ALRIGHT EEEVVVEEERRRYYYBBBOOODDDYYY!

These next two chapters are literally the bits of the story that were the initial idea I had that made me want to write Remnant Light.

We have finally gotten to the part of the story I have been waiting to show you all since Late 2023!

Enjoy!

Jaune's breath escaped him in heavy pants as he ran towards the Ark Hangar bays, the rest of Fireteam JSBYRR running alongside him.

With the alarms back on after Professor Goodwitch rebooted the defence systems, Jaune and Ruby hadn't had to wake up their teammates or give too much of an explanation about why they were all mobilising…

But they had filled them in on the fact that their Arks had been sabotaged, with a more detailed explanation than the announcement Professor Goodwitch had made about it. That news received various reactions from the other four, but there were a few emotions that it had stirred in all of them; Fear and Worry.

Why would someone sabotage an Ark, of all things? Why was it so perfectly timed with a Grimm attack? One that was unlike any they'd ever seen before, right as all of the upper-year students were away on missions?

But those were all questions for another time, once the Grimm were taken care of. All they needed to know right now was that they had to go and hold the Grimm off, and protect Vale. Not one of them spoke as they ran, focusing their energy on speed, but he knew that all of the others were with him on this.

By the time they reached the Hangar Bay, Professor Mulberry had propped the giant bulkhead doors wide open to allow the stream of first years to enter and get into their Arks without hassle.

Professor Mulberry gave them an encouraging wave as they ran past, and Jaune briefly wondered why he wasn't getting into his Ark in the teacher's Hangar Bay… But with the state the student's Arks were left in, he could only imagine the teachers being far worse off, due to the increased threat that the Professors would pose in a fight.

He ignored the extra little bit of fear that spiked within him at the realisation that the students didn't have the Professors to act as a safety net and just kept running.

Jaune reached Fireteam JSBYRR's Hangar Bay and gulped at the sight of Crocea Arca. He could tell that it had been intentionally damaged by the number of scratches and melted panels he could see, but he wouldn't be able to tell the true extent of the damage until he got into it and funnelled his Aura through…

And so he wasted no time at all doing so, immediately ascending the ladder on the outside of the Ark.

He entered the cockpit, hearing the hatch hiss shut behind him, and strapped himself into his pilot's seat. His Aura became visible over his arms as he closed his eyes and focused his Aura through the machine like he had done over a hundred times by this point.

All around him, lights flickered on and systems initialised, the screens in front of him being the foremost example as the cameras all over his Ark turned on. A few here and there were blurry, and a few more were too damaged to get a signal out of, but for the most part, it looked like he had eyes to see. He could feel the damage that had been done to the Ark as well as his Aura flooded it and he sighed as he went over each section and took mental note of them.

The activation lights for his teammate's Arks flickered on soon after, with Ruby being the only one on before him due to her speed. As soon as they were all ready and online, Jaune gave the launch order to the computer in their Hangar Bay, and their Arks shot off at high speed.

Being stored so far from the surface meant that they were transported via high-speed rail tracks through giant tunnels underground… But none of them seemed to have any kind of damage, or at least not enough to make them inoperable.

Had the saboteur not had enough time to cripple the transport system as well or something?

Jaune shivered at the thought that he and Ruby might have been in the room with the saboteur and interrupted whatever they were doing… But he was extra glad that he had listened to his gut and had brought Crocea Flos along with him.

Still, the fact that the rails weren't crippled kind of implied that they had been low on time. And with Ruby and himself having discovered the sabotage early, instead of right as the Grimm arrived…

That allowed civilians to be evacuated and gave everyone even a short amount of time to prepare. Hopefully, that was the edge that the Beacon students needed to get out of this okay. Shaking his head, he let out a deep breath to calm himself and opened a 6-person voice channel with the rest of his team, putting on his most confident voice possible.

