Note: Heads up, a bit of a fucked up one this chapter. But y'all know me at this point.

Ruby Rose was the biggest fool in the world.

She tuned out the word, only able to focus on her own failures. How could she have been so blind? All the warning signs, all the pleading from her team not to go on this stupid mission, and she just ignored all of it. She played right into Ironwood's hands. She had been so obsessed with finding Penny, discovering the Vault's secrets, and getting some meager, frantic connection to Rosaline that she had endangered herself, her team, and all of her allies. She thought she was in control. She thought she finally understood the game. But she had been outplayed again.

"Ironwood lured us here," Blake grunted. "We should have known that message was suspicious."

"That's insane, even for him," Yang stated. "Who uses another student as live bait?"

"So he was counting on us violating his orders," Blake reasoned. "He just expects us to die here."

"He expects you to die, most likely," Penny explained. "It is possible General Ironwood hopes I truly succeed on this mission."

"He sent you to a deathtrap," Yang reminded her. "It sounds like he wants you dead, too."

"The General knows I am not easily killed," Penny said factually. "And given the current danger around the Grail, he likely wants it removed from its current position."

"You mean Glass?" said Yang. "Goodwitch told us she had a run-in with her."

"Correct," said Penny. "Ironwood seemed quite perturbed by Glass's attack. He gave me my mission assignment the following day."

"Ironwood knew?" Blake said, irritated. "Wait, does that mean Ozpin knew Glass had been here, too? And he didn't tell us. What the hell…"

As Yang and Blake cursed their misfortune, Weiss's heart ached. She kneeled down by Ruby's side, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder as she spiraled.

"Ruby… are you okay?"

Ruby was breathing hard, unable to look her girlfriend in the face. Her fingers curled around her bangs and her glasses became fogged over.

"I led us all down here," she said, her voice on the edge of breaking. "I failed you all. I…"

"Hey, it's all right," Weiss shushed her. "We all agreed to come here. You didn't force anything on us."

"But the others… I didn't… I should have—"

"You made the best decision you could have with the information you had," Weiss assured. "You were trying to help Penny, and she actually does need our help. It's all okay. We'll get through this."

Yang and Blake shared the sentiment. For better or for worse, Team RWBY acted as one. Any of them could have protested the decision, but they were all misled. Ruby had rarely led them astray, and she had earned some small forgiveness. Weiss pulled Ruby into a hug, but it could not last. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Coco approaching them. The stylish Huntress jogged toward their position, altered by Ruby's panic. Weiss stood up suddenly. She had to think fast.

"Hey, everything okay over there?" Coco called out. She got within twenty feet of Team RWBY before Weiss moved toward her, pointing toward the others.

"Just a small hiccup, but we're working on it!" she said calmly. "Make sure the others are ready to move in ten!"

Coco stopped in her tracks. She could see the redness on Ruby's face, the pain that had overtaken her. Yang and Blake both tried looking like they were in control, but she could see that something wasn't sitting right with them. Then again, it wasn't hard to guess why. Penny was missing a leg, after all. Not sitting on her doubts for more than a moment, she turned around and returned to her real team. They still needed help with their injuries, and that was far more pressing.

After Coco wandered out of earshot, Yang grabbed Weiss by the shoulder and spun her around.

"You're going to lie right to Coco's face?" she hissed through gritted teeth.

"Do you want to get distracted by drama right now?" Weiss shot back. "We are in an underground bunker in the middle of nowhere with some giant monster trying to kill us. Telling them now will just cause them to panic."

Yang grunted though she was unable to voice her frustration. Blake shook out the wound on her leg, testing her weight on the damaged appendage.

"I'm actually with Weiss on this one," she said tiredly. "We have Penny right here. The mission hasn't changed. I say we just focus on getting the fuck out of here."

Ruby took deep breaths. She needed to calm down. Wasn't she supposed to be the rational one? Yes, this was all a ploy, but Blake was right. They could just waltz out the Vault the way they came, barely worse for wear. Ironwood bet his hand on the dangers of the Vault, but they had a working theory to avoid it. They just had to grab Penny and go. Ten minutes. In and out. Crisis averted.

