Apologies for the delay, but this one is one I've been planning out for awhile. There's a lot I wish I could have done with it, but simply due to the involved's fighting styles, it was impossible, and it would have divided it up into several chapters, which I felt took away from the impact and the meaning (you'll see what I mean), so instead I made it one huge chapter and just... Wrote until I felt it was done. (And some of the things we've been getting in V6 actually helped with some of the things I wanted to do here. Go fucking figure. The irony is noted.)
So...
Remember when I quoted American Made?
Yeah.
We can stop now, if you want.
'Cause it just.
Gets.
Crazy from here.
Chapter 63
"Who are you?" Demanded Professor Geld Dorn, of his new and unexpected elderly guest.
"And who the hell is der Teufel?" Qrow Branwen asked, as he, Dorn, and teams RWBY and JNPR got to their feet, flanking each other defensively and coiling their muscles, readying for combat.
But the old man shook his head, "I am but a man from another world, and we've hours, and if not, minutes, to prepare." He explained, "there were four of us. Masters. Myself and two others, we knew the woman we were being impressed to serve was a vile and repulsive one, but that we could only combat her together, and that the only way to do so would be to assemble with her, and not against her. That would take time... Time the fourth one of us sought to shorten as much as possible. He is der Teufel, the Demon. He fought the man we called our leader and killed him, but also died himself... Until the woman we serve learned that she could create what can only be described as a Terran Grimm."
The words hung in the air like a great, oppressive weight; the old Master gave them a few moments to digest them before he continued.
"Now alive again, der Teufel has in two weeks crippled and delivered to Cinder Fall as many Maidens. She now has all four of them, and intends to advance on Haven to begin her hunt for the three relics we do not possess." He explained, "and with his power, that raw, animalistic fury, and his simple lack of mercy... Salem has created something that has convinced myself and my ally that the time for subtlety, subterfuge, spying, it is passed. If we do not deal with him immediately, if we do not kill Cinder Fall and reintroduce the Maidens to the world, buy ourselves time...
"An end like no other will be upon us."
Qrow and Dorn exchanged glances, then turned back to the Master. "You know well and good we can't trust you. Not fully." Said the former bandit.
"You have no choice." Said the Master, "they will be here in but hours. Fewer if der Teufel grows impatient." He said, "fewer still if Cinder does as well."
"Then what would you have us do?" Dorn asked, relaxing his posture. "You know the enemy better than any of us. How would we strike them?"
Helmut relaxed as well, posture still ramrod straight, but shoulders now slacked, as he closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. "How many men do you have, herr Schulleiter?"
Cinder Fall wasn't scared of what slumbered in the cargo bay of the Pelican, not in the practical sense. She knew that it had no reason nor orders to kill her, just as she was confident enough in her newfound strength that this thing's usual Modus Operandi, going straight for killing or crippling blows, that it couldn't work on her. Strictly speaking, this thing in the belly of her ship, sleeping like a machine without orders or purpose, it shouldn't scare her, not in the traditional sense.
But in a much different, more metaphorical, perhaps philosophical sense, Cinder found herself absolutely fucking terrified of it. Of what it was. What it represented. For all of human history, the greatest distinction between them and Grimm was that one was assuredly not the other, and yet this thing stood in full opposition to that. Worse was that it showed that the woman who had promised her power overwhelming, who had, by rights, given her such power, held no respect for life, for anyone's life, and that made her wonder what would happen were she to die. Would she be made Grimm as well? Would she be like this Aldric? Ruthless, powerful, raw and untamed, cold, shallow, heartless.
Soulless.
In two battles, a handful of minutes, and barely even any effort expended at all, the Grimm Aldric had crippled and hand-delivered two of the most powerful women on Remnant to Cinder and had given her everything she wanted. It did in weeks what had taken her years to achieve. She now felt power like nothing else inside of her. It was what she'd wanted for so much of her life that she could say without much metaphor that it was what she'd wanted for all of her life.
It was what she wanted.
But it didn't feel right.
Not like this.
A part of Cinder felt hollow now, and she longed for the simpler days when she understood everything she saw, when she didn't fear it, and it was this longing that made her wonder what she would do after obtaining the relics for Salem. Obviously she felt more kinship for Remnant, but with Earth being there, she felt some small curiosity, and even an amount of interest, in being able to go to that alien world of high technology and industry, where no one would know her, no one would challenge her. It would be decades there, perhaps - no, most likely - longer, before the Terrans, through use of Dust, began awakening their auras on any noticeable scale, and Salem would no doubt sic her pet Grimm on them to keep her atop the pecking order of her new worlds.
Cinder sighed, shaking her head. No, Earth wouldn't be too good an option, not when Salem would inevitably go there following her victory on Remnant, and its mystique, and that ill-defined safety it suggested would evaporate if Salem ever decided to birth herself more Terran Grimm, which brought her thoughts back to that dark place, and that dark figure sleeping deeper in the ship, and soon, she thought of something that made her afraid in a traditional and metaphorical sense:
Was she even correct about Salem's goals?
Strictly speaking, Cinder had gotten everything she wanted. She was fighting now for Salem because she'd vowed to, and because she'd been sold on them, but now she questioned whether or not said goals had even been true. The thought that Salem would have lied to her hadn't crossed her mind until now, and with such a thought, of course, came one major follow up question:
Should she still even fight for her?
No... She shook her head of those thoughts as fast as she could. Even thinking about that would be unhealthy, to say nothing of what Salem would do if she actually acted upon it. Cinder would not only be a threat to Salem's goals, but an outright obstacle, and Salem would stop at nothing to find her. Running wasn't an option, not now, not so late into the game. Now she was in it until the end.
And the beginning of said end would be at Haven Academy.
It took them eight hours to make it to the city's outskirts, and it was dreadfully easy to get into it, especially considering the global war and the increased Grimm activity. Cinder merely had to keep her 'friend' masked and silent, flutter her eyes at the gate guards, and exercise some minor iota of power to influence their minds into letting them in. Just a single suggestion that she would be 'very happy' if they allowed her in, and suddenly she and the Terran Grimm were inside the first of three kingdoms to fall before them.
Then, following word they had received from Tyrian months ago about his little base of operations inside Mistral, Cinder and the Terran Grimm found their allies, all assembled, all ready for combat, and all waiting for them. Tyrian was the first to leap to his feet, and in an instant he was in front of Cinder, his wide, mad smile cracking his face in two and a rabid look in his eyes, one that mixed excitement and blood lust.
"Oh, she's here!" He said, getting far too close to Cinder. "And all smooth again! How wonderful!" He then slid over to Aldric, who regarded him with his new normal level of silence. "And she brought a friend! What is your name, friend? You smell like death!" He cackled.
Aldric didn't answer, and had he been human, Cinder wouldn't have blamed him. She shook her head and turned to the saner four of the assembled warriors. "Are we all ready?"
The two Masters and the two Huntsmen all exchanged glances as the psychopath cackled in mad glee and retreated over to them. They all nodded affirmative.
"Then I want this quick. We will need a distraction to draw Huntsmen away from the academy." She nodded to Arthur, Tyrian, and Hazel. "Attack a large section of the city and keep it on fire for thirty minutes before you reinforce us in the academy." She said, to their three nods, before she turned to the two living Masters. "You two." She said, attracting their attention. "You will follow Aldric and I to the academy. While they pull the bulk away from us, you three will take the attention of everyone inside away from me, while I make a move on its relic." She explained, noticing on the edges of her senses Aldric, after scanning over the room, turning tail and casually walking back outside; she cast a brief glance at him, frowning, before turning back to the Masters.
