A Note on a Lyre (New)
A Note on a Lyre
The mood among the senior officers had barely begun, and yet already, with few words exchanged, there was noticeable lack of the optimism that had characterised their last discussion, before the appearance of the dragon.
Understandable, in the circumstances.
Colonel Palmer was dead. He had died on the Ardent, killed along with the entire ship’s company. Damn shame.
Every soldier lost tonight is a damn shame. Every single one.
With his death, command of the Third Squadron had passed to Major Aegean Pulleine, of the infantry element. Colonel Harper and Colonel Buller were both still living, thank the gods, and remained in command of their respective units.
“Report,” Ironwood said.
“The grimm have renewed their advance and pushed us back from our initial defensive positions,” Major Pulleine began, his voice was a little scratchy, mature, the voice of a somewhat old major, someone whose faunus nature had possibly held him back from promotion. “Some units are conducting a fighting retreat, others are … in retreat. I’ve ordered the colours brought forward to try and rally the troops and form a new line.”
“You’ll lose the standards if you bring them forward,” Colonel Harper declared bluntly. “General, I’ve ordered mine to the rear, in the care of two huntresses, Lulamoon and Silverband.”
“I see,” Ironwood said, without comment.
Colonel Harper had made what she believed to be the best decision in the circumstances, and as he wasn’t there and was reliant upon his officers to tell him what was going on right in front of them, he wasn’t about to contradict her on such a minor question. Yes, if the battle had been going better, then he might have made some comment on the message sent by sending the colours to the rear to prevent their loss, but as anyone with a pair of eyes could see that the battle had taken a turn for the worse, he wasn’t about to tell Harper that she’d made the wrong decision.
Mind you, he wasn’t about to criticise Pulleine either. Attempting to rally on the colours was a risk to the standards, but it might also work, and if the battle was turned around because of it, no one would care that he had put the colours at risk.
Having said all of that, he couldn’t deny that Harper had made good choices on who to entrust the colours to. Lulamoon and Silverband; they would keep them safe, if anyone could.
“Can I take it, Harper, that you don’t think the situation can be salvaged?” he asked.
“Sir, the grimm have breached the line in two places; I’ve had to order a withdrawal off the ramparts to avoid elements being surrounded; the grimm are too close, the ground is too poor, and we no longer enjoy air superiority,” Harper declared. “The Green Line is lost, and to be frank, I’m not sure how much longer I can protect Buller’s flank.”
“In which case, I will be attacked on both flanks, sir,” Buller said. “We’re still holding our ground to the front, for now — it helps that we still have all of our cruisers intact — but the grimm are starting to come out of the Emerald Forest, just as you feared they would.”
“I see,” Ironwood said. “In what strength?”
“I’ve had to move a second platoon to reinforce the first against them,” Buller replied.
“Right,” Ironwood replied. “Cunningham, what’s the position of the dragon?” He wanted his command officers to be able to hear the response.
“It’s circling over Wre-Wrec… over the large hill a few miles in front of the Green Line, sir,” Cunningham replied. “It looks like it’s headed for the right flank, going for the Beacon and Haven students.”
And Penny. Ironwood’s jaw tightened for a moment. “And Schnee, what’s the status of the Zhenyuan?”
“Colonel Sky Beak has ordered the ship to take up position over the great gate and hold there,” Winter answered him. “I didn’t think it was my place to contradict those orders after the immediate crisis was resolved.”
“No, that’s fine,” Ironwood said.
The Zhenyuan wasn’t his ship, after all, and Winter could hardly claim to have taken it when the entire fiction of this night was that any conflict between the Valish and the Atlesian had been the result of a madness temporarily experienced by General Blackthorn.
Besides, considering what had happened to his own ships, it was doubtful that the old battleship would have been able to stand against the dragon in any event.
His grip on his own hands, clasped behind his back, became firmer, so firm that it was almost painful for his remaining organic hand.
A look at the displays in front of him made for a more disturbing sight than had earlier confronted him, the white Atlesian lines pierced by bulges of black, the line itself no longer a line and more of a scattering of points, some of them in grave danger of being cut off.
Harper was right, the grimm were too close; they couldn’t reform under these circumstances.
The ground was not good, unfortunately; if the Green Line was lost, then there wasn’t a convenient position to reestablish the defences anywhere between there and the walls of Vale itself. The people who had founded Vale, while they had situated it well from the perspective of being on a peninsula, secured by the sea on three sides — and that by a sea too shallow for large aquatic grimm — had failed when it came to finding a place with natural defences on the landward side. The ground was too flat, nothing but fields and the occasional hamlet until you reached the outer limits of the city, and the urban environment would favour the grimm as it broke up the Atlesian formation.
There was nothing for it but to fall back all the way to the walls, give up the surroundings and the outer districts, and make their stand on the Red Line.
A shot rang out over the comm.