"I told you before: I cannot leave without the Grail."

Except for that small problem.

Blake groaned. "This shit again…"

Ruby pushed herself up to her feet, dusting off her cape. "Penny, please listen to us."

"There is nothing you can say to change my mind," Penny informed her. "I know that you are at risk down here, but my future depends on me returning safely with that Grail."

"Penny, we can make it so that Ironwood never has the chance to hurt you," Weiss tried to explain. "Once my sister learns what he did, she'll work to remove him from power. It will be difficult to untangle his influence, but—"

"It won't be enough," Penny said with such confidence that Weiss didn't know how to respond. "He has ways of hurting me that you don't understand. Even if you remove him from power, he will just become more dangerous. He will stop at nothing to take away everything from me. I can't afford to take that risk."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Penny, stop being stubborn. If you don't come willingly, we're just going to cut the rest of your limbs off and sling you over our shoulders like a fucking backpack."

Weiss gasped in disgust. "Blake!"

"What? They can reattach them!"

Ruby leaned over, meeting Penny's frightened gaze. "Penny, what are you so afraid of? This isn't the first time you've been afraid to challenge Ironwood. What can he possibly do to you that's worse than this?"

To Penny, the answer was obvious. "He can take away the last of my humanity."

Ruby recoiled. The other members of Team RWBY looked to each other for answers they didn't have. "Does this have anything to do with that man Ironwood mentioned in our meeting? Your… uncle?"

Penny bowed her head in shame. "He'll take out whatever he has to. Memories. Personality. My decision-making. He can do it remotely. Untraceable. You won't be able to stop him. By the time you know what's happening, it will be too late. The only way I can avoid that fate… to keep any version of myself alive… is to see this mission through to the very end. I am terribly sorry for dragging you into this, even inadvertently."

Ruby sighed, disappointed. For what little she knew about Penny's past, she knew how precious it was to her. Even if they had a chance to avoid erasure, could she really ask Penny to take that risk for their sake? She knew the answer, and it stung. Even as she was, wounded, and unstable, Penny's Atlasian pride would not allow her to falter. They could drag her to safety, and pray that Penny would not fight back, but they would be dooming her to a fate worse than death. Ruby refused to let anyone fall under Ironwood's thumb. She knew the pain of that all too well.

She visually checked over the others. Jaune was standing again, Ren's Aura-boosting Semblance working its magic. Fox and Nora were supporting Yatsu's weight, Velvet giving him words of encouragement. Ruby couldn't leave Penny down here alone, but she couldn't let the others die for her mistake either.

The choice was clear. She hoped she had the strength to take it.

"We need to send the others back to the surface," Ruby decided. Weiss, Blake, and Yang reacted with shock.

"What?"

"You want to split up?"

"Didn't we literally say that was a bad idea?"

"Not splitting up," Ruby clarified. "Getting them out of here. It was a mistake bringing them on this mission. You should get them to safety while you still can?"

Weiss noticed the change of pronoun. "Us? And what about you?"

Ruby met Penny's gaze. Even the android could see the wheels spinning in her head, see the terrible decision she was going to make. She was still stunned when Ruby said it.

"I'll stay with Penny and get the Grail myself."

"No."

Weiss's dismissal was as swift as it was fearful. Blake's assessment was even blunter.

"That's a really stupid idea. We literally just have to walk out the front door, and we're safe."

"We are safe. She isn't," Ruby reminded her. "We came down here to save her. How is bringing her back into Ironwood's clutches saving her?"

"We came down here to stop him from getting a superweapon," Blake reminded her back. "And now you want to hand it to him on a silver platter?"

"Ruby, we should just take her and go," Yang agreed. "We can deal with the consequences later. Right now, we should focus all our effort on leaving."

Penny interrupted, speaking clearly. "To clarify… if any of you touch me without my consent, I will start stabbing you again."

Yang crossed her arms. "I literally dare you to try."

