Unmoving on the podium, Lazula was a stone in a raging torrent of panic. She looked up from her place at the stadium's center. Saw a demon's silhouette in twilight sky, black wings spanning half the distance between the bleachers. A beak the size of a minivan pounded the hard-light barrier twice more, sending ripples across it that lit horrified faces. A single crack traced out from beneath the monster's beak, twenty feet long but only millimeters wide. Ten thousand screams couldn't quite drown out that of the Nevermore.
The Headmaster spoke again, this time from her wrist. "Lazula. Am I coming through?"
Lazula still stared above. "This is it, isn't it? Everything has been building to this."
"Yes. This is it. You, Caspian, and the rest of your teams, are the ones who are to reverse the course of The Apoptosis Project."
"Do I get to know the plan yet?"
"The first step is the evacuation of Northwind Stadium. There are approximately twenty thousand people still inside, which is too many to shelter in one place. I've secured several buildings on Atlas Academy's campus, along with the event hall. Fortunately, we have reason to believe the one behind the Grimm–"
"Midas."
"We have reason to believe his limitations are similar to Condor's, and he's only capable of creating Grimm within roughly a half-mile of himself," he continued. His silence on her interruption spoke loudly enough. "The Northeastern edge of Atlas Academy rests outside that range, and it appears he is moving toward the docks, which should free up additional space on campus. But, we also have confirmation on one large Creature of Grimm between here and the destination, unlike anything we've seen previously. Exit via the locker rooms, eliminate it, and wait for the Atlesian airship that will take you up to campus."
"What about the half headed to the event hall?"
"Your teammates will assist in the evacuation. I'm working on contacting other teams who may be able to help."
"Good."
Lazula hopped down from the podium, and proceeded into the tunnel that would spit her out into the apocalypse.
Caspian's nose pressed to the glass of the skybox, and the breath he tried to keep steady clouded it. He looked up at the growing crack in hard-light, the dozens of Nevermore beyond it. And words from beyond the grave– before the grave– echoed in his mind. The Apoptosis Project. The merging, the erasure, of the world's consciousness. How long had Frontline been planning it? And to what end? Condor, the Red Claw's leader and public enemy number one, was dead. But Grimm still clouded the sky. One answer, a thousand new questions.
The Headmaster addressed him next.
"Caspian. Snow is with you, right?"
Caspian's eyes flicked to the android's reflection. "Yeah. Right behind me."
"Good. She has the biggest part to play in all this, so we need to keep her safe. I need you to take her to the spot I just marked on your map, at the docks. Leave now, through the Stadium's C-Gate. The rest will help with evacuation."
"Got it," Caspian confirmed. He turned, and Snow already looked to him expectantly. "Come on, let's go before this gets any worse."
Snow stood, but Noxis came between them. "Hold it," he interrupted. He towered over Snow. "You. Android. How do we know we can trust you? How do we know you're not just another part of this "Apoptosis Project" bullshit?"
Caspian stepped forward. "Snow is–"
"Stop. She needs to answer."
"I understand why you don't trust me," Snow responded, and she stood to match him. "Because when The Apoptosis Project occurs, I will be closest to you, and I will be the one to archive you. It will appear, on the surface, as though I did my part in executing the Apoptosis Project. After it is complete, the Headmaster and I will enter Empyrean Tower, and I will reverse The Apoptosis Project, allowing you all to return to your bodies." Her gaze fell, and clouded over. Not a hint of deception, Caspian recognized. But raw honesty. Vulnerability. "That has been my sole purpose, all along. I'm sorry to have hidden so much from you."
Noxis stood more than a head taller than her, and less than a foot away. And finally he yielded, nodding. "Alright. Go. We'll take care of things here."
"Sounds like we're splitting up for now," Caspian said. "Lilly, you're in charge until we meet up. Let's all make it out of this in one piece."
Ichigo stepped out from the corner and closed his laptop. "And preferably more than one consciousness."
Caspian felt a hand clutch his arm, and Moka brushed up against his side. "Be safe, okay? I'll see you soon."
"You too. Are you sure you're okay to fight?"
Moka nodded, and worked up a smile. "I'll be okay, don't worry about me."