“Report!” Ironwood demanded.
“Sorry, sir,” Harper said. “But the grimm are getting pretty close.”
“Understood.” Ironwood said. He took a breath. “All units are to conduct a staggered retreat by platoons to the Beacon Road, at or by which point, all three battalions will present a single line facing the enemy.”
A staggered retreat was one of the more superficially simple manoeuvres in the drill manual: half the platoon would fall back one hundred yards, covered by fire from the other half of the platoon, then halt and provide covering fire to the troops behind them who would then fall back past the new firing line, halt and so on, the two halves of the unit leapfrogging backwards, covering one another as they went. Simple to order, a little harder to pull off in battle, it was easy for any retreat to turn into a rout in the wrong circumstances.
But if any troops could pull it off, even under wretched circumstances, his could.
As for the Beacon Road, which — as the name suggested — was the road leading up to the school, there was nothing particularly defensible about it, but it was a major landmark, a reasonable distance away from the grimm, and a point that all units would have to pass as they retreated. There was no point stipulating a point that some companies would miss or misidentify.
“Once the three battalions have formed a line,” he went on, “all units will continue to retreat to Vale’s Red Line, where you will join the Valish in defending the city walls. I’ll coordinate your dispositions with Colonel Sky Beak. I’m sure some of you would prefer to evacuate by air, but I want you to continue bleeding the grimm for as long as possible. Make them pay for every step. The more we can weaken them before they reach the Red Line, the better for Vale.”
“Understood, sir,” replied Harper.
Of course, withdrawing past the Beacon Road would mean exposing said road to the grimm, along with a way for them to launch another attack on Beacon. An attack that would succeed, since Beacon had only Ozpin left to defend it. That was … less than ideal.
But, if Ironwood was right about the intentions of the grimm, then they weren’t actually interested in the school, only in keeping people away from it.
And we will certainly be kept away once the grimm have cut the road.
Oz, it will be up to you.
He would have to make sure Oz knew that. Maybe he could risk the Skyrays and send some reinforcements to support him, some of the Beacon students, if Oz wished, or … he would have to let the old man know; he couldn’t just leave him on his own without a word.
As for the Beacon students, and the Haven students, and the Mistralians…
“Schnee,” Ironwood said. “Extract your squad from the Zhenyuan and head for the Mistralian position, find Polemarch Yeoh, and make sure she knows that our line is breached and our units are falling back; she should do the same. And pass the order to Ebi’s team to reinforce the Fourth Battalion in the centre of the line.”
“Yes, sir,” Schnee replied.
“What if we can hold them on the Beacon Road, sir?” asked Buller.
“I don’t think that’s likely, Colonel,” Ironwood replied. “If you reach the road and find that the grimm attack can be repulsed, then inform me immediately, but if not, then my orders stand.”
“Understood, sir,” Buller replied.
“What if the dragon comes back, sir?” asked Harper.
“Then I hope that Captain Ebi and his team will have better luck in dealing with it than our ships,” Ironwood said. “It’s not a good answer, Harper, I’m aware, but it’s the best I have for you at this time.”
There was a moment of silence, broken by the sound of another gunshot. “Very well, sir. Thank you for your candour.”
“Tell the troops,” Ironwood said. “Tell the troops that we aren’t beaten yet. So long as we protect the walls of Vale, that is a victory.”
“And … can we protect the walls of Vale, sir?” asked Pulleine.
“Yes!” Ironwood declared. “Our ships may not have been sufficient, but our huntsmen haven’t been tested yet, and I don’t believe that they’ll let us down; I know they won’t. Tell the troops to put their faith in the Specialists; they won’t let them down. That’s all, good luck and gods go with you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pulleine.
“Acknowledged, sir,” answered Harper.
“Thank you, sir,” said Buller.
“Ironwood out,” Ironwood said, before he drew in a deep breath.
He glanced around the bridge. Nobody spoke, but the atmosphere was tense. Tense and a little brittle. The sudden appearance of the dragon, its dismantling of the cruiser battleline, it had put all the officers on edge. It had stolen their confidence away, devoured it, or blasted it like it had blasted the Ardent to atoms.
“I know that things have just gotten a lot tougher,” Ironwood said. “But they could be worse.”
“How?” asked one of the marines on guard.
Ironwood could have quite cheerfully strangled him. “We could be short on ammunition,” he said. “But we won’t run out of bullets, at least, or shells, or missiles. Wherever we make our stand, we’ll have plenty to shoot at the grimm. That’s something for us all to take comfort in. We may be losing, for now, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve lost. It just means that we need to work a little harder to turn the situation around, but we will turn it around. The reason the Valish established the Green Line was as an advanced position, and the reason they built the Red Line was as somewhere to retreat to if the situation was serious. The defences of our allies are working exactly as intended.
“Des Voeux, put me through to the Amity Colosseum.”
“Yes, sir. Hailing them now.”
