Disclaimer: See last chapter.

Breach

Ruby rushed outside where the klaxons were wailing. People were still walking around in a hurried and rushed fashion. Most of them looked like civilians, those that couldn't fight. A few that did look like Hunters were rushing towards the rooftops, where it would be easiest to see the fight.

A few kids tripped down in front of Ruby, and without care of who they were she helped them up. "Quickly, run inside! Everyone, there's a safe place in here!" she yelled out.

That got a few people's attention, but most were quickly starting to run towards some other form of safety, most likely their houses. The kids ran into her shop, and a mother held a crying baby and trying to stop it. "Ma'am, hurry, inside!" Ruby called out.

The woman nodded and ran in. Lilac and Jasper should have gotten the arena hardlight working by now, it wasn't hard to use by design. Almost specifically for this reason. Ruby had honestly hoped it would never see the light of day, but there it was.

Another earthquake shook her. She slammed Crescent Rose onto the ground to keep steady. The klaxons kept sounding. According to all the drills, at some point they would pause and tell everyone which way the Grimm were coming from.

Most drills also said that civilians should head towards the center of Vale, the most well defended area outside of Beacon proper. But everyone seemed to be running away. "Grimm in the Plaza!" someone was shouting.

Adam came out of her store, his blade held in one hand. "Go back inside, you can defend them better than the arena can!" Ruby commanded.

Another few kids were crawling over, their parents screaming. She needed to head to the Plaza as soon as she could, but right now she was needed here. "Help everyone get inside then," she commanded once she realized Adam wasn't helping anyone up or into the shop. Ruby glanced down at her scroll, hoping for some kind of instructions. Instead, a giant 'tower offline' message greeted her. 'Atlas Security Channels online' it read on the bottom.

Ruby growled. She helped the kids up, using Crescent Rose as a makeshift barricade from the sea of people starting to run and hide. "Hide inside, once the tower comes back on use your scrolls to contact your parents. You'll be safe in there," Ruby said. One of them nodded, their floppy ears hitting them almost in the eye.

A roar sent adrenaline through her veins. That was a beowulf, common, easy to beat. But for a civilian? An unstoppable juggernaut. "Everyone, run inside and stay there!" Ruby shouted as she flared her aura.

The beowulf ignored the civilians, despite the probably tasty fear they were giving off, and running off towards her. Just as planned. Ruby wasn't about to fire Crescent Rose at any point, not in this kind of audience, but she did use her Semblance to gain some speed, appearing behind the red and white bipedal wolf thing and bisecting it instantly.

Adam was still staring at her. Her patience was starting to wear. "Either help them, or help me against the Grimm! You're a Hunter, act like it!" Ruby shouted at him. The field of people had started to thin out, and she could hear more roars and screams coming from the Plaza. She didn't bother to see if Adam was following her, she just burst into her Semblance, flying above the people as they ran.

The usage of her aura alerted the Grimm to her presence, and she fell into a pattern. Slash, Petal Burst, slash, dodge the claws, cut its arms off, flow into another one. She refused to use her ammo, as there were still people running by.

The plaza was wrecked. At the center platform, where she'd fought against the Atlas Paladin mech not that long ago, only...a few weeks? A month? How long ago was that now? The platform was basically gone.

In its place was a massive hole, with hundreds of Grimm coming out of the center. The police had already seen fit to cross off most of the plaza from people, telling them to run far away and to give the Hunters room to fight.

Beacon students that were enjoying the sales had already called in their rocket lockers...which was seriously cool, Beacon had rocket lockers!?...and were doing their best to cull the horde.

There were also a few people inside the hole, looking like they were either fighting the Hunters or fighting the Grimm, Ruby couldn't tell. They had the masks of Grimm though, and the white coats that were inherent to the White Fang.

An ursa dropped in front of her, and with no one around for at least thirty feet in each direction, now she could put on her show. She fired once behind her, making sure the bullet would just hit the ground, sending her flying forward. The ursa's claws nicked her cape, and in an instant she used Petal Burst to fly around it, letting her scythe do what it was intended for, and the wheat the Grimm nearby.