[Alright! Fireteam Jasper, sound off, what's our damage looking like? Crocea Arca's shield is half-melted and honestly feels ready to fall apart on me at any moment, and its sword arm feels just as fragile]

Even with his best effort, he could hear that there was still some shake to his voice, but the others would likely want him to be confident, so he doubted anyone was going to bring it up.

Yang was the first one to respond, Ember Celica's shoulders rotating slowly as the girl shrugged at her camera. [My gal's right arm is completely out of commission, and it seems like my left knee's got some stickiness as well, think one of the servos might be warped outta shape. Armour around her torso has some cracks, too.]

Blake spoke up next, a frown clear on her face as she closed her eyes, clearly feeling the damage while she talked. [Gambol Shroud's Hard-Light Dust shields are down, and Aura efficiency is at 45%. I might only get one or two uses out of my Semblance today and with no shields… I'll have to back off to avoid critical damage earlier than usual.]

Jaune nodded thanks to the both of them, making sure to keep them in mind, and glanced at Weiss through her screen. [How about you three? How are we looking?]

Weiss let out a loud sigh as she tapped at one of the screens in front of her, a frustrated look on her face. [Most of my ammunition stockpile has been devastated, and Myrtenaster's rapier has been melted and bent slightly. Not getting any response from my right leg, either.]

Jaune's forehead wrinkled with worry as he looked over to Ruby. The girl was the angriest looking of all of them, and even though none of the others had mentioned it, he was sure they had noticed how her eyes were visibly glowing now, even in the lit-up cockpit of her Ark.

[Those buttheads desecrated Crescent Rose! The shoulder I brace her sniper with is fragile, and so are her ankles! As long as I stay careful and up the back of everything, I should be fine, but still! How dare they!]

Nodding, Jaune looked over to Ren. He hadn't meant to leave his partner till last, but he was the quietest of the bunch. Ren didn't seem quite happy either, but he was also visibly composed enough that Jaune wasn't expecting anything too bad.

[Stormflower's pistols are essentially scrap metal, unfortunately. In addition, my cockpit has a small hole that is allowing wind to leak in and disturb my focus. My shields and Aura efficiency are at around 80% still, but I will likely be unable to assist in outright damaging Grimm.]

Jaune closed his eyes and racked his brain, taking the reports from his teammates into account as best he could. 'C'mon, Jaune. Professor Greene of all people seems to think that I have a talent for this, so think and prove her right!'

His eyes opened a moment later, almost perfectly timed to the doors at the end of the long tunnel they had been travelling down start to open, the early-morning sunlight streaming into their eyes through the cameras.

[Alright, when we get up there, I want Ruby and Weiss up the back! We don't have the firepower right now to take them out with ranged weapons, so try and focus on disrupting the Grimm. Dust rounds galore, and call out if any attacks are headed your way]

[Alright, good plan!]

[I guess, so, yeah.]

The two girls nodded, although he saw that despite her words, Ruby wasn't super happy about being relegated to fire support. But when your whole thing was speed, who wouldn't be miffed at being told to 'stay put?'

Looking over at Blake and Yang, he continued.

[Yang and Blake, I want you to stick together like glue. With Yang's armour compromised and your Ark without shields, you're going to have to work together to make sure neither of you exceeds your breaking point. Try and use the useless arm to block damage as much as possible Yang, let what's already broken take the hits. And Blake… Try and keep one use of your Semblance for emergencies. If these Grimm have any ranged attacks you'll need it]

[Got it!]

[Yes, Chief!]

The rails started to slow beneath them, and the tops of their Arks were now starting to peak through the exits. Jaune gulped as a shot of anxiety went through him at the sight of the Grimm just about to reach the shore, but he did his best to smother it.

[Ren, you're with me! You've got no offence and my shields busted. If you can take us out of their sight, I can deal some damage to them before they even know it]

He got a silent, sharp nod in return as his words reached Ren, and Jaune put on his fakest, most confident smile as the latches that held the feet of Crocea Arca to the tracks disengaged, allowing him to step off of them.