Ben raised his hand, "From your word choice I would assume then that the plan is not to actually fight them?"
Cinder nodded, "yes. As strong as we may be, we do not know if Ruby Rose has gained any amount of control over her abilities. It..." She said, slowly. "Is better we bide our time. Act intelligently, as opposed to rashly." She could almost feel her pride being swallowed with every word, but she'd long since learned how foolish it was to act in emotion. "So until we have the four relics, we will engage in battle with Ozpin and his forces only as necessary. Only -" She was cut off when the ground began shaking violently underneath her feet.
Cinder's head snapped up, eyes wide. What the hell had -
She blinked.
Oh no... "Come on." She beckoned, rushing up the stairs, where she sensed Aldric standing on the roof of their little base.
Storming up to his level, she crashed outside, and saw Aldric, a strange, pistol-like object in his hand, pointed outwards towards Mistral's residential sector.
A huge, long, wide line had been cut into it, and everything inside of this line was scorched black and flattened.
"Aldric, what did you -" But Cinder was cut off when a gigantic pillar of bright red light screamed out of the sky, slamming into the ground and tearing apart everything in its wake. Everything that wasn't flattened by it was set ablaze, and she watched Aldric drag his arm from one side to another, and the beam followed his movements.
Aldric turned to look over his shoulder, and for a moment, Cinder regretted putting him in that mask. Its dark metal, its red stripes, as it reflected the distant flames it made her think of demons. Aldric looked right at her, before raising his gaze past her. He turned around and pointed the gun over her shoulder; Cinder dashed out of the way just as another gigantic pillar of light slammed into the ground, causing another earthquake and, when she turned to behold it, she saw it ripping apart Mistral's protective walls. Two more pillars of light tore two more gigantic holes in the city's defenses, before Aldric turned now to face Haven Academy.
The gun, however, merely beeped at him when he tried to use it to target another strike.
Aldric looked up to the sky, Cinder could imagine him frowning.
"Damn." He stuck it in his pocket.
"Aldric -"
"What the hell was that, boy?!" Helmut demanded, shoving his way past Cinder and beholding Mistral, now half on fire and filled with the sounds of burning buildings and screaming people. "What did you just do?!" He screamed.
"Her distraction would split us up." He said. "Weaken us. Inefficient." Aldric indicated the city, now in chaos. "This will not. Is not."
"And what is this?!" Helmut looked murderous, turning his darkening eyes down to the Terran Grimm.
Aldric responded coolly, "Hammer of Dawn." He said, turning to walk towards Cinder. "Let's go."
Cinder watched aghast, turning from the burning city to the Terran Grimm. She shook her head, and took control, "new plan, then: Go to Haven. Now!"
Cinder and her allies were the only ones running to the Academy. They were fish swimming upstream, as hundreds of people, soldiers, and Huntsmen all stampeded towards the chaos, they were running away from it. It took them ten minutes to make it, and in that ten minutes Cinder heard brief snippets of people screaming at each other in fear, talking of Grimm in the walls, the fires spreading, of 'what the hell was that from the sky?!', but she put it all past her as it all grew quiet and they reached the academy. It felt as though she were in another world, separate from the burning chaos she had just seen created. The air was still, the tower loomed over them, the grounds were quiet and hastily abandoned as the men and women here no doubt were all hurriedly trying to contain the hell they had just unleashed.
Cinder took in a deep, calming breath, trying to push away the thoughts of what she'd just seen, trying to set aside the questions of what the hell else Aldric had in his belt, or of how he managed to put whatever that was so high up in the sky. They made it to the looming doors to Haven's main hall, but Aldric didn't even bother letting them be pushed open - where the others slowed down, he sped up, and as though he were a siege engine, he rammed into the doors with his shoulders and they were blasted off their hinges, shooting inside and smashing apart everything they touched, even managing to carve off a huge portion of the gigantic, multi-armed statue that stood at the center of the hall.
Then he slowed, waiting for Cinder and the others to make it to him.
As they stepped inside, Cinder asked him, "where is it, Aldric?"
"Under the statue." He said, "not alone."
Cinder frowned, but she couldn't say she didn't expect this. The multi-Maiden gave Aldric a look, "let me handle this, Aldric." She said, before clearing her throat and leading everyone inside. "If you come out... We may spare you!"
To his credit, Haven's Headmaster did reveal himself when summoned. A giant of a man, nine feet tall and with a body as thicker than a tree without an ounce of fat on him, he wore a set of platemail, and had a helmet in his hands, allowing his thick head, his white hair and bristly mustache to be visible. He stood at the top of a split staircase, looking down on them with anger and determination. His eyes were narrow and his face red with anger, but his breath was slow and smooth, it becoming clear to Cinder that he'd expected this day to come, no doubt ever since Beacon.
"And if you leave, we may allow you to live." Was his response, his impossibly deep voice sounding through the air like a cannon.
"Huntsmen. Moving to position." Aldric whispered, as Cinder guided them right inside, stopping just before the stairs that led up to the Headmaster's position. "Four... Eight... Twenty... Thirty five."
Cinder pursed her lips in a tight frown, shaking her head. "Headmaster... I must admit this day hasn't gone how either of us expected. I am giving you the option to limit the loss of life here. If you give us what you want -"
And as she spoke, Aldric whispered, "taking aim."
"- we will even take the Grimm with us."
But the Headmaster shook his head, lowing his hand to a blade fastened to his hip, and lifting his helmet over his head. "To allow you this victory will be tantamount to handing you the rest of them, little girl. Neither you nor I know what will happen when they are assembled, but unlike you, we shall not take that risk. We will fight." He took in a deep breath, closing his fist around the hilt of his blade, his voice now reverberating from within his helmet. "And whosoever dies... So be it. There shall be others. There always are."
Cinder sighed, but before she could even speak, she heard in short order, a gasp, a grunt of pain, the sounds of electricity, the snap of bone, and then dozens of safeties being switched off and weapons being readied. Knowing where the weapons were coming from, Cinder's head snapped around to try and determine what the other sounds had been, but before she could she found herself suddenly launched through the air, blasted by an unseen force.
As she hit the ground and rolled to a halt, she heard the sound of a bell's toll, the telltale sign of something heavy and strong striking the metal that made Aldric's armor, and then:
"OPEN FIRE!"
She had to act fast, she knew. She planted both of her hands on the ground and took control of her roll, soon coming to a halt just as she felt rounds slamming into her aura. Her next move was to thrust both arms into the air, and she was soon surrounded by a dome of magical energy, which took each round for her and left her with the safety and room to breathe, and figure out what had happened. Who had managed to sneak up on Aldric?
Looking up, she found her answer, and her breath caught in her chest:
Aldric, his arms crossed in front of him, and the fists of both of the Masters were struggling against him, pushing against him and just managing to scrape him along the ground. They were scowling, teeth bared from effort, struggling against him and trying to break his stance, open up some hole in his defenses while, on the ground below them, Arthur, Hazel, and Tyrian all lay motionless, necks broken or bodies fried from electricity, or in the case of Hazel, both.
What? Cinder gasped, as she regained her bearings. They... What?! But as she tried to adapt, Aldric removed one hand from his defensive stance and shoved it behind him, fingers splayed open.
"GO!" She heard him scream, before he clenched his fist tight, and then shoved forward again.
Cinder was again sent flying, this time feeling as though something had kicked her in the gut, as she heard the sound of concrete shattering and falling behind her. Looking behind her, she saw that Aldric had crushed the statue he'd pointed out earlier, and now the tunnel leading to the chamber of the relic was wide open, and she was falling right into it.