Weiss tried to find a path of reason. Despite recognizing her faults, Ruby was still being guided by her guilt. It was the only logical explanation. She wasn't going to abandon Ruby to this Vault. If she had to stay by her side, she would until the end. She was certain they all would. But she had to try to get Ruby to see the futility. Their best chance to escape was right now. They had to leave before something worse happened.

"Ruby, I understand what you are saying. But—"

Then, something worse happened.

From down the corridor, something shrieked.

They turned their attention toward the horrid sound. It skittered at them in the dark, first a bizarre shadow moving hastily across the metal tube. Then, something more sinister began to take shape. Its footsteps were that of a thousand jagged feet clattering along the ground.

Ruby stammered. "Penny… you said the Maiden didn't leave the inner chambers, right?"

Penny spoke nervously. "Technically, that was only a hypothesis."

Weiss, Blake, and Yang pulled up their weapons. Those tending to their wounds in the center of the room froze. The thing gained ground quickly, approaching them in only a matter of seconds. First, they saw its eyes: two glowing blue spheres that were empty and surged through the dark. Its giant head, the size of a person all by itself, emerged from the shadow first and was that of a beautiful young woman. Her face was sculpted from the same grey metals that lined the wall, only smoothed into supple cheeks, a button nose and a pointed jaw. Silver streaks of steel formed a bob of artificial hair, and for just a moment as it emerged into the light of the chamber, it was like staring into the face of an angel. For just a moment, they found themselves entranced.

And then the rest of it came into view: a jagged, snake-like neck that rattled and weaved as it flicked around on metal joints. Two multi-jointed, seven-fingered hands, each attached to forearms as long as a bus and releasing bursts of steam. A sprawled, monstrous ribcage with revving, sawblade teeth instead of bones. And legs. So many legs, each a sharp, jagged blade capable of slicing through flesh with ease, each stacked on top of each other, scuttling like a crustacean or mutated centipede. The constant pounding of its legs against the metal sounded like a torrential rainstorm. It towered over them, twenty feet tall, stretching its neck over them to observe the intruders on its sacred ground.

Its eyes met Ruby, and for a fraction of a second, it froze. Maybe, she prayed, it recognized her.

The Maiden shrieked again. Ruby's mind kicked into high gear. She screamed.

"Evasive maneuvers!"

The students scattered. The Maiden leaped into the air, its infinite blades forming a deadly net as it plunged down toward the students. Those who could not run away were given a sudden boost by a gravity glyph courtesy of Weiss. The eight in the center were thrown around to the far corners of the room, some gliding to their feet and drawing their weapons, others bouncing against the floor. They were stranded, separated by the massive creature as its knifed feet created sparks on the metal floor. Coco, Velvet, and Fox were stranded on one side; Pyrrha and Jaune were tossed toward the entrance, and Yatsu, Nora, and Ren landed by Team RWBY. The Maiden spun in a circle, scanning the room, making eye contact with everyone at least once.

Ruby did the same. Everyone: separated. Outrunning the Maiden? Unlikely. Killing it? Also unlikely. Best option: distract it. Get out the wounded. It was times like this when she wished they had trained more as a group instead of going on vacation.

"Guys, Bombardment!"

Ruby barked her orders, and her team was off without saying a word. Yang and Blake jumped down to confront the Maiden, crossing paths and splitting off on either side. Ruby pulled out the sniper form of Crescent Rose, and Weiss summoned chains and fireballs. They unleashed a torrent of projectiles, bullets, and fireballs at its rearing head, and a half dozen gold chains at its limbs. Sensing the opportunity to strike, Penny joined; with a wave of her hands, her swords, even those beneath the beast, came to life and soared at its disjointed belly. Ruby gasped as her first bullet bounced harmlessly off the Maiden's exquisite face, leaving not even a dent in its perfect form. It didn't matter. She was the bait.

