Thus Kindly We Scatter (New)
Thus Kindly We Scatter
They all stared up at the creature that rose into the sky. The enormous grimm that was so large that they could behold it here, just outside of Vale, though it was all the way in…
Mountain Glenn. It had risen from the southeast, from the direction of the dead city.
And yet there had been no sign of it when they were there, on either occasion. Had they been too insignificant to waste such a grimm upon? It seemed more plausible than the idea that it had been afraid of them.
A grimm so large as this, it seemed quite plausible that it had been held in reserve.
It was an enormous creature, a monstrous creature, a creature so large that when it rose before the moon, its wings, outstretched, spread out from side to side across the shattered silver orb.
It was like no grimm that Pyrrha had ever seen before.
She didn't think that any of them had seen a grimm quite like this before.
She looked around: at Penny and Jaune; Yang, Ren, and Nora; at Ruby; at Arslan; at the other huntsmen and huntresses from Beacon and Mistral stood nearby. All of them wore amazement on their faces. Jaune's mouth was agape, Arslan had recoiled a step, Ren's knees trembled, while Nora held on to one of his arms with both hands — whether she was seeking or bestowing assurance, Pyrrha could not say.
Even Ruby looked shocked, her silver eyes grown wide. Though she recovered faster than many, raising the scope of Crescent Rose to her eye and aiming the weapon towards the grimm.
"You can't possibly be in range," Yang said. "It's too far away."
"Sure, but I can get a better look at it," Ruby replied, closing the eye that wasn't looking down the scope.
Her mouth twisted in distaste a mere few moments later. "It's ugly." She paused. "It kinda looks…" She raised her eye from the rifle scope, opening the other, and looked at Pyrrha. "It looks a lot like the bones of that creature they've got in the museum in Mistral, you know, the big one with the big head."
"The dragon?" Pyrrha asked.
Ruby nodded. "Yeah, that's it, I think. Big head, big jaws, wings, it looks just like that."
"But this is a grimm, right?" Jaune asked. "It's not some living thing?"
"Oh, no, it's definitely a grimm," Ruby answered.
"But many grimm are based on living things," Pyrrha said. "Wolves, bears, boars; why not on a creature that was living once, though it lives no longer?"
"Might have been better if it didn't live at all," Nora muttered. "Did you get a sense of how strong it is?"
Ruby shrugged. "Big doesn't have to mean strong, but you can see for yourself it's pretty big. It's…" She trailed off.
"It's … it's coming towards us," Penny said. "No, wait, it's not coming right this way; it's heading past us, I think. So long as it doesn't change direction, anyway."
"Past us how?" Jaune asked. "Past us specifically or—"
"No," Penny replied. "Past the whole battlefield."
"It'll probably change direction, then," Jaune muttered glumly.
"But if it does, then there's still no need to worry!" Penny declared. "Because Atlas will take care of it, with all the General's airships and lasers and missiles—"
Ruby grinned. "Penny opens her mouth, and Rainbow Dash's voice comes out." Her tone held no malice in it, only a little wry amusement.
Yang snorted. "Or Blake's voice."
Penny's mouth worked silently, opening and closing. "Well," she said eventually. "Just because they're a lot sometimes doesn't mean that they aren't right about this."
"Are you having second thoughts about your school transfer?" asked Ruby.
"No," Penny said at once. "Not at all." She paused. "But if I could fight alongside all my friends and have a whole bunch of powerful airships backing me up, that wouldn't be so bad, would it?"
Yang laughed, planting both hands on her hips as her mouth opened wide and her laughter spilled out into the night.
Ruby chuckled too, and Jaune as well, and Pyrrha found a smile pricking up at the corners of her mouth.
"It sounds great when you put it like that," Ruby said. "But the things that you'd have to have to get that, the military and stuff, if you had all that too, then it wouldn't be … wouldn't be Beacon anymore, I guess. You take your choice for the kind of Academy, and then you've got to … live with it."
"Like we have to live with it now," said Jaune. He paused. "Without airships, without all the Atlas stuff, if that grimm turns on us as we are now, can we beat this thing?"
Nobody replied. Not only did nobody in their immediate circle and vicinity speak, but it felt as though the wider group of huntsmen and huntresses had fallen silent, too, and were eavesdropping on their conversation.
Nobody replied, though it was the pertinent question. It was the pertinent question, but that did not make it easy to answer.
It seemed a very large grimm, and aside from its great size, they hadn't even begun to see what it was capable of.
Any grimm could be killed — that was practically axiomatic — and there were many stories of heroes slaying grimm of monstrous size, but to do it themselves … they might find it was not so easy as for the heroes of the old tales.
Pyrrha found her eyes being drawn towards Ruby. Nor was she alone in that; Jaune, Penny, Yang, even Ren and Nora were starting to look her way, to a greater or lesser extent.
Ruby's eyebrows rose as she noticed their attention falling on her. "Oh, now, you look at me," she huffed. "Well … I don't know. I'm not just some optimistic idiot who doesn't understand when things aren't practical. I understand that there are things that we can't do, and I … I'm worried this is one of them. It's really big, and I … don't know if we can, any of us, do enough to bring it down. I'd love to stand here and say that I know we can do it, but I don't, not for something this size."
Arslan sidled a couple of steps closer to them. "What about cutting off its head?"
Ruby glanced at Crescent Rose. "I'm not sure we've got anything big enough to get through the neck."
"Did you see any sign of a weak point?' asked Pyrrha. "In stories, such large grimm often have one."
"I didn't see one," Ruby admitted. "But I didn't get a full view, I mostly only saw the front of it, and its weak point would be … somewhere on the belly or something, right?"
"Not necessarily," Ren said softly. "But possibly, especially if you didn't see it on the grimm's front. Assuming it has a weakness, of course."
Yes, that was quite the assumption, wasn't it? It was only a common motif in stories, which either meant that the stories were based on truth or that they were all sharing the same … infelicity with that same truth, or exaggeration.
But then, why invent such a weakness? Was it not mightier by far to kill a fearsome and powerful foe without the aid of such a convenient striking point?
That, at least, was Pyrrha's hope, though it was her lesser hope.
Her greater hope was that Penny was correct and the Atlesian airships would take care of it for them.
And let my ancestors weep to hear me think so, Pyrrha thought. For there is more at stake by far than my pride.
"Could…?" Jaune spoke tentatively, and haltingly, as if he very much did not wish to say the words emerging from his mouth like a baby bird making its slow emergence out of a cracking egg. "Could a grimm that size take command of a horde?"
His words crashed amongst them like the wreck of the Dingyuan. They reduced everyone present to a momentary silence.
"Well, thanks, Jaune," Yang said, through gritted teeth. "That's an image I really needed."
"I don't like the idea!" Jaune cried.
"But if it is possible, then we would be fools not to consider it," Pyrrha added.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Yang admitted, in a grumbling tone. "I don't know the answer, though; does anyone?"
Pyrrha did not. Professor Port had not made mention of such a situation; grimm hordes were rare enough, and the question of whether an Apex Alpha could be succeeded after death was even rarer. Generally, the horde would be considered broken, but in this instance, with the grimm still on the field…
They were like embers, embers of a dead fire, but if all the embers were swept together into a pile, might they not ignite once more?
Unless…
"Ruby was right," Pyrrha said.
"I was?" Ruby asked. "About what?"
Pyrrha nodded. "You said, before this dragon arrived, that we should attack and break the grimm before us. That may not be possible now, but if we winnow their numbers now, while they are divided, then we will only help ourselves once — or if — Jaune's fear comes to pass."
More silence, another pause from all concerned.
"You'll get no argument from me," Ruby said. "Seeing as it was my idea."
