. It, too, seemed to be waiting.

Jaune breathed in and out heavily. As much as he didn't want to be rash, at the same time, he didn't have all night either.

If the grimm wouldn't do something, he would have to.

The griffon charged, presenting its front to him again as it lunged forward. It didn't try and slam all the way into him; instead, it stopped a short distance away and began to jab at him, reaching out with its claws, thrusting its head forward to snap its beak, trying to find a way through his defences. With its claws, it went for his belly, beneath his chestplate, with its beak for his face, it was trying to make it so that he couldn't defend everywhere with his shield; whatever he blocked would leave somewhere else vulnerable.

Unless he went on the attack himself, keeping his shield low to defend his belly while slashing with his sword against the griffon's neck.

The griffon took the blows on its head, shifting from left to right so that Crocea Mors scraped off the painted bone each time; it didn't seem to be breaking the bone, but the griffon was retreating, stepping back as Jaune pursued with slashing strokes that were bound to—

He felt the beowolf's jaws close around his leg. Jaune winced as he felt his aura ebb, then squawked in alarm as the young beowolf pulled him off balance.

The griffon charged, striking Jaune as his arms flailed, knocking him flat on his back on the common room floor. The griffon leapt up, clawing furiously at the ceiling above.

Jaune rolled onto his shoulder; he still had hold of his sword, and he used it to stab the beowolf through the face. The dead grimm collapsed and turned to ashes almost immediately.

The griffon cried out as it tore through the ceiling, bringing down timber beams and floorboards and showers of plaster and cement boards down on top of him with a thud that battered down his aura and pinned him beneath a mound of rubble. Jaune coughed as dust — the other kind of dust — threatened to get into his throat.

The griffon climbed on top of the mound of rubble — and on top of Jaune. He could feel its weight pressing down upon him and on what aura he had left.

It cocked its head to one side and chirruped, just as it had when it had first knocked him down.

A gust of flame, an inferno of flame, tore through the hole in the outer wall and rushed like a maddened horde of grimm into the common room. The griffon barely had time to look around before the fires engulfed it. Jaune felt the fires singe him, felt the heat wash over him, and was kind of worried that all the wood on top of him would catch fire too, honestly.

But he also heard the griffon scream in pain as the flames burned it up.

And when the fires died, there was nothing left of it at all, just a few wisps of smoke and some gently drifting ashes.

Jaune looked through the hole in the wall to see who it was had come to his rescue.

His eyes widened. "You?!"