From around the sides, Blake and Yang circled the great sentry rapidly, Blake swinging between various bed posts and Yang bounding along on shotgun blasts. The Maiden's head swirled around, trying to keep track of the many foes. The two were wise to keep their distance, their perimeter keeping them far from the sharp spikes the Maiden had in plenty. The real damage would come from beneath. While the many attacks get the Maiden's attention, Weiss's chains snaked up from the bottom, weaving themselves between the monster's many legs. A half dozen chains created thick knots in the Maiden's joints, and its long neck stretched down so it could observe the trap laid for it. It shrieked as it watched the chains tighten, keeping it in place. Yang and Blake took potshots at its head to keep its attention scattered, but for the moment, they had it ensnared.

From a step beneath her, Nora froze. Her instincts told her to blow the Maiden to pieces with her grenades, but a pained grunt from Yatsu cut off her thought process. Being flung across the room dislodged the tourniquet, and Ren was working quickly to stem the blood flow. She could not afford to draw the beast's attention. Instead, she did the only thing she could think of: grab Yatsu suddenly against his will, and hoist him over her shoulder with all of her strength.

"Up ya go, big guy! We're leaving!"

Ren was taken aback by Nora's raw display of power, and Yatsu gasped in pain but did not protest. With the giant in tow, Nora and Ren made a break toward the corridor from which they entered. They understood the futility of the battle… though that strategy was not apparent to everyone. From the far side of the room, Coco transformed her briefcase into its weapon form, and with a vicious growl, she unleashed hell upon the monster's face. Her endless stream of bullets ricocheted off of the Maiden's frame, as did the fireballs, as did the swords. Everything that crashed into its flesh bounced off as if they were flinging pebbles at a castle wall. Coco shouted orders to her team.

"Fox, Velvet, make sure Yatsu gets out okay!"

The pair nodded, and they rushed into battle. They weren't stupid; if Coco's minigun wasn't powerful enough to break its defenses, no blade would. But Velvet's pouch was filled with more than a few explosives, and they had no problem adding to the confusion. Fox swept the Maiden to the right, hoping to dash his way to Yatsu, while Velvet approached from above, springing across the battlefield. She pulled several grenades out of her pouch and ripped out the pins with her teeth. She leaped, elevated over the confused Maiden, and tossed the explosives at its brain. They exploded into a cloud of smoke and shrapnel on impact, but the Maiden didn't react, its glowing eyes scanning Velvet through the debris.

Eight Huntsmen attacking it at once. Eight pitiful humans went up against the guardian of a tomb, giving it everything they could think of. And it just stared at them, either overwhelmed… or biding its time.

For a split-second, as her sniper shots rebounded harmlessly off its carapace, Ruby wondered how long it had been down here. How many millennia had passed, rusting its motors, rotting its ability to think? How long had it been forced to wait for an encounter, and what was it even built to defend against? Despite having dealt with a few encounters in its past, did it even understand what a Human was—these meek, fragile insects poking at it with toothpicks? Maybe it was playing with them. Maybe it wanted to understand. Hell, maybe it wasn't capable of understanding. It just stood there, taking their pathetic excuse for punishment.

Until it didn't.

The Maiden's neck twisted around, and it saw its first real prey. A young couple, one struggling to rise to his feet, alone in the back of the room. Pyrrha and Jaune were knocked away from the gravity glyph like everyone else, and Jaune landed hard on his injured shoulder, incapable of recovering. Pyrrha did her best to support him, letting him lean on her, but he had absorbed most of her focus. She was left flatfooted when the Maiden suddenly turned its full attention on her. It began to move—and as the infinite legs clattered together, they snapped straight through Weiss's chains, cutting them effortlessly.

Weiss felt a sharp sting of pain and fell to her knees.

"Weiss!" Ruby cried. She couldn't rush to her side, even as Weiss clutched her head. Her concentration was ruptured, but Ruby was forced to keep firing at the Maiden, hoping to draw its focus. It didn't matter. Despite all of the bullets, the Maiden just did not care. It scuttled toward Pyrrha and Jaune, easily closing the distance in a few seconds.