And above her, she saw the Headmaster leaping after her, burying his sword into the wall and using it to slow his descent, sparks flying out of the wall as he carved it open.
But, as though a lasso had been tied around him, the Headmaster suddenly stopped, bent over at the waist, and then he was viciously yanked back up and out of the hole, which sealed itself airtight, leaving Cinder alone to fall however many hundreds of meters to the vault underneath the academy.
While Cinder fell below, above, the only enemy they had left positioned himself. He viciously threw the Headmaster to the entrance of the academy, the Last Master leapt through the air and came to a landing on top of the hastily sealed shaft. In seconds, all the Huntsmen and Huntresses that had once attempted to kill Cinder began taking aim again, while nine dropped down from their positions to join the Headmaster and the two old Terrans. The Headmaster accepted a glaive thrown down to him and flourished it, while the Masters' eyes melted to deep pools of dark onyx, and the air itself twisted and turned around them. Coming up to the Masters' left was a dark-haired man, a scythe gripped tightly in both hands, while flanking both sides were two teams whose visages called forth old and foggy memories of battles and fighting styles in the Grimm's mind. Weapons were readied above and below, one huntress pumped the gauntlets on her arms, one huntsman readied his holy blade and his blue shield, another had a spear in one hand, resting on the edge of a red, white, and blue rotella, and on and on it went until all present, be they ready to fight him personally, or there to provide supporting fire, were armed and ready.
And Ruby Rose fell last, extending her scythe and, with a brief spin, had it held behind her back, perfectly positioned for a fast, violent swing. She swallowed thickly, taking some solace in the allies she had, but knowing still this would be a terribly difficult fight, still having to battle one Master, and one that had been made Grimm on top of that.
Its response to the arms raised against it was to shrug off his coat, and as it crumpled to the ground beneath him, out from it zipped a small silver and black shaft, which slid into his hand. He brought it around in front of him, grasping it in both hands and adopting a kendo stance, his expression hidden behind a black and red mask and its T-shaped visor.
The air grew thick and heavy, silent and still.
Until: Zhoom!
Ruby gasped, as the Grimm Master was bathed in deep, blood red light, wielding a weapon so similar to Ash's that, were just one color changed, it very well could have been/ But, the moment he filled the air with the violent thrum of that blade, the battle began.
And just as had been so meticulously planned, two dozen Huntsmen and Huntresses leapt down from the higher levels, all surging towards the Grimm Master, just as the Masters and Ozpin's group charged him headlong, intent on overwhelming him with sheer numbers. It didn't move a muscle, standing there until the veritable shower of people came within meters of him - and then found themselves frozen in midair, hovering, held aloft, suspended.
But no sooner had they stopped than did they begin falling again, as Helmut threw both hands up and then brought them down again; the Grimm Master stumbled forward as though yanked by the collar of his shirt, and then the dozens of men and women fell again, instantly being thrown back down at the ground at full speed, as though they hadn't stopped at all. The Terran Grimm spun on the balls of his feet and cut through three in one swing before they hit him, and through sheer weight they body-slammed him, dog piling on him and burying him in the ground.
"The blade!" Shouted Dorn, his voice booming over the struggles and shouts of the pile of bodies keeping the Terran Grimm locked to the ground.
The 'zip' of its blade was barely heard, it being muffled by the mound of bodies, but its hilt soon was pushed out of the pile and away from its wielder. This appeared to anger him, as the entire mound briefly ballooned upwards and outwards, almost like a hiccup, before they collapsed back in on him. Helmut braced his feet on the ground and threw both of his hands forward, fingers splayed out and the thin muscles in his arms instantly straining.
"Be careful!" Shouted the accented geriatric, "Slowly, now!"
"Miss Rose." Ben began, turning to Ruby Rose and kneeling down, "I pray you are ready?" He asked, the thin smile on his face creating the picture of confidence.
Ruby swallowed thickly through her throat, but nodded, knowing her role, and steeling her expression as, slowly, the assembled Mistrali forces began removing themselves from the Grimm, and the two Masters quickly rounded on him, pulling the earth from the ground and locking it around his arms, solidifying around his joints and immobilizing his limbs, while Qrow took his neck and Dorn clamped his arm around his legs. The strongest of them keeping him held down, the other assembled Mistrali, Blake among them, used ropes, whips, chains, and all manner of instruments to lasso and tie him down and keep him as still as possible, while those without those braided weapons took aim.
Qrow quickly busied himself with grabbing at the Grimm's mask, trying to tear it off while Ruby stepped forward, closing her eyes and bringing to mind what Helmut had said to her mere days ago.
"Verdamt, he's strong!" Shouted Helmut, as he braced himself against the viciously snarling, roaring, and struggling Grimm, and his sentiments were reflected by the others keeping him held down, and the Mistrali trying to keep him tied down, for as much strength as they brought, the Grimm Master seemed to just have more, and was using all of it to break free, resulting in even the ground beginning to shake beneath them, as his roars grew in volume. "Get it off of him, we mustn't take a chance!" He shouted to Qrow, while he and his fellow Master poured their power into the Grimm, both managing to calm the quakes and make them more violent, the ground beneath them beginning to splinter and crack, the dust, spent bullets and debris beginning to levitate and fly about wildly.
"I'm... Trying!" Qrow grunted, one arm locked around the Grimm's throat and the other trying to pry off his mask. "Damn thing's on tight!"
Ruby, meanwhile, was trying to calm herself. The people I love... She thought. My desire to protect them... She closed her eyes, bringing visions of Yang and Weiss, of Blake and Qrow, of team JNPR, of her father, and as she felt a wellspring of foreign power bubbling within her, she thought of the friend who had given his life to this war without even knowing there had been a war in the first place.
"I've got it!" She heard Qrow grunt, "it's coming off!" He shouted, tightening his hold around the Grimm's throat and ripping off its mask.
"Now, Miss Rose!" She heard Ben call out.
Ruby grabbed ahold of that power, let it flow through her body, up from her toes, through her stomach, into her chest and then up her neck, surging towards her eyes, which snapped open and began to glow. She locked onto the Grimm, and -
Blinked, as, for a brief second, its eyes locked onto hers.
From a million miles away, she thought she heard someone gasp.
She didn't recognize those eyes, the two, big, glowing red orbs of hate and malice, but everything else, caked under layers of blood, dirt, and grime, that she realized was stunningly familiar. The thin cheeks, the angled jaw, the raw determination, the gritted teeth, the voice roaring out, the shaggy brown hair, his height, his build, his one arm, his belt, now even the weapon made sense.
Unbidden, that power faded away, replaced by numbness and shock, as Ruby, eyes wide and glittering, whispered one word: "Ash?"
The Terran Grimm, the 'evil Master', the man literally called demon by Helmut, was the reanimated corpse of her once dead friend.
And said corpse recognized her.
"Miss Rose!" She heard from the other side of the world.
For a moment, all was still again, she thought that recognition was a good thing - she swore she could see something in there bubbling underneath the surface of those hellish red eyes.
"Miss Rose, do it now!"
As it turned out, there, indeed, was, but it wasn't hope bubbling, it was fear boiling. Rage scalding. Hate burning.
"RUBY!"
The moment of recognition was gone in an instant.
"NO!" Ash's roar returned in force, and the ground began shaking so furiously that Ruby found it difficult to stay standing.
Dust began falling from the ceiling, and Ash made his move: His cybernetic arm suddenly popped off of his body, taking the concrete encasing it and Helmut along with it, practically launching the both of them backward, Helmut even worse, he'd been putting so much strength into pushing the other way. This sudden loss of resistance caused everyone, from Ash, to Ben, to the people tying him down, to stumble to Ash's right. This threw Ben horribly off balance, which gave Ash the chance he needed to twist around, telekinetically lifting Ben from the ground and dragging him over, before latching his hand around Ben's throat, hauling him up into the air, and then choke-slamming him back down hard enough to break a crater in the ground.
