Chapter 68
The advantage of being the only aura users in an army of fighters without? One got preferential treatment, as they were understandably the most important asset in the fighting force. First in the line for injuries and medical treatment, better food, instant access to supplies, the Huntsmen and Huntresses in an army that had none were more valuable than Dust, and as such couldn't afford to be wasted.
The disadvantage was that when they were called in to fight, they had to fight in some of the hardest battles they'd ever seen.
The Terrans were good - great, even - and if they had the full force of their various kingdoms' militaries here, they wouldn't need Huntsmen or Huntresses through sheer force of numbers and firepower, but they didn't have their full strength. What they had was the any and all of the collective resources and able-bodied fighters from a strike group of three warships and their 'aircraft carrier', which, as Jaune understood it, was a Terran boat whose main weapon wasn't its guns - as it had none save for some defensive ones - but rather its aircraft. Jaune remembered thinking that didn't make any sense and that it was a waste of resources, until one day five Apathy Grimm, a Geist, and a horde of Beowolves and Ursai nearly broke through their defensive line, and the Terrans suddenly had a dozen fighter jets and twice as many rotor-wings flying through the sky, blasting apart the Grimm so effectively that the Terrans called Jaune and Blake off and told them to get some sleep, as then it was just a matter of picking off what was left.
Jaune's opinion changed after that, and he also found himself with a newfound understanding for how the Terrans were able to blast through Remnant's defenses so fast during their first encounter: They just overwhelmed everyone with aircraft. It also lent credence to what Ozpin and, later, Zed, had said to him about the Terrans not being their enemies. They very well could have picked right back up where they'd left off after Beacon fell and taken the world in a month if they'd wanted, but they didn't, because they knew the endgame was here, and their true enemy wasn't the Humans and Faunus, but the Grimm and their overlord.
The problem, though, was that for all of the Terrans' might, and for all of the force multipliers that were Jaune, Blake, and Weiss, their power wasn't infinite, and an entire planet couldn't just pick themselves up and fly to the north pole in a day or two. It took time, and that meant Salem and her Grimm had time to test Cerise's defenses. At first it had been simple probing attacks, just some Beowolves and a few Griffons to see how the Terrans would respond. Jaune, Weiss, and Blake hadn't even been needed for the first week, they'd spent the time training or searching through the behemoth space ship Ash had set aside to transport what they'd heard Zed describe as 'the minimum requirement for genetic diversity and survival of two species', something that made Weiss go pale and Blake get angry, but Jaune couldn't make heads or tails of. Regardless, the things they'd found in that vessel boggled everyone's minds. Handheld weapons stronger than airships, suits of armor that gave regular people power to rival and exceed Aura users, machines capable of turning one material into another, medical procedures apparently capable of turning regular people into fighters capable of matching aura users without any kind of mech suits, guns, or aura replacements, machines capable of dropping metal poles from space, and so much more, and the detailed methods to replicate all of it. Jaune never truly appreciated why Ash was so adamant that this would let them beat Salem and win the war until he started looking at what he'd set aside to be used specifically to do that. All they had to do was fill this ship up with people and send it to Earth, and from there victory would only be a matter of time.
But, then that first week ended, and Salem, having sufficiently gauged the defenses surrounding Cerise, sent so many Grimm that the Terrans had started fighting in the morning, and hadn't stopped until well into the evening. Weiss had been the first one to go out, and when she came back, tired and haggard, her eyes stared off into the distance as she told Blake and Jaune of the endless numbers of Grimm, how she'd never truly understood how many of them there were on Remnant until she'd fought out there, just then.
And that was just Salem's first attempt to break the Terran line.
There were more, and every one grew in scale and difficulty, with some being so bad that combinations of air strikes and missiles from the Terran Navy, in addition to nearly constant barrages from their land-based artillery and all of the present Huntsmen and Huntresses, were needed to turn the tide. Jaune remembered once having fought nonstop for twelve hours, that when the attack had finally ceased, he hadn't even made it back to the line - he'd just collapsed right there, in the field of snow, Grimm smoke, and Terran bodies, because there were casualties. More died every day, as more and more Grimm made it to their trenches and started slaughtering them in droves. What Jaune found darkly hilarious, though, was that aside from a plethora of new scars and nearly having lost his eyes and a few organs, he was still alive. Ash, it seemed, hadn't been lying when he said the best trial was one by fire.
By the end of the second week, Jaune had honestly forgotten that anyone was supposed to be coming, he just felt like a walking sore made of aches, bruises, and lactic acid. He only remembered when Weiss tried to lift his spirits, saying that Ozpin had to be coming back with Atlas any day now - as they were the closest to them, and when Atlas came, their numbers would effectively decuple, and they'd have airships to boot.
Blake and Jaune didn't have the heart to tell her that if they hadn't even seen an Atlesian scout ship by now, they probably didn't believe Ozpin and weren't coming. The only solace they had was that the Terran satellites had told them that there were ships coming, and a lot of them at that, but they were coming from Vale, Argus, and Menagerie. From out in space, Atlas appeared uncharacteristically still and silent, their ships rushing out to try and figure out what the Terrans were doing and why their ships had left, trying to anticipate from where the next attack would come.
These had been the thoughts that accompanied Jaune to sleep over the last few days, as they closed in on a month. Today, like so many, Jaune didn't wake up by himself, but rather was awoken by the loud klaxons and alarms throughout the Terran fortifications, signalling a Grimm attack. Jaune rolled over in his sleeping bag, arm instinctively curling around the magical blade Ash had given him, as he rose to that state of sleep where he remained down and out, but could snap awake at a moment's notice.
As was her custom, Blake woke up fully, and Jaune barely heard her pad away towards the ring of computers the Terrans had set up, from which their engineers flew their unmanned drones and watched Cerise from the satellites in space. She, like Jaune and Weiss, had found her usual combat gear not only woefully inappropriate for these frigid environments, but damaged beyond repair due to the amount of combat and injuries they were going through, and like the others, she had taken on the Terrans' clothing, bundling up in as few layers as she needed, so she could stay mobile and maneuverable, but also not freeze solid.
Jaune tried to go back to sleep, he did, but half-asleep as he was, he was keenly aware of the raised voices and worried tones from Blake and the Engineers, and soon he felt that increasingly familiar sinking feeling in his chest, when he heard her feet on the ground before he heard her call out his name. He grunted just before she fell to her knees and shook him from the shoulder.
"Mm... Yeah?" He grunted, rolling back onto his back and looking at Blake through eyes he could barely open.
"Jaune, you need to wake up, it's -"
But what woke Jaune up wasn't Blake, but rather what he heard being screamed out of a distant radio: "Dragon sighted, Dragon sighted! Je-" And then static, as the engineers tried to contact the speaker.
With a yawn so deep that his entire face wrinkled up, Jaune pushed himself upright as fast as he could, Blake was already halfway to Weiss.
The dragon woke up... He groggily thought, pushing himself to his feet and stumbling to the side, almost falling over himself, but Blake was there to catch him and help stand him up, as meanwhile Weiss was scrambling to throw a jacket on and grab her sword. How did... How did... He shook his head, trying to clear the fog from his brain. How did... He distantly heard Blake ask if he was okay, and he was pretty sure he told her that he was standing, so she was good to prepare herself. How did it wake up? He wondered, as he bent down and grabbed his sword and shield, the only two things he still had that had come with him from Beacon.