Pyrrha grabbed Jaune by the collar. "Jaune, move!" she screamed. She started to sprint, dragging him with her. Their target was to reach Nora, Ren, and Yatsu, but they only ran a few feet before the Maiden cut them off. A wall of blades slammed down in front of them, and the skidded to a drastic halt. They turned around, but the Maiden placed one of its arms in their way, closing off all paths. Pyrrha gripped Jaune tightly, desperately looking for a way out as the Maiden towered over them, its glowing eyes staring down at them like ants. The only path she could see was weaving between its legs, but they wouldn't stop moving, shifting, creating a vicious maze of death that would cut them to ribbons if they made even one wrong step. Jaune grunted in pain. He wasn't sure he had one good step in him.

The Maiden raised its other fist, shrieking as the fire, the lead, and the swords desperately tried to stop the inevitable. In one last moment, one instinctual move to save someone he cared for, Jaune hugged Pyrrha close and held up his shield, using all his strength to protect her. The Maiden brought down its arm—only to be interrupted as a fiery blonde crashed into its face.

Yang grabbed onto the beast's face as it reared back, the impact of a fully Aura-charged, shotgun-powered Huntress slamming at a hundred miles per hour into its head finally enough to stagger it. Jaune lowered his guard, relieved, and Pyrrha grabbed him and continued to break toward the chamber exit, undeterred. She cast only brief glances back at Yang and the Maiden, promising to herself she would help when Jaune was safe, even if she wasn't sure how. It stumbled wildly into the center of the room, head swinging like a pendulum, but Yang held on, discolored eyes burning. She pulled back her fist and punched the creature as hard as she could in its eye. Between the force of her strike and the density of the Fable metal, she felt the tip of Ember Celica crumble beneath her knuckles. It didn't stop her. She punched it again and again, each attack leaving the Maiden unharmed but cracking her gauntlets further.

"Leave! Them! The! Fuck! Alon—gahhh!"

The Maiden wrapped its cold fingers around her, and suddenly, Yang felt the air rush out of her lungs. It plucked her from its face like a bothersome gnat, holding her as it would a doll in its seven-fingered grip. Yang struggled, but her arms and legs were pinned. The Maiden held her airborne for all to see, trying to examine the pesky thing that thought it could stand up to her. The others continued their attack as it watched her, trying to decipher what the blonde was. While it did, one of the other pesky humans, the dark one, landed on its wrist.

"Yang, hold on," Blake said fearlessly. She jammed the tip of her sword between the monster's thumb and Yang's side and pulled. She didn't have Yang's strength, and it might have been pointless, but she had to try. Whatever leverage she might have gained wasn't enough, and she struggled in vain to pry the Maiden's fingers apart. It didn't seem to care about the pointless effort, but from the other side of the room, the Huntresses did. Ruby was desperately trying to think of another strategy. Weiss tried to summon more chains and summon them she did, but her attempt to bind the Maiden was only met with indirect, uncaring snips of her weapons.

And then there was Penny, watching all of her friends suffer in vain. Her friends that, for some bizarre reason, had come to this hell to try to save her. She could not understand why they would do such a stupid thing, but she understood that their lives were now her responsibility. A Huntress could not abandon her allies, and if she had to risk everything, so be it. She hobbled to one leg, and her arms began to change.

"It's… tight…" Yang gasped, struggling for air.

"I know!" Blake grunted. She looked around for help. The others were doing their best, but it was doing nothing. Pyrrha and Jaune were slowly making their way toward the rest of Team JNPR. Coco, Velvet, and Fox hit the Maiden with everything they had, but they might as well have not even existed. She tried to keep her focus on Yang. She could get her out of this. She just had to pull a little harder.

"B-Blake…" Yang struggled. The Maiden tightened its grip.

"Almost there. Almost there."

Squeeze.

"Blake, I—"

"Try to push," Blake begged.

Squeeze.

Blake pried with everything she had. The Maiden just stared coldly at them, its expressionless face judging them for their failures. "Come on, just a little—"

Crack.