"Just don't push yourself. Please. I'll see you soon."
They fell deep into each other's eyes for a second. She squeezed his forearm and began to turn away, but his hand upon hers stopped her. Brown static coursed up to his shoulder, and a cerulean wave flowed up to hers. She pulled away with a smile and a wink.
"You could have kissed me for it."
But before he could stop choking on a reply, she caught up with the rest of the group. Snow watched them part.
"Let's do this. Stay close to me," Caspian advised.
Blue eyes cast to the floor, Snow nodded.
Under the Headmaster's guidance they traversed the bowels and recesses of Northwind Stadium, avoiding chaos for utility halls and back-rooms that preferred function over the arena's dramatic form. The horde had beaten them to the locked gate, but stopped, seeing their exit blocked off by creatures of darkness. Claws scratched at the thick glass by the gate and black jaws snapped against it, smearing tar and hot rotten breath between the Grimm and terrified masses. Lilly towed thousands along with friends and teammates, turning to stop them a couple dozen feet shy of the door.
"Alright everyone, please, listen up!" Lilly announced. The first few rows quieted, and told the rows behind them to do the same. But beyond that her words fell on deaf ears and open mouths.
"EVERYONE, SHUT UP!" Laurel cried out, and by the time her stage voice stopped echoing they fell silent.
"Thanks," Lilly acknowledged. "We'll be heading toward the event hall, which luckily isn't too far away! We'll have you all shelter there, and move you along to the docks if the threat continues. But first, my friends and I will clear the immediate area. Please do not exit until we declare it safe! One person stepping out of place could jeopardize everyone's safety, so please cooperate to give us the best chance of all making it out of here, okay?"
There was a rumble of acknowledgement, but a handful pushed closer to the door as Rowan twisted the deadbolt and started to pull. Lilly noted them, and tapped Noxis. The faunus took a step toward them. They took a step back. At Lilly's word, the gate opened.
One eager Grimm scrambled in before it had opened in full– a simian body, almost like a chimpanzee. But with two scimitars past each elbow and a crocodile's head. Lilly whipped her umbrella to wash it with flame and it took two agonized steps in, screeching and bellowing its swan song before crumpling in a smoldering heap. The crowd took another step back, and Noxis no longer needed to warn them. Instead he leapt from the gate to crack the skull of the first Beowolf he saw with Renegade, then swing its electrified spikes into the second's chest. He transformed Renegade into a shotgun to drop a smaller Nevermore flying too close, and blocked the jaws of another chimpanzee-Grimm with a semblance-encased arm. He slammed it to the concrete and flattened its skull with his bat.
Moka sprinted beneath cover fire that dropped a Griffon into Rowan's blade. A King Taijitu– a two-headed viper the faunus couldn't wrap both arms around– struck at her. She held her ground and swung her fist, cracking the white head's fang and impaling the back of its throat. The faunus dodged back as it lashed and writhed, leaving Rowan's blade and Lilly's dust to finish it off as she turned to smash the heads of two oncoming Sabyrs with semblance and dust-boosted punches.
Two fists slammed the concrete beside her, and the shockwave tossed her onto her back a dozen feet away. She flipped onto hands and feet, tail lashing as she looked up into the six raging eyes of a Minotaur– fifteen feet tall, armored in bone, skeletal jaws frothing with black sludge. Its bellow was like dry winds whistling through a skull in the desert, over a low drone that shook the ground. It fell quiet, lowered it head and charged. The air around Moka's fist flash-froze, and she flicked ice beneath its foot. It slipped, stumbled, and a stone spire Lilly drew from the ground impaled its side.
It roared in agony, tore the spear from the ground. But it didn't fade away. As tar leaked from its side it heaved the stone spike, and Lilly and Laurel dove to each side of it. Noxis surged forward, left two gashes in its calf before a massive fist swung to crack his semblance and the glass he flung into. A thunderclap of a gunshot rang out, and one of the Minotaur's eyes splattered.