Then, he realized he knew how the Dragon had woken up.
Ash was back on the field.
Taking in a deep breath, and letting it out in a cloud of warm meeting the frigid air, he stumbled over to the soldiers hunched over their computers and monitors. He reached the satellite operators, one of which gave him a sympathetic look as his eyes hit the the area surrounding Cerise, filled so full of Grimm that part of the landmass just looked black.
And with the dragon here... Jaune thought, letting his head droop, as he rubbed at his eyes. They could be coming to their doom...He could still clearly remember the effect that Dragon had had on the Grimm at Beacon, and there had only been a few thousand there.
And they'd had Ruby, as well as his sword.
Jaune grunted, pushing himself away from the desk. Blake was dashing through the dark caves, Weiss stumbling along behind her as she hurriedly finished tying a boot. Jaune shook his head one last time before thundering along after them, drawing his blade and gripping his shield tightly. The three of them soon met, and dashed past, nearly every single soldier defending Cerise, a chorus of cheers and cries welling up around them as they soon began leading the charge.
And in no time at all, they reached the mouth of the cave, and were met with bedlam.
Cerise had three trenches, three defensive lines, the last of which was at the mouth of the cave going into the mountain. The first was already practically on fire, with the now customary horde of Grimm so thick that Jaune couldn't see the ground beating their heads against the walls of fortifications and gunfire. Some explosions past the first line dotted the ground, no doubt Grimm being blasted apart by mortars, grenades, and mines. The sky was choked by the deep dark smoke of dead Grimm, the smoke so heavy that Jaune could barely tell where the dragon was, and what other air Grimm it had brought with it.
The blast of cold air woke Jaune up like the crack of a whip, he turned around, running backwards, so he could address Weiss and Blake.
"We've got one shot, guys! Our only chance is to take it head on, try and keep as many of them from breaking past the first line as we can!" He called out over the thunderous staccato of the mortar cannons blasting distant enemies to smithereens.
Weiss and Blake nodded, and the three of them charged forward as the soldiers from inside the mountain fell into position in their icy trenches. The snow and ice beneath him had, over the course of these endless weeks, been scorched black and red from the smoke and soot of gunfire and explosions, and the blood of dead men, but Jaune paid it no mind as he sprinted forward, feet thundering over the frozen ground as he rapidly closed in on the sandbags and wrecked vehicles that fortified the outermost trench. His body ached, his spirit flickered like a dying flame, and his bones hurt, but his hand clenched his sword, his shield was secured to his arm, and his one single goal burned brightly in his mind, that of maybe. Maybe if he fought, things would turn out better. Maybe if he held out as long as he could, victory could be achieved.
Maybe hope wasn't lost.
So Jaune leapt onto the scorched wreck of a Terran car, climbing up the twisted metal and reaching the top, before launching himself from it, clearing the trench and diving headlong into the hordes of Grimm, his blade glowing brightly, his chest clenched as he bellowed out what he knew could he his final battle cry. The one moment felt to last for an eternity, as he, flanked on one side by Blake, and the other by Weiss, their rears covered by thousands of soldiers, soared high into the air, but the moment he hit his apex and began to fall, he could no sooner blink before he was on the ground, sword swinging.
His greatest advantage was the blade he held in his hands. Ozpin insisted it came from some story on Earth, that Aldric had bequeathed it to Jaune as some sort of 'last resort'. Jaune detested Aldric, and refused to believe that he'd not only seen, but had predicted and planned for this outcome, but even with that he had to admit that the sword had its use. Each swing, each contact with the flesh of a Grimm, every single one killed instantly, with a flash of light and a burst of smoke from the Grimm. Each strike smote a Grimm, and it gave Jaune something he'd never had before: Confidence. Importance. Power.
Because when he met Grimm, Grimm died.
But he was just a man, and as much as these months following Beacon had forced him to grow up and to expand his skills, he was nothing compared to some of the people he fought with. He took hits, he had more scars than he thought possible, and he was still mortal - he could still be hurt, could still be overwhelmed, if there were enough of them.
Here, there were more than enough of them. The moment he touched the ground he was surrounded by so many Grimm that he couldn't even see Weiss and Blake right next to him. He wildly sliced and stabbed, each one smiting another Grimm, but each Grimm being replaced by another already trying to go for his throat. Every attack he blocked with his shield merely opened him up for another attack from another, more opportunistic Grimm, but that was where Weiss and Blake came in. The pecking order here had been established long before Cerise, when Jaune and his blade had kept so many Mistral survivors alive during their exodus to Argus: Jaune was the tank, Blake and Weiss were the armor. They came in and took down any of the Grimm that made it past his defenses, Blake with her clones, Weiss with her glyphs, both of them with their weapons. Not to say they didn't rack up titanic bodycounts either, but the effort for them to kill something versus the effort required for Jaune to do the same thing were incomparable.
Jaune sliced apart one among countless Grimm, his whole body twisting into the attack, as another Grimm burst into smoke with the sound of shattering glass. Again and again until his arms were a blur to even himself, he cut through as many as he could, and alongside Weiss and Blake, they tore apart more now than they'd ever seen at Beacon. But, they were just three people. Huntsmen and huntresses, certainly, but they were only three. and Weiss, Jaune, and Blake, were the Terrans' first and best force multiplier that didn't involve Sun Bombing the whole place. They had to be a bottleneck, keep as many of the Grimm from moving past them as possible, so the Terrans could take down what was left with nothing but pluck, attitude, and copious ordinance.
The problem, unfortunately, was that here, it just wasn't enough.
The Grimm were millions. Maybe more - likely more.
Definitely more.
And it felt like every last one of them was bearing down on Cerise.
Weiss got separated first, after only five minutes. Jaune, practically deaf from the sound of his blade, the gunfire and explosions around him, and the snarls of the Grimm right on top of him, didn't even notice until an Ursa charged from his left and tackled him through the horde, taking him away from Blake, and isolating all three of them. He stabbed it in the gut, but the damage had already been done - it had not only cut into his body armor, but it had put him on the ground, where he was instantly stampeded by the rushing Grimm.
Jaune's desperate and wild swings of the blade took out a few Grimm and let him slowly piece himself together, but there were so many that every time he tried to struggle to his feet, another collided with him and sent him sprawling, where many more would stomp all over him, stressing his aura, and a few would actually stop to try and attack him personally. They were the ones Jaune actually killed, usually with a haphazard swing or a full-on stab to the throat.
It took barely minutes after they were separated from each other before Jaune heard screams coming from the trenches, and where one Grimm reached them, one would break through and rush past, and where one would rush past them, another would, and another, and another.
Jaune desperately cut at the Grimm around him. He gasped through rattling, sore lungs, he pushed, he fell, he got up again. Light flashed, Grimm died, but there were just so many.
There were too many.
