//------------------------------//
// Renown (Rewritten) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Renown


Cinder looked down upon the abomination below her. 
It had not noticed her presence, nor that of her associates or Adam. Perhaps the dead White Fang members lying strewn across the street around it – they’d been wondering where that patrol had gotten to – had sated its appetite. Perhaps it simply wasn’t very observant. 
Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that it hadn’t bothered to look up. 
It was an ungainly sight. It was something that revolted her to look upon. 
It was something that might prove useful to her. 
“Wh-what is that thing?” Emerald murmured, her voice trembling. 
“I have no idea,” Cinder admitted candidly. It looked a little like a grimm, and yet at the same time, it was not a grimm. She knew that it was not a grimm because, if it was a grimm, she would know it. She would feel, even if only a little, the song that bound the creatures of destruction together, feel their connection through the blessing that she had received. 
She did not feel it. There was no connection here. This creature, however much it might resemble grimm, did not feel the song of death and mayhem. There was no connection there. 
She could not command it. But she could make good use of it all the same. 
Adam placed one hand upon the hilt of his sword. “How do we kill it?”
Cinder glanced at him. “'Kill it'? Why would we do such a thing?”
“Why?” Adam growled. “It killed my men!” He gestured at their remains with one hand.
And I will kill far more than any monster could, Cinder thought. She wondered how Adam would react when he figured that out. Not well, perhaps, which was why he might be better off dead within the depths of Mountain Glenn. But, on the other hand, a man like him could be manipulated despite his anger; so long as he still desired Blake or revenge or some twisted combination of the two, then Cinder would be able to wrap him around her fingers - not effortlessly perhaps, recent events had proven there were unfortunate depths to him she had not been aware of; nevertheless she would still be able to turn him to her purposes - no matter how drenched she was in the blood of the Vale Chapter. 
Gilda would not prove so accommodating. 
Of course, the chances were she would be done with the White Fang after today, which was why she was willing to throw Adam into the path of harm, but one never knew. 
That was why she had allowed him to accompany her and her team: he was safer here than he was on the train. 
“Your men,” she told him, “gave their lives for the cause of the White Fang, but if you wish that cause to flourish and a victory be gained worthy of their sacrifice, then we must see the plan through to the end and not be distracted again by our personal feelings.”
“How is that a part of the plan?” Mercury asked, gesturing at the creature.
“It wasn’t,” Cinder replied. “But now, it’s a wonderful new addition to our ranks and just what we need to break up our enemies.”
Although she would pit her chosen servants against most of Ozpin’s lackeys any day, and although the ranks of Team SAPR and Team RSPT were padded out with deadweight like Jaune and Twilight, nevertheless, the fact remained that they were outnumbered two to one, even with Adam’s presence, and those two included formidable fighters like Pyrrha, whom only Cinder herself could hope to withstand, while her one included Emerald, whose strength lay more in her semblance than in her skill in arms. It would have been… a chaotic battle, to say the least. Possibly a somewhat desperate one. 
She had considered bringing in grimm to even out the scales, but now… destiny had smiled once more on Cinder Fall and provided her the means to break up the ranks of her enemies. 
“Once our enemies come across this creature, they will be wary of it,” Cinder declared. “They will not simply attack it head on. They’ll split up, sending…” She paused for thought. She could put herself in Sunset’s shoes, she could put herself in Sunset’s mind, and with all that she had learned about her friend, she could practically predict what the other girl would do when confronted with an enemy like this. “They will send Pyrrha around behind it to attack it from two sides, while the Atlesians attempt to gain higher ground from which they can fire their big guns. So take up your positions, be careful not to draw that monster’s attention, and wait.” 



There was a grimm blocking their way. 
A single grimm, it didn’t even appear to have noticed them yet, and yet, its mere presence standing in the middle of the street was entirely halting the onward progress of Teams SAPR and RSPT.
The fact that it was so unusual in appearance might have had something to do with that.
