I float. On my back. Casually. The Ur-Dragon (Gerold, I'm pretty sure, since he came out of the lake), soars on by, mounted by the two resident scythe-wielders, their bodies flailing like flags on poles.
I could probably take him: jerk his big wings around, slam him into the cliffside, then boost back and drop the Vytal platform on his big, inky body. I'd even be able to ball up the civilians and dump them in the lake. It's been a minute since I was on a magazine.
But nope. I float— paddle, even. Just a little. The Vytal platform is plummeting, and I'm gonna save it (of course I'm gonna save it), but it's cool to watch something so big just… fall. Just… fshwooooow… wooooooshhhhh… shhhhhphooooooorrrrr.
Cool.
I make popping noises. Slap my hands against the water's surface. Plaplaplaplaplap.
Gerold— I assume, again, because he was sleeping beneath the lake (where he'd been put last time, as my boss claims)— crashes blindly into the Beacon tower, and for a second I can't help but feel a real lance of anxiety run me through. Not out of concern for my boss, of course, fuck that guy, but because that's where Emil and the other money-people work, and I really don't want to miss another paycheck this year. Worse, if the HR offices get torn apart, I'm gonna lose the carefully stashed compendium of complaints I've been saving up.
Thankfully, by the time the dust clears, it's just my boss' office that's been given the Gerald special, only now I only see one figure up there fighting, and by the zipping plume of red, it's Summer. Gerald keeps trying to move, his colossal head swaying with speed that shouldn't be possible for its size, but she's knocking him around so much that he can barely track her with his head.
Honestly, the woman's putting in Work— with a capital 'W'. Gerold doesn't even seem too wounded and, despite his lack of functioning eyes, he's able to lash out and nearly swallow her every time his jaws deafeningly snap together. I even catch one of his bites getting to her plume, catching it, only for the jaws to be stopped by Summer reforming with her scythe propped up between them, then escape by pumping his gums with autocannon fire.
She darts away in another formless plume, but makes the mistake of retreating when I would've stuck around and pushed my advantage. She darts up and away behind him, flashing back together from the red before plummeting towards the center of his spine with 20 millimeters worth of recoil being added by her monstrous, roaring autocannon. He takes up the space, moving faster than math says he can with one buck of his massive wings. Gerold hits the Huntress as she's falling, his back hitting her front with what probably felt like a jet-powered battering ram. I can't see her behind him, but she does something, because next thing I know I'm watching Gerold's wings fall away like old, dry leaves. She zips around the front again, moving so fast that she's hitting him as the dregs of his momentum are still carrying him up, her red plume barely visible appearing beside three of his four columnar legs, the trio falling away as she rounds to his last one: the left forelimb.
But Gerold is an old soul. If it was my boss who really put him down in that lake some 2 centuries ago, that means he's probably got tales about him that're old enough that their stone mediums are sand on the beach, now. That means he's learned how to think— at least enough to extrapolate.
His long neck whips, jaw cracking like a bomb, and the next thing I can see is Summer dangling from his front teeth, her right side lost in the maw. Her scythe dangles from her limp left arm, a weapon as huge as its wielder's name, and that lady's got one absolute hell of a rigor mortis, because even in death she is somehow holding that literal autocannon (how in the fuck did she even get that thing, much less use it) in one dead hand. Even then, with so much happening, it is only then that I see Gerold start to fall.
Okay, look. I gotta be honest, here: I coulda killed him. With absolute certainty, I would've left that big, old Grimm a pile of flaking, dissipating remains (inasmuch as he physically could; Grimm as old as him don't resolve into the black sea so easily, their bones stick around with a decomposition rate like plastic), but I'd have to drop the whole Vytal platform on him to do it— it'd be sick as hell, no doubt, but now I've gotta get the civilians out, I've gotta pin him, then I've gotta throw this entire thing worth untold trillions (quadrillions, probably) into him and that would get me the earful of the fucking millenia. Might even get fired for that— for a few months, at least, before the old man comes crawling back.
But here's Summer, pulling This Bullshit with herself, her scythe, and her soul.
Backfloating, watching her scythe swing from her limp body like a giant, deadly pendulum, I remember something old.