"Nor me," agreed Yang. "Seeing as we might have to fight them one way or another."
"Why would I object?" asked Nora. "You're speaking my language!"
"I hope Jaune's wrong," Penny said. "And I really want to believe that Atlas will stop that grimm … but it's a good idea, Py-Ruby. We should do what we can."
Jaune didn't say anything, he only gave a brisk nod of his head as he drew his sword once more.
Arslan slammed a fist into the palm of her other hand. "Alright then," she said. "Would someone care to do the honours?"
"'The honours'?" asked Penny.
"Is someone going to shout 'charge'?" Arslan explained, looking at Pyrrha.
Why me? Pyrrha wanted to ask, except that she knew of course why her, at least with so many Haven huntsmen and huntresses present.
If she had wanted it to not be her, then she should have thrown the match to Weiss.
Speaking of which, where was Weiss, anyway? Pyrrha couldn't remember seeing her since Beacon.
Gone with the Atlesians into battle on the other side of the field, most likely.
Pyrrha sighed and raised Miló, in sword form, overhead.
She licked her lips and softly said, "Ruby, will you join me?"
Ruby looked surprised for a second, and it took her another few moments of no response before the slightest smile appeared upon her face.
"Sure," she said, in a voice that was almost as soft as Pyrrha's own had been. "But what shall we say?"
"How about 'huntsmen, attack'?" Yang suggested. "Nice and simple."
Pyrrha and Ruby exchanged a glance.
Pyrrha nodded, sword still raised high.
Ruby nodded too, and swept Crescent Rose back behind her to strike.
"Huntsmen of Vale!" Ruby cried.
"Huntsmen of Mistral!" Pyrrha shouted.
"Attack!" they yelled together, and stormed forward into the battle almost as though they were still friends.
They charged forwards, and their friends joined them: Jaune and Arslan were at Pyrrha's side, and Yang was at Ruby's with Ren and Nora on her right. Penny was just a little behind, providing support with laser and sword from a slight distance. They charged, and soon, they were joined by others too, the huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon and Haven, Mistral, and Vale — although to frame it thus might have given insult to those who attended Beacon or Haven without being from either Mistral or Vale — following them into battle with loud war cries ripping from their throats, swords drawn, guns firing.
They charged into the grimm like lionesses erupting out of the tall grass to take the herd of placid wildebeest by storm. The moonlight glinted off the blade of Crescent Rose, made Crocea Mors shine silver, and caused Miló and Akoúo̱ to gleam like gold as they tore into the grimm, scattering smoke and ashes before them as they cut a swathe through the ranks of the monsters.
Yet, the grimm were not so helpless as the wildebeest would have been when the lionesses burst from hiding to assail them. Though their Apex Alpha was dead, though they were no longer a horde — or not a horde for now, at least — they did not run, did not scatter in flight, but fought back against the huntsmen and huntresses as best they could. But it was an uncoordinated fight, each pack of beowolves or nest of creeps fighting under its own alpha, ursai fighting alone or in small groups. It was as when an army is broken and the soldiers are reduced to making their last stands here and there about the battlefield, so it was with the grimm who fought on singly in their several small groups, none assisting the others, no effort to combine their vast forces, just individual groups, all of them easily cut down.
So it was that the huntsmen and huntresses carved a way forward, and grimm fell before them like ears of corn felled by the sickle of the labouring tenant who toils and sweats upon the fields of their great lord. But the grimm were so numerous, and in their great numbers spread out all across the battlefield, that the huntsmen could not simply press inexorably forward with their great charge; they were too few in number by comparison, they occupied too narrow a front. When the Red Lion had slain the Apex Alpha before Kuchinashi, the army that had swept the leaderless grimm away had been thousands strong, a muster of Mistral's nobility and their sworn households, levied troops, mercenaries from across Anima. Now, Polemarch Yeoh's forces were still out there, somewhere, present but unseen, but they were but a comparative handful of students, fewer than a hundred in total, and they were a dagger rather than a great blade. They could penetrate and inflict real harm, but they could not retake the Green Line, and if they had tried to reach it, they would have swiftly found themselves alone in the midst of grimm on all sides.
Therefore, instead of stabbing deep into the mass of grimm, they made many short but rapid thrusts, their assault ebbing and flowing like the tide. They would attack, slaying many grimm, as many as they were able to, and then they would retreat before they penetrated too deep into the mass of grimm — too deep to get out again. They would retreat, falling back close to where they had started, around the wreckage of the Dingyuan, before attacking again, in a slightly different place and direction, subjecting the grimm to the same treatment they had meted out elsewhere.
In that way, they wreaked a great deal of damage, or at least Pyrrha hoped that they were wreaking a great deal of damage, for she had to admit that it was hard to see a vast difference being made by them. They went forward so many times, struck down so many grimm of so many different types that her arms began to weary of endless cutting and thrusting, despite her aura, but for all that, for all the exertions that she could see on the faces of her friends and companions, they seemed no closer to cutting through the horde.
They had attacked so that they could weaken the grimm if — in case — the dragon that had appeared from the southeast made the efforts of Jaune and Penny and the others meaningless and took command of the horde, but were they doing that? They were killing grimm — that could not be denied — but there always seemed to be so many more left that were they actually making the horde meaningfully weaker? Or were they just weakening themselves, tiring themselves out before the battle had been renewed in earnest?
If I let my thoughts go down that road, then I shall despair. Every grimm we slay is one fewer grimm that will assail us with renewed determination if the dragon assumes command over the horde.
She hoped that it would not come to that, that the dragon would be unable to do so, or that the Atlesians would strike it down with their array of weapons; and yet, as Pyrrha retreated during the ebbs of their advances, as she had a few moments to turn her gaze towards the sky before they went forwards again, she could not help but notice with a sinking sensation that the Atlesians did not appear to be getting any closer to slaying the dragon.
Rather, the dragon itself seemed to be getting closer to the battlefield in spite of the lights of the Atlesian lasers that illuminated the night sky around it, at first far off and then closer as they tried to hold it back. When Pyrrha looked again, after going forwards more than once, cutting down more grimm alongside the others, she saw that the dragon was closer still — and then it was upon the Atlesian lines, and yet more lasers illuminated the night sky as the Atlesian warships, their flanks flashing with red and green lights so that they could be seen by other airships, brought their powerful weapons to bear upon this great new challenger to their supremacy.
And the dragon did not fall.
Pyrrha watched — Pyrrha could not look away from — the battle that, though it was far off, was nevertheless almost as clear as day to her, lit up by the light of the lasers and the explosions of the missiles. So much of what was happening on the other side of the battlefield was hard to make out, little more than the sound of cannons firing and the flaring up of half-concealed explosions, but now, up in the sky, the fighting was vivid and visible.
Vivid and visible and not at all good news, as the dragon absorbed the fire of five or six — Pyrrha counted them, but the way they were arrayed made it hard to be certain of the count — Atlesian cruisers without perishing in the flames, all the while diminishing the number of ships assailing it. Two of them were destroyed, and a third was damaged; at least that was the only conclusion she could draw from the fact that it started crawling away while its fellows tried desperately to protect it. Six cruisers, there must have been six, because there were only three left now; the dragon had destroyed or driven off the rest to become the master of the skies.
Even from this distance, with its sounds muffled by the great gap between there and here, Pyrrha found the dragon's shrieking sound sent shivers down her spine and made her fingers tremble. Its roar was not quite so immediately affecting, but even so, it was a wicked noise, and Pyrrha wished she did not have to hear it.
Judging by the expressions of her friends, she was not alone in that.
"They … they lost?" Penny asked, as the dragon swooped down towards the ground, ignoring the surviving cruisers in favour of … Pyrrha did not know what, she couldn't see; the dragon dropped out of sight as it dropped out of the sky. "But … but how? It-it's just a grimm, how could it … how?"