It wasn’t so much the fact that it was a type of grimm they hadn’t encountered before, or even that it was a kind of grimm that hadn’t been mentioned by Professor  Port yet – although either of those instances would have been cause to take a moment and reflect on strategy. No, it was the fact that – and Pyrrha could only speak for herself at this point, but judging by the expressions of the others she wasn’t alone – it was so far outside the bounds of what one expected a grimm to look like that was perturbing her. 
It looked like a cross between a beowolf and an ursa, as though those monsters were capable of interbreeding with one another and had produced this hybrid. It had the long, almost ape-like arms, lithe-ish limbs, and nipped-in waist of a beowolf in contrast to the more solid, trunk-like form of an ursa, but on the other hand, for size, it had much more in common with the ursine creature while not possessing the markers of age – particularly the multitude of encrusted armour plates – that would have marked it as an alpha that had temporarily misplaced its pack. 
But none of that was truly disconcerting about this creature that had suddenly thrown itself athwart their line of approach. Nor even was it the dead White Fang members at the monster’s feet or the red blood on its teeth and claws that left no doubt as to how these warriors had died. 
No, what was most strange about this beowolf – and what was giving the members of SAPR, RSPT, and even Professor Goodwitch the most pause – was, and the fact that it sounded a little absurd when stated so baldly did not make it any less true, the colour. 
This grimm was green. Not all over – the bulk of its body was still the same tar black as always – the spikes upon its back that ought to have been as white as bone now glowed a luminescent green in the darkness under Mountain Glenn; in place of red eyes, a pale green light shone out of every orifice of the creature’s skull, even its open mouth, as though it were one of those – rather tasteless, in Pyrrha’s opinion – grimm-themed novelty nightlights that you could buy.
Green lines that had no equivalent on any grimm that Pyrrha had encountered or read about glowed up and down the creature’s body as though it were filled with some unstable power or concoction that its form could not quite contain. 
And so, Team SAPR, Team RSPT, Blake, and Professor Goodwitch all lurked out of its sight – and fortunately, they were also out of its sense of smell as well, the air here being still and stale in a manner that was intensely uncomfortable, but also, in this instance, beneficial – around the corner of a street of blocky accommodations, watching the strange creature, and as they watched, it bent its back and lowered its head to the ground to continue feeding upon the corpses of those faunus it had slain.
It was disgusting to watch, and yet, for the moment, they had no choice but to observe it.
“So, uh,” Jaune murmured, “does anyone know what that is?”
“Nope,” Ruby said.
“Never seen anything like it,” Rainbow muttered.
“I don’t recognise it as any grimm documented,” Penny declared.
“Nor has it featured in any bestiary I have ever come across,” added Ciel.
“Professor?” Sunset said. “Any wisdom to share with us?”
“Unfortunately not,” Professor Goodwitch said softly. “Beyond the fact that it is clearly a grimm… I’ve never seen one quite like this before.”
“We could probably go around it,” Blake said. “We didn’t come here to fight grimm, after all.”
“Maybe we could, but what if it comes after us?” Sunset asked. “Do you want that thing coming up behind us while we’re distracted?”
Blake was silent for a moment. “Good point.”
“The enemy already knows we’re here,” Sunset said. “A little more shooting won’t tell them anything that they don’t know already. I say we kill this thing now, and we won’t have to worry about it later.”
She glanced around, as if she were searching for objections. Pyrrha didn’t offer any; she found nothing to object to in Sunset’s reasoning: just because this grimm – it was a grimm, whatever else it might be – hadn’t noticed them at the moment, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t do so later, especially if the conflict of battle drew it in. If they could deal with it now, then they might as well do so, while they had nothing else to distract them.
“Rainbow Dash,” Sunset said. “Take Ciel and Penny-”
“Up to the top floor of one of those houses where they can nail it from above,” Rainbow finished. “I’m not perfect, Sunset, but I understand a crossfire.”
As signals go, it’s quite unmistakable, I suppose.
“I’ll stay here,” Blake added. “I’m not much of a long-range fighter. I might as well stick where I’m best suited.”
Rainbow nodded. “Fine. Good luck.”