There was a pause of three seconds, approaching four, before Ironwood heard Twilight’s voice coming through to the CIC.
“Um, hello?” Twilight said. “Amity Colosseum here, how can I help you?”
“Twilight?” Ironwood said.
“General Ironwood?” Twilight squawked, her voice rising. “What are you—?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time; I need you to listen carefully,” Ironwood told her. “The battle is not going so well, and the Arena’s current position may not be safe, so I need you to move the Colosseum away from Beacon and into the airspace above Vale. Do you understand?”
“I understand what you’re asking,” Twilight replied. “But I don’t know—”
“I have faith in your ability to figure it out,” Ironwood told her. “The controls should be inside the Arena, somewhere near the main reactors. It isn’t possible to get a crew up there, Twilight; you’re the only person who can do this.”
Twilight laughed nervously. “No pressure then,” she muttered. “Um … how bad … never mind. Don’t tell me, I don’t … alright, sir, I’ll do it. Somehow.”
“That’s my girl,” Ironwood said. “Once you get started, I’m sure you’ll find it’s easier than you think.”
“That’d be nice,” Twilight said. “I should probably start right away, and I’m sure you’re very busy, sir.”
“I’m afraid so,” Ironwood said. “Goodbye, Twilight.”
“Goodbye, sir, and good luck.”
“Sir,” des Voeux said. “It’s Cadet Rainbow Dash on the line for you; she says it’s urgent.”
Rainbow fired her shotgun into a beringel's face. It wasn't enough to blow the grimm's head clean off, but it did stagger the large creature for a second, in which second Rainbow had reversed her grip on Undying Loyalty and started to club the beringel with the butt of the weapon.
She roared wordlessly as she slammed the stock squarely into the beringel's bone forehead, once, twice; the beringel recoiled, staggering backwards. Rainbow hit it a third time and knocked the grimm on its backside, leaving it sitting like a child on the floor with no toys. Rainbow drew back her shotgun and thrust it, butt first, at the beringel for the fourth time.
The grimm caught the blow, one meaty hand wrapping around Rainbow's wrist to pick her up clean off the floor. Rainbow swung her body forwards, planting a kick with both feet squarely into the beringel's chest. The beringel let her go. Rainbow pushed off the grimm's chest, still with both feet, backflipping through the air to land nimbly, facing the beringel that still sat on the grass.
It started to get up.
Too slow; Rainbow rushed it, the rainbow flying out behind her as she leapt off the ground, Undying Loyalty held in one hand now, her other fist drawn back.
There was a crack in the bone of the beringel's mask, and Rainbow aimed her punch there as she soared through the beringel's guard and landed her punch right where she wanted it.
The beringel's bone mask cracked and shattered, fragments fell to the ground before they turned to ash. Smoke began to rise from the beringel's body as it slumped down onto its back.
Rainbow landed, reaching for some more shells for her—
She barely saw the boarbatusk coming. It was moving too fast, spinning round and round in a black blur of motion, it barely registered in the corner of Rainbow's eye before it had slammed into her side and sent her sprawling to the ground.
The boarbatusk didn't attack after that, though it could have almost certainly gotten at least one more hit in before Rainbow could recover. Instead, it sprinted past her, heading for the white tent of the aid station.
Rainbow surged up from the ground, and again, she left a rainbow running out behind her as she overtook the boarbatusk and grabbed it from behind with both hands, wrestling it to the ground.
The boarbatusk squealed and thrashed in her grip, wriggling and writhing and kicking with its little legs, shaking its head from side to side as it struggled to get out from Rainbow's grasp and under her body.
I'll bet you wish you'd taken care of me first now, aren't you? Rainbow thought as she clung onto the boarbatusk, her arms wrapped around its fat neck, squeezing it as she dug her fingers into the grimm's black, oily flesh. The boarbatusk was bristlier than some grimm; it had hairs growing in between its bony armour plates that felt almost sharp, and certainly itchy, and all the while at the same time slippery and slimy like a … like a greased pig.
Like the greased pig at the Canterlot County Fair that Applejack had bet Rainbow that she wouldn't be able to hold onto without it slipping away, but who was laughing when Rainbow stood up, victorious and covered in mud from head to toe, huh?
Applejack. Applejack had been laughing, and so had everyone else. Except Rarity, she'd been too aghast at what a mess Rainbow had become.
Nobody was going to laugh if Rainbow Dash let go of this boarbatusk; nobody was going to laugh if she kept hold of it either, but at least they wouldn't be screaming or crying or anything else.
Behind the aid station, a Skyray lifted off into the night sky. Instead of the usual metallic of the Atlesian airships, this Skyray was painted white, with the symbol of the staff and that knotted star on it. They'd been using other Skyrays for the evacuation as well, to hurry it along beyond what the medical frigates' own airships had capacity for.