"Because it's really strong," Ruby declared. "That's all there is to it. It's really, stronger than anyone … expected."
Penny frowned. "Why did you hesitate?"
"Because," Ruby began. She shook her head, "it doesn't really matter, I guess, but there are stories about a monster that lived under one of the mountains to the east, the one called the Dragon's Fang. Only it's supposed to be dead. The stories say that Percy killed it. The versions of the stories that I preferred, anyway."
"Looks like the versions that you didn't like so much might be more on the money," Yang said in an off-hand manner. "I don't suppose the stories say how she killed it?"
"Since we've established that that part is false, I fail to see how that would help," remarked Ren.
Yang paused for a moment. "Good point," she admitted.
Penny clasped her hands together above her heart. “Do you think … what do you think it’s doing now?”
What it was doing now, as its roar echoed faintly across the land towards them, was rising up into the air once more. It ignored the remaining Atlesian cruisers, ignored the airships — they seemed to be preoccupied with something, perhaps the other grimm in the skies — and circled lazily over the battlefield.
Has it done enough harm already? Pyrrha thought. Has it done so much that it feels no need to do any more? Perhaps the notion of a lazy grimm, one that was satisfied with ‘good enough,’ should have brought her some comfort, but it did not. Instead, perhaps because she could not imagine a grimm being satisfied with ‘good enough,’ it made her fearful for the Atlesians, for Blake and Rainbow Dash and all the rest.
Her fears were not alleviated when the dragon descended on the battlefield again, mouth agape to breathe out that weapon, that beam, that destructive power that so resembled a laser down upon the battlefield.
Penny squeaked in alarm, covering her mouth with both hands.
So proud, Pyrrha thought. They were so proud, one might almost call them vain.
Atlas does not have a monopoly on pride, still less on vanity.
Is this grimm a punishment for our hubris?
A punishment from who?
Would that it were a punishment from some heavenly power; at least then, it could be placated. As it is, if Salem has sent this monster, then it wants no punishment but our destruction.
The dragon rose up and once more turned away from the battlefield; this time, however, it did not circle over the Atlesian positions, amongst the wreckage of their air defences, but rather, it flew away, back in the direction that it had come.
And then it turned once more, flying over the abandoned Valish lines, and headed straight for them.
The Atlesian technological might, the new weapons, ingenuity, and prowess of the north, had failed; now, it seemed that it would be the turn of the old Mistralian valour and their warrior ways to stand up to the same punishment.
Pyrrha looked around. Everyone had seen what she had seen, everyone had seen the dragon in the sky — it could hardly be missed — tearing through the ranks of the Atlesian air fleet, destroying great ships like they were toys of a careless child, descending on the ground with worse than fire.
Everyone had seen it, just as they all had seen, and in their faces now, Pyrrha could see the same…
Fear. It was fear that made her tremble, there was no denying it.
There was no purpose in denying it.
Denying it would not banish it.
Saying ‘I am not afraid, I am the Champion of Mistral, and I laugh at death’ would not banish fear from her own heart, and it certainly would not banish fear from the hearts of Arslan or Violet or Neptune or any of the others.
And yet, someone would have to. Someone needed to put courage back into the hearts of the huntsmen and huntresses, or else…
Or else the dragon would fall upon them and devour them while their swords hung from their trembling hands.
Someone…
Someone being…
Pyrrha closed her eyes for a moment.
Arslan had told Penny that all one needed was a knowledge of the classics; Pyrrha had that, if nothing else, so it seemed that they might see if Arslan was right.
It was to Arslan that Pyrrha turned, because she instinctively shied away from a grand speech, delivered as a speech, raising her voice to let it echo out across the field; she feared it would sound false, artificial, the intended effect undercut by the perceived air of self-importance.
But one thing that a knowledge of the classics taught — the same knowledge that Arslan claimed was all that was required — was that there was more than one way to give a speech; the great speeches of the Mistraliad were not delivered out to the world; rather, they were delivered in conversation between two warriors on the field of battle, said battle and the war and the world itself slowing for the delivery of weighty words.
With good fortune, the battle and the grimm would slow their progress for Pyrrha to speak to Arslan — in such a way that others would hear her too.
Certainly, she did not keep quiet, did not lower her voice; rather, her voice was high enough that it carried, even though it was solely at Arslan that she looked, and only to Arslan that she apparently spoke. "Arslan, can you use your semblance on yourself and embolden your own heart?"
Arslan looked up at her. "That would be a fine thing, wouldn't it?" she replied. "But no, it doesn't work like that." She said it with certainty, as though she had tried in the past and found her semblance wanting; Pyrrha, who could not remember a time in all the tournaments in which they had both competed when Arslan had seemed nervous, was left admiring her ability to hide the fact.
But, since you cannot breathe upon yourself, then let me breathe on you, as it were. "That is a pity, that you cannot embolden yourself and then, thus bold, give heart to the rest of us," she said. "But then, perhaps you should take heart rather from the fact that…" Pyrrha was forced to pause for a moment, because it would be as well for her to have thought through why things were not so hopeless before she said 'things aren't so hopeless' and invited demands for an explanation.
That took a few seconds' thought, because on the face of it, there wasn't much to take heart from. The Atlesians had failed, their immensely powerful weaponry, stronger than anything in the arsenal of the huntsmen and huntresses, had failed to bring down the immense and mighty grimm opposed to them. Penny's laser, when it was fully charged, was about as powerful as a single one of the cannons on an Atlesian cruiser — Pyrrha remembered that because she had heard Rainbow Dash boast as much — and thus it was the mightiest weapon that they here possessed. But many laser cannons on several Atlesian cruisers had fired on the dragon, illuminating the darkness with their red beams, and the dragon yet lived.
Lived and roared and came towards them, where it might sweep up the embers of the grimm horde into a blazing inferno.
I am supposed to be devising cause for hope, not reasoning myself into despair.
But we are so few, compared with…
So few…
"Are you going to remind me that ten thousand fates of death surround us, which no man or woman either may escape or avoid?" Arslan asked, a trifle sharply but not unkindly for it.
Pyrrha would have chuckled under different circumstances, but she only shook her head. "No," she replied. "No, indeed. Rather, I would have you put thoughts of death aside and take heart from the fact that things are not so hopeless as they appear. We are few in number, perhaps, compared to the strength of the Atlesians upon the other side of the field, and the size and strength of that grimm — what we can tell of it — makes us seem mere vermin or insects by comparison—"
"I feel better already," Arslan muttered.
"But being few, we have great freedom," Pyrrha told her. "We are not bound to a line, or a tight formation from which we cannot escape, and being so much smaller than our enemy, we may be so much more nimble. When the dragon descends, before it we may scatter like rats — no, that's too big, something smaller—"
"Cockroaches?" Arslan suggested.
"Yes, thank you, like cockroaches," Pyrrha said. "Like filthy cockroaches, we may scurry about the floor and thus evade the lumbering feet that try to step on us."
As someone who had never, to her knowledge, suffered cockroaches in any room of her extremely well-maintained house, Pyrrha hoped that she hadn't so mistaken the behaviour of the creatures as to render her point nonsense.
"That's all very well," Arslan replied. "But cockroaches can't kill the person trying to step on them, no matter how much they run around."
"Cockroaches do not have weapons or semblances," Pyrrha pointed out. She stepped sideways to look around Arslan. "Umber," she called out. "Can you freeze the dragon with your semblance?"