Before they separated, Jaune heard Ruby speak again. [We seem to be a lot better off than some of the other teams damage-wise, so let's take that as a good sign! Like, I can't see Cardin or Russel's Arks at all…]

'Tch…'

Jaune clicked his tongue. While he might not like Cardin, even if the boy hadn't really done much else to him since that first incident, that was still two whole fighters down already, with who knows how many other teams lacking one or more useable Arks.

[Alright, everyone! Stay safe, stick to the plan, and let's go have pizza for dinner tonight after all of this is dealt with, how does that sound?]

The various cheers he got in return before most of the other's voices cut off as they focused up helped calm the shaky breaths he was letting out. Glancing at Ren, the one remaining teammate in active communication with him, he grinned widely, forcing his fear away.

They all had their jobs, and they were all amazing. This is what they were here at Beacon to do… It was time to go do it.

Without words, Ren and Jaune started to move forward, not wanting to overextend past their allies, but wanting to minimise how far the Grimm got on land.

The instant he was outside of the 'tunnel' that had taken him to the surface, Crocea Arca's HUD lit up with information for him. The ground below his feet -as well as the buildings that looked oh-so-small to him from up this high- was covered in a green grid pattern, augmented reality words floating above it.

Current Location - Vale Coastal Area 7

100% Evacuated

Glancing around, he was only able to see a couple of sections of the grid that weren't green, and even then they were just orange. And while he had never seen this system before, he could intuit what that meant fairly easily.

Vale Coastal Area 8

89% Evacuated

Estimated time to Completion: 1.5-2 Min

Jaune made sure to keep the orange sectors in mind until they turned completely green, and kept moving forward. Alongside the HUD informing him of the evacuation progress, it was also highlighting each of the Grimm that he could see -of which he counted ten- with their species name appearing next to them, except for one that his Ark couldn't identify.

Grimm Detected: 10

Leviathan x 2

Goliath x2

Ursa

Nevermore

King Taijutu Swarm

Creep

Tempest

ERROR

Good Hunting, Pilot.

Jaune made sure to pin the list of Grimm so that the screen stayed up and available to him just in his peripherals.

He continued pressing forward, glancing at the other cameras. He could see a veritable flood of first-year Arks amassing around them, in various states of disrepair. He counted there being about 35 Arks that had been deemed functional enough to use in active combat, but even among them, many of them were essentially on their last legs.

A defensive line of sorts had been created about 500 meters away from the shoreline, and Jaune raised his shield in front of himself, fragile as it was. For a single, foolish moment, Jaune hoped that the Grimm would see the huge amount of Arks and back off, but he knew that they would not.

If anything, the Grimm that his Ark records him an ERROR on the scan looked… Jaune paused as he looked at it. It was tall, standing up on two feet, with two arms. It looked… Humanoid? Feminine, even. It had bone plating that vaguely created the illusion of an hourglass silhouette, and a human-esq face twisted into a feral snarl that looked almost amused to see so many Arks lined up to oppose it.

Jaune didn't have the chance to focus on that bizarre sight a great deal, however, as the ground started to shake beneath them. The reason was clear a moment later as the Grimm rose out from the water, having reached the shore and no longer having the water to muffle their footsteps.

"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"

The humanoid Grimm up the front paused as it got onto the shore and threw its head back, letting out a roar so intense that he could feel the vibrations all the way inside his cockpit. It seemed to act like some kind of command, or rallying cry for the Grimm, as the red of their eyes intensified and glowed as they roared in response, charging forward.

"Raaaaaaaaggghhh!"

Jaune couldn't help but let out a yell of his own in response as he charged his Ark forward, seeing the rest of the first-year Arks alongside him doing the same. The ground below him was now shuddering like an earthquake was happening, and even the air itself felt like it was shaking, as a swarm of battered and damaged Arks charged the line of monsters.