It's my own tournament, my own team, representing Haven in the semi-finals. My senior year. It's my first time meeting Summer Rose, but she and her team are cutting into the semi-finals as freshmen. She's blank-faced, steely; we shake hands and her teammates are alive, but she feels unsettlingly separate from the rest of them; her hand is warm and not too firm, but it feels like a steel vice when I shake it. Her eyes are a silver color that should be deep and thoughtful and calculating, but she's operating purely on the surface— an ocean of mercury, but it doesn't even go past your ankle when you step in.
Not to say she's not sharp; she is brilliant. She's grace made manifest with that giant scythe, she gets my team locked, she conducts her own like a maestro, but it's all dull to her. We are dull to her.
It's arrogance I exploit, focusing her team down, systematically ringing them out until the only link left is the strong one and all of mine are still in the game. We surround her, and I see that look for about a second— I see it on everyone, at least once, when you know there's something you can do and you're certain you can do it and it's the last moment before you get to executing— before she goes dull again, and Summer Rose straightens, shrugs, and walks herself out of the arena.
My team wins the finals match— it's the first time Haven's won much of anything in a long time— but it feels wrong. Like I've been handed something I didn't deserve. I can't stop thinking about that Summer girl, and I find her as soon as we're let out of the stadium. I ask her why she stepped out, why not fight? I could see it in her eyes, she could've evened it out, but instead she'd be getting mocked for walking away!
She scoffs at me. She says she would've done a lot more than evening out, but it wouldn't have been worth tarnishing her record as soon as her freshman year. I give her a nervous chuckle, disbelieving. She doesn't budge from that razor-sharp, dead expression.
Later, not much long after I get hired to the job I have now, I happen upon her dossier in a particularly old, dusty filing cabinet. I piece together that she's probably somewhere on the antisocial personality spectrum, but it's an older analysis. The mental health aspects don't go far beyond 'displays narcissistic aspects' and 'highly desensitized.'
She could have beaten us— she almost did— but that'd put a nonzero amount of corpses on her record, and that was what concerned her: the effect on her record.
I'm a prodigy. I know I am. It's objectively and verifiably true. I'm a once-in-a-generation Huntress.
But Summer Rose is a once-in-a-lifetime Huntress.
I see that silver-bladed pendulum swing again— this time with life— the point of it driving through scales that couldn't be penetrated with a scythe, not with the mere power of one arm, not with the mere power of one human, but something that must be providence or absurd luck gets the point of that huge blade through those scales, the head of the huge weapon hilting as it hooks through the lower jaw. Then the autocannon starts to roar again— I can see the furious blasts ripping out of its muzzle— and Summer's right half is ripped from Gerold's front teeth as the recoil tears through his hide until her scythe's crook is caught on the thick bone of his chin. Her right arm, plus more past her shoulder, is gone. She doesn't release the trigger, firing on an automatic setting that's probably meant to be on an armored vehicle. The building heat makes the shots feed even faster, making more heat build, shots feeding faster, adding more heat until the positive feedback loop has so much recoil coming out so quickly that even Gerold is pulled by it. His neck and chest, made pulpy by the repeated abuse of Summer's hefty caliber, are stretched out sinuously as he is pulled.
This, Glynda surmises, is intentional, since it brings Gerold's body plummeting towards the Beacon tower's exposed skeleton.
The Ur-Dragon is impaled. I can see the twisted metal piercing through where his wings used to be. I can't see much else from this angle.
Welp. This would probably be a good time to get off my ass and bring the Vytal platform down gently, so I do. It's heavy, but I manage to slow it enough that it doesn't split upon hitting the ground, leaving it (at least) salvageable or (at most) repairable. Of course, I ball up the unevacuated civilians (Hunters, civilian-civilians, Vytal staff, etc.) beforehand and dump them near the shore of the lake, close enough that the Hunters can regroup and go back to the now-fallen platform to clear out the remaining Grimm, but not so close that they'd be caught unawares if the Grimm decided to take the initiative first. I take myself back to Beacon, figuring at least I'd be able to get one glass of champagne from whatever insane party they must be throwing up there.