"Ruby!" She heard, still so far away as to be practically silent.
He tore his arm off of Ben's and elbowed Qrow so hard that her uncle's aura briefly flickered. He beat Down in the side of the head twice, tore one of his legs out of the man's grip, and kicked Dorn with his now free, unrestricted leg. His cybernetic arm came flying back to his socket from the other side of the school, while his blade returned to his other hand, the concrete crumbling off of them both. He activated the blade with another Zhoom! and in one rapid motion cleaved through a quarter of the restraints holding him down.
In less than five seconds, Ash had broken free of the hold of dozens of Mistral's best, and while the rest immediately opened fire, they inadvertently found themselves helping him, cutting through and destroying more of the binds. This gave him more freedom of movement, which he used to toss his blade up into the air, catch it in a reverse grip, and throw it with all of his strength. It surged through the air like a bright red spear, faster than a bullet.
Pyrrha was only barely able to stop it in time, it coming so close to Ruby that she could feel it singing the hairs of her manubrium.
But that didn't stop Ash from launching himself forward like a cannonball, right past the now distracted Nikos, straight through the assembled Beacon rookies. His hands locked around the hilt of his blade as he reached it, and his momentum, his raw strength, it beat Pyrrha's hasty, sudden resistance. He lurched forward, and the blade first hit Ruby's aura, but so alien, so powerful was it, that it did what it did to all aura before it: Act as though it weren't even there.
The blade sank into Ruby's chest, just below her throat, and kept going. Ruby's vision was now filled with bright red light and the ghoulish visage of her friend, her mind simply unable to comprehend what it was she was seeing, so much so that she couldn't even feel her flesh, bones, and organs being boiled by the bright red plasma.
Ash surged forward still, kneeing Ruby and bringing them both to the ground, where his blade pushed through the rest of her body and sank into the concrete and linoleum.
Pinned to the ground, impaled by his blade, Ruby, her eyes wide, mouthed one word:
"Ash?"
Before he slashed upwards, splitting her in two from the throat up.
The screech of plasma against concrete, the hot, crackling sound of flesh and blood boiling and popping, the ever-so-soft sigh of air escaping, it was all that hung in the air in the aftermath of the lightning-fast attack. The body of the young rose went utterly limp, as her killer stood to his feet, his bright red blade thrumming, drowning out all of the color around it, all of it bleeding out into bright reds and harsh shadows. All eyes were locked onto the Terran Grimm, but no one knew how to react.
Or, rather, no one but one, whose anguished, tormented wail, drowned out everything.
"RUBY!" Screamed Yang, eyes wide and red, hair practically set ablaze, body radiating with so much emotion-fueled power that the air warped around her and the ground shook beneath her; her fists were clenched so tightly that she bent the metal of her prosthetic limb, and her eyes, quickly streaming tears, snapped up from the corpse of her younger sister, to the standing form of her killer. "YOU -" She crouched down low, bracing herself.
Her uncle, half buried in the wall the Terran Grimm had thrown him into, called out, "Yang - no!"
"BASTARD!" She launched herself at the Terran Grimm, crossing the dozens of meters in an instant, the ground beneath her exploding, sending debris in all directions.
Her strong arm clenched into a shaking fist, reared up high, Yang screamed as loud as she could the entire way over, reaching Ash in the blink of an eye and smashing her fist into his face with all of her strength. The resultant shockwave was so strong, so powerful, that all on the ground were sent flying, parts of Haven's walls buckled, while others shattered entirely and exploded out into the city, and the rest of it began to groan loudly, dust freely falling from the walls and ceiling.
Ash fell back a step, head snapping over to the right.
Yang landed on her feet and quickly followed it up with a right hook, smashing it into Ash's cheek.
Aldric fell back another step, head snapping to the left.
The mourning sister was operating on pure rage and fury, all of it boiling over into her ceaseless scream and endless punches. A left, a right, a left, a right, there was no form to her attacks, none of her usual gravitas, none of her usual speed or finesse, just rage. Each strike sent out a shockwave just as powerful as the last, each attack made the Terran Grimm fall back a step, and each time she had to step forward, the ground shook, the concrete shattering underfoot. Soon her fists were covered in black blood, instantly being charred by the sheer heat of her fury, making her look almost as though she'd submerged her arms in soot.
However, when Yang switched targets and buried her fist into Ash's chest. Her hand recoiled with the sound of a giant bell's toll, and in that instant, Ash went from falling back, to holding his ground, foot snapping down and bracing behind him, head, covered and smeared in oily black blood, whipping about and locking onto his attacker, eyes glowing a bright red and teeth bared. He took his blade in both hands and swung upwards, but Yang whirled around, darting to Ash's side and smashing her fist into his ribs. Again, however, it appeared that most - if not all - of the force of her strike was instantly shot back outwards, and this stunned her long enough for Ash to spin about and take a swing at her head.
She, however, ducked down and took the attack to the one part of her body that could so thoroughly intercept and block it: Her arm. She knew she had seconds before that thing would start burning through its metal plates, but she only needed one to brace her leg behind her and, with a loud roar, she slammed her fist into Aldric's stomach. Sufficiently braced, all that recoil had nowhere else to go but back at him, resulting in him being blasted from one end of Haven's main hall to the other. He hit the wall without a sound, buckling it underneath him and leaving a crater in his wake.
This wouldn't be the lull in the battle anyone would expect, however, as Yang threw her arms behind her and leapt, firing her weapons and practically flying at the Terran Grimm, burying her knees into his chest and the both of them deeper into the wall. The force of her impact on Aldric turned the crater she'd made earlier and evaporated it, as the entire wall was obliterated, leaving the two to now arc to the ground. Yang, however, didn't wait for this, and she grabbed his sword-arm with one hand, while the other viciously pummeled it, trying desperately to shock his grip open and force the blade out of his iron grip.
Ash threw six boulders at her for her troubles, sending her tumbling away. The once living Terran landed on his feet just as Yang hit the ground, and as she ripped herself out of the rubble, he stared at her, face a stark contrast to her unbridled rage.
When Yang realized she'd unintentionally led him right back to where the statue had been, and where Cinder had vanished, she was filled with ever more rage as she realized that she was either playing to his hands, or he was toying with her, that all the damage she'd done - be it to him or to Haven - appeared to be nothing to him. That he didn't care. He didn't care he'd taken enough meteoric impacts to the face to flatten a lesser man's skull. He didn't care he was fighting for his life.
He didn't care he'd just killed her sister!
And all that rage, all that agony, all that heartbreak, it only built ever higher, fueling her passion, fueling her power. The ground shook more, as her eyes glowed bright red and her hair appeared to be nothing more than a mass of flames. As the others were only now recovering from her first attack, she launched herself at Ash again.
Unfortunately for her, the Terran Grimm had learned from her opening volley. He took his brightly burning blade in both hands and swung upwards as she reached him, the arc of his blade taking it right towards her arm. Her eyes grew wide from realization and she tried to twist out of the way, but her rage clouded her mind so thoroughly that that was all she thought to do to avoid Ash's retaliatory swing.
But the blade bounced off with a brief flash of light, like a baseball bat striking a tank. Ash frowned at this, as Yang hit the ground, rolled back to her feet, and threw herself at the Terran Grimm. He danced out of the way, telekinetically dragging himself out of the way of her metal fist, and doing so again when she tried a second time, appearing like a puppet being dragged about by its strings, dodging each attack in an unnatural way. He kept this up for a third attack before he lunged back in and sliced at the woman of fury and rage.