And, seeking only to prove him right, was the Grimm that parted the others like the sea. It was a behemoth, some sort of centaur-like Grimm, looming above him, its unreadable face leering down at him with its own demonic, animalistic rage. It raised its hand, it forming into a great spear, itself as big as Jaune, and slowly tilting down towards him. Jaune scrambled to raise his shield as it brought the spear down on him; it smashed into the unyielding steel and buried him several inches into the snow, restricting his peripheral vision. It pressed down on him so hard that Jaune couldn't move, it and he were stuck fast.
And he realized that was its plan, as he saw more Grimm digging at the snow around him.
He realized that it had a plan.
He knew what that meant, as the centaur kept him pinned and its minions tried to expose his sides and tear him apart.
And he couldn't do a thing about it but scream in rage, anger, defiance, and fear.
Roman Torchwick had spent quite a few coins on this little gamble, but, as he liked to say, he didn't make bad bets.
Case in point: They weren't even his coins in the first place. He knew where Mercury Black's airship had been parked, and knew that quite a substantial sum had been left there ever since Beacon fell, and after sending his little minion out to go scavenge it, his bet paid dividends, and he suddenly had a stash of Glass with which to buy the Garden's many and mighty fighters. They were the simplest part of the deal - giving out glass like candy and promising a chance to ride out the apocalypse on a world that would likely have ample need for people with their particular sets of skills had even some of the living legends lining up to take the late Black's coins.
After buying and equipping men and women whose bodycounts were in the triple and even quadruple digits, Torchwick needed means to transport them; and, what do you know it, as he was perusing the Garden's own stock of fully armed airships, a certain little Faunus with a propensity for changing her appearance was caught by his assassin scant seconds after she'd entered the hangar bay. Torchwick certainly felt proud of his little mute when he saw the look of absolute confusion on the woman's face, just as he felt the kind of power that money couldn't buy when the Faunus bore word from the man to whom she answered: Adam Taurus was looking to him for help transporting as much of his people from Menagerie to Cerise as possible. Soldiers to back up Torchwick's Huntsmen and Assassins.
Of course he made a few deals and got himself a few favors - there was no way he'd pass up this chance - and when all was said and done, after a week he had a fleet, an army of Huntsmen and Faunus, and tens of thousands of civilians, all of whom - every last one of them - knew that they owed their very lives to Roman Torchwick. Sure, the less human of his passengers held Taurus in perhaps a higher light than him, but that had been to be expected, and Torchwick wasn't concerned, as his point had still been made: Taurus had the army, but Torchwick had the power.
So with his fleet armed and armored, his men and women aware that they would have to literally fight for their chance at life, they took off for Mt. Cerise, and whatever gifts and goodies Aldric had left them.
The journey, of course, wasn't an easy one. It was fraught with danger as they frequently encountered Grimm on their way north. They lost an entire airship to them, causing Torchwick to roll his eyes, knowing he'd have to come up with some kind of 'Oh the horror!' speech to calm down the less war-minded of his passengers, and would probably have to renegotiate with Taurus if the Fang leader was feeling particularly angry. Regardless, it didn't matter much, and over the week they flew, he and Taurus discussed with more detail what the mass migration of the Grimm meant, and what they would be finding under Aldric's mountain. Pooling what they knew together, their determination eventually became that it was either a bunker or an escape pod of some sort, either of which were loaded down with those 'dangerous toys' he always worried himself over.
And the deal was as such: Taurus would get his first pickings of the more military focused 'toys', whereas Torchwick would take things of a more practical nature. The former would allow Taurus a modicum of leverage, power, and independence from both the Terrans and the Humans, and the latter could be applied perhaps endlessly for more abstract, long-term gains.
Torchwick would only admit privately he was concerned about what Taurus would find and would take in his little dive into Aldric's treasure chest, but, he supposed, he himself would inevitably find something equally as impressive, or failing that, his influence inside of Taurus' faction could clue him in to how to avoid it, and as such he wasn't worried.
When the time came and their lumbering fleet reached Cerise, all of the ships came to a halt hundreds of kilometers away from the shore, and Taurus, Torchwick, and some other faunus the gangster didn't care to identify were called up to the head of their de-facto flagship to see what their pilots were seeing.
Now, Torchwick had seen a lot in his life. He'd seen things that even veteran Huntsmen couldn't claim to have even imagined before. He was pretty sure he'd even seen a thing or two that would give Ozpin pause, and all of that was before he got involved with Aldric.
But this?
This stopped him cold.
The sky and ground in front of Cerise was black. Not from smoke, because Grimm smoke, while thick, dissipated quickly. Not from the night sky, because it was still broad daylight. No, the area was darkened as it was from the sheer, titanic, immeasurable number of Grimm filling every available inch of surface.
And the lone bastion of snow-white was that area immediately in front of the mountain, right at the foot of the mountain, flanked on both sides by the glaciers that were funneling the Grimm into one place, being savagely defended by Terrans. Torchwick could distantly see the near constant bloom of explosions, be it from mortar cannons, missiles coming in from the sea, being dropped by aircraft, or bombs lobbed by the soldiers fighting for their lives against more Grimm than anyone alive had ever seen in one place.
Torchwick, his breath hollow, was so shocked that even the realization that this meant that there was, indeed, something of unrivaled importance in the mountain, couldn't bring out his customary smug smile.
Looking to his left, he found that Taurus had even removed his mask to make sure he was seeing things correctly, his blue eyes wide and his jaw slack from shock. His two companions, a diminutive tigress and a giant hairy man, who seemed to have a problem with wearing shirts that covered his chest. All of them regarded the practically singular mass of Grimm that made the land and the sky appear to squirm, throb, and rage, all of them slowly converging on the mountain.
After a moment, Taurus looked to Torchwick. The two didn't speak, but they each knew what the other thought: Was Aldric's treasure trove worth wading into certain death? Would his bunker, or his life boat, or whatever, save people before everyone fighting for time died?
Torchwick, gripping his cane tightly, nodded once, and Taurus returned it, sliding his decorated mask back on his face, and turning to his companions.
"That is literally what we're fighting, and we've got two choices: Fight them now, or fight them later." He told them. "If we run, they'll overwhelm the Terrans, and if the Terrans don't sun-bomb the entire mountain, they will abandon us, and that means eventually those Grimm will finish the job and sweep over Atlas, and then, later, us." He said. "Or, we can fight." He turned to the viewscreens, pointing at the mountain. "Drop our Huntsmen at that second trench... Our soldiers at the innermost, and our people at the entrance."
Torchwick stepped in, "why, it even looks like they specifically chose a spot to keep clear for landing airships." He pointed out, seeing what looked like a small landing strip that could hold two ships.
"Our numbers will be enough to buy our people the time to get out and into the mountain, and time enough for the Terrans to guide them wherever they need to go." Taurus picked back up. "And if we do that... We'll not only buy ourselves salvation, but perhaps a victory, in the long term." He turned back to face them, one arm settling behind his coat, the other, resting on his sterling blade. "But only if we make this decision together. Our people, and even the Terrans, they need that. The hope." He said, "any one of us has any doubts, everyone will know." He said, "everyone. And our effectiveness will drop faster than our people will into that chaos..." He briefly looked away, then back to them. "I'm going in regardless. The man who brought us here... At the very least I trust his intentions. He wouldn't have called us all if there wasn't something worth it all down there... And with all of the people he called, I guarantee you more are coming. The Terrans were just the first, we're the second, and third." He nodded to them, then Torchwick. "More humans will inevitably join us, and together... Whatever is in there, we can find it, use it, and win with it. But only together...