Umber pushed her sunglasses back up her nose a fraction. A smirk crossed her features as she said, "So long as it isn’t wearing its boyfriend's sash like a blindfold, Lady Pyrrha, I see no reason why I should not. So long as it has eyes, it should not be immune to me. Although if my concentration is broken by other grimm coming to the dragon's aid—"
"They won't get near you; you may depend on that and us," vowed Umber's teammate, the mouse faunus with the beret on his head.
"I'm glad to hear it," Pyrrha said. "And while the grimm is frozen, we can kill it."
"How?" asked Yang. "I mean, I'm sure it will be easier than killing it while it's moving, but all the same, Ruby said—"
"Maybe," Penny interjected. "If Jaune were to give Ruby a boost, then she'd be moving with enough force to cut its head off."
Yang folded her arms. "You know, at some point, that trick you're so fond of is going to get old."
"The fox has a hundred tricks, the hedgehog only one," Ren murmured. "But the hedgehog's trick is very good."
"What do you think, Ruby?" asked Penny.
"I think it's a good idea, except that Crescent Rose doesn't have a long enough blade to slice through the dragon's neck in a single stroke," Ruby replied. "It won't get all the way from top to bottom."
Nora shrugged. "If the grimm is frozen stiff, then you can take as long as you want—"
"Not too long, please," Umber interjected. "Keeping people frozen is not entirely effortless on my part."
"Or, after you've made a deep enough cut, maybe I can knock its head off," Nora said. "Or Pyrrha and Jaune can do the rest or … we'll figure it out. The point is, just because you can't kill it in one shot doesn't mean it's not worth trying. I think this is a pretty good plan, and I think we should go for it."
"And I, too," Umber declared. "We'll show those Atlesian dogs that a few brave hearts may do more than all their arms and ships."
Penny looked a little discomfited by Umber's choice of words, but she kept silent as others began to enthusiastically add their approval to the idea.
"We will do as you suggest, Lady Pyrrha," Violet Valeria vowed, half bowing in Pyrrha's direction.
"And Penny also," Pyrrha said, reaching out to put a hand on Penny's shoulder.
Violet ignored that, instead raising her voice to cry out, "Let old Mistral count for something still!"
A loud cheer rose from the throats of the Haven students.
"You guys do know how to make everything about yourselves, don't you?" Yang asked, in a tone that contained both amusement but also the promise of eyeballs rolling in equal measure.
Pyrrha winced. "I'm afraid so," she said softly. She glanced at Penny. "Penny, I … I'm sorry if I, or that I … I hope you don't feel as though I—"
"It's fine," Penny assured her, raising her and placing it gently on top of Pyrrha's. "I mean, this just shows that there are people who would listen to you who wouldn't listen to me. And the important thing right now is that we have an idea for when that thing arrives."
Their eyes were drawn once more towards the dragon, still some distance off but getting closer, its bony skull a white point in the dark sky and aimed straight for them like a missile.
"That is true," Pyrrha murmured. "Nevertheless, if anyone has a better idea, I will not be offended, I promise."
"Nah, I think that'll work," Ruby declared, temporarily folding up Crescent Rose into its carbine configuration so that she could walk closer to them. "Although … some cockroaches do get stepped on, you know that, right? Or didn't you? I don't suppose you have a lot of them in your mansion."
"No, I must admit, I've never seen one in person," Pyrrha confessed.
"Nor have I," Ruby replied. "So I might be wrong too."
"But I suspect you are not," Pyrrha said softly. "But … is there another choice, beyond fleeing immediately?"
Ruby looked up at her, her silver eyes meeting Pyrrha's, almost boring or burning into her. "No," Ruby said, quietly and a trifle slowly. "No, I don't think there is." She snorted. "Thus kindly we scatter."
"Hmm?" Penny asked.
"A quote?" asked Pyrrha.
"I don't actually … never mind," Ruby said quickly. "The point is that this will work, if anything does, and it has to work, for the sake of Vale. After what that dragon did to the Atlesian line, what could it do to the Red Line if it got there? It's like you said, our big advantage is the fact that we're not on a wall or in a line; we're free to move however we like, even — especially — out of that thing's way. As much as we can." She paused and glanced down at Crescent Rose in her small, pale hands. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather be the one getting launched by Jaune? I'm sure the crowd would love it if their Champion of Mistral got a big strike on a big grimm like that."
"Actually, Pyrrha isn't the Champion of Mistral anymore; she's the Vytal Champion now," Penny pointed out.
Ruby didn't quite snort, but her nose did twitch a little as though she might. "Well," she said, "either way."
"I'm more concerned about the crowd," Pyrrha said softly.
A grin flashed across Ruby's face for a second as she jerked in her head in the direction of the Haven students.
Pyrrha arched one eyebrow.
Ruby shrugged, as if to say that she was right no matter how improper or impolitic it might be to say it.
Pyrrha decided to ignore that for now, instead saying, "Crescent Rose cuts deeper than Miló; you may not be able to take the dragon's head, but you can get closer to that goal than I." She hesitated. "Jaune," she said.
Jaune had been lingering upon the edge of their conversation, listening without speaking. Now, he looked at her. "Yeah?"
"When the dragon arrives and the fighting resumes, you should stick close to Ruby," Pyrrha said, with some reluctance that she hoped wasn't too obvious in her voice. "Since you'll be working together when the moment comes, it makes sense. For you to try and find each other amidst the chaos would waste time that we may not have."
Now it was Jaune's turn to look into her eyes, and Pyrrha was certain that he could divine in them that she was not thrilled about this. He reached out for her, and with her hand holding Miló, he closed his fingers instead about her wrist as he said, "That makes sense."
"No," Ruby said. "No, it … okay, yes, it makes sense, but that doesn't mean that we're gonna do it. First of all, Jaune can't keep up with me while I'm using my semblance, so I'll have to slow down for him, which wouldn't be so bad because I get that we're going to be working together for the big strike, but more importantly than that is I don't want to be the one responsible if Jaune is the cockroach that gets stepped on!"
"Huh?" Jaune asked, his voice alarmed.
"No offence," Ruby said.
"No offence?!" Jaune squawked.
"I don't care what you think about me, Pyrrha," Ruby said. "Just like I'm pretty sure you don't care what I think about you. But that doesn't mean that I want to be blamed for Jaune dying, hated for it, or treated like it's my fault because I didn't protect him so you can both stick with me if you want to, and then you can feel as guilty as I will—"
"Will you stop talking about me as though I'm going to die?" Jaune requested.
"I was going to say 'if', not 'when,'" Ruby insisted.
"We'll all stick with you, as best we can," Penny declared. "As though … as though we were a team."
Ruby looked at her. "Okay," she agreed. "Stick with me as best you can, try and keep up and … try and keep up." She turned away from them, taking a few short steps away but not too far. Her red cape, hanging from her shoulders, wafted gently in the night breeze as she looked up at the dragon as it grew gradually larger in the night sky.
Pyrrha felt Jaune squeeze her wrist.
"I suppose I should thank you for having a little more faith in me than Ruby does," Jaune said.
"She didn't make it sound like a question of faith so much as…" Pyrrha trailed off without saying what Ruby had made it sound like. "Would it affect your gratitude if I told you I was happier with her insistence than with my suggestion?"
Jaune managed a very soft chuckle in the circumstances. "No," he said, "You're good." He paused for half a moment. "That wasn't a bad speech back there."
"Hardly a speech," Pyrrha replied. "More of a—"
"Whatever it was," Jaune said. "It worked."
"So it seems," Pyrrha agreed, speaking quietly as she, like Ruby, turned her eyes towards the dragon.
My words worked, but will my plan?
It must, as Ruby said. It must work, for we have little else.
The dragon, it must be conceded, had been quite patient with them; or else it had simply had a fair distance to go to reach them, flying as it did not straight across the battlefield from the Altesian lines but back, out across the field from which the grimm had started their attack and then across it towards them from the front, the direction in which the grimm had attacked before.