Alarms started to blare in his cockpit as both of the Leviathans started to charge up their ranged attacks, and he raised his shield out of instinct as the beam of energy headed in his direction with a flash. His Aura thrummed within him as the attack slammed into his shield, and he grunted from the impact.

He kept pushing forward, ignoring the tingles it caused to shoot up his arm, levelling his sword at the Grimm, even as he saw part of the melted and re-cooled metal of his shield crack away and fall to the ground below.

Before the Leviathans could attack again, he saw everything inside his cockpit go black and white and felt the energy of Ren's Semblance over him. Charging the nearest Grimm, which was one of the Leviathans, he noted that two Arks -two that he recognised as belonging to Cardin's teammates Dove and Sky- were right beside him.

He also noted seeing Epariti -Pyrrha Nikos' Ark- charging the humanoid Grimm, but his focus was taken by him reaching the Leviathan, the tip of Crocea Arca's sword piercing what he would call the shoulder of the Leviathan.

It ROARED out in pain at the attack, still unable to see him thanks to Ren, but swiped a claw in his direction anyway as Jaune pulled his sword out of it, watching black smoke exit the wound instead of blood. Ren's Semblance dropped as they got a few Ark-sized steps away from the monster to conserve some of his Aura.

As his senses stopped being muffled by Ren's Semblance, Jaune could feel his Aura RUSHING through him like a tidal wave as they backed up, Dove and Sky darted in to take a stab at the Leviathan's other side while it focused on where it had been attacked from, smoke billowing from the wounds they inflicted.

Jaune spared a moment to glance down at his hands, where his Aura was glowing with an intensity he couldn't remember seeing before… Except for that first time he had sparred against Yang, and that time against Cardin.

He wasn't sure what was going on, but it did make him feel powerful, as if his Aura flowing with the strength of a river. Was his Aura a battle junkie, excited for the fight?

Was it even possible for Aura to be excited?

And why on Remnant was he feeling just as claustrophobic in his Ark as he had felt on the very first day in one? He had been training for months now, but something about the rush of power his Aura felt like it was giving him also made him feel just as squeezed into his Ark as he had the first few times.

[Jaune. Are you okay?]

Nodding his head, he glanced at the communications screen and saw Ren giving him a worried look. Sending him a thumbs up, Jaune threw a grin back onto his face. [I'll be fine. Aura is being weird but it could just be the damage. I'll sort it out later!]

Ren took his words at face value and nodded in return, his Semblance once again washing over Jaune, muffling the feeling of being a shaken can of soft drink wanting to explode. Raising Crocea Arca's sword into the air, he pushes the feelings to the back of his mind.

He charged forward once again as Dove and Sky backed off from their attack, hitting the Leviathan shield-first with the force of a hundred freight trains. It seemed to have been just about to charge up another beam attack as Jaune hit it, causing whatever reaction happened inside it that allowed its ranged attack to misfire, a hole opening in the throat of the Leviathan that belched black smoke.

With its ranged attacks neutered, he saw Dove and Sky charge in without fear of being tagged by it on the approach. Sky's halberd and Dove's curved sword slam into the neck of the Leviathan while Jaune keeps it still with his shield and sword…

And it's head rolls a moment later, evaporating quickly as its body collapses.

Beep beep!

Ruby blinked as an alert hit her screen, distracting her from taking another potshot at one of the Grimm -One of the two Goliaths- and wondered what could have changed in the two minutes they had already been fighting.

Quickly reading through it, she smiled and threw the pop-up screen to the side, fading quickly as she dismissed it. [Okay, Weiss! Just got the alert that all areas around us have been evacuated completely! Let 'er rip!]

[Yes, yes, I got the alert as well, Ruby!]

Ruby pouted slightly at Weiss' reply but focused up an instant later, turning Crescent Rose's sniper rifle towards her target again and firing an Ice Dust round at its feet as another team's Ark rushed forward with its double-sided axe raised about its head.