"So where do you stand?"
Suddenly, all the pressure bearing down on him from above vanished, just as the Griffon to his right had a clear shot at his head. Before Jaune could even take his chance, he felt something grab at his shield and then hoist him into the air, and in the time it took him to blink, he was flying. The Arc blinked and, looking up, saw his savior: A man whose back had sprouted the great wings of an eagle, and whose armored chest sported the insignia of the White Fange. His face was contorted with the look of extreme effort, and was already streaming sweat as he struggled to lift Jaune and keep them both airborne.
The fact of which he confirmed by saying, "I've only got you another second, guy!" He grunted through a tightly clenched chest, air whistling through his red face. "I'm going to drop you, so get ready!"
Jaune nodded once, and as he shifted his gaze from the faunus that had literally dropped from the sky to bring him to it, he saw behind him ten enormous airships, their weapons and laser cannons flashing constantly as they cut through the air and hurtled towards Cerise. They were dipping towards the ground, their weapons blasting it apart as men and women leapt out from their innards, dropping like rocks to the ground and tearing apart the Grimm with the precision and power of a Huntsman.
Jaune couldn't believe it.
Fortunately, he didn't have to - because he suddenly felt his entire body obeying gravity, and his dropping to the ground snapped the shock out of his system. The Eagle Faunus had brought him past the outermost line and in towards the second, where the ground was actually visible, and where most of the Fang's Huntsmen were dropping.
One in particular caught Jaune's eye as he hit the ground and rolled back to his feet. This man commanded the battlefield - all of the Huntsmen surrounded and rallied around him. He was the line from which they pushed, clad in a dark overcoat, his blood red hair blowing in the frigid wind, and his sterling silver blade cleaving through Grimm so easily as though they weren't even there, a look of unbridled determination on his face as he did with hundreds - no, thousands! - of men what Jaune, Weiss, and Blake attempted with three.
Jaune knew who this was, he remembered seeing him at the docks, so long ago. Ozpin had told him that he was part of Aldric's 'Watchmen'. He, too, must have answered the call, and he brought with him something the Terrans desperately needed: Reinforcements.
Jaune would have run to him, to join him and take some strength in numbers, but he was accosted by a large Beowolf scant seconds after he landed, forcing his attention to it, as Adam Taurus and the Huntsmen of his White Fang advanced, clearing the way and pushing the defensive line back forward, inch by inch. Jaune threw his arm up to block a heavy swipe from the Beowolf, sliding its arm off of his shield wit hthe sound of scraping metal and slashing at its neck, smiting it with a flash of light and the sound of shattering glass, and letting him move to the next.
As Jaune tore through Grimm, Adam Taurus' line continued its advance, forming a veritable wall of bodies through which they let no Grimm pass. This bought the Terrans time to regroup and send their injured to the mountain, as well as allowing the Fang to reinforce them, set up their own weapons, and get crash courses in trench warfare. As this happened, the multiple airships above them provided a level of air support the Terran jets were incapable of, while also dropping as many soldiers and Huntsmen as they could on their way to the mountain. When these ships made it to the mountain, they turned, facing the battlefield and providing fire support while the civilians inside descended to the ground and were ushered inside the mountain.
It almost became easy, but as was the relationship with any battle with Grimm, it was always give and take. Even with the extra guns and the huntsmen, the outermost line was still lost, and the Terrans manning it were in full retreat, retreating as the huntsmen advanced, funneling the Grimm into an even tighter area, meaning it would be easier for the soldiers to shoot them, but also harder for the Huntsmen to fight them, as they packed in tighter.
And then, of course, came the worst take of them all: The sound of a dragon's roar.
Jaune's head shot up to the sky at the sound of it, snapping up to try and locate the dragon, then down to deal with a Grimm, and back and forth. He felt a tusk try to spear him through the back, then whipped around and gored the boarbatusk through the stomach. This one, brief second he took his eyes off of the sky was what made the difference, as the sky was lit aglow by the orange flames of a mighty explosion.
Jaune then beheld an airship, having been blasted in two, falling to the ground, and tunneling through the fire and smoke was the Grimm Dragon.
It hurtled over the battlegrounds, melting snow and ice and incinerating humans, faunus, terrans, and Grimm alike with twin jets of white-hot fire. Its first pass missed him by a mile, and even then Jaune could still fell heat like he'd never experienced before, hot enough that it completely overrode the frigid air of Remnant's far north.
Gasping, Jaune turned back to the Grimm, but saw them retreating, backing away slowly, menacingly.
"Hold the line!" Jaune heard the faunus call out; he sensed them all bracing themselves on the ground and readying their weapons for the inevitable charge the Grimm would make.
The Dragon came careening out of the air, slamming into the snow-covered ground in a cloud of white.
Jaune, staring at the Grimm line as the snow settled, realized he'd long since lost track of Blake and Weiss. He couldn't hear any sounds of fighting from inside the horde. Teeth bared, he clenched his sword tighter and watched as the Dragon lowered its head to the ground.
Off of it, slid him, and it was all Jaune could do to not see red and just charge the masked monster.
"Behind you." He heard a rough voice speak, before Adam Taurus came to flank him. "What is that?"
Jaune gave the masked Faunus a look, then the Terran Grimm. "Salem... Brought Ash - er... Aldric... Back to life." He explained, as the Terran Grimm pulled an unfortunately familiar object from his bloodstained beltloop. "But she... Did something... And he's a Grimm now."
Taurus grunted, frowning. "How does he fight?"
"He doesn't." Said Jaune, "he doesn't actually fight, he doesn't match blow for blow, he just goes right for the kill. He tore through half of Mistral's Huntsmen in an afternoon, because they tried to fight him, and he just killed them."
Taurus nodded, "okay." He said, "we need to buy that mountain as much time as we can. My people need to get inside."
"We may not give them much." Jaune grunted, "the dragon... It makes the Grimm smarter." He gasped, straightening himself up and trying to get control of his heartbeat.
Taurus didn't seem perturbed, but due to his silence, Jaune could only conclude that it was because knowing this wouldn't change what they had to do, and with the time they had, it wouldn't even change how they did it. Jaune supposed he could understand that, but it didn't make him feel any better. He watched the dragon snap its jaws, and the Terran Grimm ignite its burning red blade. He and Taurus readied their weapons -
And in the time it took them to blink, suddenly thousands of Grimm were airborne. Thousands of griffons, wasps, and all kinds of airborne Grimm dove out of the sky, disengaging the airships and the Terran aircraft and diving down to the Grimm horde. They snatched up Grimm of all shapes and sizes and took them to the sky, hurtling towards the defensive lines. The Terrans and the White Fang soldiers immediately began opening fire, prompting the Grimm still on the ground to charge. The small army of Huntsmen met them as the flying Grimm dropped their passengers behind the first trench, and they rushed towards the innermost defensive line.