Rainbow hoped, as she clung onto the struggling boarbatusk, that the medical frigates had been moved to safety over Vale; it would be a fine thing if the dragon were to get at the medical ships and all their patients after all this.
Or at all.
With Flash, and Neon, and everyone else. They needed to survive. They needed to get their wounds patched up, and their prosthetics, so that they could…
Rainbow gritted her teeth. She would rather think about this grimm that she had hold of, steadily tightening her grip around its neck, her muscular arms drawing tighter and tighter like a noose, her fingers digging deeper into its skin whilst it squealed and writhed and kicked and bucked, than she would think about what life would be like for Flash and Neon after all this was over.
Because at least they would have lives, and as the General showed, even if people looked at you funny and whispered behind your back, it didn't stop you from heading all the way to the top.
Rainbow's biceps bulged as she squeezed harder.
They were both gonna make it, Flash and Neon; their stories weren't going to end here, not in that … the image of Neon's body lying on the ground flashed through Rainbow's mind; for a moment, she'd thought that Neon was dead, and that Ciel was only trying to save the body. It was only a twitching of what was left of Neon's tail that told Rainbow she was still alive.
But she was alive, and she was going to make it, and so was Flash. They would both have better days ahead of them — so long as the medical frigates were kept safe from harm.
And so long as Neon got off the ground here, before the aid station was overrun.
Maybe she already had. Rainbow hadn't checked. It wasn't important to check. They had to hold until everyone got off.
The boarbatusk's neck gave way before her arms, her hands, her tightening grip; the black skin of the grimm burst, the bristling hide collapsing as Rainbow pulled the boarbatusk's head off and threw it away. She let go of the lifeless body as she stood up, breathing heavily.
The white medical Skyray was gone, flown off to safety, but another Skyray — this one an ordinary airship, with no paint on it at all — was already landing. A medical orderly in blue scrubs stuck their head out of the tent.
"This is the last airship!" he said. "We're getting the last patients out, but there's room for you and your friends as well!"
Rainbow shook her head. "We'll fall back with the rest of the unit."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," Rainbow said. "Get outta here and take care of everyone."
The orderly nodded. "Thank you," he said. "For everything."
"Part of the job," Rainbow said, turning away and taking a couple of steps back to recover Undying Loyalty. She'd dropped it when the boarbatusk knocked her flying.
Rainbow bent down to pick up the weapon, only for a beowolf to fly over her head, the hook of Gambol Shroud buried in its chest.
Blake appeared above the injured grimm, dropping on it from above to cut the beowolf's head off with her cleaver.
"I thought I was going to hit you for a second," she observed, as she landed on the ground. "What did the doctor want?"
"To tell me we're almost done," Rainbow replied. "The last—" She was interrupted as the Skyray that had only landed a second ago took off, rising up again into the night sky.
A nevermore shrieked as it soared overhead, making a beeline straight for the Skyray and its complement of wounded and medical staff, but it was intercepted by a Sky Dart that took it out with three shots from its laser.
The Skyray headed off, unmolested.
"That was the last one," Rainbow said. "We're…" She trailed off for a second. "Ciel! Sun! Where did you leave Sun?" she asked as she walked towards the tent.
"Where the airships were landing, in case any grimm slipped through that way," Blake replied.
Rainbow reached the tent in a few quick strides and thrust her head inside, just to make sure that there was nobody who had been accidentally left behind; that would be bad enough, but it would be even worse if Rainbow and the others left them behind too because they didn't think to check and make sure.
Thankfully, the medical teams had done their jobs properly, and the aid station tent was completely empty when Rainbow looked inside.
She pulled her head out of the tent to find that Ciel had joined them, and Sun jogged around the side of the tent as well.
"That was it," Rainbow said. "The evacuation is complete; everyone is away. We did it."
Ciel let out a ragged sigh of relief. She bent an inch forward at the waist, like she might double over, before straightening her back as abruptly as it had bent. "Lady be praised," she whispered.
"Ciel," Blake murmured, reaching out tentatively towards her, her mouth open, her eyebrows making a hill. "About Neon, I'm sorry."
"She isn't dead yet; there is no need to be sorry!" Ciel snapped. She took a deep breath. "My apologies; your sympathies are appreciated, but—"
"But let's save all of this for later, huh?" Rainbow asked. There would be a time for Ciel to let it all out, a time when Rainbow would positively encourage her to let it all out, but that time wasn't right now. Right now, if Ciel wanted to hold it all in, then … then that was actually a good thing in the circumstances.
Rainbow reloaded Undying Loyalty as she looked around the battlefield. The Third's line had been broken, just as Rainbow had thought that it would be; most of the battalion had fallen back, at least as far as Rainbow could tell; the flank wasn't completely open yet, mostly because there were at least some units that were trying to keep holding hands with Fourth Battalion, and that was maintaining at least some kind of a line between the aid station and the grimm, just as the Fourth Battalion — though it was retreating — wasn't retreating so fast that the wounded had been left stranded. But it was a line that maybe existed more firmly on a screen on the Valiant in some places than it did on the ground; the lines of both battalions had holes in them, gaps between companies and platoons as order frayed.