A blast of crimson from Sanguine Storm crashed into the Minotaur as it staggered, splitting three of the armored ribs that cradled its side and drawing a surge of thick, dark blood. It faltered for a second, but black sinews stitched and weaved around the wound to close it. Moka treated one of its calves as a punching bag, but even bursts of flame from semblance-boosted hooks and jabs did little, and she sprung backward to avoid a fist the size of her torso. Her tail lashed, she looked from the monster to her friends, and the other Grimm that had gathered before them. Mounted on the stadium's wall, past an Ursa that fell to Lilly's ice, a glass tube protected dust coursing around a steel coil.
Moka's tail flapped again. "Wait– stop attacking it!" she shouted. "I have an idea!" Her semblance whizzed around her legs as she sprinted between the Minotaur and the dust generator, and she punched sparks into the monster's chest. Not near enough to hurt it, enough to draw a grey steam of breath and the attention of five eyes burning like coals deep in their sockets.
She watched the beast as it charged, felt the ground quiver beneath each hoof. And as it lowered its head a dozen feet away her semblance flashed and she blinked to the side, but the Minotaur continued forward. There was a great crunching of glass and of steel, and nobody could be sure if her plan worked. Then, a spark. A flash of heat. Lightning seized its hulking body, and coursed through veins that moved tar. It fought at first, pushed itself halfway free. But it slumped over, and began to fade.
A few smaller Grimm, and the area was secure. Rowan and Noxis heaved the gate open, and flanked the first surge of evacuees. They were cautious at first, scanning the parking lot's horizon. Then they shoved out of the gate like a river through a bottleneck. Lilly stood in place, bowed her head and folded her arms early, to ward off Grimm and prevent a crush at the exit. As the crowd gathered her haze expanded, enshrouding all but its source. The mass lurched forward, a measured procession through darkness.
Twin shadows thinned the Grimm out at a distance. One cleaved Grimm in two with a single swipe of its blade, the other zipped between treetops and buildings at blinding speed, intercepting Nevermores and Griffons with the ease of a dragonfly hunting gnats over a pond. Mrs. Kurayami, and Mr. Verdi. Two of the highest-ranked active huntsmen and Headmaster Skye's "personal guard." But even they couldn't stop every devil from nearing the evacuation.
A scream rang out over concrete, and a thousand heads turned to beating wings. Like those of a butterfly, but twelve feet wide and lifting a bulbous humanoid torso with seven eyes misplaced across its chest. A picnic table flipped, splattered by the tar that slid off the monstrosity's slick wings. With wiry arms and bony fingers in place of legs and feet, it plucked a woman from beneath. For a second her husband dangled with her. They lifted five, ten feet from the ground before she let him go.
Laurel raised Snake Eyes, but cursed at the deafening click of her trigger. She dropped her magazine, ripped another from her belt. But two red streaks cut through the air and lodged in each wing. The monstrosity flinched, the dots sparkled for a second, before twin explosions echoed across concrete and the nightmare dissolved. As its prey fell, a boy in sheets of indigo armor extended his hand, and a glyph encircled her. She landed flat on her back but bounced to her feet, and the armored boy keeled in pain.
Another boy– thick hair tied behind his head in braids and clad in a veritable rainbow of armor– was at his side. "You good, man?" he asked.
The armored one nodded weakly. "Yeah. I'll be fine."
Armor plates rattled as his partner clapped his shoulder, and pointed to the man limping toward his wife. "Good. I'm gonna check on those two. Get 'em to join the rest."
Rowan looked from the two to an approaching Beowolf, and raised his weapon. But a dozen feet out of reach a chain bound its leg, and two flashes of steel brought it to the ground. A tattooed woman tumbled off as it fell, and landed just short of Rowan.
"Noriko!"
She smirked. "You didn't call this morning."
"Uh– well– I mean, I was out in the city all day, then… you know," Rowan fumbled, and he stuck a thumb toward a screaming Noxis tearing a Beowolf's arm from its socket.
"Kidding," Noriko assured. "...Maybe if we survive, we can do it again."
In the chaos and distraction, another Beowolf broke the line toward the back of the procession. Moka noticed it at the last second, engaged the depths of her semblance to bolt after it as it began to tear its way through the subdued crowd toward Lilly. Her semblance only dampened fear– it couldn't mute it entirely. Burning red eyes and daggers for teeth, the stench of rot and brimstone, were enough to rouse a panic. The nearby crowd began to scatter and shout, blocking Moka's view and her path forward. In the midst of the chaos, a pre-teen boy tripped. Someone stepped square on his knee, and his scream was lost to all but the Beowolf that turned its jaws his way.