Again, his blade bounced off of her aura with a flash of light. Three more slashes at lightning fast speeds held the same effect, and at this realization, Ash began backing up. She straightened up, eyes aglow with fiery energy, and face ever so briefly adopting a feral grin as the minuscule part of her brain still capable of rational thought, realized that whatever dam had just broken within her, had given her the power to resist his blade.
She raised her fists again, but Ash didn't even budge from his new position, he just raised his free hand, and clenched his fingers into a fist.
Yang felt her windpipe shut.
No air escaped her lungs, and with how heavy and how fast her heart was hammering, she felt this fast. Her vision almost instantly started to blur, and her head began to throb. She fell to her knees, clutching at her throat, briefly looking down at the ground before she turned her scalding hot gaze up to the demon that had killed her sister, that was killing her.
Then, from behind him, she saw her uncle, digging himself out of the rubble, seeing the situation, and reacting almost exactly as she had: Leaping headlong into the fight without so much as a thought to a plan. Ash, however, sensed this coming, and even though he lowered his arm, his invisible grip on her throat didn't budge. He grabbed his blade in two hands and turned to face Qrow, parrying one wide swing of the former bandit's blade - melting off half of it in the process - and following it up with an upward slice to the man's torso. Qrow dodged out of the way, shrinking down to the animal that shared his name, and then reappearing as a man right behind him, taking his mangled blade in both eyes and stabbing down at the most exposed part of Ash's armor: His neck.
Qrow's blade simply scraped off, it hitting a telekinetic barrier and sliding away. Aldric spun around and swung wide, but at this point Yang slammed her fist into the ground, sending a long fissure right at the Terran Grimm, inside of which his foot fell, causing him to stumble forward. Qrow took this opportunity immediately, and the last thing Yang saw before her vision went black was her Uncle nailing the Grimm in the jaw with his knee and dragging his molten blade across his face.
Ash didn't even appear to recognize the fact that he was now bleeding freely from a horrific facial wound, or even that he'd been burned the way he had. He simply twisted his blade around in a reverse grip and stabbed upwards, ramming it into Qrow's gut and impaling him. The former teacher grunted, falling forward and grasping Ash's shoulder.
Qrow appeared as though he were but an instant from saying something, but before he could, Ash was tackled from both sides by the old men. Helmut physically shoved his hand in the way of the blade, interupting it and letting Qrow fall to his knees, while Ben grabbed at the back of Ash's head and the front of his mail suit.
"Leave!" Helmut yelled, as he wrapped his hand around the red blade and ripped it out of Ash's hand. "Without surprise that will not work again!" He said, as Ben kneed Ash in the stomach and threw him into the ground.
Qrow, a burning hole in his gut, didn't seem too receptive to the idea, as he got back to his feet and grabbed the blade out of Helmut's hand. Eyes glazed over from pain and rage, he stumbled forward, only to be held back by Helmut.
"No, Qrow! You must -" But he was interrupted by Ben being smashed in the chest and sent flying.
Ash suddenly lifted himself to his feet like a marionette. His freely bleeding face, stained black with the corrupted blood that pumped through his body, was still the picture of idle rage. Qrow found himself suddenly eight feet away, and watched Helmut throwing his open palm forward. He witnessed the ground coming up and locking itself around Ash's legs, quickly glowing white hot and setting Ash's pants ablaze from the ankles down.
Ash, however, didn't even seem to notice, as he calmly reached into his belt and pulled out a small thumb-sized cyllinder, which snapped open with a 'click'. Helmut fell into a defensive stance as Ash held the small cylinder in front of him and shut his eyes.
The flash of blue light would be the last thing Qrow would ever remember.
Pyrrha was among the first to recover from Ash and Yang's initial combat. She found herself buried under tonnes of rubble, but her semblance and the metal pipes in the hunks of rock helped solve that quickly enough. She excavated herself just after witnessing a brief flash of blue-white light, and as she rubbed the dust out of her eyes and swept her hand over her hair, she looked up, eyes squinted, to behold Ash - it really was him! - standing in front of one of the Masters and Qrow. The once prodigy from Beacon held in his hands a small silver cylindrical device, and whatever it did appeared to have put Qrow and Helmut in a daze.
Ash calmly lifted his arm and clenched his fist. His lightsaber, the blood red, foreboding blade, wrenched its way out of Qrow's grip and spun around in a full circular arc. Pyrrha gasped unbidden, as she watched Ash callously bisect Qrow, and then do the same to Helmut, before taking hold of the blade and cutting the Master into two more pieces. He then blasted them apart with his unnatural semblance, sending the smoldering pieces scattering, one of which -
Pyrrha's gloved hand shot up to her mouth when she saw the pieces of the Master land next to Yang, who was prone and unmoving in the center of the once pristine Haven lobby.
"Helmut!" She heard an old voice cry out.
Both her and Ash's gaze snapped over to Ben, who rocketed over to Ash and tackled him, one hand closing over and shattering the cyllindrical device that had allowed such a decisive victory over the Master and the Huntsman, while the other locked onto Ash's face - which Pyrrha only now realized appeared to have been practically cut open, length-wise - and buried him into the ground. He continued flying through Haven's destroyed lobby, dragging Ash through the ground and tearing it apart, leaving a great fissure in his wake.
She watched Ash flick his fingers, and suddenly Ben was thrown end-over-end, and Aldric uprighted himself, skidding to a halt as Ben buried himself in a wall.
"No." Was Ash's monosyllabic response, as the walls around Ben appeared to melt away, pooling around him on the ground like puddles of oil.
Ash's blade deactivated with a zip! as he reached into one of the pockets of his burned-yellow belt. Out from it grew a staff almost as tall as he was, made of aged wood, its end holding a brilliant orb in its clawed grip. Both he and Ben moved at the same time, and in the blink of an eye, suddenly they were gone. Pyrrha blinked again, head recoiling as she did a double take, but before she could even question what she was seeing, a pale blue light began to build in the center of the lobby. It grew in brightness for several seconds, wind beginning to swirl around it, arcs of electricity sparking outwards at random, tearing up the ground wherever they hit.
Then, in the blink of an eye and a clap of thunder, something appeared where the light had been. The light vanished, revealing a horrifically mangled body, missing most of its skin and some of its muscles. Freely streaming rivers of blood, its eyes completely exposed, it convulsed for a few seconds, slowly bringing its gnarled hands to its heads and wailing in absolute pain and agony. The volume of its cries only grew as time passed, Pyrrha had no idea which one of these two it was, or who had done it, but whatever it was, the other clearly wasn't playing anymore.
It stumbled to the side, thrashing about, before falling to the ground on all fours, letting one final roar of pain out, and then vanishing in a storm of randomly cackling electricity, the only evidence of its appearance being some piles of muscle, gore, and the blood it left behind. Then, not a second later, the both of them were back - now on the other side of the lobby. Pyrrha heard some of the others beginning to stir and other piles of rubble beginning to shift as she watched the two titans, one alive and one not so, standing in midair, Ash sideways and Ben completely upside down. Ben was nursing a giant purple bruise on the left side of his face and Ash's neck was bleeding freely, a chunk missing out of it.
But Ash had Ben pinned against the wall, his staff thrust forward and spewing lightning from its orb. Ben was screaming in an unholy agony, though this only lasted a few seconds before he fell from the wall and down to the ground. Aldric dropped out of the air and landed heavily, digging into his belt again as he hit Ben with another round of arcane lightning. Pyrrha saw some of Ash's wounds healing before her very eyes, and thought she could see the very aura inside of Ben dimming, his strength leaving him, swimming through the lightning and into Ash.