Whether it had simply no choice or whether it was not displeased by the fact that the huntsmen and huntresses had time to observe its coming and to dread its arrival, the fact remained that the dragon's arrival had not been immediate. It had given time to its enemies, time to gather their courage, time to think, time to prepare mentally and spiritually, if not in any physical sense, time that would perhaps have been denied to them if the dragon had travelled by a more direct route or flown more swiftly.
Time that, Pyrrha hoped, it would rue granting them in the short time that it had to think about it before it died.
Nevertheless, patient as the dragon might have been or forced to patience by immutable distance, the dragon closed the distance between them. The beats of its wings seemed lazy now, a substantial interval between each beat, but nevertheless, the dragon came on and seemed to be picking up speed as it came.
Its roaring came before it, cutting through the air, devouring the silence, drowning out the sounds of the lesser grimm as the dragon heralded its own coming. Each roar was louder than the last, rang more in the ears of those who heard it.
And it was not only the roaring that came on before but the grimm too; Jaune's fears were confirmed, the grimm of their horde, the grimm that had been rendered leaderless by the death of the Apex Alpha, were now rallied under the new leadership of the dragon. Indeed, that — more than to frighten the huntsmen and huntresses — might have been the point of the roaring, to rally the grimm or place them under its command or simply to give them an order in the language of monsters.
Whatever the case, the dragon roared, and the grimm answered; even as the dragon still winged its way towards them, the grimm of the horde had already returned to the attack, hurling themselves forwards against the students of Beacon and Haven with all the abandon they had displayed before Jaune and Penny and the others had completed their missions. The students were spread out to avoid the dragon, ready to scatter in all directions, but as the other grimm returned to the attack, they began, consciously or otherwise, to bunch together to better fight back against the swarming beowolves and ursai and boarbatusks, the creeps and the stormvermin.
Was that what the dragon had wanted? Had it seen their strategy already, though it was still some distance off, and moved to counter it? Or was it a happy side effect of its natural inclination to order the grimm forwards in advance of itself?
They were very fortunate that the attack was being led by relatively small grimm, with no goliaths or cyclopes having come up yet to take their place anew on the front line; these smaller grimm, even including some of the big ursai, were nothing they could not deal with, and while it would make things a little more difficult, they would not stop the huntsmen moving.
But it made her glad — and no doubt made Arslan even more glad — that they had sent the wounded away. Reese Chloris had found a tractor in a shed that was part of the cluster of farm buildings behind them, and she was not so badly hurt that she couldn't hotwire it and drive it, with the injured students resting in as much comfort as could be found in the circumstances aboard a trailer, pulled by the tractor as it made its noisy, ponderous way down the road towards the Red Line. So long as the huntsmen and huntresses stood firm, the grimm should not overtake them.
They could rely for assistance with the smaller grimm on the Mistralian troops under Polemarch Yeoh. Pyrrha still had no idea where they were — Polemarch Yeoh had really hidden her forces very well — but she could just about hear the sounds of their gunshots over the roaring of the grimm, at least when the dragon was not roaring — and see the grimm falling to the fire on their flanks. So long as it kept up—
The roar of the dragon drowned out all other sounds. The great grimm, sprung from the mountain depths, was almost upon them now, and the sound of its roar rang in their ears, making the very ground on which they stood seem to tremble with the noise of its approach. The huntsmen and huntresses scattered left and right, east and west, cutting or gunning down grimm frantically in their efforts to keep moving. Pyrrha, Jaune, Penny, and Ruby, they were all on the move, with Pyrrha leading and Penny bringing up the rear and Ruby and Jaune, the two who were necessary for the second stage of the plan, in between the two. Crescent Rose roared from behind Pyrrha as she cut a swathe through the ranks of the grimm, tracing an indirect route through their black masses that would, she hoped, confuse the dragon and prevent it from predicting their path. It was like a puzzle, one of those puzzles for young children to follow a line through a mass of squiggles that looped and doubled back and intermingled to an end point on the other side. Pyrrha wasn't sure of the endpoint yet, but she could double back and loop around and everything else that made those puzzles hard for a young girl to follow very well as she carved a winding path through the grimm that sought to stay them. Penny's blades of Floating Array warded their rear, and Ruby's gun and Jaune's sword guarded her flanks, and they did not stop moving, not for anything.
Neither did the dragon. It roared, and it seemed that it would descend upon the huntsmen and huntresses, but at the last moment, it changed direction somewhat, turning away from the students fighting beneath it, heading away from them towards … what? Pyrrha could not say. Towards Vale, back towards the Atlesians, where was it—?
The dragon opened its mouth, and as it roared, that yellow beam that they had seen from afar erupted from its mouth. It was an even more terrible sight, far more terrible when seen up close than at a great distance. Its brightness made Pyrrha look away and shield her eyes with Akoúo̱, its heat spread out across the battlefield and passed over Pyrrha's skin, and the dragon did not even cease to roar as it unleashed so much power on…
On the Mistralian troops.
The fire from the flanks had diminished; on one side, it had almost stopped completely; the soldiers who had been hidden from Pyrrha's eyes had not escaped the dragon's senses, either its sight or its ability to sense the fear it spread in men's hearts, whatever the answer, it had found them, and it had descended on them, and the fire that had poured upon the grimm was in a single stroke almost gone.
The dragon's roar stopped as it wheeled in the air away from the scene of destruction, the smouldering fires along the ground, the copse of trees replaced in an instant with blackened stumps, the ditches destroyed by new carvings through the earth. The dragon turned away, and as its roar faded, the air was filled with screaming as men and women burst from their remaining hiding places, throwing aside their camouflage webbing, pursued by juvenile young grimm.
Young grimm sprung from the pools of black ichor that dropped like rain from the black cloud that was the dragon's belly and its neck; they fell upon the ground, then out of them rose yet more grimm to trouble them.
They had fallen amongst what had been the hiding places of the soldiers before the dragon's breath swept through them, and now, they pursued those soldiers that had survived.
Pyrrha charged to their aid, cutting through the grimm that got in their way and then tearing into the unprotected young grimm, drawing their attention away from the last surviving soldiers, cutting through unprotected black flesh as the troops escaped.
"Polemarch Yeoh?" Pyrrha called out as frightened soldiers fled past her and her friends. "Polemarch Yeoh?"
There was no answer but the dragon's roar as it repeated the trick on the other side of the battlefield, its mouth opening and its deadly breath sweeping across a seemingly empty expanse that nonetheless no doubt had also had soldiers concealed within it.
How much of Polemarch Yeoh's command, that had escaped unscathed from the fighting until now, had been destroyed in mere instants? Was Polemarch Yeoh herself among the slain?
The dragon circled over the battlefield, looking down upon the huntsmen and huntresses who scurried about beneath it like … like cockroaches, as Pyrrha had said, and with as much disdain as the irate householder shows for the infestation did the dragon look down upon them.
Now, Umber, Pyrrha thought. Now. Show this creature that we are not helpless.
But before Umber could use her semblance on the dragon — if she could have, from where she was and where it was — the immense grimm opened its mouth not to roar, not to let out another burning, bright yellow breath, but to shriek the shriek that, when heard far off, had set Pyrrha's teeth on edge and sent a shiver down her spine.
Now, up close, ringing in her ears from this short distance, it did far worse.
It chilled Pyrrha to the bone. It sent a charge through every nerve and fibre of her body. It rang like a great tolling bell within her mind, echoing back and forth within her and filling her head with such terrible thoughts … It was like Mountain Glenn all over again, it was like when they had confronted Salem, when she had played with them, ensorcelled them, when her words had been her swords to conjure visions that undid their courage. Just as Salem's words then, so too the awful shrieking of the dragon now.