Jaune bit back a curse, but he had to hope that the Terrans and the Fang together could hold their line, even as he saw the airborne Grimm redouble their efforts to push back against the combined Terran/Faunus air power. He forced himself to keep looking at ground level, to glower at the Grimm horde as he, Taurus, and the other Huntsmen charged the Grimm head on, covered by gunfire from the trenches behind them, and the mortars and tanks at the base of the mountain.
The two armies met with a mighty clash of aura, explosives, custom weapons, flesh, and bone.
The Terran Grimm went straight for Jaune, sliding across the ground unnaturally fast, appearing like a marionette being pulled by its strings.
Jaune was shoved out of the way by Taurus, whose blade shot out of its holster as though fired from a gun. Jaune was about to call out to him, warn him that the weapon the Terran Grimm held would cut straight through his - until Taurus' blade hit Ash's with the sound of a grindstone and a shower of sparks. From behind his scorched, T-shaped visor, Ash scowled; his left hand clenched into a fist and Taurus siezed up, Jaune able to see his throat flatten, but Taurus didn't even slow down - as the red markings on his mask, his hair, and even the flower on his jacket took on an ethereal red glow, he jerked his sword to one side, sliding Ash's off of his now glowing hot silver blade. Next he sliced upwards, and as Jaune scrambled to his feet, he saw, to his amazement, Ash's once impregnable suit of darkened mail split at the seams when met by Taurus' blade.
That feat was all Taurus could accomplish, however, as he ducked under the Terran Grim's retaliatory swing. As a screaming Jaune rushed Ash, he noticed that Taurus' throat had expanded again, no doubt a result of the Terran Grimm's focus slipping from the shock of what the faunus extremist had done. Having learned from his previous encounter with the demon who was a man, Jaune threw a heavy horizontal chop right at Ash's head, but the Terran Grimm's bright red blade snapped up and met his own. Unlike when it met Taurus', there was no sound of grinding steel or sizzling plasma, and there was no shower of sparks shooting off in all directions, his blade met Jaune's and it stopped dead, trying to cut and trying to burn but failing in both.
Ash spared one glance at their struggling swords, head tilted, before he turned his masked face back to Jaune. Jaune felt something smash into his stomach and send him flying, but he barely made it six feet before Ash thrust his hand out. Jaune froze in mid-air, and then was yanked back to Ash, who prepared his blade to run Jaune through. Jaune raised his shield, but Ash used his power to wrench his hand back down to his side, forcing his core to remain open and vulnerable.
Perhaps it would have worked, if Taurus hadn't zoomed forward like a red blur, his blade sheathed again, his body enshrouded in a deep, dark red energy. Jaune immediately felt the telekinetic hold drop on him as all of Ash's attention went to defending against Taurus' attack. The Arc hit the ground and rolled to his feet, already in a dead run to Ash and Taurus, and he watched Taurus' glowing blade rocket out of his holster. Ash's blade shot upwards to block the attack, and for a moment they met and struggled exactly as they had before - but after that moment passed in a brief scream of grinding metal and shower of sparks, Taurus' blade kept going. Cutting into and cleaving through the pillar of red plasma that was the Terran Grimm's blade.
For the first time, Jaune saw Ash go on the defensive, as he shot backwards, dragging himself across the ground, but he had been just too slow - the tip of Taurus' blade catching Ash's chest and cutting through the armor that had already been weakened by previous battles. As Ash flew back, Taurus' blade continued, now tearing through the comparatively thin, pure white shirt underneath the mail.
And coming up with jet black blood.
Jaune reached Taurus, the former already out of breath. "How -"
"He gave me a suit like his." Taurus cut him off, "I melted it down and coated my sword in it."
Jaune found himself wishing Taurus had been there in Mistral, but shook those thoughts away as Ash stopped, separated from Taurus and Jaune by the bedlam around them. He was being sprayed by the uncontrollable discharge of plasma from his weapon, the superheated gas practically covering his right side; his left hand covered his face as he pointed the weapon away, it continuing to sputter until it shorted out and died.
For a moment, Jaune thought they could win this - that they actually had a chance.
Then Ash hit the button on the blade again, and it ignited, good as new.
Jaune's shoulders slumped, but Taurus wasn't even phased.
"The Grimm aren't attacking us." Taurus noted, causing Jaune to blink as he realized the Faunus was right. "He went straight for you. He either wants or was instructed to deal with you personally, or thinks the Grimm will get in the way."
"Okay -"
"That means we outnumber him, and have an advantage." Taurus continued, as Ash sprinted forward, the Grimm parting around him like he were a stone in a river. "I've seen what your sword can do, and every time we do something he doesn't expect, he drops us." Taurus said, as he and Jaune readied themselves, the latter by crouching behind his shield, the former by crouching low and sheathing his blade, ready to draw it again at a moment's notice. "That means his abilities are based in concentration, and even a Terran Grimm's isn't endless. We need to keep him off balance."
Ash was almost to them.
"We'll only get one shot!" Taurus finished, before dashing forward, Jaune lagging right behind him.
In the blink of an eye, the three met again - Taurus and Ash's blades slammed into each other, while the Terran Grimm threw his metallic left hand up, the back of his hand colliding with Jaune's blade. Jaune's sword rebounded off of Ash's hand, but either through luck or fire-forged skill, Jaune was able to keep from stumbling backwards, instead ducking down and lunging inside Ash's defenses - throwing his shield hand at Ash's ribcage as hard as he could. He knew it would do practically, but his intent hadn't been to hurt the Grimm, but rather to cause him to bend ever so slightly, and fail in the struggle against Taurus.
Unfortunately, instead of digging into chain mail and meeting flesh, it felt like Jaune had punched a brick wall. Instead of Ash doubling over, Jaune's arm bounced back, Ash hopped into the air, and kicked him in the ribs, sending him sprawling backwards. Taurus, however, took the chance he had and pushed harder, forcing Ash to fall backwards, his back hitting the ground.
But where Taurus hoped to get superior positioning on his side, he instead was slammed in the chest by a telekinetic battering ram, throwing him up into the air, where he had to act fast to avoid a Griffon that dove right for him. He slashed at the Griffon and cleaved it in two as he hit the apex of his flight, and then began to fall to the ground in a cloud of oily black smoke.
Before he fell too far, he found that he hit an invisible barrier, some flat surface that kept him in the air. As the smoke dissipated, he saw Ash just as he looked away from him, and realized that the Grimm had already found his way around their attack strategy: Just keep them apart.
And in midair, Taurus was completely open to attack - which a giant hornet immediately proved to him as it hurtled towards him, stinger-first. He cleaved it in two with a rapid swing, but it was joined by another Griffon, and he was soon having to defend himself on a floating island, unable to move in any direction, surrounded on all sides by airborne Grimm that had nothing but time and numbers.
On the ground, Ash turned back to Jaune, who felt his heart sink as he saw how quickly he all but threw away the leader of the White Fang. Their only advantages, Taurus' mind and their numbers, had just been eliminated in the easiest, most efficient way possible: Make the bigger threat someone else's problem.
But... Jaune gulped, taking his blade in both hands, and feeling his aching chest grind with every deep gasp. With him focusing on keeping Adam Taurus up there... Maybe I can actually fight him? Of course he knew his odds of fighting this thing and winning were practically none, but he didn't have to outfight him, he just had to take a page out of the Terran Grimm's book and just kill him.