A deathstalker, one of the scorpion type Grimm and something rare around Vale, was behind her, and it's legs kicked up ensuring she was knocked down. Crescent Rose flew out of her hands, landing nearby on the ground. Ruby glanced over it, seeing that it landed at the feet of Adam, who still seemed torn about what he was seeing. He must have some kind of sword Semblance, as a long light came from his sword and utterly eviscerated the deathstalker at her feet.

He paused for a moment, before his face schooled itself into something far more determined. "White Fang!" Adam shouted, his voice carrying through the hectic sounds of the battle. "Join the Hunters, and kill the Grimm!" he yelled. He reached for his pocket, holding a small Grimm style mask, and he shoved it onto his face.

He kicked Crescent Rose back to her. "You'll be needing this," he said loud enough for her to here. "White Fang! Defend the faunus of Vale!" he shouted out.

The few people in the center stopped fighting their enemies, turning out to be Hunters, and immediately started going after the Grimm. Ruby smirked. "Always knew you were a good guy!"

"You were wrong!" Adam said, his sword a flashing series of steel and red as it cleaved through beowulf and ursa alike.

Ruby ran through a few of the Grimm to see some of the Signal kids that she'd been teaching just the other day in the center, on the outside the few that she remembered, doing their best and hardest to keep the Grimm off the lower years.

On the far side she could see Team PABY, coming straight off a bullhead that had the full Beacon teams. They were sending first year teams for this? Ruby couldn't fault them though; there were certainly enough Grimm for it. She ducked under the claws of another beowulf, and had to sidestep from a boarbatusk that was rolling around and devastating the landscape. The wolf died instantly, the boarbatusk following her as she ran through the fight, aiming for a small incline.

Team SILV was off to the side, white glyphs cutting off every avenue of escape for the Grimm as Nora went to town, smashing everything she could find with her hammer. Whenever finesse was needed, Cyril and Ren took their place, ducking underneath each other with daggers and sickles.

The boarbatusk went off the incline, and Ruby stopped underneath it, shaving off its head as it suddenly found flight. There were a lot of Hunters here, but there were a lot of Grimm. And Beacon was just now getting here.

She lifted up Crescent Rose and started to fire, her bullets doing little. "Ruby, aim for me!" Adam roared from the side. Aim for him? What was that going to do? Either way, in the heat of a battle like this, all she could do was trust. Even if he was White Fang, and now that she thought about it, Blake had specifically mentioned that if she met a White Fang member named Adam to simply 'run'. Well, he wasn't trying to kill her yet!

She turned in midair, jumping off another boarbatusk and firing at the red pillar that was Adam's sword. It glowed as soon as the bullet hit it, and that must be how his Semblance works. A lot like Yang's, except it has to hit the blade. Mostly because he let loose the glow onto another deathstalker as it threatened two faunus kids, the lizard like tails obvious.

The Grimm were still pouring out from the hole in the center. The first year Beacon teams were working only on the edge. Ruby bolted towards where Team PABY was, leaving Adam far in the dust, making sure to kill an ursa that was threatening Jaune just as she passed. "Yang!" Ruby called out.

The blonde brawler was busy punching out an ursa's lights, each movement swift and secure in the knowledge of what she was doing. "Oh hey Ruby!" she called out just as she finished it off with an uppercut. "Wasn't planning on going to Vale today, but the alarms go above any detentions!"

"You're still in detention!?" Ruby called out as she ducked another ursa. They were getting bigger Grimm now, rather than just the quicker ones like beowulves or boarbatusks. Soon they'd get mammoths, and there was little that they would be able to do against those.

"Yep!" Jaune called out as he tried to sidestep one of the blurring beasts that rolled around. He misjudged the step and fell down the slope to the plaza ground, his sword landing in the perfect spot to get another Beowulf. "They're going to be in there for a long time! Not least of all because of what you did at the dance!"

"I still can't believe I missed it! Seriously, I missed it! Ruby, why would you do that when you knew that I couldn't be there!" Yang called out, her arms pumping to reload Ember Celica. The shotgun shells on their own didn't seem to do much, and neither had her own bullets.

"She was cheering me up!" Pyrrha roared out with a grin as she lived again in the challenge of battle. Mio was flashing every which way, transforming into each battle form for only an instant before being used.