They had been lucky that few really big grimm had come through those gaps — and even luckier that the dragon was somewhere else right now — but enough grimm had slipped through the holes in the Altesian line to keep them busy.
Now, as the fighting came closer, both units retreating backwards towards Vale and probably the First doing the same thing over to the left, there would still be enough to keep them busy.
"Ciel," Rainbow said, "stay here for now; the rest of us will—"
"You have a call, Rainbow Dash," Midnight piped up before Rainbow could finish. "From Lyra Heartstrings."
"'Lyra'?" Rainbow repeated. Lyra? Lyra? Lyra was calling her?
Lyra was calling her, and after the last that they'd heard of her was that she was with Amber and Bon Bon.
That was what the woman running the restaurant had said to Penny and the others when they had a quick look for Amber. Amber had left Beacon via the road that led to Vale, and with her had been Tempest, Bon Bon, Dove … and Lyra.
Lyra, who was now calling Rainbow Dash.
There was no better way to find out why than to take the call, and the circumstances meant that it might be kind of important to find out why, so, in spite of the other circumstances going on not too far away, Rainbow said, "Put her on, Midnight."
"She's on line one, Miss Dash," Midnight said, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice that Rainbow couldn't be bothered to deal with at the moment.
She had other things to think about right now.
Like Lyra, whose voice emerged out of the scroll and into the night to reach not only Rainbow's ears but Blake's, Ciel's, and Sun's as well.
"Rainbow Dash?" she asked, her voice trembling; she was speaking kind of quietly, not whispering but sort of muffling her voice; it sounded like she wanted to shout but was afraid to make that much noise. "Rainbow Dash is that you?"
"Yes," Rainbow said at once. "Yeah, Lyra, I'm here. Where—?"
"Oh, thank the gods!" Lyra exclaimed quietly. "I— I didn't know who else to call, I didn't know what to do but then I thought that you would know what's going on because I've seen you with Team Sapphire and Team Sapphire was always with Amber and besides you always seemed to know what to do back at Canterlot, that's why we all looked up to you, they said that even when the White Fang attacked the Councillor's wedding you didn't—"
"Lyra," Rainbow interrupted her. "Lyra, calm down, okay. It's going to be okay, just calm down. What's going on? Is Amber with you?" Maybe she'd had a change of heart, decided that actually, no, she didn't want to help Salem out at all, she didn't want to betray Pyrrha or Ciel.
Although why would Lyra sound so on edge in that case?
"Professor Ozpin's dead," Lyra whimpered. "They killed him. I saw it, I was right there."
"What?" Sun cried. "Someone killed the headmaster?"
"Who is that?"
"No one, no one important," Rainbow said, holding up a hand towards Sun to get him to be quiet. "Don't worry about that, Lyra, just … he's dead? Are you sure about that?"
"I was right there!" Lyra repeated, her voice rising despite what seemed like her best efforts. "He, he tried to stop us, and he broke my aura, but then Amber used her semblance on him, I think, and he fell asleep and then … and then Tempest killed him. She suffocated him. And I tried to stop it but Bon Bon wouldn't let me and Amber just stood there and she didn't do anything and I … I'm so sorry, Rainbow Dash, I thought we were doing the right thing, I … she told me that we were doing the right thing but then… I'm so sorry."
"It's…" Rainbow trailed off for a second.
Professor Ozpin was dead? That was … Rainbow couldn't claim to have any kind of closeness with the guy — though this was going to be a kick in the teeth for Sunset when she found out about it, not to mention … did any of the other members of Team SAPR like the guy at all anymore? She couldn't remember, but it was definitely going to hurt Sunset — but even so, he'd been the headmaster of Beacon and the leader of the fight against Salem, and now he was dead? Killed by Tempest? Not just that he was dead, but that he'd been killed by an Atlesian, one of her classmates.
The world is going to be different tomorrow, isn't it?
Apart from anything else, someone would have to step up and lead the fight against Salem now. It should be General Ironwood, by all rights, but maybe … maybe Professor Ozpin's group had other ideas, maybe they'd put Ruby's uncle in charge, or Professor Theodore from Shade; he was a couple of years older than General Ironwood, if Rainbow had it right, not that that should make any difference.
Or maybe Professor Goodwitch would take over Beacon and the battle.
Not that any of that mattered so much right now. That was tomorrow's business. Tonight…
"It's okay," Rainbow said, because whether that was strictly true or not, it would help Lyra to hear it. "It's going to be okay, Lyra. Where are you?"