“You, too,” Blake replied. “All three of you.”
“Indeed,” Pyrrha added.
“I hope I do better than I did against that other grimm up top,” Penny murmured.
“That wasn’t your fault, Penny,” Ruby said. “If you hadn’t been protecting me from that falling debris, you’d have been fine.”
“And besides,” Pyrrha added, “we were caught by surprise then. Surprise is on our side now.” She smiled. “It won’t know what hit it when you open fire.”
Penny’s face lit up a little at the prospect of that, and she seemed cheered as she, Ciel, and Rainbow Dash crept their way across the street to the other side of the road. The green grimm didn’t appear to spot them as they slunk out of sight, into the dark and shadowy building that lay beyond. 
“Pyrrha, Jaune,” Sunset said. “Go into this building and see if you can get around behind it. Once the Atlesians start shooting, we’ll attack it from two sides.”
Pyrrha nodded. “I understand.” She tapped the button on the butt of Miló once, transforming it from its rifle configuration into the stealthier spear; with good fortune, she wouldn’t have to fire – and thus alert this particularly strange grimm to her presence – until she was in position for the ambush. “Good luck.”
“And you,” Sunset said, with a terse nod of her own before she looked away from Pyrrha and returned her attention to the feeding grimm up the street. 
Pyrrha moved, trusting Jaune to follow as she crept along the side of the tower behind which they had taken cover and searched for a way in. This wasn’t a suburban home of the kind that they had slept in last night; it wasn’t even a row of terraces; rather, here in the underground city, it seemed as though every building climbed upwards and climbed high; this place was a hive of dark monoliths reaching towards the surface, a place where people must have lived like ants or termites or rats, all jammed together as tightly packed as could be managed. 
Pyrrha was not naïve. She knew that not everybody lived in the spacious luxury in which she had grown up and which the other wealthy families of Mistral enjoyed; she knew that not everywhere was as pleasant to live as Mistral, even for the less well-off of its citizens – Arslan had some veritable horror stories in that regard, though she seemed to find them rather amusing. 
But Pyrrha couldn’t understand why anyone would voluntarily live like this, packed into airless boxes, deep underground where there was no natural light, surrounded by walls of rock on either side; this city had been a prison even before the grimm had laid it to waste. There might have been life here, but Pyrrha could see no evidence that there had ever been any freedom.
It was hard not to think of the slaughter that those monsters had wrought as being but the last and most fatal of the indignities suffered by those unfortunate enough to live beneath Mountain Glenn. 
She turned a corner, putting her on the opposite side of the building as the grimm, and found a door, cheap and plastic looking, but reasonably intact in the circumstances. It hadn’t been blocked; at Pyrrha’s slightest touch, it swung open to reveal a dusty corridor, lined with apartment doors on the left side, heading north; an elevator that didn’t appear to be working any more; and a narrow staircase leading to the next floor up.
Pyrrha stood in the doorway for a moment, considering.
“Pyrrha?” Jaune said softly from behind her. “Is everything okay?”
Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. “I… I would never have broken my promise to you, no matter how much I might have wished to. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” Jaune replied. “I know that you’re not your mom, to lie to me about something like that.”
“No,” Pyrrha murmured. “No, I am definitely not my mother.” She glanced over shoulder. “And I… I will never lie to you about anything.” Perhaps that was rashly said, binding her word in a manner too extravagant, but as she said it, she could not think of any reason why she should not say it, why she should have any cause at all, at any time, to lie to Jaune. 
And so, she promised with a light heart and relished the fact that this was one thing that she could do with a light heart, when all else in Mountain Glenn seemed to weigh down upon her so heavily. 
Her brow furrowed a little as the unwanted memory returned, the memory of the vision that Salem had shown her: her home aflame, the very fountain choked with blood. 
Her home burning because she had not been strong enough to save it. 
How could she be strong enough, being as she was a mere girl blessed with some combat talent? How could she be strong enough to contend with the powers with which they were in opposition? She didn’t have Sunset’s magic, she didn’t even have Ruby’s silver eyes; all that she had was her renown, half of it hard-won in the arena, true, but the other half inherited nearly without effort from the line of her ancestors. 