"Less talking, more Grimm!" Blake growled out as her own cleaver cut straight into a nearby Beowulf.

"Still no word from your folks?" Yang asked the cat faunus.

"Wait, what?" Ruby asked as she hopped over another beowulf's claws. The fact that it wasn't taken out a moment later didn't distract her.

"My parents heard something about the White Fang heading down to Mt. Glenn, so they went with a few Hunters from Vale to go look. I haven't heard from them since!" Blake explained, her attention more on her body than her words. There was a static noise as a beowulf attempted to carve into her spine, only to hit pure air as Blake decapitated it.

"We're supposed to stay here and keep the block safe," Pyrrha said. "If you get a chance, could you take a look?"

"What does this have to do with Mt. Glenn!?" Ruby shouted.

"The train! It used to be one of the old subway trains that connected the two before Mt. Glenn fell. Come on, you remember history class!" Yang called out.

"No, I don't remember that! When did you learn any of this!?"

"In Port's cla...oh right you're not in Beacon yet," Yang said, sheepishly looking off to the side as she backhanded an ursa that was trying to sneak up on her.

Ruby sighed. "No, I'm not in Beacon yet. I'll do a quick check into the hole to see if anyone there needs my help," Ruby said, glancing down towards it. Grimm were still pouring out of it at a rate that honestly kind of scared her. But she was a Huntress, and that meant she hunted Grimm. She was not the one who was hunted. She turned to Blake, "Oh, right, Blake, Adam is around!" she said quietly , hoping the faunus could hear her. Gold eyes stared at her for a moment , before she nodded. Ruby hoped that meant she would stay out of sight.

She picked up Crescent Rose and slid down the side, casually picking up Mors and throwing it to Jaune as she passed, before she went close to the center of the platform. Hundreds of beowulves and boarbatusks were pouring out, and more than a few ursa and deathstinger's. If anyone was alive in there, it wasn't going to be easy.

Rather than trying to fight through, she cut through what she could but used her Semblance mostly to essentially fly above them. Nevermores fortunately weren't around, otherwise air control would've been the name of the game, but Vale had some of the best defended airspace that she could imagine.

Even Patch hadn't seen a nevermore that wasn't intended for nearly three months, and Patch was almost thirty minutes away by aircraft.

Raised rocks caused by debris huddled around it, the climbing Grimm more easily able to get out. The boarbatusks required the use of either the other Grimm to boost them up or for them to magically hit the right angles for them to jump over the rocks.

There was no easy place to land. Almost every inch was crawling with Grimm, no matter how high she thought about pushing herself to get to. She had to constantly enter and exit her Semblance in order to see anything, before she saw a slightly narrower spot, with only a single ursa on it.

Using the momentum from her fall, she appeared directly in front of it, both of its halves falling down around her. She was breathing hard; this was no training simulator, and she'd been using her Semblance a lot. She hadn't taken too many hits yet. She'd have to take a look at her scroll to find her actual aura levels, estimating aura was an advanced skill she didn't have yet. And the battle had only begun around fifteen minutes ago.

She didn't need Crescent Rose's scope to see what was happening down there though. The train had been derailed a bit, by what looked like a large single impact. The White Fang were huddled in a corner, defending themselves from Grimm when they could, but mostly the Grimm were ignoring them and heading out into Vale proper.

On the other side of the wreckage were Blake's parents and Qrow, Harbinger doing work cutting down more Grimm that Ruby had ever seen him hunt on Patch. They were three hundred feet from the hole into Vale, and were almost always surrounded.

Kali was doing surprisingly acrobatic maneuvers that reminded her a lot of how Blake fought, but instead of using claws like Ghira was using, she was using every other weapon she had available. Rocks, small pieces of metal, almost everything that she could find she was using to add to her fighting style, which could be at best described as 'feral beast gone rabid'.

Compared to Qrow's decisive quick strikes, his own scythe fully formed, or Ghira's own overwhelming strength it was extremely effective.

She fired a few shots down there, just to alert Qrow that she was on her way. "Ruby, no!" Qrow started to say just as Ruby leapt off the rock, falling onto a Beowulf, and using it's momentum to head into her own series of strikes.