I expect party. I get funeral. And not one with champagne. Now I'm just standing awkwardly before them, watching Raven Branwen and Yang Xiao Long weep at the corpse of Summer Rose— the former sobbing much more intensely than the latter. Qrow's there, too. He's not crying openly like the others, just staring at the body like he'd seen it before. It takes me a few moments to remember that he had, in fact, seen it before: the death in the team. It's a look I know; hell, it's one I've made twice— just me and Morri left of our old team, and she's a novelist now— so I can recognize the signs. He's past the 'waiting for her to jump up and laugh in his face' stage, now hip-deep in the 'tearful thousand-mile stare,' soon to enter the 'attempt to make a joke' stage, followed by the 'breakdown when everyone looks at you pityingly' stage. Smartly, I back away.
I try to. My boss awaits in my path of egress. I sigh in open disdain. I tell him now's probably not the time for whatever ominous BS he's about to mantle on these poor bastards, but he cares little for such human matters as 'mourning' or 'the myriad civil suits he keeps dragging his own school into.'
Ozpin smiles and calls me something mildly derogatory (dammit I'm not recording) before pushing past— with more rigor than necessary, considering he did exactly 0% of the labor that went into killing Gerold. He approaches the family in mourning, says one word, and gets double-face-punched by the Branwen twins, which is the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I'm pretty sure it actually adds ten years onto my lifespan. Seeing the old dick crash at my feet adds another five. His bemused look ages me thirty.
Thankfully, the two of them getting to hit Ozpin in the face (Aura, really, but close enough in spirit) has launched them past all the stages of Team Grief and straight into the 'solidarity hugging' stage. Raven and Qrow hug like two people who have never hugged anything before and quickly separate, redirecting their embrace to Yang, despite how she looks remarkably quick to recover from this loss.
After an ice-cold minute, my boss goes back to them. I am highly disappointed that they don't punch him in the face as a trio, though Qrow and Raven glare like that's not fully off the table. I pay rapt attention (just in case).
He (my boss) (Ozpin) (the worst man alive) (well, maybe not the worst worst, but he's definitely among them) looks around. He asks where Ruby went. Almost offhandedly, Raven states that she jumped out of the window. Judging by the lack of giant fuck-off scythe lying around, I reckon she's taken it with her. My boss laughs. He asks where she's gone, really. Raven looks at him and repeats herself
And the face that Ozpin makes… I feel young again. If there weren't a corpse here, I would moan. Honestly, I'm tempted to do it despite the corpse. I've never seen that ashy motherfucker go so pale.
He asks where she went— stupidly, because the answer is 'she jumped out the window,' and I actually snort. He asks again— more frustrated, 'Where did she go?'— with an obvious wrist-roll towards Raven. She glares at him— doesn't kill him, unfortunately— before closing her eyes, her brows folding together in focus. Raven (probably through her Semblance, not that I would know) says that she's Mantle-bound. Ozpin has a silent but visible conniption, stamps his foot like a baby, and hisses for her to get a move on.
I have never seen him act like this— like some petulant baby rather than a smug demi-god. It's enlightening. It's beautiful. It is my greatest mortal folly that I'm not recording.
It's even better when I get to listen to Raven slowly explaining that she has to wait, otherwise she'll die trying to find Ruby. My boss cannot comprehend this. He instead turns his demands to Yang and Qrow, who gladly accept the task… as soon as an airship becomes available. Of course, due to the current state of emergency, that'll be tomorrow at the earliest.
He has the audacity to turn to me. Me. Glynda Goodwitch, the literal only person alive who can cover his ass in terms of at least 80% of construction costs thanks to my Semblance— he has the balls to turn to me and make puppy-dog eyes. I inform him that he can deepthroat lit dynamite. Professionally, of course, because Ozpin is such a hypocrite that he has to be babied by corporatespeak, lest he threaten me with another write-up (which he would use to excuse my paycheck's inevitable tardiness). With a great, heaving, obviously distraught (basically begging for someone to ask what's wrong) sigh, Ozpin agrees to let Raven rest her Semblance. He also bids Yang and Qrow to get an airship as soon as possible, and to bring Britney, which is not the name of their teammate, Blake. I delight in his shame as I remind him of this. My boss is, for once, a broken man. I have never seen something more beautiful, and I doubt I ever will again.
He acts like a god, or like a baby— he gets all huffy when his toys are taken away.