The sound sent a ripple through the chamber, and the assault stopped. Time seemed to freeze. Blake felt her body go limp the same moment she saw the energy leave Yang's face. The Maiden had squeezed hard enough, and something, somewhere within Yang Xiao Long popped. Her bones crumbled, and her legs went numb. A spurt of blood erupted from out of her lips, splashing the Maiden's cold fingers. Her head rolled back and her eyes retreated into her skull. From afar, Ruby saw all of the life, all of the struggle drain from Yang's body. She and Blake screamed in horror together.

"Yang!"

The Maiden shrieked, pulling back its hand. The sharp pull forced Blake off, and she fell toward the bed of spikes. Out of pure instinct, she reached out to Yang, feeling the hot tears fall from her eyes as she slipped away. She made no effort to save herself. She felt the heat from the friction of the blades on the back of her neck—and then, someone caught her from the air.

"Gotcha!" Fox cried, snatching her with a last-second leap. His momentum carried the two of them out of the way of the knives, though they did not gracefully land, tumbling against the hard chamber floor. Blake kept her eyes glued to the Maiden's hand even in impact, and she watched pathetically as it pulled back its arm as far as it could. Without any care for the once fiery dragon that now sat limply in its hold, it flung the girl as hard as it could across the chamber. Her limb body turned into a missile, and its target was hit directly: Nora, Ren, and Yatsu, who were catapulted into the far corridor from the force of the impact. They were blasted from sight, and Blake felt some part of her die.

The Maiden snaked its neck, looking at the remaining Humans with something close to pity. Their attacks had stopped altogether, and most of them had stopped even trying to fight. Their spirits seemed broken, as soon would be their little forms. It opened its mouth to shriek again, ready to pick off its next target, when a glow emerged from the other side of the room. All eyes were drawn toward it.

Penny had managed to pull herself up to her stump knee, using her other foot to plant herself firmly into the ground. Her arms no longer existed; they had been transformed, fusing into a cannon that stretched to half the size of her torso. The thing groaned as it powered up, and from within, a buzzing slowly turned to a high-pitched scream. A green light glowed from within, seemingly brighter than the sun, and the Maiden was drawn toward it, charging at the new weapon. It could not move fast enough. Penny braced herself, putting all of her weapon and power reserves into the attack. The Atlas military had created her to kill Grimm. She suspected this Maiden might have been the same. From one weapon to another, she silently wished it well. Then, she fired.

The beam of energy that came from the canon encompassed the entire room, and it swept the Maiden clean off its feet. The mechanical guardian crashed into the furthest wall, a dozen of its bladed legs flying off in wild directions. Those on the ground were forced to duck out of their way as Penny kept the beam focused on the Maiden, which flailed as bits and pieces continued to explode off its ancient form. Unfortunately, the strength of the weapon was too much for Penny to handle. Without proper footing, the kickback flung her backward and into the wall, and she lost control. Her arms flew up, and with it, the energy was pulled across the length of the wall, obliterating everything in its path. The beds, their components, the metal walls, the rock beneath—everything was laid to waste, pulverized under Penny's final attack. She screamed in pain as the last of her reserves were drained, and as the weapon finally shuttered after twenty seconds of uncontrolled destruction, Penny fainted.

When the carnage cleared, the chamber was covered in metal debris and severed saw legs. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, leaving those on it sputtering.

And the Maiden—it was alive, flailing in a panic, trying to find its footing. One of its great arms was severed, the same used to crush Yang in its grasp, but it was alive. And it was furious. It scrambled to its feet, now stirred to action after millennia of near-constant slumber, its face still motionless but its eyes burning more brightly than before. However, as it gasped for its footing, it felt something quake beneath it. The entire chamber rumbled—and from the cracks in the wall, large chunks of earth began to tumble on top of the beast. The rumbling turned to a violent quake within moments, the cracks from the wall spreading up to the ceiling. Ruby turned her eyes to the far-away roof in fear. Penny's attack had been far more successful than she realized. As the metal structure gave way, its integrity ruptured beyond repair, she realized Penny did what the Maiden had hesitated to do: bury them alive.