And, fortunately for him, he had a sword that could do that with one blow.
I can hit him once... Jaune gulped, as Ash grew impatient and dashed towards him. I... Images of his friends flashed through his mind. I can hit him once... Joined even by a vision of Goud Etiolate, before his image had been tainted by Aldric, before he'd been turned into a Grimm. I can do this! He told himself, as he threw himself into battle.
Ash's blindingly fast swing of his burning blade hit Jaune's otherworldly shield, bouncing off of it with a loud 'twang'. Jaune sliced upwards, but Ash bent over backwards and the attack that would have dug under his mask and tear it off missed him by a mile. Like a spinning top, Ash spun around Jaune and spun into his next attack, swinging his blade two-handed at Jaune's back and scoring a hit, completely severing the Terran armor and cutting into Jaune's back, scorching the skin and causing him to scream out in pain.
Jaune, shaking, spun around and threw another attack at Ash as, in the distance, another airship exploded, briefly coating the entire battlefield in a bloom of orange fire. Jaune locked his blade with Ash's and, during the struggle, uppercutted him with the edge of his shield. Ash caught it with his cybernetic hand, and its superior strength won out, slowly dragging it away from the gap between his face and his mask.
Jaune grunted, struggling against Ash. He used his own cybernetic arm to push back on Ash's blade, but Ash's response was to deactivate it entirely. Jaune, completely unprepared, stumbled forward. Ash torqued his shield arm so hard that Jaune felt his aura and the arm nearly break, but he didn't let go. Ash promptly twisted harder and pulled at Jaune, using the Arc's momentum against him and pulling him into the air. The Terran Grimm spun them once before he roughly threw the Arc off to the side, succesfully ripping his shield out of his hand and dislocating his left arm entirely. Jaune hit the ground and rolled to a halt, digging a small groove in the thickly packed snow, and saw Taurus still up above, fighting for his life, one hand swinging his blade and the other holding his hilt, it firing off wildly and tearing through Grimm. The leader of the Fang's coat was shredded and he was bleeding, but with every passing moment he glowed a brighter red, until it hit a crescendo and he cleaved through dozens of flying Grimm in an instant, buying him breathing room and keeping them from overwhelming him.
Damn it... Jaune gasped, feeling tears well up in his eyes as he struggled back to his feet, his left arm in so much pain that it felt like it was on fire.
He saw Ash throw the shield away so hard and so fast that Jaune blinked and it was gone. His blade ignited again with its guitar strum Zhoom! and he rushed forward again. It was all Jaune could do to meet his attacks and parry them, but he was so firmly on the defensive that he didn't even have the spare energy to think. He was constantly losing ground to the Terran Grimm, and he felt his aura finally break beyond repair as the demon slashed at his chest and sent him sprawling out on the ground again.
Ash didn't even bother to wait, he didn't gloat, and he didn't hesitate. The moment Jaune was on the ground the Terran Grimm was on him, blade raised and ready to sink into Jaune's heart. Jaune cowered behind the only defense he had, bringing his blade up horizontally and praying beyond sense he could intercept Ash's red lightsaber.
But, he paused when, just over Ash's shoulder, he could see something.
Something that left him in such a state of shock and confusion that his jaw slackened as he failed to comprehend it. Ash appeared not to be willing to take the bait, until the air shook from the sound of the dragon's roar, and he too looked over his shoulder.
Being not only one of the youngest, but also one of the newest members of Ozpin's little fifth column, James Ironwood was perhaps also the one who believed in him the least, and the last two years had done nothing but repeatedly shake his faith in the undying man to the breaking point. The other Headmasters had to be outright fools to believe this man, who had done nothing but chafe and choke when he lost control of things, which appeared to happen pretty much constantly now. This was the man who was supposed to 'know the secrets of the universe', the man who was so wise and so powerful that he could either make someone else, or could himself personally, do anything.
Maybe once, Ironwood would admit, he had believed it, but the moment the Terrans entered the picture, the moment he heard the recordings of Ozpin and the spy that had pulled the rug under him so magnificently, he had to be the lone voice of reason. If two of three people said yes, he had to be the one person to say no.
So when Ozpin, now possessing the body of a twelve year old just appeared in his office and demanded he send literally everything and everyone he had to Cerise, Ironwood had him hauled out.
When Ozpin appeared again the next day, Ironwood at least gave him the courtesy of hearing him out, before he ordered his guards to haul the man in the boy out. How a man who had lived millions of lifetimes could be so naive, Ironwood honestly didn't know. This man somehow still believed in the validity of the very spy that had ratted him out and sold out the entire planet, and now he was spinning yarns of people being turned into Grimm, like some low-budget horror flick. And that madman expected him to send all of his people to one mountain on the off chance that salvation lay within? Even if Ozpin was, Ironwood wasn't stupid - if Cerise was a bunker, there was no possible way it would be big enough to hold all of Atlas. It had taken thirty years to build the safety shelters under the academy big enough to house their population, and it spread around dozens of kilometers underground, and around the entire width of the kingdom. Magic or not, one guy couldn't do that, not in the year he'd been on their world.
Ironwood drew his weapon when Ozpin appeared again the third day. He refused to hear him. He knew what was happening: The undying man was growing rabidly desperate in the face of Armageddon, and his only solution was to just throw bodies at the problem, and since they were the only kingdom left standing, Atlas was the only place left that still had bodies.
Then, entered his mind the one word that could throw entire military operations, entire wars into absolute anarchy. The one word that could introduce a wild card the likes of which no one could control or prepare for. The one word any sane man with power feared for what it represented: A variable that no one knew about.
But.
In this case: But then, the ships from Argus came in.
And with them, the survivors from Mistral.
And they had one hell of a story: A human Grimm at the head of an army of them. It killed almost all of Mistral's Huntsmen in an afternoon and then laid siege to Argus. One Huntsmen with gray hair even told tales of Terran coming, abducting the Beacon Academy survivors and then leaving, right around the time Ozpin just appeared in Ironwood's office.
Worse was that none of their stories were inconsistent.
Worse than that, was that this convinced more than a few officers that maybe they should act on what Ozpin had said - at the very least send a ship out to Cerise to see what was happening.
Ironwood wouldn't have it, but even he had limits, and getting reports from his scout ships that every single Grimm they could see was moving out in the direction of Cerise? That was his limit. Even he couldn't ignore that.
So, he sent a ship. Just one, and only if its captain and crew volunteered unanimously.
It actually surprised him to see half of the fleet volunteer as fast as they did. It humbled him, even, briefly igniting some form of doubt in his chest, making him wonder if he hadn't grown cynical, or pessimistic. Regardless, he sent the first ship that had volunteered on its several day journey, while he made preparations for something he hadn't thought he'd need to do in his lifetime: Launching the city.