"I'm at Beacon," Lyra said. "We came here to get … Bon Bon said there was something that Amber could use to bargain for her safety, but … I ran off after … I've almost reached the road. I think someone might be after me." She paused for half a moment. "I'm pretty scared right now."
"It's going to be okay," Rainbow said. "Lyra, it's going to be fine, but don't use the road — that's the obvious place to look for you — I need you to … head for the cliffs, okay? Head for the cliffs, then circle back around to the forge and hide there until I come get you. Lyra, this thing that Amber could use, did they have it when you left?"
"No," Lyra said. "We hadn't—" She shrieked in pain, no words just a loud cry, louder than anything she'd said before.
And then that was gone too, and there was only silence. Silence that lingered in the night air, hovering between them and over them and all around them, enclosing them in a little world, cut off from the battle raging around them.
"Lyra?" Rainbow asked. "Lyra, are you still there?"
"I've lost the connection," Midnight said.
"Call her back!" Rainbow snapped.
Lyra, why did you have to get involved in this?
Bon Bon, why did you have to get her involved in this? I can't understand why you'd want to be involved in this, but if you had to be involved, couldn't you at least have kept Lyra out of it?
Lyra, why did you have to be a huntress in the first place? She hadn't been cut out for it; she didn't have the chops for it, the feel for fighting. She was sweet and nice and likeable, and she had a halfway useful semblance, Rainbow would admit, but she wasn't a huntress. She had no place in all of this; she hadn't belonged in it. She hadn't even belonged at Beacon, let alone getting involved in all of this stuff with Salem and Maidens and Relics.
And now … now, she might be dead
She might be dead, along with Professor Ozpin.
"There's no response," Midnight said. "I can't reach her device."
Rainbow closed her eyes for a second. Lyra. She wouldn't say that they'd ever been close, but she'd played a pretty harp, and there'd been nothing to dislike about her that Rainbow had been aware of. She hadn't deserved to get caught up in this, to pay that price.
And unfortunately, that was the least of things to be concerned about right now.
"So it is true," Ciel murmured. "Amber really has betrayed us. I had hoped it was not so."
"Amber?" Sun asked. "You mean that girl, Professor Ozpin's niece? The one who hung around with Team Sapphire all the time lately? She killed Professor Ozpin? Her own uncle?"
"At least it sounds as though they haven't gotten the Relic yet," Blake suggested.
"Relic?" Sun repeated. "What's a relic?"
"Not when Lyra left, but how long is that going to last?" Rainbow replied. "What's to stop them now that Professor Ozpin's dead?"
"Can one of you guys just stop for a second and tell me what's going on?" Sun cried.
"Blake, sum it up for him quickly," Rainbow replied. "Midnight, call the General."
"What are you going to tell him?" asked Ciel.
"I'm going to tell him that Professor Ozpin's dead and that the Relic is in danger," Rainbow replied. "You don't think we can or should not tell him, do you?"
"No," Ciel said at once, "But how will you tell him without exposing secrets to the bridge crew aboard the Valiant?"
That was a good question, one that Rainbow hadn't considered in the rush of things happening. "I," she began. "I will … I'll say things like they're code names and then everyone will think that I'm talking about something secret that they don't know the real meaning of."
Ciel considered that. "Yes, that is probably the best we can do in the circumstances."
"Okay, Sun," Blake said. "The short version is that there is a secret and powerful weapon stored underneath Beacon, Amber is the only person who get to it, and we're afraid that she's about to remove it and give it to someone really bad — and it sounds like she and her friends killed Professor Ozpin when he tried to stop her."
"But why is Amber the only—?"
"Even if I had time to explain that, Sun, I'm not sure that I should," Blake replied, cutting him off. "This information is … very secret. I shouldn't be sharing any of it with you, but … just, please, trust me for now, okay?"
"Is this it?" Sun asked. "Is that why you went to Mountain Glenn, is that why you did all those missions?"
"It's certainly part of it," Blake admitted. "There's a lot more going on that I can’t tell you now."
"Okay," Sun muttered. "I guess I don't want to get you in trouble or anything."
"Thank you," Blake said. "I'm sorry, but—"
"Dash," General Ironwood said. "I'm sure this is important."
"Yes, sir, very," Rainbow said at once. "I have reason to believe that Professor Ozpin is dead and that Amber may be about to enter the Sealed Vault."
There was a moment of silence. Rainbow could hardly blame the General for needing a second; it was a lot to take in at once.
"How do you know this?" General Ironwood asked, his tone hard to read. He was probably working hard to keep it that way.
"Lyra called me, sir, Lyra Heartstrings," Rainbow explained. "She was at Canterlot Combat School for some of the same years as me; she knew — knows — me a little bit. And according to Team Sapphire, she was last seen in the company of Amber and her allies. She told me that they had come back to Beacon to get something that she didn't elaborate on but which I think is the Relic and that she'd seen Professor Ozpin killed by … Tempest Shadow. That … Lyra isn't a killer, sir; she didn't mean for anything bad to happen, she was misled by others. When she saw what was happening, she ran away and called me."