But the bone between its eyes split as a blade skewered it, and another stuck a foot past its stomach. With a screeching of cord a huntsman ripped the beast back like a furious puppeteer, and into a leopard faunus's blade.
Moka broke from the crowd with flame swirling around her fists, but let it die in her moment of surprise. "Oh– thanks!"
"Can't let you lot be the only heroes," Sterling replied, and he skewered another butterfly-demon.
They continued down the main thoroughfare, double-digit huntsmen protecting an order of magnitude more. Their progress was slow– the mass moving beneath a cloud of Lilly's semblance taking half an hour to near their destination. As it came within sight over the top of a mid-rise apartment, a flash lit the waning sky. The colossal Nevermore had given up on the stadium and plunged its talons into an Atlesian airship. It bent and smoked between claws that scourged steel a foot thick, and fell to Atlas in two smoldering husks.
"I really hope an android was piloting that," Rowan remarked.
Noxis had fallen in next to him and Noriko. "Granted these Grimm are Frontline's, not likely," he added.
Rowan shook his head. "How in the Hell are we going to deal with that?"
"We'll work something out!" a woman's voice interjected. They looked to the source: Carmine Obesouro of Team CNMN, riding in on a Deathstalker with a severed tail and a single claw. She retracted her blade from the base of its neck and leapt to the pavement. Still on its back, Mazin Hadley took his turn, and the lightning that surged through his glaive felled the monster.
"Works for me," Rowan decided. He paused, as a call came through his Holoband. "Headmaster? What's up?"
"Is Lilly still with you? I'm having trouble contacting her."
At the middle of the pack, Lilly continued forward with her eyes near-closed, head down. "Yeah, she's here," Rowan said. "A bit busy at the moment."
"Good. We need CRLN and LSLI to move along to the docks as soon as possible. Gather everyone, and move out."
"We haven't made it to the bean yet!" Rowan protested. "You want us to just–" a screech from fifty feet above cut him off, and an exploding arrow silenced it. "...Just leave these people here?"
"You've received backup, and more is en route. You're needed in Port Cyrreine." There was a slight pause, and he added, "Something tells me communications are going down in a matter of minutes. I needed to arrange for the next steps of this mission as soon as possible. I'm sorry."
"That's such bull–" he vented his frustration into a partially-formed Creep that leapt at him, and its halves sloughed into tar behind him. "Bullshit!"
"We've got plenty of people and not far to go," Noriko assured. "Go on, go save the world or something."
Mazin twirled his glaive, and lightning struck a Griffon smashing its beak into a dormitory window. "If I can't make the podium, I'll at least save a few lives," he pledged.
Rowan looked back to the procession, obscured in a warm ivory haze. "Will you be okay without Lilly's semblance? The moment she moves out of range, all these people will flip."
Ashe perked up, with an arrow between two fingers. "This is what we've been training for! We'll be alright!"
Rowan cast one more sweeping gaze across the sky, across the human flood and the event hall still a quarter mile away. He sighed, and placed a group call.
The further Lazula got from Northwind Stadium, the closer to Atlas Academy, the fewer Grimm she encountered. She tore through waves for the first block or two, hardly enough time between each to catch her breath. But along the last stretch before the base of the cliff, only a Deathstalker– deformed with a single claw dragging limp beside it, and half a pack of Beowolves to bisect.
But at the end of the road, crimson stained the road surrounding the elevator terminal. A horrific, twisted form stirred in the pool– less a beast as most Grimm were, more Hell's failed reimagining of the human form. Six sets of arms lined its body like a centipede. Humanlike, though the short upper arms fell in line with its emaciated torso and its forearms held it eight feet above the ground. Another set hung limp from the front of its body, dragging across the street as it crawled forward. A lipless grin of needle-teeth spread between the pits where ears should be, and instead of eyes or a nose, the nightmare's mask extended six feet past the top of its head as a single spade that reminded her of a tombstone. And to each side of it, strands of bone fell like the matted hair of a hag.