The single most complicated experiment in Human history, something even the Terrans couldn't rival, Atlas had spent decades slowly hollowing out the earth surrounding its walls and creating rocket engines as a means of last resort escape. If the Grimm ever truly threatened to overwhelm Atlas, Ironwood could launch the city and it could keep itself afloat for ten years, without refueling. When it had been finished, the proposition had been made to merely suspend the city indefinitely as a defensive measure, but after many a heated debate the conclusion had been made that the resources required to do such a thing would make it prohibitively expensive. Ironwood had come close to launching Atlas once, when the Terrans from the American kingdom had invaded them, and had been preparing to do so when that monster of a Master had torn through his best, blown open his academy, and threatened to sun bomb his country if they didn't surrender. Now though, with the frankly apocalyptic happenings around the world, the time came again when he had to choose whether or not to take his city to the sky. The Grimm would come for him and his inevitably, it was just a matter of time, and Ironwood had to choose whether or not to launch now, or wait until the last minute and extend the time they could spend in the air.
It was many days after he'd sent the scout ship, as he was looking over old reports of the wormholes leading to Earth and attempting to determine their size, that one of his naval Officers came rushing into his office, covered in a thin layer of sweat and clutching a folder in her hands. Recognizing her as the Captain of the ship, Ironwood calmed her nerves and took the folder, telling her to sit and wait for him to go to her if he had questions.
Inside the folder, the first thing that greeted him were multiple pictures, each depicting Terran warships breaking ice near Cerise's landmass. All of them bore scars from battle, but not from Atlesian vessels, but rather Grimm. One of the pictures of the Carrier even had one of its guns firing as the picture was taken, it tearing apart a Grimm that the scout ship was too high up to see. Dozens of pictures of the ships launching projectiles, bombs, missiles, and various aircraft inland were also included, before Ironwood got to an actual picture of Cerise itself.
The once snow white landmass with Remnant's largest mountain, appeared jet black, like oil, and the air thick and cloudy from the sheer number of Grimm flying about. Further into the folder were close up pictures of the three massive trenches stretching from one ice wall to the other, all manned with thousands of Terran soldiers, every picture showing them firing wildly into the hordes of Grimm, with barely any pictures being of the calms between each storm. At the base of the mountain appeared to be several sites cleared out, so large that they clearly weren't for Terran rotor-craft, but so small they weren't meant for their passenger jets, meaning they actually were meant for Remnant airships.
The Captain's written, and later verbal, report went on to explain that the Terrans appeared to have help from a small number of Huntsmen, but whose identities couldn't be confirmed. They appeared to be using a cave leading into Cerise as a command center, and intercepted communications between someone on the ground called 'Zed' and the Carrier mentioned a 'ship' called the 'Sephiroth' inside the mountain.
Ironwood leaned back in his chair, frowning.
Had he been wrong? Had Ozpin actually found an out for the world?
No, the Terrans spoke of a ship. Singular. Only one, and that one detail put everything into perspective for the General. This wasn't a means of saving everyone, this was a continuity of species measure. Whatever was in that mountain had been made as a means to prevent the extinction of Faunus and Humans, and as such it wouldn't be able to hold nearly the numbers of people Ironwood would bring with him.
But, looking at the map of the battlegrounds, Ironwood had to admit that the prospect of a last resort, a guaranteed out if Atlas launched and still fell, it was enticing. If he were to assume that this was what it looked like, if he were to conclude that the Terrans actually fighting for that mountain meant that it wasn't actually a trap set by Ozpin's spy, then the question became where would this ship go? Of course, the answer was obvious: It would go to Earth, but knowing the Terrans, how then would Remnant's designated survivors even make landfall? The Terrans may not even allow them safe haven, so whoever was on that ship would have to literally bargain for their lives.
A plan began formulating in Ironwood's mind. He couldn't do much for the people betting on that ship, but he could at least give them a few bargaining chips for when they got to Earth: If he saved the Terran soldiers, if he sent ships alongside the Sephiroth to keep it safe while it flew to the wormholes, and if he donated those ships to Earth, that may at least buy them some place to stay as refugees; and, he realized, he wouldn't have to bet Atlas' civilians on this, either, he wouldn't have to play god and decide which few thousand Atlesians would live if everyone else died. He could focus everything Atlas had after this fight on protecting Atlas and its people.
And send the Mistral and Argus survivors to Earth.
This gambit would require an entire fleet, multiple thousand soldiers, drones, mech suits, and even a few hundred Huntsmen, but it wouldn't be impossible for him to pick them, and even the surviving Terrans, up after the Sephiroth launched.
Because he'd bring the entire kingdom with him.
Ironwood looked up, "assemble the Officers. We're going to launch the city."
It was a kingdom. A giant mass of dirt, rock, and concrete, with titanic rocket engines shooting white hot fire. It was a kingdom floating in the sky.
And from this kingdom launched hundreds - no! Thousands of airships! And tens of thousands of fighter craft! Where the Terrans' power waned irreparably with every loss in the air, here was this kingdom literally flying through the air, hurtling towards the battleground ready to drop an entire army.
"Atlas..." Jaune breathed, as he saw the fleets of airships all briefly flickering with flashes of light.
In the time it took Jaune to blink, the ground began exploding, and both Jaune Ash leapt back into action. Jaune scrambled to his feet, taking his blade up in both hands, while Ash lifted his hand. He telekinetically caught several shells fired from the ships, halting them in midair. Jaune watched as Ash turned them back to the rapidly approaching ships, and before Ash could do what he intended, the lone Beacon survivor threw himself back at the Terran Grimm, swinging his sword heavily at the monster's head.
Without even turning around, Ash kicked Jaune in the gut and sent him skidding back across the snow, clutching at his stomach.
Coughing up blood, Jaune rolled back to his feet and sprinted right back at Ash, but found himself frozen in place before he'd even made it three steps, rendering him helpless as he watched Ash fling the shells back through the sky so fast that they left thunderclaps in their wake. Each one smashed into a different airship, blasting straight through it in a plume of fire, but only a few of those ships were destroyed outright.
Ash then turned around, and Jaune felt his heart stop.
Literally.
A pain gripped Jaune's chest and his entire body seized up, it feeling as though there were a fist physically taking hold of his heart and stopping it from beating. He felt fear take ahold of his soul, as his eyes bulged and he fell to his knees, his sword dropping to the ground, one hand burying itself in the snow, the other grabbing at his chest.
No! Jaune coughed, feeling his entire body throb, his skin tingle, and a pressure surround his head as the world began going dark. No... Not like this! He clawed at the snowy ground with his prosthetic hand, trying to force himself closer to Ash, who just watched, one hand held aloft, the other lifting his burning blade, which deactivated with a barely audible 'zip'. Please! He begged, gritting his teeth and scowling at the motionless Grimm.
To his endless amazement, someone actually answered his plea.
They, like the city above, came from the sky, but unlike it, they landed, and they landed right in front of Jaune.
Whoever it was, their mere appearance shocked Ash so badly that he not only let go of Jaune, but the coughing Arc even saw the badly bruised and beaten Adam Taurus fall from his death trap in the sky.
Jaune blinked, he looked up through squinted eyes, seeing nothing but a dark, billowing coat in front of him.
"Who -" He gasped, before the darkness crawled out of his eyes, and he saw them lower their arms, and he saw what this person carried.
Who this person was.
Cinder Fall touched down in the clearing torn out of Forever Fall, more than a year ago, by a crashing alien airship.