"I see," General Ironwood murmured. "And where is she now?"
"I don't know, sir," Rainbow admitted. "We lost contact and can't reestablish it. It's … she might be dead too, sir, killed by—"
"By her erstwhile allies, following her attack of conscience," Ironwood muttered.
"It's not her fault, sir," Rainbow said, in a very mild rebuke.
"Perhaps not," Ironwood allowed. "But anyway, according to Miss Heartstrings, they didn't have the, ahem, Relic?"
"Not as far as Lyra knew, sir, no," Rainbow said.
"Very well," General Ironwood said. "Are Belladonna and Soleil with you?"
"Yes, sir," Ciel said.
"I'm here, sir," Blake added. She glanced at Sun but didn't mention his presence.
Sun didn't bring himself up either.
"I'll try and contact Ozpin," General Ironwood announced. "If he answers, then you've been sold a bill of goods, and I'll inform you at once. In the meantime, I want you to take an airship, head across the battlefield to collect Penny and Team Sapphire from the Mistralian position. According to Ozpin, they know where the Sealed Vault is located, which isn't something even I could tell you otherwise. They can guide you there to stop the Relic from being removed if possible, or to recapture it otherwise. Taking Amber alive would be preferable, but not necessary."
"Understood, sir," Rainbow said. "We'll leave at once."
"Be careful," General Ironwood said. "This isn't an opponent to be underestimated. Watch each other's backs."
"Always, sir," Rainbow said.
"Of course," General Ironwood acknowledged. "Ironwood out."
"He's not sure he believes you," Sun observed.
"Understandable; it was quite a lot of information to be given at once," Ciel said. "And who can begrudge him having hope that Professor Ozpin still lives?"
"If this was all some kind of a trick, and Lyra had done it to lure us into a trap, that would be great," Rainbow said. "I don't think it is, because … it would be a lot of risk for them, and there's not a lot of reason for them to do it. They don't need to kill us or whatever; what they need is to get the Relic, and anything that gets in the way of that is a risk for them. I'm sure General Ironwood knows that too, but he has to make sure. He can't just take it on trust that Professor Ozpin's dead because I heard it from someone I went to combat school with and who fell in with the wrong crowd."
"And if he is dead?" asked Sun. "If someone killed Professor Ozpin, how are we supposed to fight them?"
"Together," Rainbow said. "As best we can." It was a good question, but at the same time, Rainbow didn't have a brilliant answer for it. She took comfort from the fact that Team SAPR — and Penny — had taken down Cinder last night, and Amber had the same magic that Cinder did but was probably a little bit less dangerous in terms of her combat skills, so it was possible. Yes, Amber wasn't alone, but Dove? Bon Bon? Tempest was the most dangerous of the three of them, but Rainbow was pretty sure that she could take Tempest one on one. Her and Blake combined would make it a cakewalk.
It could be done. It wasn't impossible, far from it.
"Once we've collected Team Sapphire, then we'll come up with a plan on our way to Beacon," Rainbow said. "For now, let's move, while there are still some airships left."
"No response, sir," said des Voeux.
"Try again," Ironwood replied.
"Aye aye, sir," answered des Voeux as he bent to his task.
Ironwood kept his face impassive, conveying none of the emotions that whirled within him. From the moment that Dash had opened so bluntly, but also so necessarily, he had been … to say that he had not seen it coming would be an understatement.
Ozpin, dead?
"Still nothing, sir," des Voeux informed him.
"Alright," Ironwood said. "Thank you, des Voeux."
"Sir."
That was not proof beyond all doubt, but it was suggestive — very suggestive — that Dash's friend Miss Heartstrings was correct: that Ozpin was dead.
Of course, something that you found out when Ozpin brought you into his inner circle, alongside all of the stuff about Salem, the Relics, the Maidens, was that Oz was never really gone. He would always be with you, after a fashion. But Ozpin, that particular old man, the one who had infuriated him at times, baffled him at others, tried his patience upon occasion, but who had always tried, according to his lights, to do right by his school, his students, and by the people of Remnant as a whole, was gone for good.
Ironwood would never speak to him again. It would be … someone else that he would answer to next, a stranger, someone he didn't know — and someone, as much to the point, who didn't know him either.
The transition, so he had been told, was always rough; no two summers were alike, no two Maidens, no two sages. The lieutenants chosen by one were not always to the taste of their successor, just as the successor was not always to the taste of the late predecessor's lieutenants. That was, apparently, an inevitable truth of their secret circle, though all parties approached the transition with the best will in the world and under the very best circumstances.
These were not the very best circumstances.
It was said that when the Last King of Vale had lain on his deathbed, he had reassured all those around him that 'the moment has been prepared for.' Ironwood very much doubted that this moment had been prepared for by anyone; certainly, he hadn't prepared for it. Had Glynda, or Theodore?