She had always told herself that her fame as the heir to the throne would have been as nothing had she not also shown herself prodigiously talented in the arena, but even if that hopeful analysis were true… the Invincible Girl was just a name; it did not convey upon her any power. 
There was only one individual in Remnant who could truly be called invincible, and she was their enemy. 
The Invincible Girl, the Princess Without a Crown, the Pride of Mistral, the Evenstar… these names were baubles, every bit as much as her tournament trophies and the spoils that she had dedicated in the Temple of Victory. 
She had accepted the great honour that was done to her by Professor Ozpin, she had embraced the destiny that she had always believed was hers.
Yet now, she feared that she was unequal to it. 
She had thought it her destiny to save the world. Which, by her own conception of destiny, meant nothing more nor less than that she would choose to save the world, as though its salvation was entirely in her gift, and she would only need to decide to do so and apply herself to that great task and all would be as she desired. 
How proud, how vain, how arrogant. What hubris on par with the ambition that had built this silent tomb. 
She could only pray that her arrogance would not cost as many lives as this monument to excess pride. 
“Pyrrha?” Jaune said. “You looked like you were kind of spacing out a little bit.”
“Sorry,” Pyrrha said, a little more loudly than she needed to. She laughed nervously and looked at him. Looking at Jaune, looking into his blue eyes, definitely helped. His very presence was like a wind, blowing away her misgivings. The memory of his arms around her, of his kiss, of the tenderness of his touch, banished the memory of Salem’s vision and her words. 
Even if it did make her feel a little flustered as a trade-off. 
More to the point, Jaune reminded her of something that – in yet more arrogance – she might have been inclined to forget otherwise: she was not alone. She did not have to worry about being strong enough to defy Salem and all her power by herself because she was not fighting by herself. She had her friends to fight beside her.
And Jaune, whom she had promised to never send from her side, though it cost him his life to remain.
That… that would grieve her. Even in death, she thought; if it was her fate to die, her destiny unfulfilled, if it was her lot in life to depart in anger down to the shades, then she would not have Jaune so swiftly follow her down. If they could not live and love amongst the living in the living world, then she would not accept an unlife spent together in the afterlife as recompense. Rather, if the gods decreed that she would die, she would have Jaune live on and dry his tears and find what happiness he could in the arms of another. Ruby, perhaps; she was warm and caring and believed in Jaune wholeheartedly; she had been his friend from the start. Certainly, she was a better choice for him than Sunset, without any offence to Sunset. 
No, Ruby… Ruby would be good for him, if need be. Perhaps Pyrrha ought to write her a note, as Sunset had- no, no that was not a very good idea, Pyrrha thought to herself as she remembered how embarrassed she and Sunset had been after she, Pyrrha, had found Sunset’s note. How much worse would it be if Ruby found such a note from Pyrrha?
And besides, there were limits to Pyrrha’s generosity, and writing to encourage Ruby to… she scarcely knew how to describe it, but she thought that it might well breach those limits. 
And besides, she intended to try quite hard not to die. 
For her sake, for Jaune’s, and for the sake of everything that she hoped to share with him in the future that she hoped so very much lay ahead for them. 
There were some superstitious folk who believed that writing a will tempted fate. The same, it seemed to Pyrrha, might be said of writing a letter to be opened in the event of your death. 
Salem might be immortal, but there were only men and grimm here under Mountain Glenn, and she could handle men and grimm alike.
“I’m sorry,” she apologised again. “We should move.”
They entered the house, moving past the elevator and down the dusty corridor; they ignored the stairs; since they were not going to engage the grimm from higher ground, there would be no point in going up unless the way forward were blocked. It was not so. 
At least, that was what Pyrrha thought before one of the apartment doors that lined the corridor swung open to partially bar their path. 
Cinder Fall stepped daintily around the door, her ankle bracelet swaying slightly back and forth as she walked with the silence of a thief and the grace of a lioness. 