She settled on a name for it– even if just to make its existence and form comprehensible. The Stygipede.
She could almost gag looking at it. But drew her blade, and charged forward. One arm hanging dead beneath it cracked forward like a whip, and Lazula barely countered in time. The strike rang across Aegis and knocked her aside, but she channeled it into an arc of force that split the bone covering one of its legs. Between the blow and her own retaliation she almost fell, but she pushed off the ground and kept running. She dodged another lash that split concrete, and met a third with both hands wringing Impetus's hilt. Hot tar splattered across her pauldrons and cape, and half its hand dissolved behind her.
What remained of its arm twitched and writhed, and the fingers remaining formed a scythe. She blocked a swing from its other arm, took it into Aegis and cracked another leg. It was hideous, but fragile. And vicious– its retaliating strike sent her tumbling halfway across the street to the sidewalk.
She stood, shaking off the blow and grimacing at a new scuff in her armor. As she started forward to get her revenge, red runes across the tombstone glowed, and a noise echoed off the cliff, off brick walls and down the street. A resounding drone, like a foghorn in the night. But with a rattling timbre beneath the surface that scratched at the base of her skull. Her fingers tensed around Impetus, and she couldn't bring her foot forward. Paralyzed. And she could do nothing but watch as the monstrosity scuttled toward her, and unhinged its jaw like a python.
The world went black, and white-hot.
Her muscles locked, and she struggled for breaths of air that smelled of blood and sulfur. It would have been one of the worst possible ways to die. But she wouldn't. She couldn't. Frontline "still needed her," for some reason. It would just scald her within a half-inch of her life, and scurry away to drop her charred near-corpse onto Griswold Baine's lap.
But the Stygipede wrenched its head, and let out a squeal sharper than the teeth that tore aura from her legs. She felt a hand grasp her ankle. And an instant later the street was beneath her, and cold air filled her lungs. Her eyes strained against the streetlight, and the silhouette above her was almost familiar. Her vision adjusted, and Olivia DuBois of Team OLYV stood over her– immune to the sound-based stun.
She nodded at Lazula, who still fought for control of her fingers. Another drone froze them in place. Olivia lined up her crossbow and fired, and after three twangs of steel cord, three thumps of a bolt lodging in bone, the tombstone cracked and Lazula regained control. She pushed herself to her feet, and had to vault over Olivia on her way as the huntress was cast aside. But she took the Sygipede's scythe in Aegis, twisted and swung with the full extent of her semblance. Distorted air shattered teeth and forced the monstrous grin six feet wider. It screeched and skittered back on a dozen skeletal hands– beneath a boulder Lazula's shockwave knocked loose from the cliff.
She turned to Olivia, who was slow to stand but looked uninjured. "Thanks," she acknowledged, and paused awkwardly. She settled on a thumbs-up.
Olivia chuckled, placed a hand on her chin and pushed it toward Lazula.
A couple minutes and a couple Grimm later, an airship descended on the newly-cleared space. A souped up Bluefin-Class, rather than the promised Atlesian model. She waited for backup to exit the ship, but the ramp that extended to her was clear, and the cabin beyond it empty.
"Thought I was getting an Atlesian model?" Lazula called to the cockpit.
Glass slid open, and the pilot leaned to her. "Change of plans– this'll get you there faster!"
With one last nod of thanks to Olivia, she climbed on board. The ship rose even with the edge of the cliff. Rose above it.
Secondary engines roared to life, and the ship skipped out over the ocean.
Caspian and Snow followed the rest out the door, and with a final nod of acknowledgement, split off. They followed the instructions laid out by the Headmaster: take the back door through the stadium's C-Gate, hitch a ride in Ms. De Sultana's armored car– hanging onto the roof handles as she swerves between and rams into Creatures of Grimm, get dropped off at the edge of the cliff, wish her a safe trip back, and cut your way through to the docks.