It had long since grown over, some new trees had even begun sprouting up at its edges. If one didn't know what had happened here, they wouldn't even know what to look for. They wouldn't notice how some patches of grass were greener and shorter than others. They wouldn't notice how some patches of ground had thicker and higher dirt deposits than others, or that some of the fallen, dried, dead trees, appeared not to have fallen, but were torn out of the ground, as evidence by some roots still tenaciously clinging to the dirt.
Cinder fell to the ground with a light huff, her recovered overcoat billowing beneath her. She slid her hands into her pockets as he would so often do, and looked around. She remembered when the crash happened, she remembered spying on him as he woke up from his crash, and climbed down from the tree. She didn't remember imagining what he had felt, waking up from a near-death experience, or wondering what he'd thought when he screamed out for help and survivors, and no one but the flames answered. She remembered watching as he dug a gigantic pit in the ground and dragged bodies out of the two halves of the plane, but didn't remember wondering if seeing all of those dead faces had done something to him.
Gods... She thought, walking forward to the shortest patch of grass, knowing what she would find there. What happened to him? She frowned, looking down at the patch of earth, dug once, then repacked, then dug up again, now masked by the grass that had grown in its place over the weeks since Salem had disturbed Aldric's resting spot.
She looked down at it, imagining the maggots and ants eating at his flesh. She frowned, regret eating at her soul - or was it her souls? - as she knew that the reason he had rested in this spot because she'd put him there. He was dead, and now back, and she was wholly responsible.
A part of her wanted to believe the things Ozpin had told her, that some part of Aldric, left untouched and deemed worthless by Salem, was still out there. That maybe, just maybe, the real him could hear her.
But she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Nothing would suffice, nothing would work, nothing would be enough to convey the utter regret coursing through her very being. She hardly even knew what she was even doing here, only that she felt she had to be.
With a morose sigh, she turned from the grave, digging into her coat and pulling out the Face Camo.
As she left the grave behind, she slid the camo over her head, and it began to change shape, whirring and whistling as its colors lightened to a minor tan, its surface grew its hair out past what it looked like it should have been able to make. Cinder actually felt her face change, as though the mask were a second skin. Reaching the edge of the clearing, gone was her soft face, marred by years of arrogance and anger, and here was a thicker one, angular, with thin, gunmetal gray eyes, and long, shaggy brown hair.
She was, now, the mirror image of a dead man, but unlike his walking corpse, she appeared well and truly alive.
Her plan relied on the sheer audacity the man whose face she wore had operated on, on a daily basis, and the idea that the message he preached still rang true to even those who had lost faith in the man. Aldric may be dead, but that didn't mean he had to remain that way, and if Cinder was going to bring him back, she had to do it right.
She had to make an entrance.
The message Aldric preached was one of hope even in the hopeless times. The idea that his character, Goud, had embodied, was of light in even the darkest hour. Of symbols to embody these things and more.
And there was one symbol above all that would rally those people fighting for their lives up North.
So she flew to the East, prolonging her journey, but for a cause that made it worthwhile. She reached Mistral in four days, and found the kingdom practically devoid of life. The Grimm had left this place with their once living Master, to pursue the survivors who had fled to Argus. This gave Cinder the chance to work unhindered. She landed at the foot of Haven, it feeling like it had been years since she'd come here in anger. Gods, it felt like she'd been another person last time she had been here.
The tower had fallen, either blasted to pieces during the fighting or ripped out of the ground like a tree by the indomitable Grimm. Cinder spent several minutes using her powers to dig her way back into Haven's lobby, and the first thing she saw was the half rotten corpse of the woman Ozpin had chosen to receive the fragments of the Fall Maiden's powers, so long ago. Cinder knew that she'd be here, she knew she would have given her life to buy the reborn Ozpin and the survivors time to escape. Aldric had chosen her to inherit his shield, and such a decision carried with it a certain understanding of character: This woman was good, or had been, at least. She'd been a hero.
And with that, came doing the right thing. Came laying down her life for those she cherished. Once, Cinder hadn't understood why people did that, thinking it a weakness, but now, she knew better.
It made her soul - or was it her souls? - ache to see the shield laying in pieces next to Nikos' corpse. She saw one particularly jagged hunk of metal covered in blood, long since browned with age. Such a physical embodiment of something so much greater, broken and stained with the blood of the righteous.
She knelt down, gathering the pieces together, and did what she felt was right.
Aldric may be dead, but that didn't mean he had to remain that way.
It may be small, but Cinder could bring back what he represented.
Cinder could bring back hope.
She pieced the four shards of the red white and blue shield together, watching the white star in the center slowly reform, piece by piece, as she did so. It was strange, but as she slid each piece back into place, she felt a weight slowly lifting off of her shoulders, and when it was whole once again, she felt something flutter in her chest, and couldn't suppress a smile spread her lips. Joining this smile was a single tear in the corner of her eye, as she placed her two glowing hands on the center of the shield, and shut her eyes tight.
Through the deep dark of two shut eyes, she still saw the flash of light as clear as day. When she opened them, they swam with pale purple spots as her vision tried to refocus itself.
But when it did, hope looked back at her. Bright, shining, and whole.
Cinder picked up the shield reverently, sliding her gloved fingers underneath its edges and standing up with it. She peered deeply into the pure white star in its center, before she twirled it around, and slid her hand into the leather straps. She gripped the hand strap and made to adjust the rear one, hesitating for just a moment longer, before she took ahold of it and yanked, feeling the leather tighten against her arm, and a feeling of rightness settle into her chest. The leather felt warm in her hands, as though it wanted her to take it. The weight felt right on her arm, as though she'd spent years with it there and just felt off balance without it.
Cinder nodded once, taking a deep, calming breath, and turned to leave Haven.
But stopped at the threshold, feeling something tugging at her senses, faintly, like a whisper in a windstorm.
"Laser! Caution."
She blinked, turning back inside, eyebrows furrowing and mouth agape as she wondered what the hell it was she'd just heard.
"Laser! Caution."
Blinking again, Cinder tentatively stepped back inside, softly calling out, "hello?" In a dead man's voice.
The voice seemed to be coming from deeper inside, so she followed it, one fist clenched tight and the other readying her shield, her muscles tense, ready for a fight.
"Laser! Caution."
She realized it was coming from the center of the lobby, where, surprise surprise, she found another body. This one was more intact and covered in less blood than Nikos', with its golden black prosthetic limb helping Cinder identify it as the Signal graduate Aldric had fought in Junior's.
"Laser!"
Cinder would have blasted the corpse to smithereens, had the sheer absurdity of hearing the voice so clearly, yet still so faintly, not stayed her hand.
She bent down, inspecting the desiccated, sunken corpse.
Then she saw it.
Aldric's blade.
The small silver cylinder that he treasured so much, that he'd killed with so much. The unbeatable weapon to match his impregnable shield.
The multi-maiden reached out and plucked it from the dead woman's body, and shuddered as she felt it shock her fingers to the touch, sending a jolt through her hand as she held it tightly. She stood up slowly, a disbelieving smile gracing her face as memories of what this sword was capable of, of what it had been through, of what she'd seen Aldric do with it to her, flashed through her mind.
Her finger hovered over the red activator button, when: "What could it mean?"