Ruby tried to scream the order to run, but she didn't have the words, her energy sapped out from seeing Yang crushed. It didn't matter. The others knew what they had to do. Those who remained on the chamber floor—Pyrrha, Jaune, Velvet, Coco, Fox, and Blake—made a break for the chamber exit to follow those who were thrown away. Unfortunately, the Maiden, still teeming with life, scrambled to the center of the room, eager to cut off their escape path. They each broke in their own directions, with Coco choosing to stay in the back, training more machine gun fire on it in an attempt to keep its attention. From her vantage, she saw the next few moments unfold clearly, all happening within moments of each other.

She saw Velvet try to circle wide around the Maiden, leaping over falling debris and metal shards. Fox and Blake took a similar path, though the latter staggered behind, her shock acting like poison in her blood. The Maiden swung at them with its one arm, and in one fluid motion, it caught them. Its palm smacked into Velvet, catching her from the right in her blindspot, and she went tumbling into Fox and Blake. The three of them were knocked clean into the corridor close by; not the one from which they entered and their friends had escaped, but one that led deeper into the Vault's center. On the Maiden's other side, Pyrrha and Jaune struggled to escape the falling debris, and the Maiden turned its focus to them in a final, desperate ploy to fulfill its purpose. They tried to weave through the chaos, but it was all for nothing. Pyrrha focused on avoiding the Maiden's attacks, but her attention was scattered. She could not see the fragments of the ceiling falling on top of her until it was nearly too late, and Coco's cries couldn't be heard under the earthquake and endless hail of bullets. At the last moment, she was saved—not by any ingenuity or awareness, but by Jaune.

He shoved her.

Pyrrha stumbled away as the ceiling crashed where Jaune had just been. She turned around.

"Jaune! No!"

She did not see him. The large fragments of earth and metal had created an impossible barrier, and the cloud of dirt was so thick that it threatened to choke her. Did he roll out of the way? Was he underneath that rubble? She couldn't see, and she didn't have time to think. The Maiden was on top of her, trying to pierce her beneath its legs. Her instincts took over from her frantic mind, and she took the quickest path to her escape: through its underbelly. She had only observed the Maiden for a few minutes, but her Semblance had organized its chaotic movements into something of a recognizable pattern. There were small gaps between the knives, spaces she could barely squeeze through. So, she did. Guided purely on instinct alone, she dodged her way beneath its legs, letting her body do the work for her. She was not perfect. Merely touching the blades was enough to cut her flesh, and she felt the sharp edges on her arms and thighs as she forced through an opening. But in the end, she burst through past the Maiden's feet and sprinted down the corridor where Nora, Ren, Yang, and Yatsu had been discarded, tears in her eyes. She desperately looked back but saw nothing before more rubble blocked her view.

And then, there was Coco. With Jaune vanishing beneath the rubble and the others gone, the Maiden turned its full fury on the girl who pelted it with ineffective bullets. She stood her ground, letting the beast taste every last scrap of lead she had on her as the world crumbled around her. She didn't give a fuck about her own safety. That thing killed Yang. It crushed her like a toy. It may have killed the rest of her team as well. She had nowhere to go. If she was going to die in the hellhole, she was going to die fighting. She screamed at the Maiden, daring it to finish its job. The Maiden stalked her, marching through the crumbling battlefield, slipping over stones and its own discarded legs, as it readied itself to take its final prey. Coco felt her eyes burn beneath her shades as her ammo ran out, leaving only the empty clicking of the revolving gun. The Maiden threw its head toward her, eager to crush it under its skull.

It met only a swath of rose petals.

As the world fell around her, Ruby took her friends to safety. She grabbed Weiss and Penny, both exhausted and in a flurry of petals, she soared across the room, sailing around the crumbling Vault structure. In her final act, she grabbed Coco, and the four of them transformed into a traveling mass of red and green and white and brown, flying somewhere, anywhere safe. With the other passages cut off, Ruby carried her three remaining allies toward the corridor in the back of the room, far away from the others. She sailed through the earth as it collapsed around her, escaping into the pitch black of the deeper Vault.

The Maiden shrieked after them, but its sound was eventually silenced like all else as the dirt fell. The final fragments of the chamber fell, and the Maiden was buried alive beneath the world itself.