In the center of an intersection, between lights switching for traffic frozen in time, a form stirred listlessly in a bubbling black pool. Caspian aimed Undertow, and his finger tested the trigger. But the mass moved little. He stepped forward– carefully, at first. And looked to each side before he came close enough to make out its grotesque form. He hesitated to call it a Creature of Grimm, as it was more a failure of creation. Two humanoid legs, too thin and feeble to support the torso stacked upside-down at the waist. Bone protruded at random from its back, and it had no eyes to see where the seven arms sprouting from its torso dragged it
Snow's axe came down, like a guillotine on the neck of a vagrant.
The Grimm thinned out before the docks, and Caspian recognized they must be nearing the edge of the Grimm's range. If Frontline's Grimm were under the same constraints as Condor's, was someone controlling them, too? And what connection did they have to Condor? More questions. And his only hope was to keep pushing forward until he found the answer. A tourist's market lined one side of the block, a boarded-up aquarium on the other. An Ursa between them, brought down swiftly by Caspian's bullets and Snow's spear. A boardwalk and a row of yachts were the barrier between Atlas and the rest of the world. Beyond it, a storm-grey expanse, its countless ripples all reflecting the red of a waning sun.
A call came through to Caspian's Holoband.
"Your location data says you're nearing the docks," he said. "Follow the signage to airship pad B– should be only a couple hundred meters from your location. See Snow to the Atlesian model airship waiting, and rendezvous with your teammates."
"Where will the ship take me?" Snow questioned.
"To safety. You'll be taken directly back to Port Cyrreine."
"Then I refuse."
"You know you're in no position to refuse. You know what's at stake here– they'll be targeting you!"
"Then I'll fight!" Snow pledged. "It's all going to end soon. If I have one more chance to fight, I'll take it!"
But he never heard what she had to say, because the automated "no service" message interrupted her.
Caspian glanced at the yachts past the boardwalk, bobbing lazily in crimson waves. And back to the cliff– Nevermore, Griffons, and unnamed horrors swirling around it. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. "If you're the key to reversing The Apoptosis Project, we need you safe."
The blue of Snow's eyes mirrored his own. "I know. But I'm sure."
"Let's meet up with the others, then. Communications are down, but they were bound for the event hall. We should meet there."
Snow nodded, and fell in behind him. They walked together back through the Atlesian streets, back up the elevator and onto the tournament grounds. It was strange, Caspian noted, that the Grimm no longer seemed to flock the stadium. The swarm– only slowly thinning– had moved toward the cliff, creeping toward the docks. He considered calling his father, moving more evacuees onto campus or keeping them in the stadium. But communications were cut. He and his friends wandered blindly in the darkness, herding twenty thousand with their hands tied behind their backs.
They hadn't arrived at the meeting point by the time he and Snow did. A stroke of luck. A Blackened Pool spilled down the crystal staircase into the megastructure. Caspian paused, as he thought he noticed a twitch of movement from a hundred feet away. Then a softball-sized eye, opening between eyelids of tar and fixating on the two of them. The mass shifted down the stairs, leaving globs in its wake before surging through the shattered glass door. Caspian watched, curious– mortified– but holding his fire.
The coagulated mass squelched and sputtered as it turned over itself, taking a vaguely-human form. A round head too small, neck and spindly limbs too long. The same form appeared as he'd seen it before, in the belly of the cargo ship, then at Port Cyrreine International as The Ambassador's hunting dog.
"This isn't good," Caspian warned, and he scanned the area. No Ambassador, but no backup. "If someone in all black armor appears, you run. Got it?"
"I know." Light sprung from Absolute Zero's handle, forming a straight-edged blade. "You will too?"
"If I can."
The amorphous mass flattened itself, spread, then launched itself dozens of feet to the underside of the event hall. Caspian felt the deep crack in his spine as spiderweb fractures in foot-thick glass spread from the impact point. Black sludge surged to take root within, and the mass stretched and sloughed toward the ground. It twisted as it did so, unfurling a hundred black tendrils ending in hands and hooks.
The upper half of a human skull emerged from the tree's trunk, and a three-hinged jaw opened to belch sludge across the pavement a dozen feet below. Clawed hands grasped the edge of the pool, and shadowed hulks of amorphous form pulled themselves from within. Caspian renewed his sweaty grip on Undertow's handle. He and Snow looked at the Tree of Death, and to each other.
They nodded, and Caspian aimed Undertow.