She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing, was this how Salem had stolen the power of the Maidens?
Whatever the answer was, it became irrelevant when a boxy pistol bigger than his fist grew out of Ash's belt. He unceremoniously brought it to bear on Ben, and fired. A loud dakka! filled the air like a thunderclap, and in the blink of an eye and a flash of muzzle energy, Ben's head detonated, spreading gore, bone, and graymatter along the wall behind him.
Pyrrha's chest felt hollow, as she looked around Ash. The corpses of Ruby, Qrow, Yang, and now both Masters were at his feet. Some of Mistral's huntsmen were waking now, and they tried attacking Ash, but they were taken down just as unceremoniously as those before them. As Pyrrha fully removed herself from the pile of rubble and dusted herself off, she watched Ash try to use the staff on one, but he appeared just as surprised as her and the huntsmen when it had absolutely no effect on him. This gave the huntsmen enough time to roar in with a surprise attack, damaging the staff and stunning Ash long enough for him to follow up with a shield bash to the Terran Grimm's face. Others came sprinting and leaping in, trying to capitalize on this, some attacking with weapons, others using their semblances, but Ash had learned from the last time human wave tactics had been used against him, and after recovering and discarding his now useless staff, he retrieved his reliable weapon, lit it with a zhoom!, and soon was cleaving through anyone and everyone that came up to him. Almost every fight against almost every Huntsman was won in three strokes: First Ash parried an attack, which destroyed their weapon, then he followed up with a slash to their chest, which obliterated their aura, and then he ended it by separating heads and chests from the rest of them.
Pyrrha recalled once not having the courage to ask her friend what his stand at the docks had looked like, for fear of both not wanting to know, and because he may not wish to speak of it. Seeing him in action here, tearing through people like they were nothing to him, taking attacks he frankly shouldn't be without even appearing to realize he was being physically torn apart, burned, crushed, electrocuted, or any number of other debilitating things. He just kept going, killing anyone who attacked him and burning through body after body.
What have they done to him? She thought, looking down to the shield strapped to her arm, unable to even imagine what could have changed the man who held this, to the Grimm she was seeing before her.
It didn't take long before the attacks slowed down, and soon stopped coming entirely. Ash was surrounded still, but no one had the courage to attack the Grimm that appeared to be limitlessly powerful. Pyrrha felt a hand close on her shoulder, and turned to see Weiss limping up her pile of rubble. Behind her was Blake, who was helping Ren and Nora unearth Jaune. In any other case, Pyrrha would have felt safe with these numbers, these people, but now?
Gods... She turned back to Ash, feeling only helpless and afraid. What could they do that dozens of Huntsmen, two Masters, two Maidens, and Gods knew how many more, couldn't? Ruby and her eyes had been their best chance, but this thing wearing her friend's face had recognized that threat and eliminated it without any hesitation.
And that, Pyrrha realized, was perhaps where all of his power truly stemmed from: This Ash, this Grimm, he wasn't fighting. He wasn't trying to tire his opponents out, he wasn't enjoying the moment or trying to learn, he was just killing. He went straight for the quickest and easiest path ending the conflict, and that was simply to end their lives, using something no other Grimm on all of Remnant had: His mind. But all of these people were treating him like any other Grimm, and were simply unprepared for his lethality, his ruthlessness, his power. They were trying to fight him, but he was trying to kill them.
Without someone who could utterly counter him, or the kind of surprise they had had when all this began, Pyrrha found herself wondering if it wouldn't take a Terran Sun Bomb to kill him.
"Pyrrha..." She heard Jaune gasp, as he and the others now flanked both sides of the prodigy. "Is that really him?"
She choked back a gasping sob, and nodded.
"What do we do?" She heard Weiss ask.
Pyrrha opened her mouth, but all that came out was an impotent huff. What could they do, here?
Pyrrha tore her eyes away from the pile of corpses Ash was making, and instead turned to look at the survivors of RWBY, and her team. They were at best honorary huntsmen, and at worst, a pack of rookies in an adult's war. Ruby was their best shot, the surprise attack their best plan, but both of them were gone and ruined now. They had no way of sneaking up on him, and they had no way of countering his power.
But as her eyes fell on Ren, Pyrrha blinked.
Did they?
From Ren, she looked to Jaune, who was sporting some bruises and was watching, horrified, as Ash took the fight to the huntsmen trying to contain him, and began the process all over again. She looked down at Jaune's sword, held limply in his hands, remembering vividly what it had done to Grimm at Beacon. To Ren again, then she turned to look at Ash, a frown forming on her face, as she really looked at him. The final piece fell into place when she realized the armor Ash was wearing wasn't anything like the armor he'd worn at Beacon. Much the opposite it was the mail suit he'd adopted after his original suit had been shredded at the battle at the docks. It was a suit of mail made of the same metal as the shield in her hands.
And no matter how difficult, all metal, even this, was magnetic.
"Okay." She whispered. "This is what we do... This is our only chance."
Pyrrha had seen Ren's semblance in use countless times before, but one thing she couldn't claim to was that she'd never had it used on herself. She'd never needed it. Jaune had been 'nullified' once or twice to get him out of a sticky situation in Forever Fall, but aside from that, no one but Ren ever shared in his emotional nullification. Now, however, Pyrrha's entire plan was revolving around it, and after being cloaked by Ren's semblance, she found herself unable to pin the sensation down to just one word.
The fear, the sorrow, the trepidation, the anxiety, all of those things she was feeling, while steeling herself to fight the undead, grimmified body of her once close friend, once Ren cloaked them all they all just melted away. It was strange, dull, like she was experiencing her emotions through a thick blanket of nothing. It granted her remarkable focus, but aside from that, nothing.
All she could do was hope that her hunch about Ash's new eyes was correct, because if it wasn't, her plan would be stopped before it could even get off the ground.
With everyone ready, their weapons prepared, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, Weiss, and Blake, rushed Ash. Jaune, the linchpin of the entire thing, he stayed back - they had one chance, and if they could pin Ash down, it all relied on him. So, cloaked in Ren's semblance, they rushed Ash. The few remaining Mistrali huntsmen backed off, seeing the Vale rookies enacting some kind of plan, and Ash, surprisingly, allowed them. Pyrrha wouldn't have much time to think of why Ash wouldn't try and chase them, because they quickly reached him.
Blake was first, leaping into the air and throwing her gun at the Terran Grimm. Ash's head snapped down to the gun as it wrapped around his chest, and then snapped up to the direction where the ribbon led, but his face turned into a frown. He was looking right at Blake as she swung over him, wrapping the ribbon around him, but he didn't appear to see her. Blake landed on the ground and pulled the ribbon tight, causing Ash to fall back a step. He brought his sword to bear, but just as he was about to cleave through the ribbon, Nora rushed ahead, bringing her hammer down hard on his hand, her impact detonating one of the grenade rounds inside of it. This jarred Ash's blade from his hand, but when he tried to recover, to respond to the sudden attack, Blake pulled tighter on the ribbon, causing him to stumble back, and Nora followed it up with a heavy bash to his face, before smashing his foot with the hammer, burying it into the ground.