The Goliath's foot being trapped interrupted its charge and gave the Ark the opportunity it needed to get a solid hit on the bone-plate armour of the Grimm, shattering the armour over one of its flanks entirely.

Unfortunately, their axe shattered with the attack as well, likely having been sabotaged just enough to inspire confidence. The sudden lack of weight threw the Ark off and it got one of the Goliath's tusks through the bottom part of its torso in return, the legs of the Ark collapsing out from underneath it.

Ruby did spot the ejection feature of the Ark going off without issue, however, as the cockpit of the Ark was shot up and back away from the Grimm, a parachute appeared above it a moment later.

Ruby swapped to a heavier round and attacked the flank of the Goliath while it was uncontested, seeing a massive chunk get torn from its underbelly, black smoke erupting everywhere. As the Grimm turned to face the source of the attack -Ruby- another melee-type Ark came in to take its focus away from their backlines.

The Goliath -now without its protective armour and weighed down by the full dead weight of a limp Ark on its tusk- was slow enough that the Arks surrounding it were able to put it down after about a minute of hacking into it.

That made two Grimm dead, with only eight more to go.

That was pretty good, but… Ruby glanced around. It was only about three minutes into the fighting, and they were already down 12 Arks. That one she had just watched go down made 13, actually.

That wasn't a great ratio. And while it usually would have been higher, with most everyone here having been training extensively for combat since they were little… When their tools to fight were falling apart with every use, how could they be expected to do any better?

Defunct and broken Arks were scattered around Vale aplenty, most missing limbs or hands or having sections gored/blown up from them from the sabotage. Buildings have been destroyed, roads torn up, and the spent casings of Ark-sized Dust-rounds litter the streets…

While she was glad to say no casualties had been reported yet, the ejection feature of most Arks seemed to have been relatively untouched by the saboteur, Ruby would still say that they are 'holding on' at best, but it was likely more realistic to say 'losing slowly'.

Most of the Arks that were capable of fighting were only technically so, as they had basically been turned into stationary weapons platforms with one or more limbs out of commission, and only a small number were capable of moving at all.

Taking another shot, this time shooting two Lightning Dust rounds up into the air at the Tempest - which floated above the battlefield, not actually doing much but worrying her all the same- and the Nevermore -which was circling above the Arks and Grimm taking potshots of its own with its giant, blade-like feathers.

Even amongst all of the chaos, she couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief at the sight of all of Fireteam Jasper still being on their feet and fighting.

They'd honestly come out of the sabotage better than most. Jaune and Yang had armour thicker than what most go for, Ren and Blake were evasive and inconspicuous, and even Weiss could use her Glyphs in place of her Ark's actual cannons to maintain a consistent level of firing.

For an instant, she felt a bit despondent about her main thing -her usually-unrivalled speed- not being available to her like their specialties were due to the damage done to her Ark… But she shook it off quickly, now wasn't the time to be moping.

Taking Crescent Rose's sniper rifle, she hefted it up and started looking around for another target… and found one. Locking onto the Ursa of the group, she saw it about to take a swing at an Ark whose power supply seemed to have just stalled and rebooted.

She cycled an Earth Dust round into her rifle and fired at the ground in front of the unmoving Ark, causing the claws of the Ursa to dig into -but not pierce- the spiky wall of stone that erupted from the impact site of her shot.

She could see the Ark's lights already coming back online through her screens, and it quickly backed up, taking a shot at the Grimm with its pistol that caused one of its eyes to explode, an echoing roar of anger escaping the Ursa.

Taking the opportunity to change targets, she spotted Epariti fighting the weirdly human-looking Grimm one-on-one, her entire Ark ablaze with black light from what Ruby could only suspect was Pyrrha's Semblance at work.