Pyrrha dropped to her knees, the grimm around her seeming to almost disappear from view. Akoúo̱ tumbled from her grasp to land on the grass beside her; she barely retained her grip on Miló. Where … why did she half see Mistral before her eyes? Was she in the fields before Vale's walls, or was she back home, watching that home wreathed in flame, smoke rising from every part of the slopes? Jaune, Jaune lay before her, Jaune with his back bloody and rent with wounds, Jaune's bones visible sticking up through torn skin and shredded garments—
Oh Gods, take it away! Take it from my eyes and let me see it nevermore. Or, if you will not, take instead my eyes that I may never see such sights again, but do not let such horror linger in my gaze!
Forbid it.
Have mercy.
Spare me.
Spare him.
There was no sparing, no mercy, no one stepping in to forbid the sight; there was only Jaune in her mind's eye, lying before her, half dead or more than half, the victim of such savagery that it made Pyrrha want to wretch and vomit 'til her guts were raw. He reached for her with one feeble, frail, and trembling hand; his eyes — what she could see of his eyes, for one was covered in blood that had streamed down his face — were fixed on hers, imploring her to save him, accusing her of having failed to protect him.
He mouthed her name, though the word itself did not come from his silent lips.
Tears welled up in Pyrrha's eyes and began to fall down her cheeks.
Pyrrha knelt upon the ground, weeping, trembling, visions of horror dancing before her eyes. Sunset looked back at her with lifeless eyes; Soteria had been driven through her chest, and her arms were spread out on either side of her as though she had been welcoming the end when it came, but her mouth hung open with surprise, like a flopping fish, and gave the lie to any sense of welcome. Pyrrha's mother was curled up in a ball on the ground, like a babe, huddled for warmth, comfort, or an illusory sense of safety. Penny's cries were childlike as she was torn to pieces, sparks and bolts flying as her limbs were ripped asunder. Arslan lay like the Red Lion in the famous painting, surrounded by grimm who would not decompose, dead amongst her fallen enemies, but quite dead all the same, the wounds upon her chest and face attesting to it with so much blood that only her messy mane cried out that it was Arslan.
And from the burning streets, the piteous cry went up, demanding to know why their champion, their princess, the repository of all their pride and hopes had not saved them from this fate.
Because she could not save them. Because the shrieking of the grimm had stolen all her courage and her heart away.
Pyrrha knelt upon the ground with weighted limbs, still, rigid, held down by fear, and all around her, the valour of old Mistral withered, and the heroism of Beacon turned to ash in the flame of the dragon's shrieking.
The grimm fell back but slightly as the dragon landed, its wings beating heavily. It was still shrieking as it crushed Bolin Hori underfoot. The dragon surveyed the field as master of it. Pyrrha had sunk to her knees, while Jaune had thrown himself onto both hands and knees, crying out in horror as he shook and swayed and pounded at the earth with his fists as though he had seized with lycanthropia; Penny hugged herself while the swords of Floating Array lay limp upon their wires behind her; Ren was fled in terror, and Nora ran after him, crying his name; Yang was frozen, mouth open, eyes dead and lifeless; Arslan had fallen backwards and now scrambled back, hands scratching at the dirt, feet kicking at the grass, seemingly unable to get up.
Some fled. Others trembled. All were rendered harmless, none fired or attacked with sword or spear, none were capable of fight, all were undone by the vile shrieking of the dragon.
All save one.
Ruby alone stood her ground before it. She, too, trembled, just as so many others did; tears streamed down her face in vigorous rivers. Her breathing came heavily, her chest rising and falling. But she stood up, however much her lithe and frail-seeming form might shake like a sycamore tree buffeted by strong winds, yet she stood up, with Crescent Rose gripped tight in her trembling hands.
The dragon was still shrieking, the dread sound still coming out of its mouth, as it lowered its head to stare at her with baleful red eyes.
Ruby answered the dragon's shriek with a shriek of her own, a piercing cry torn from her throat that somehow managed to rise above the dragon's shriek to reach Pyrrha's ears.
Ruby shrieked, and she charged forwards, Crescent Rose drawn back, rose petals falling after her like drops of blood to stain the ground behind her.
Ruby charged, swinging her scythe as far as it could go; the dragon raised its head, the shriek dying from its throat, replaced by a mumbled noise of confusion; the dragon raised its head and its long neck up out of the Ruby's scythe as she rushed on, as undaunted as she was unboosted by Jaune's semblance, and instead of the neck, she slashed with Crescent Rose at the dragon's leg. She buried the blade of her scythe in the black of the dragon's flesh, but the dragon gave no roar of pain, no howl of outrage; it only snapped at Ruby, trying to close its enormous jaws around her.
Ruby darted away, leaving more rosepetals after her, some of them even landing on the dragon's bony head as its jaw snapped shut, to mingle with the real blood that stained the bleached white bone.
Not Ruby's blood. Not hers, not yet.
Ruby danced away, and as she danced, she twirled, her cloak a-flutter 'round her and slashed at the dragon's hamstring, or where that would have been if it had such. Again, the dragon made no noise of response; it only acted, starting to turn its bulky form around to keep Ruby in front of it instead of behind.
But Ruby was too swift; she was much too swift, and swifter still because of her semblance. The dragon might be swift in the air, it might even be nimble on the wing, but here upon the ground, it was a lumbering behemoth of a thing, trailing behind Ruby as it tried to keep up with her. Meanwhile, Ruby struck again and again, an increasing number of steps ahead as Crescent Rose lashed out here, there.
It wasn't clear how much harm she was doing to the dragon, but it was rather magnificent to watch nonetheless: the way she danced around it; the way the rosepetals fell behind her, swirled around her, the way they marked the pattern of her movements along the ground; the way Crescent Rose blurred into a red ring as she spun it around her hands; the almost idle fashion in which Ruby cut down the juvenile grimm that sprung from the puddles of ichor that dripped from the dragon without ever seeming to divert her attention from the dragon itself; the swift elegance of the huntress contrasted with the sluggish, ungainly totterings of the grimm that was too slow to—
The dragon's tail, tipped with three finger-like claws, whipped out with a speed unlike anything the dragon had displayed before to wrap around Ruby's waist.
The dragon laughed, a dreadful, cacophonous sound, as it lifted Ruby up into the air towards its face. She struggled in its grip but could not break it.
Miló flew through the air as Pyrrha threw it from her hand; the spear buried itself in the dragon's tail as Pyrrha rose from her knees and charged towards the dragon. Ruby's example had put courage in her; if Ruby could fight on despite whatever it was the dragon's shriek had filled her mind with, then so could Pyrrha. Certainly, she couldn’t simply stay kneeling on the ground and watch Ruby die by jaws or by the crushing tail or by the dragon's brutal breath.
Miló buried itself in the dragon's tail, just before the tip where it held Ruby; it did not cause the dragon to relinquish its grip upon her, but it did cause the dragon to swing its immense head, larger than a Bullhead, in Pyrrha's direction.
"No!" Ruby shouted. "Pyrrha, get away!"
Pyrrha ignored her — as she had more often than not ignored Ruby, that had been a large root of many noxious flowers that had grown between them, but in this specific case, she felt herself more justified than she had perhaps been in the past; she flung out her hand, a black outline of Polarity surrounding it as she grasped for a large chunk of the wreckage of the Zhenshou, a lagged hunk of battleship armour plating. Pyrrha tore it from where it stood upright in the ground, and with her semblance, she hurled it through the air, slicing an ursa major in half as it went, towards the dragon.