Weiss was next, opening up several glyphs, each of which she leapt onto and off of, using each as a platform to hit Ash with a hit-and-run, slicing at his armor six times before she came up around him, stabbing at the back of his knee and causing him to fall. Ash swung blindly behind him, and Weiss hopped back, out of the way, before lunging back in, stabbing downwards at his cybernetic limb, ramming the tip of her blade in between his arm and his shoulder, jerking back and forth. Ash tried to swing at her as she did this, but Ren sprinted in at this moment, blasting at Ash with his pistols as he came in, then jabbing at him with his knives. More than a dozen quick slices and stabs trailing up Ash's midsection, before reaching his face and cutting it open again. Ash lunged forward and tried to grab at Ren with his free arm, but Ren barely managed to avoid it before he wrapped both of his arms around Ash's fleshy one, planted one foot on his ribcage, and pulled, forcibly keeping it locked in place.
Here, Weiss managed to force more and more of her sword down into Ash's prosthetic, and was now working on prying it off. This was when Pyrrha came in, smashing Ash in the bridge of his nose with his own shield, and using her semblance to assist Weiss in ripping the dark arm off. She had only the instant in which said arm flew away to recognize it as different, more human, from his last, before Weiss wrapped both of her arms around Ash's throat and squeezed as hard as she could. Pyrrha snapped out of it and took ahold of Ash with her semblance, wrapping his entire body in a magnetic hold, and while she focused everything into keeping him from moving, so too did she magnetically grab two sides of the mail covering his chest, and pull in opposing directions. The suit instantly stressed and tensed, but held firm - as she had expected.
But it didn't hold quite as firm when Pyrrha grabbed Ash's red lightsaber and flung it at him like a spear. It didn't break through, but the few seconds of contact introduced a weakness in the suit's integrity, which gave Pyrrha what she needed to rip open a hole right over Ash's heart, and reveal a silvery shirt beneath. Better was that, seeing what they were doing, the four remaining Mistrali Huntsmen even threw their lot in, one wrapping her braided weapon around Ash and assisting Pyrrha, while the others came in and threw their bodies at him, grabbing at anything they could to try and keep him from moving.
"Jaune!" She screamed, as she was suddenly assaulted by the sheer, raw strength of her old friend now pulling and resisting against her, the feeling many times worse than when she'd helped him fend off the Terran missiles. "Jaune! Now!"
"Hurry!" Ren called out, "I cannot keep us all hidden forever!" He begged, as Ash began to roar.
Deep and throaty, from the pit of his stomach, Ash struggled mightily against the fighters who had assembled their last ditch effort against him. Jaune, from the other side of the lobby, heard his cue, and leapt over the rubble he'd been hiding behind. Taking his sword in both hands and pointing it right at Ash, he let out his own battle cry and charged the Terran Grimm. His scream matched Ash's, his voice briefly cracking as he reached the Terran Grimm.
Feet beating against the ruined ground, Jaune reached the group and lunged forward with a loud cry.
The blade passed through Ash's suit, digging deep into his chest and causing the Grimm to lurch back. He croaked in pain, eyes opening wide as he beheld the sword digging into his chest. Pyrrha felt Ren's semblance wash off of her at this, as the air went still.
But after a moment, Jaune said the words that would damn them all: "Something's wrong!" He pushed forward harder, "it's not, it's -"
He was drowned out by another mighty roar from the Grimm trapped beneath them all. He jerked his head back and forth, wedging his chin underneath Weiss' arms, and then biting down. Weiss cried out in pain, her aura flashing and her arm soon being stained in red. This weakened her grip enough that Ash's next attempt to wrench his neck out of her hold was succesfull, and he threw his head back - slamming it into Weiss' nose and causing her to stumble backwards. He then spat all the blood he'd accumulated into Ren's face before jerking back and forth with his arm and headbutting him too. He slid his arm free just a few inches, and when Ren tried to jab one of his blades into Ash's neck, Ash took the attack and used it as leverage to pull against Ren, freeing his arm, which he promptly slammed into Ren's chest.
"His neck, Jaune!" Ren coughed after he was buried into a wall. "Go for the neck!"
Jaune tore his bloodless blade out of Ash's armor and did as Ren instructed, trying to cut Ash's head off with one wide, powerful swing. Pyrrha redoubled her efforts at keeping Ash immobile to try and give Jaune this shot, but she was assaulted out of nowhere by a heavy missile, hitting the back of her head and sending stars into her vision. She stumbled off to the side, just barely able to see Ash's arm slide back into position and for him to duck underneath Jaune's attack. Jaune tried to adjust and swing downwards to split Ash's head in two, but Ash punched Jaune in the gut, hard enough that he too went flying.
"Keep him down!" Nora called to the Mistrali, as she tore her hammer out of the ground and readied it for a swing.
Ash, however, picked up his discarded blade and reactivated it with a loud zhoom! Nora's hammer hit the blade, and when it melted through, the grenades inside all detonated at once, sending Nora flying and severely injuring the Mistrali underneath him. Now held only by the ribbon and the whip binding him, Ash dispatched with the stunned Mistrali beneath him and then cut through the ropes binding him.
As Pyrrha shakily got to a kneeling position, she saw Ash rising to his as well, and she realized, with mounting dread, that they had failed.
Her head snapped over to Jaune, then Nora, then Weiss, then Blake, and finally -
Ren!
She tried to push herself to her feet as he approached Ash, a firm frown planted on his face, both guns held aloft.
"Run!" He called out, as Ash turned to him, and his colors grayed out.
Ash's frown deepened, and he held his blade defensively, waiting. Pyrrha fell over to the side as Ren dashed in, attacking the only place they had been consistently able to damage Ash in. He got two chops before Ash ducked down and lunged forward with his blade, forcing Ren to leap back or be impaled.
"Ren!" Nora called out, grabbing what remained of her hammer - little more than its haft at this point - and stumbling forward.
"No!" Ren roared, spinning around Ash and jamming both blades into his back, locking them into it and using them as leverage to pound Ash into the ground. "Get out of here! GO!" He screamed, as Ash rolled to the side, taking Ren's pistols with him. Ren didn't even hesitate to throw up his fists and, when Ash got to his feet, deck the Grimm with a powerful haymaker punch.
But this brought him so close to Ash that the Grimm, no matter his sensory disadvantage, was able to wrap his arm around Ren's, locking them together. Ren knew what was going to happen as Ash raised his sword, but he struggled to the end, reaching over Ash's shoulder and grabbing one of his pistols. He managed two stabs in Ash's neck before Ash shoved the burning blade into Ren's stomach, it coming out of his shoulder.
Pyrrha, barely on her feet, didn't need to predict what would happen next. Nora went past the emotional point of no return and charged Ash, but lacking her weapon or anything to fuel her semblance, it didn't take long at all for Ash to deal with her. She tried stabbing at him with her haft, but he tore the lightsaber out of Ren's chest, cleaved her improvised spear in two, and then did the same to her, cutting her from shoulder to hip.
On her feet now, Pyrrha watched as Blake and the Mistrali tried now, the Mistrali whipping at Aldric from a distance while Blake closed in and made liberal use of her semblance to take attacks she otherwise wouldn't have. She got several good strikes on Ash, even leaving a deep cut on his throat, spilling his black blood, but once he recovered, her time was up.
Or at least, it would have been. Pyrrha heard something whizz past her ear, and when she turned to face it, she saw, sprinting through Haven's entrance with his arm outstretched, a little boy, barely older than fourteen, his skin tanned from a lifetime spent outdoors. Something small flew through the air and slid into his hand, which he deftly flipped into a sword-like grip. A black shaft sprouted out of it and, with a loud yell, the boy hopped up into the air and slammed the weapon into the ground.
The air was instantly filled with howling wind and a blinding white dome of light, but strange to Pyrrha was that she wasn't blinded by it. She could see it was bright - brighter than even the sun - but it didn't hurt to look at. In fact, the only cries of pain she heard came from Ash.