And as for Lionheart…
A headmaster and a Maiden both traitors, and another Maiden vanished without trace. What a time to have a new leader foisted upon us.
Not to mention the amount of time it could take for the chosen one to show themselves; according to old General Brazen, his predecessor, they had been without for a little more than two years before Ozpin had appeared. Could they afford to wait that long now?
We may not have any other choice. It wasn't as though these things could be forced, after all.
These were all future considerations. For tonight, fortunately, he didn't need Ozpin to fight this battle.
His victory — Atlas' victory — would be his tribute to the old man's memory.
I won't let you down, Oz.
"Des Voeux," he said. "Hail Colonel Sky Beak."
"Aye aye, sir," des Voeux said, sounding a little relieved not to be asked to try and hail Ozpin again. He bent to his console, fingers moving lightly across the controls. "Patching you through now, sir."
"Colonel Sky Beak, this is General Ironwood; I'm afraid I have some bad news," Ironwood said. "Grimm have breached the Green Line, and my forces are being compelled to retreat, having taken serious losses to our air forces."
"Understood, General," Sky Beak said. "I take it this reversal is a result of this new grimm that we've seen in the skies."
"The dragon, yes," Ironwood acknowledged. "It's more powerful than anything we've faced on this battlefield up until now."
"Can it be killed?"
"Any grimm can be killed in the right circumstances, and I'm still hopeful for my huntsmen and huntresses," Ironwood told him. "However, as of now, the dragon is leaving us alone, and my troops are falling back in the direction of Vale and the Red Line. How is the evacuation of civilians from the districts beyond the wall proceeding?"
There was a pause before Sky Beak said, "People are reaching the gate as quickly as they can."
"When my forces arrive, they can join your forces in defending the walls," Ironwood said. "Or we can go into reserve behind your troops, if you'd prefer."
"Something that we can discuss nearer the time," Sky Beak replied. "Are the grimm pursuing?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Ironwood admitted. "But we'll get there before them. My troops are continuing to bleed the grimm as they retreat and suppressing the pursuit as best they can. The grimm are following, but not hard upon our heels."
"I'm glad to hear it," Sky Beak replied. "I'll make my dispositions, and then your troops can slot into them as possible when they arrive." Another pause. "General Ironwood, I can't risk the grimm getting through the gates and into Vale; if your soldiers are too late or the grimm too close—"
"They won't," Ironwood insisted. "I understand your concerns, Colonel, but I assure you that my forces will reach the gates with time to spare and the grimm kept at a safe distance."
"I hope so, General Ironwood, I really do," Colonel Sky Beak said. "And if you're right, then I look forward to welcoming them to Vale when they arrive."
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SAPR is going to be hit hard, they were just starting to respect Ozpin again. And the only one who will take it as hard as Sunset will be Princess Celestia. She and her fellow immortal bonded real close real fast. A shame that Ozpin didn’t get to speak with her one last time. Here’s hoping Sunset can get a special book just for his successor.
The God of Light truly believed his method of immortality for Ozma was a benign one, to always provide him ‘company’. But it is still a cruel one, forcing new souls into great burden and this impossible war. The only saving grace is that this curse still only merges Ozma’s soul with people who are of a like mind. A good heart and a strong mind, more likely than most to accept him.
Oof... now the news of Ozpin dead is spread, and now Rainbow, Blake and Ciel are headed to pick up SAPR (or rather PAPR) and intercept Amber's company... while the dragon is still loose. Either they're going to kill the Wyvern before going after Amber or... Sunset (and maybe Weiss) will somehow take it down.
Will that Dispel spell from the original even kill that thing?
11925185
Heck, Sunset hasn't found out Amber betrayed them yet (I think?), couple that with Ozpin's death and she's going to have a rough time.
About the book, I'm kinda surprised Sunset didn’t make a third pair of books in the original for Celestia and Oz's new host, who we know to be Oscar.
11925245
I suspect the original dispel trick Sunset figured out would work on the dragon. Like all Grimm, it's held together by magic - and she wiped the field with the original.
But this Sunset doesn't have her aura back yet, or much of it, and worse, she doesn't have her note. So running the gauntlet to get TO the dragon is going to be very difficult.
11925513
I mean, she's still got her bike to get to the Red Line, but yeah, she's still somewhat vulnerable without aura, even with magic (and I suspect she doesn't want to push her limits on the latter because of the former). Unless she gets to Jaune before they leave, she's gonna need human shields to cover her.
Lyra will be missed.
11925868
She may not be dead yet. I mean, Martinez was thought to be a goner, but look what happened a few chapters ago.
I like how the pieces are falling into place and it seems the timeline moved up; I don’t know exactly how the battle against the Dragon and Amber will go next, and it’s exciting to keep guessing.