She had hoped to, if not slice the dragon's head off with it, then at the very least to put a nasty cut on its neck equal to the brutal scar that marred the dragon's side; but as the slice of metal with so many sharp edges flew towards it, the dragon turned its head with a speed it had never displayed when chasing Ruby — that was beginning to look like holding back for its own amusement — and chomped down its massive jaws upon the armour plate.
The metal crumpled, rising in some places and falling in others around the dragon's mouth where the grimm bit into the plate.
The grimm made no sound as it shook its head and threw the metal back at Pyrrha. Pyrrha leapt up, tucking her legs up beneath her, her whole body rolling, just managing to avoid the immense metal slab that flew beneath; it disturbed her sash with its passage, but it did not strike her, nor take any of her aura.
It did leave her in mid-leap, legs tucked up beneath her, whole body caught in a sort of roll as the dragon stretched out its neck and opened its mouth to swallow her.
The swords of Floating Array slammed into the dragon's neck just behind the armoured head. The wires were stretched taut as Penny hauled back on swords and on what the swords had struck alike.
For a moment only, she held the dragon fast, but a moment was all that Pyrrha needed to land safely on the ground and summon Miló back into her hand.
The dragon flicked its head, a sharp movement that would have pulled Penny off her feet if Penny hadn't withdrawn her swords a fraction of a second earlier. The dragon swiped its tail in Pyrrha's direction, but Pyrrha vaulted over it, stabbing quickly and lightly down into the tail with Miló before throwing Akoúo̱ into the head of a beowolf rising from a pool of ichor, killing it instantly.
A growl of irritation rose from the dragon's throat — and then stopped, abruptly, sound snatched away. The dragon froze, head turned towards Penny, mouth half open, Ruby still gripped in its tail, but nothing — not head, or tail, or wings, or feet — moving at all. The only movement from the dragon came from the black droplets that continued to drip, drip, drip like a leaky tap down onto the ground beneath it.
Umber Gorgoneion stalked forwards. Her sunglasses were off, held loosely in one hand; the flaps of her leather jack rose and fell somewhat with her steps. She kept her eyes fixed upon the dragon, staring right into its smouldering left eye.
"I can feel its resistance," she muttered. "I've never restrained something this big before." She raised her voice a little. "Any time you would like to kill it would be agreeable."
Their plan had been for Ruby to kill it, and Ruby remained held fast in the grip of the dragon's immobilised tail.
"Pyrrha, try and free Ruby," Penny ordered. "I'll do what I can." She began the swords of Floating Array around and around in a circle, the whirling ring of blades held perpendicular to her so that they formed a sort of saw, a saw which she aimed at the dragon's neck and began to move upwards through the air towards it.
Pyrrha did not have time to watch Penny work, though she hoped that for anyone with that luxury it would be an enjoyable performance. For her part, she leapt up onto the dragon's tail and scrambled up it where it curved skywards, using the little protrusions of bone for handholds and footholds, until she had reached where Ruby squirmed and wriggled in the grip of its claws.
"Ruby," Pyrrha said mildly, wrapping her legs around the dragon's tail and gripping with her knees so that he didn't fall as she grasped one of the three claws with both hands and tried to pull it away.
It didn't budge.
Ruby huffed and pushed against the claw herself. "You shouldn't have done that. Charged it the way you did."
"Should I have let you die?" Pyrrha asked. "Don't answer that."
Ruby grunted with the futile effort of pushing at the dragon's claw. "I don't want Jaune to hate me for your death any more than I want you to blame me for his," she said. "I don't want to live with that on my conscience the way that … I don't want to live with that."
Pyrrha pulled, gripping even tighter with her knees in the hope that if she only held on better, then she would have more leverage. It didn't work; the claw didn't move, not a single inch or less. "I'm sure that Jaune wouldn't…" She paused. Pyrrha swallowed. "Ruby, do you think that if I'd been more honest with you, then things would have turned out better between us?"
Perhaps if I had told you ‘No, I disagree, and I’m afraid you cannot convince me otherwise,’ then you might not have liked the answer, but you would have had no grounds to feel condescended to.
Pyrrha felt that perhaps the question of whether it was the condescension or the disagreement that had driven Ruby away was like asking whether it was the blade or the blood loss that killed Juturna, but at the very least, she thought it would have prevented some ill feeling.
You might still have wanted to leave, but perhaps under less of a stormy sky.
Ruby hesitated. "I think a little more honesty would have been better for everyone, yeah."
"Then don't be ridiculous, Ruby. The only way Jaune would blame you for my passing is if you shot me yourself."
Ruby let out a strangled laugh. "That’s a little hard to do right now."
Pyrrha didn't respond to that. She was pulling on the claw that would not move. It was as solid as steel; worse, because with steel, Pyrrha could have used her semblance on it; this claw was … it was frozen solid.
Like the dragon, thanks to Umber's semblance.
Yang, Pyrrha recalled, had been similarly frozen, utterly rigid; Umber had been able to hoist Yang up by the neck and throw her out of the ring, but even when was picked up, Yang had remained stuck in the same posture in which she had been frozen.
Just like the dragon had been frozen, with its claws wrapped around Ruby.
But there has to be a way to get her out of here.
The grimm roared and howled as they came to the rescue of the embattled dragon, closing in from all sides as they fought to not lose their second leader of this one battle.
They were met by the huntsmen of Beacon and Haven, who once had scattered like cockroaches but now converged upon the dragon even as the grimm were doing, surrounding it with a ring of swords and guns to hold the grimm at bay, while others fought to despatch the juvenile that arose from the ichor that the dragon dripped upon the grass.
Some beowolves broke through, joining newborn beowolves around the dragon's tail, trying to climb up. Jaune attacked them, Crocea Mors raised high as he slashed down to cut the head off a juvenile beowolf and stabbed another squarely through the chest.
Well done, Jaune!
An older beowolf, one with some white armour on its black body, slashed at him with a paw, but Jaune took the blow upon his shield, turning the stroke and slashing down to slice the beowolf's arm clean off.
Another juvenile rose behind him out of a fast-disappearing pool of oily darkness.
"Jaune!" Pyrrha cried. "Behind you!"
Jaune turned, too late; the beowolf had already leapt upon his back, dark claws scrabbling up and down his body, mouth closing around his neck. Jaune cried out as he flailed wildly, and the other beowolves closed in.
"Go!" Ruby yelled.
Pyrrha went, letting go with her legs and dropping rapidly down from the dragon's tail. She flung Akoúo̱ towards the closest beowolf not on top of Jaune himself, then like a descending thunderbolt, she drove the tip of Miló through the juvenile beowolf's head without touching Jaune or his aura.
She tore through the remaining beowolves in short order, red sash whirling and gold armour gleaming, striking them down each with a single blow.
"Try and get up and help Ruby," she said to Jaune. "I'll stay here in case any more grimm get through. How's it going, Penny?"
"Um, it's a little hard to say," Penny admitted.
A quick glance from Pyrrha confirmed that it was as hard to see as it was to say: Penny's whirling blades were flying into the dragon's neck, but they did not seem to be cutting very deep; when or if she would sever its head was an open question.
They needed to free Ruby, if that was at all possible while the dragon remained frozen by Umber.
"I'll get her out," Yang said, falling back from the fighting, backing towards the grimm's tail. "I'm probably stronger than you are, no offence."
"None taken."
"Hang on, Ruby, I'll be right there," Yang said, and she fired her gauntlets down at the ground to launch herself up without the need to climb the tail as Pyrrha had done. Once she got up there, she held herself by the arm, not the legs, wrapping one hand around the tail while using the other to pull at one of its claws.
Her bicep bulged, but she seemed to be having no better luck than Pyrrha had enjoyed.