She could see the human-like Grimm about to get a solid hit on Epariti's torso area and fired off a heavy shot right for its hand, causing it to explode into black smoke before it made contact with Epariti.

Suddenly, the human-like was looking directly at her as it screamed in pain and frustration. This one felt almost like a response to the Ursa's roar from earlier, and suddenly the Nevermore swerved in mid-air to look in her direction, a bladed feather shimmering in the morning sun as it shot her way.

Ruby was so shocked by the Grimm actively taking orders and working together that she didn't have time to dodge the feather as much as she wanted to, feeling it impact Crescent Rose's shoulder, damaging the already fragile connection even further as her Aura screamed from the impact.

"Gah!"

[Ruby! Are you alright?!]

Ignoring Weiss for a moment, she checked her Ark over with her Aura, dodging a second and third shot from the Nevermore. [My Sniper Rifle's firing arm is shearing at the shoulder! I might only have one or two shots left before it snaps completely!]

She could hear the hushed swear that escaped Weiss at that and saw her press a few buttons. A moment later, the rest of the team is back on the call. [Arc, Ruby is almost unable to fire, and I'm low on ammunition.]

Ruby felt like she could actively see the gears in Jaune's head turning, even through the golden sheen around him… Wait, did he always have that around his whole body when in an Ark? It was a deeper gold than his Aura usually was…

[That's not good… Alright. Ruby, back up to Blake and Yang. They seem to have done good enough at keeping the Grimm from forcing Blake's Semblance that she probably has one more go left. Stay nearby them just in case, Ren and I are on our way as well!]

Ruby nodded, dodging a few more shots from the Nevermore as she looked around to find Blake and Yang. There were a few close calls with some of the feathers -some of them even grazing her armour- but eventually, she finds the pair.

She could vaguely hear some chatter over the call, with the other girls seemingly shocked at some revelation Jaune and Ren had made, but she was too focused on deflecting and dodging Nevermore feathers to focus on them too much. It took her about a minute of this before she felt confident in a path to the others that would keep her out of range of the land-locked Grimm, and then…

Then she moved.

Running towards them, Ruby forces Crescent Rose darts once to the left, and then to the right, zigzagging out of the way of a barrage of Nevermore feathers, following that up with a slide as she dodged a shot from the Nevermore -which was still focusing on her of all people, for some reason- that would have struck her cockpit. She went to stand back up, her Semblance already transforming the extremities of Crescent Rose into Rose petals as she prepared for the home stretch towards her team…

SNAP! SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!

Only for her worst fear to happen.

The sound of metal tearing filled her ears as Crescent Rose's already-damaged ankle gave out on her from the maneuver she had tried to make, sending her stumbling and hurtling to the ground so fast it felt like gravity had left her for a moment.

She slammed into the ground with an impact she could feel in her bones, draining her Aura by a massive chunk. She could vaguely hear the rest of her team calling out to her. Ruby blinked as she tried to stop her head from hurting, but she must have bumped it in the impact.

The silver haze was back around the edge of her sight again, and for a moment, she was confused as to why exactly it had sparked back up when it had left her alone enough to push through it for most of the fight…

But then she blinked away the last of her blurry vision and saw the Ursa charging directly for her, ignoring the other Arks in its path in a way that was entirely antithetical to a Grimm's usual behaviour.

She tried to use her Aura to make Crescent Rose avoid it, to attack it, to do anything to stop it… but heard an alarm go off in response. Checking quickly, she found that not only was her Ark's leg inoperable, but the fall had shattered the last parts of her firing shoulder as well. Coupled with the damage to her Aura the fall had done… And her Semblance wasn't likely to work either.

She also couldn't really safely eject, as her Ark was currently horizontal. So unless she wanted to eject right into the side of a bakery…

Then it seemed like she was a sitting duck.

"Gah!"

A grunt escaped Pyrrha, as a thrust of her spear glanced off of a plate of Grimmbone that actively bubbled to the surface of the humanoid Grimm's arm where there hadn't been any armour a moment before.