She was knocked down towards the three instantly by a lone deathstalker leg, having kicked her out of her planned combo. She rolled down the hole, and in another instant was back up, a nearby ursa having fallen again.

"Darn it Ruby!" Qrow shouted, and somehow, incredibly, she almost felt his Semblance turn on. Could he even do that? She had always thought his Semblance was impossible to control, but here he was doing it anyways.

Immediately the rocks subtly shifted to get underfoot more, and more than once she saw several dozen Grimm fall over themselves. She also saw the White Fang's guns...wait a minute those guns looked familiar wait she had made those guns not even a month ago no wonder they looked familiar did that mean she was making guns for the White Fang oh no Blake was going to kill her in her sleep for helping that wait there was a fight still going on focus Ruby!

Rather than trusting her feet, she used her Semblance to gain some height, bouncing off the Grimm and using Petal Burst to get even a bit more distance towards the other three.

"Ruby, what are you doing here!? You should be back at your shop, where it's safe!" Qrow scolded as Harbinger plucked up a Beowulf and slammed it down on another ursa. Both of them went down the edge further into the tunnel where they happened to catastrophically collide, rather unluckily, with another deathstalker.

"Blake asked me to check up on them!" Ruby shouted back. "And I had no idea you were down here too!"

A rock shuffled forward, hitting through one boarbatusk before it headed back towards Kali's hands. "That's very kind of you Ruby, but we're kind of stuck as it is. One more person, no matter how talented, isn't going to help much," she said.

Ghira stared at her for a moment. "Your Semblance...what exactly does it do?" he asked, his claws picking up one of the Grimm and slamming it down onto the rocks again. "The White Fang aren't listening to me, unfortunately."

"Adam told them to fight the Grimm, and to defend the faunus. I don't think the ones over there heard him though!"

"Adam Taurus is here!? Fighting the Grimm?" Kali asked. "Will wonders never cease...?" she smirked. "Maybe we can make it out of this."

"Her Semblance is just super speed," Qrow explained as he jumped back from an ursa's claw. "Special and good for running back to Vale like she should be doing!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

The sound of a chainsaw revving up blocked out more of the sound. Another of the White Fang, a large giant of a man nearly Ghira's size, was wielding what looked like a giant one and was mercilessly slaughtering everything near his compatriots. A chainsawd 3k! Ruby almost squeed, before she realized that it had revved up, so it was almost sure to be out of dust by now.

It was nearly impossible to be stopped while revving one up, but it ate up through its internal dust supply with a fervor that made Zwei at mealtime look like a slug.

"Ruby, head back to Vale! We can do this, trust in us!"

"I got an idea!" Ruby called out rather than answering. She let off a shot towards the ground, sending her flying towards the ceiling. She flared her aura, letting the Grimm stop moving for all of just one moment.

That one moment was all that was needed. Ghira plunged through them, he and Kali working in near perfect tandem to head towards the other group of the White Fang. Qrow used their own distraction to head behind the derailed train, a small crow popping out of from behind it.

She fired another shot to fly towards them. "Coming in hot!" she yelled, Crescent Rose flushing bright as it cleaved through another few. They were easy to beat as most Grimm were, but there was a reason that so many Hunters died. There were just so many! It wasn't quite infinite, but it certainly felt like it. Almost everywhere she looked it was a near perfect sea of black and red.

The White Fang member holding the chainsawd growled at her as she landed, threatening her with a near useless weapon. "Don't!" Ruby yelled out. "Adam says to fight the Grimm!"

"That's what we've been doing Ruby!" a familiar voice yelled out. "We got the order but we can't make it out of the tunnel!" She looked towards him. Small dog ears...

"Perry!?"

"How does this surprise you but the Breach itself didn't!?" Perry asked as he ripped off the mask. He had a small shortsword pistol on his waist, along with one of the guns that she'd made on the other side.

"I wasn't expecting the White Fang!"

"Details!" the big guy shouted. "How do we get out!?"

Ghira and Kali made it through the small tunnel that they'd made by charging forward. The other White Fang, except Perry, made small movements as if to raise their weapons. "Wait, remember Adam's orders!" Perry said. "We aren't to hurt them, we're supposed to be hunting the Grimm!"