The grimm continued to push forwards, trying to break through the huntsmen and huntresses to reach the dragon, and even frozen, the dragon continued to disgorge new grimm — did it never stop sweating? — to attack the students from behind. There was soon more than enough to occupy Pyrrha and Jaune without being able to keep watch on Ruby and Yang.
The grimm pressed most fiercely against Umber Gorgoneion; were they intelligent enough to realise, to be able to work out, that she was the one responsible for the dragon's condition, and that if they could bring her down, then their champion would be free once more? It seemed strange to even contemplate it, but it was the only explanation for why they centred their assault upon her. Her teammates did their best to defend her: her mouse faunus teammate slashed at the grimm with a fencing sabre, and at one point seemed to disappear completely before reappearing, or regrowing to full size, underneath an ursa, impaling it through its belly from below; another mouse faunus, a girl this time, laid about her with a rope with a knot at one end, cracking the skulls of stormvermin despite the slightness of the weapon; her last teammate, a bird faunus with wings spreading out behind him, fought with both a spear and a golden sword. They all fought bravely and with skill to keep Umber safe and undisturbed while she pinned down the dragon, but the grimm were so numerous that a beowolf slipped past and slammed into Umber from the side, bearing her to the ground.
The dragon roared to life once more, thrusting its head up towards the sky and bellowing out its freedom to the battlefield.
Then it turned its gaze on Ruby and Yang.
Ruby was still caught within the claws of the dragon’s tail; Yang was still holding onto that tail with one hand, trying to pull Ruby free with the other to no avail.
She was still trying even as she looked anxiously towards the dragon as it glared at them.
Pyrrha turned away from the battle and began to slash furiously at the dragon’s tail, trying to cut it off, or at least make the grimm drop Ruby. Jaune joined her, his sword-arm glowing as he used his semblance to strengthen himself.
The dragon swished its tail, knocking Jaune off his feet and onto the ground; Pyrrha just about managed to leap over the swiping tail, but only just — with so little notice, she didn’t quite make the jump, the toe of one foot caught a jutting spur of bone, and she, too, was sent flying. Pyrrha thrust out her arms and rolled on landing, turning on her toes to face the dragon once more.
Turning in time to see the dragon flick its tail furiously upwards, throwing Ruby and Yang up into the air.
It lunged for them both, jaws open.
Ruby had dropped Crescent Rose when she was first grabbed, but Yang still had her Ember Celica attached to both wrists, and she fired them both, not at the dragon but backwards behind her, blasting her through the air towards her sister.
The dragon’s mouth came swiftly on.
Pyrrha transformed Miló into rifle mode and fired every shot in the magazine, but she might as well have been whistling for all the notice that the dragon took.
Yang reached Ruby where she flailed in the air, reaching out with one hand to bat her away as though she were the ball in a volleyball match.
There was a flickering black and red light within the dragon’s mouth as it began to close.
Yang fired her Ember Celica once again, pushing herself onwards, and—
The dragon’s jaws slammed shut.
The dragon’s jaws slammed shut, enclosing Yang within the monster’s mouth.
The dragon’s jaws slammed shut on Yang.
And Yang was gone.
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Holy wow. This is gonna mess her up good. Good. Ruby needs a big shake-up. Especially if it makes her realise this is the exact sort of meaningless loss that Sunset tried to prevent when she pulled the trigger on the Breach. It's all well and good to judgingly say, "She's a huntress; she knew what she was getting into," until you actually face that sort of loss yourself...
Ohh fuckkkkkk, YANG, NOOOOOO!!!!!!
And so the Beacon and Haven students now have seen the Dragon’s power and fury first hand; and paid a price for trying to oppose it.
I loved how fucking big and imposing the Dragon felt, and how Ruby fought through her fears to try and kill it, motivating the rest of the Hunters and Huntresses, only to fail in the end. I am surprised at how different Yang’s death felt here; so sudden, so hopeless, and this version is so much raw than the last, principally because of the fact that Yang died to save Ruby. It seems like Ruby’s penance began in the worst way possible.
I wonder how they will fight through the Horde and the Dragon even though they are so near to total defeat. I have a feeling it may have something to do with the OG’s solution with the Horde, so I’m excited to see what will happen next!
RIP Yang, you’ll be missed, more than you’ll ever know.
If I had to guess... it seems like the key difference between the Dragon and lesser Grimm is that the Dragon can actively use magic. It's shriek is akin to Salem's usage of magic to fuck with people's minds directly... which, unless Salem happens to have spent a long amount of time working out which kind of pitch and tone you exactly need to produce so it can make the human brain completely shit itself in fear (Which, in fairness, she might have done. When you're immortal and all that...)
And Yang does what any good
motherolder sibling would do under the circumstances.I’m sure that Raven opened a portal inside for Yang’s one “Get Out of Death Free” card, but she will not return Yang to her family.
I wonder what Ruby saw in the vision that made her react in such a way. Nevertheless, I had said several times that whatever gives Ruby her much-needed wake-up call would be tragic for all of us. And it has come to pass. There is no vindication to feel in the wake of such sorrow and loss.
See whats unfortunate here is I think Ruby was on the cusp of realizing that maybe she would have done something similar to Sunset and the train if circumstances were right. Ruby instead just wants to push everyone away and fight alone under her rules so the only one who dies is herself thus avoiding having to ever be in Sunsets position.
Also imagine if Sunset were to pop in, one shot the dragon and go, "That was scary, glad I got here in time though!"
-edit Ren here proving he's the only one with brains by running away. He better not give Sunset any shit about her choice in Mountain Glenn about this.
Question, is Yang DEAD dead or "dead"? I remember, or I think, she "died" before the dragon appeared in the original, I think she was surrounded by Grimm. Either way, nice way for her to die, not really but you get what I mean, it'll make hard to believe that she survived that shit (I mean she got swallowed alive, AOT style). Can't wait for you to explain that mess.
The power to instill fear in others... Well, not to make light of everyone's situation but this was the kind of thing Sunset experienced after Mountain Glenn without the Grimm. Couple the fact that Ruby's about to be hit with the reality that her sister is gone (for now) with the wave of fear everyone experienced, and I'd say everyone experienced a dose of what Sunset always fears and feels after the Breach (Thorn Hubert's semblence hitting Sunset hard proved she was still affected by Mountain Glenn). And with Yang gone now, despair will really sink in... just in time for the calvary to arrive.
Now, my question is...
How the heck is Raven gonna pull Yang outta this one? I mean, in the original, she was surrounded by Grimm. Here, She just got chomped by a big one. What, is Raven gonna open a portal insude the dragon (without even bothering to kill it)?
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When you think about it, Ruby is going to be hit especially hard over Yang’s death.
As she expresses in this chapter, she’s happy to risk her own life, but not the lives of others. Even the lives of other Huntsman whom are “expected” to die, and certainly not on her conscience as she said here.
But Yang died because Ruby charged ahead blindly on her own, screaming like a maniac. And so Yang had to chase after her.
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And yet, despite the onus of Yang's death really being on Ruby for rushing in and causing Yang to push her out of the way, because of Ruby's grudge and unresolved attitude towards Sunset, Ruby's going to blame Sunset for Yang's supposed death
Seriously, in the original, it took until the end of the Freeport arc for Ruby to resolve her issues with Sunset, and even after that, she was still emotionally blackmailing Sunset just before the original stopped.
It'll be interesting to see if this timeline has Yang stay dead compared to the ex machina we had before of Raven. It's possible, but with the timing of different things and the situational difference... It's a lot more unbelievable.
Interested to know if Penny does get her dragonslayer moment, though. Maybe using the hole in the dragon caused by the ship's ram? Boosted by Jaune and thrown by Pyrrha for some excellent teamwork?