She could feel the joints of her Ark overextend from the action, the connections close to snapping… But with a flare of her Semblance, she reached out and grabbed onto her Ark, holding it together through sheer force of will.

When Pyrrha had been told that her Ark had been sabotaged, she hadn't known what to expect. She had expected Epariti to have been damaged, sure, but when she had activated her Ark in her team's Hangar Bays, the entire thing seemed like it was a couple of small movements from falling apart.

But she wasn't about to sit this fight out, especially when it seemed like Epariti had been sabotaged more thoroughly than the others. Whoever was behind all of this had clearly wanted Pyrrha to not be a non-factor, to stop her from being a problem.

So Pyrrha was determined to be as much of a problem as possible.

And so here she was, fighting the most dangerous seeming Grimm all by herself, using her Semblance to literally hold her Ark together as it threatened to fall apart around her. The worst part was that the Grimm seemed aware of this fact.

It had been targeting her joints and forcing her to use her Semblance more than she would have to if this was a normal Grimm. And while the world-shaking revelation that she was fighting a Grimm that could think and notice things like that was, well, world-shaking, she was no stranger to ignoring questions like that until after a fight was over.

With her spear thrust deflected, the Grimm swiped a hand in her direction, the claws on its human-esque hand growing before Pyrrha's eyes until each was practically a dagger when compared to the size of its body.

Pyrrhe threw her shield up in front of her, boosting its speed by using her Semblance to make up for the lack of strength her Ark could handle. And -even as the dagger-like claws dug into her shield- her spear was thrusting forward again in a counter-attack.

She couldn't help the rush of adrenaline -nor the grin it pulled onto her face- as the tip of her spear slid between two of the Grimm's armour plates, stabbing deep into its stomach area. And then -with a cloud of black smoke billowing from the wound as Pyrrha rotated the spearhead slightly- she grabbed it with her Semblance and tore it out of the Grimm.

The Grimm screamed in pain, a sound much unlike the roar from before, but… She -unfortunately- didn't get off scot-free, however.

The Grimm had latched onto her shield and yanked it out of her hands, throwing it at another Ark in the group behind her. Pyrrha was forced to waste precious Aura -and focus- on halting its momentum and then bringing it back to her.

That instant of defencelessness allowed the Grimm to grin at her, throwing a hand forward in an attack clearly meant to cripple the bottom half of Epariti by severing its torso… Only for the hand that the Grimm was using to explode into black smoke as a shot from another Ark blew it off.

Pyrrha backed off, using the moment to regain her bearings, but rushed in again straight away and stabbed into the Grimm's other arm one, two, three, FOUR times in rapid succession, blocking an attempted side-kick from the Grimm on her shield and using the force to push Epariti back, making space as she pulled some of her loaded ammunition from her sabotaged and defunct cannons and threw them at the Grimm with her Semblance.

Such rapid movements inevitably caused bits and pieces of her Ark's armour to break off, but instead of letting them fall to the ground, useless… Pyrrha grabbed them with her Semblance and shot them forward towards the Grimm, watching as the small -and therefore fast- chunks of sharp-edged metal punctured into and then through the body of the Grimm before she pulled them back with her Semblance to do the same one the other way around too.

The Grimm ROARED in not only pain but clear frustration, her destroyed -but rapidly reforming, which was an issue in of itself- arm raising as it pointed towards Crescent Rose, even as the other holes she'd opened in the Grimm's body closed. Pyrrha couldn't afford to watch what happened to the Ark next as she rushed the Grimm again.

With the downside of having to multitask fighting and holding her Ark together, Pyrrha was well aware of an unfortunate truth. She wasn't winning the fight at the moment. Especially now with proof that this Grimm could at the very least reform its extremities, but also maybe even regenerate them, and Pyrhha knew that while she had the technical skill advantage, having her focus split was crippling her ability.