"Miss Nikos!" Shouted the boy, as the light died away, leaving Ash stumbling about, rubbing at his eyes. "Miss Nikos you were a candidate for the Fall Maiden!" He reached her, helping to her feet.
Pyrrha blinked, she couldn't believe it.
"Yes - and we need to go! Now!" The boy looked again at Ash, who was shaking his head clear of the light. "Everyone! Mistral has fallen and the relic is lost! We must run, now!" But even as he spoke, Ash was already recovering, face set in a frown.
No one was moving but Ash, everyone stuck between trying everything to kill him, and realizing that this boy was right.
Pyrrha clenched her jaw and made their decisions for them. Grabbing Blake and Weiss' swords, the Mistrali's whip, Jaune's armor, and the boy's cane, she used her semblance and pushed, throwing them all out of Haven's front entrance. When they were clear, she found all the metal she could and piled it up in the doorway. She thought she could hear Jaune screaming after her, but she pushed it from her mind, not doubting for a second that the boy - if he was who she suspected him to be - would be forcing them all out of the kingdom, no matter their struggles.
Pyrrha forced herself onto her feet, standing unsteadily. She gulped through a dry throat, gasping for air. She didn't know how much time she could buy them, but if it was even one second, it would be worth it. After Ruby and the Masters, she was probably the only one here who could truly fight him, and fight him she would. Taking in a deep breath, she held her sword and clenched the straps of her mighty shield as tight as she could.
She and Ash stared each other down, the light of his bright red blade reflecting off of the shield he'd bequeathed to her. Pyrrha looked down, briefly casting her eyes over Ash's belt, and realizing she knew what she had to do. She had to fight for the future, almost literally - she had to introduce a weakness in this thing pretending to be her friend. If she could destroy that belt, and all of those things inside of it, all he could rely on would be that sword. He scowled with a huff, and charged her. She fell down behind her shield, twisting her sword around until it changed to a spear, while using her semblance to grab ahold of his lightsaber and tear it out of his hands, before grabbing ahold of one of his feet and causing him to stumble forward.
When he did, she timed the throw of her spear exactly, and threw it at him with all of her strength. It buried into his neck, wedged right between his shoulder blade and his clavicle. He grunted in pain and fell to the ground, hands instantly jumping up to grab the blade. Pyrrha didn't waste any time, throwing her hands forward and grabbing at the belt wrapped around Ash's hips. She clenched her hands and was enveloped in a dark glow, before she tore the belt off and it came flying to her hands.
However, when she tried crushing it with her semblance, something went dreadfully wrong. She didn't know what all was inside of it, but whatever it was was explosive. The belt grew twenty times its size, shrank down to the size of a dime, and exploded with the force of a missile, sending Pyrrha flying into the barrier she'd made at the entrance to the academy, jarring some of the detritus loose.
"Pyrrha!" She heard distantly.
She turned and was able to see Jaune, digging at the entrance. The boy was pulling at him while Blake was bandaging Weiss' arms, desperately trying to get him to go, but Jaune wasn't having it. Openly sobbing, he was digging at the entrance, trying to get in so hard that his hands were bleeding.
Pyrrha laboriously turned her head back to Ash, but flinched, and looked down, seeing a small pipe jutting out of her stomach.
She gasped in pain, but then heard something metal snap in twain. Looking up, she saw Ash tossing aside both halves of her spear. He then began marching towards her.
No.
No, he was limping!
Moreover, his right arm had gone limp!
She smiled, turning back to Jaune.
"Jaune... He can be hurt." She gasped, before crying out in pain and pushing herself off of the pipe impaling her. "He... Can be killed, Jaune..."
She fell to the ground with a harsh whimper, barely even able to hear Jaune's anguished cry. It took everything she had left to get back to her feet, but she stood with none of the strength she had this morning, it appearing as though a stiff breeze would bowl her over.
"Run... Jaune." She wheezed, holding her free hand to her wound. "Run... Recover... Find a way." She tightened her grip around her shield. "It..." Ash was breaking out into an injured jog, now. "It can be done..." The Terran Grimm now sprinting, Pyrrha fell to her knee, bringing up the shield. "Find a way!"
Ash roared out, drowning Jaune's cries as the latter was physically dragged away by the boy. The Terran Grimm leapt into the air, his cybernetic hand reared high as he hurtled towards Pyrrha. He flew through the thoroughly ruined academy, then threw his fist forward when he reached her, bringing it on home and slamming it into the star on the center of the shield.
Pyrrha was deafened from the volume of the ringing that echoed out when his fist met the shield. She cried out in pain, feeling the shockwave blast out around her. She struggled against Ash, pushing back against his fist. The two of them pushed against each other so hard that each of their arms shook violently. Pyrrha gritted her teeth and let out a guttural roar of defiance, pushing as hard as she could.
Until she noticed something on the shield: A line, glowing golden-white, slowly inching its way down the center of the shield. Pyrrha's eyes widened as she watched the line be joined by several others, forming multiple long cracks in the shield that ran its length, dividing it into quarters. The light building in these cracks built until it hurt to look at, shining even through the improvised barrier she'd thrown up on Haven.
After a moment's more struggle, the shield finally gave in, exploding so powerfully that her barrier blasted outwards into the city. Pyrrha, so exhausted she couldn't even lift her arms, knelt there, gasping for air, as Ash stumbled back a step. The Terran Grimm, chest heaving, scowled at her, teeth bared. He waited only a moment to recover, before he bent down, grabbing one of the shards of the shield. He held it tightly, bringing it up, and then stabbing down with it, burying it halfway into Pyrrha's neck.
The last thing she heard after he tore it back out of her was Jaune's screams of denial. The last thing she saw as she fell over, limp, was the shard of the shield, covered in her own blood.
Bodies surrounded him.
Were they done?
It looked up.
The blonde one with the dangerous sword. He wanted to continue fighting.
But the tiny one who had shown up at the end, he was dragging the blonde one away.
Strong. Itthought.
The others were following the tiny one.
It felt out with its senses.
No one was alive.
All the better. It almost wasn't either.
The sentient Grimm watched the few surviving fighters flee into the kingdom on fire for a second, before he turned back inside, dropping the fragmented shield behind him, stepping over the corpse of the red and gold one.
She should have it by now. It thought. She must be waiting. It strode over, pushing aside rubble with its powers, weakened and damaged though they were.
He idly reached down to his belt to pull out any of the medical supplies it had once packed in an old life. Its hand scraped against blood-soaked mail, and nothing else.
It looked down, the belt missing.
Gone. It had forgotten. The red and gold one had destroyed it. Fighting would be harder now. It would be ill equipped to fight other Masters. It frowned. Inefficient.
It looked up, and saw its mask sitting on the grown, where it had been thrown.
It stared at the mask several moments.
Cinder instructed to wear mask. It snatched the mask up with its powers, and secured it to its face.
It reached and then tore open the shaft that led down to the vault, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It looked outside, the sun having gone down, the fighting having died down outside.
Long time. It turned back to the shaft. Injured? She couldn't be injured. She had to survive. Had to get the Relics. Confirm. It stepped over the edge and plummeted through the air.
It took three minutes for it to reach the bottom of the shaft, but what it found was a dark cave and an inert portal at its end.
It frowned.
Gone?
"Cinder!" It called out, voice hoarser than it remembered it being.
Throat injured. This would slow it down. Inefficient. How long would it take to heal?
"Cinder!" It called out again, walking deeper into the cave.
But still nothing.
Gone? No. It stepped over to the edge of the walkway leading down, looking down to the floor of the cave, but sensing nothing. Not a person, nor a body, nothing.
... Gone? It wondered, frowning deeper behind its mask. Where?
Why?