"Adam's orders make no sense. First cause the crash, then don't cause it, then blow it up. I think I'm losing faith in his cause," the big guy answered.

"I think there's someone else above him, pulling the strings," Ghira said as he offered his back to the other White Fang, casually hunting a few of the Grimm that threatened their way through. "Find them, and we find the answers."

"Answers don't matter if we can't get up to Vale," Qrow's gravelly voice said as he reappeared from somewhere. "Ruby, you need to go."

"I can help! Perry, Ghira, Kali, big guy-" Ruby started.

The big guy interrupted her, "Bane."

"Perry, Ghira, Kali, Bane, right here. When the Grimm are distracted for just a moment, rush them!" Ruby commanded. Before Qrow could stop her she jumped off Kali's hands, which were already mysteriously in place, and she used Petal Burst to get out into the middle of the horde. Once there, she flared her aura again, just as she did before.

To her horror, she got the Grimm's attention. She also spotted the intrinsic weakness that came from a broken aura.

She'd been using her Semblance too much. And now with that aura flare, she was essentially out of aura. And that meant from here on all the hits and kicks that she'd received would actually start to do damage.

A single individual Grimm, no matter how strong, wasn't much compared to a trained Hunter. A horde of them, however? There was advantage in numbers.

"Ruby!" Qrow's voice called out. He must have seen the telltale sparkles of her aura breaking. She waved Crescent Rose in circles, cutting there the dozens of Grimm that had surrounded her. It'd been a long time since she felt her aura break like that, and the weakness of her muscles failing what used to be common hits. Every instant was a scream against her by her own body.

At first it wasn't bad, even with her body betraying her. Then the small hits, the small cuts, starting to get to her. The claws cut through her combat skirt. Her cape was shredded and torn off. There was blood in the air. The group had only gotten halfway on her sacrifice, and were back to getting trampled by even more of the horde.

There was a brilliant flash as Ruby heard a massive detonation of something next to her. The deathstalker that was about to poison her, the ursa behind it, and three beowulves behind it were all gone, floating away in black debris.

At the mouth of the hole was Glynda Goodwitch, standing next to her a man that Ruby had only seen once but everyone knew who he was; James Ironwood.

He had a single gun out, pointing at the Grimm around her. "Ruby Rose, get out," Ms. Goodwitch said, her Semblance collapsing almost everything around the tunnel.

"Ghira, Qrow, get everyone out, we'll collapse the tunnel and stop the Grimm!" Ironwood commanded, his voice surprisingly strong and easy to hear. A commander's voice.

"Never too late a moment huh James?" Qrow asked as Harbinger flashed even brighter. Ruby took the moment to rush to the top, jumping over the rocks. It would take a long while for her aura to come back, but now that she had a moment to breathe, it might come back sooner. She looked over the rocks into the city proper.

The city had been turned into a warzone in the time she was down there. Atlas robots had dropped from above, and the ceaseless rampage of gunfire echoed throughout the Plaza.

"Always good to see you too, Qrow," Ironwood said. "Ghira, Kali, are you two alright?" he asked, far more kindly than he had Qrow.

"We're fine. Thanks to these ones," Ghira said, motioning to the White Fang next to them. Trails of blood could still be seen on their coats, showing just how close they'd come to death.

"Good. That speaks well to their characters, even if their current service doesn't. Please don't fight, Atlas will not harm you," Ironwood said calmly. The White Fang members sighed, and Perry looked at Ruby surprisingly calm.

Was...he arresting them? "Why!? They were helping against the Grimm!" Ruby shouted.

"That is the least that they could do, I'd hope. No, Atlas will assist the Vale police with their interrogations and afterwards keep them for their sentences or let them go. Rest assured, all of you, I will not let Jacques Schnee or anyone harm any of you," Ironwood said, his voice harsh and hard.

To Ruby, that statement meant nothing. To the White Fang, she could see the instant they realized that this was bad, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

This felt like a "How Long Is Forever?" chapter in title and content.

And yes, the Breach goes much smoother this time around. Ripples within ripples...and if this is how different things are now...I guess you can say "Canon's...been derailed."

Until Next Time!