Still, she was the only person of the first-years, maybe the only person at Beacon, who could nullify the sabotage done to her Ark like she was, and that meant she had to take care of the most dangerous Grimm, to stop it from reaching the vulnerable ones behind her.

With the Grimm distracted from giving orders to the other Grimm -which still blew her mind but was something to think about later on- she threw her shield at the Grimm's face at full, Semblance-enhanced force, the sharper edges carving a line deep into it and seemingly discombobulating the Grimm as she used two hands and her Semblance to stab forward, impaling the Grimm upon her spear and pushing her back towards the shoreline.

She could feel her Ark continuing to fall apart and held on all the tighter because of it. With the Grimm's limbs loose and waving through the air from the -hopefully- concussion that Pyrrha had given the Grimm, she chanced a look back at Crescent Rose, gasping as she saw an Ursa on top of it.

She could have sworn she even heard laughter from the Grimm upon her spear and was about to turn back to face her when she saw an Ark she recognised as Weiss' fireteam leader's running towards Crescent Rose…

And then she was blinded by pure, golden light.

Tears were streaming down Ruby's face.

Crescent Rose, her baby, her dream come true in physical form… Wasn't responding to her like it should.

The Ursa was already upon her, and Crescent Rose's remaining arm didn't have the physical strength, nor the bladed weapon, to push it off or kill the Ursa outright. The most she could do was try to keep it from breaching her armour, and even that damaged her remaining arm with each attempt.

She could hear voices over the comms calling to her and heard the sound of the already-lacking amount of armour Crescent Rose already had been torn through.

All the while, the silver glow of her eyes felt like it was getting worse and worse, and tears flowed down her cheeks, and all the while, her headache mounted. She couldn't stop the scream that escaped her as a beam of light entering the cockpit heralded the tip of the Ursa's claw breaching through her armour…

And piercing right into her shoulder, shattering the dregs of her Aura she had left. She didn't have much room to dodge in the cockpit, but she was lucky, as Crescent Rose did her a final favour, its armour resisting the Grimm enough that she could tell the wound wasn't fatal… And better yet, she could still feel her arm.

[RUBY!]

She couldn't tell who was shouting it at this point, but as her eyes fluttered back open -when had she closed them- she could feel the Ursa's claw exit her shoulder and see it latch onto the edge of the hole it had made, pulling out of her cockpit in its entirety and tearing open her Ark alongside it, revealing the arm of the Ursa in full as it starts reaching in…

She let out a scream as her vision brightened, the silver haze she could see fading slightly and the pressure in her eyes seemingly lessening as the sound of something cracking and shattering reached her…

And then there was a flash of golden light that reached her even through the haze of silver.

With a contemptuous ROAR, the Ursa was pulled out of Crescent Rose's cockpit by… Something.

Ruby vaguely noticed that the arm of the Ursa, the one that had been trying to grab her, was now covered in a stone-like material -although some part of her was convinced that it had been turned into that material completely- that didn't follow the Ursa as it was removed from her cockpit, leaving Ruby surrounded by blood from her wound and the shattered stone arm of the Ursa that leaves the Grimm down one limb.

That wasn't really her focus, however.

Her focus was on the golden light she could see streaming through the gap in her cockpit… And the giant, Golden light that she could see through her Ark's remaining few cameras, so large that it towered over even the Grimm, creatures that Arks usually met on equal footing.

Seeing it chased the headache -and the silver haze that filled her eyes- away as a feeling of hope filled her chest, and unbeknownst to her at the moment, her Aura was rekindled and began to regenerate, stemming the worst of her injury.

She didn't know what she was looking at, but it felt familiar, it felt warm…

It felt like Hope.

I hope you enjoyed this, and don't hate me too much for the cliffhanger!

I cannot fucking WAIT for next week, you guys. I'm so excited!

:D

See you next Friday!