Her glass blades were in her hand, and her smile seemed almost like another blade, one fused to her face, a grin that was almost manic in its intensity. 
“I’m glad it’s you,” she purred. “I hoped it would be you, Pyrrha. Long have I desired to match my skill against you.”
Pyrrha breathed in, and out. “You could have sought me out in combat class,” she pointed out.
Cinder chuckled. “Without- no, that is not true, I do mean to offend you, I am afraid – please forgive me – but I have always found that sparring in class or fighting in the arena is rather… boring. Sanitised. It lacks the frisson of excitement that comes from lives on the line, from knowing that nobody is going to stop the match when your aura gets into the red. From knowing that your aura is all that stands between you and oblivion.”
Pyrrha’s feet shuffled on the floor as she readied herself. “I do not agree with that, but I must confess that I, too, am glad. I, too, have wished to face you. And the current circumstances are ideal.”
“'Ideal'?” Cinder asked.
“Sunset isn’t here to get in our way,” Pyrrha explained.
Once more Cinder laughed. “No,” she agreed. “No, she is not.” She paused, and as she paused, the booming sound of Unfailing Loyalty echoed through the city of the dead. “And by the sounds of it,” Cinder went on, “nobody else will either. Your friends have battles of their own to fight, it seems.”
“Then I had best finish this quickly,” Pyrrha growled.
“Don’t let your vanity blind you, Pride of Mistral,” Cinder warned. “For I am Cinder Fall, chosen of the dark, and I will make you my factor and pluck all the renown and honours off your brow and take them for my own!” She raised her blades. “Now, show me how bright you burn, Evenstar!”
Pyrrha sprang at her, her red hair streaming out behind her like a standard as she leapt. 
She had not lied. She had wanted this, and in this way, without Sunset to protest that she should hold back, or worse, to protect Cinder from Pyrrha’s swift and shining spear. 
That was one reason why she wanted this: she feared Cinder for her influence on Sunset more than her strength in arms. There were other reasons, of course, to seek her out: she was an enemy, she had tried to kill Twilight, she had tried to bring down Beacon, she was in league with Salem – she was, in fact, Salem’s chief servant here in Vale. All good reasons why she, a huntress and a protector of the world, Professor Ozpin’s spear, should seek her out in battle. But as well as all those things, Cinder had corrupted Sunset, had turned her from the light and sought to drag her back into the dark where she had been when Pyrrha met her. She had encouraged Sunset to do cruel and spiteful things, and she had left such a mark on Sunset that even the revelation of her true allegiance could not divest Sunset of all affection for Cinder. 
For Sunset’s sake, for the sake of the team, Pyrrha wished her dead. 
And there was another reason also, one last reason why Pyrrha threw herself into this battle so eagerly: because she could win, and in the winning prove that she deserved a place in all of this, that she could be of some use to Professor Ozpin, that she was worthy to stand in this arena that was so broad and where the stakes were so high. 
If she could win this battle, then she could conquer her doubts and lay them to rest alongside Cinder. 
That, all of that, was why she hurled herself upon her foe with such ferocity. The corridor was cramped, but Pyrrha nevertheless found space to spin upon her toe with a ballerina’s grace, her scarlet sash flowing around her like a dancer’s ribbon, and fling Akoúo̱ down the corridor at Cinder. 
Cinder was still smiling as she ducked aside, allowing Akoúo̱ to fly, spinning, down the corridor away from her. 
Pyrrha closed the distance, wielding Miló in spear form in both hands, her spear a whirling circle of gold and red as she spun it in her grasp, thrusting it for Cinder’s midriff. 
Cinder turned the stroke aside with one of her glass scimitars, but she retreated a step as well. Pyrrha drove her back, unrelenting in the ferocity of her onslaught, striking at Cinder again and again like the waves that beat upon the shore. Cinder gave ground before her, but always, she was able to keep up with Pyrrha’s swift strokes, for every time that Pyrrha thrust or slashed with Miló, Cinder was able to fend her off with the glass blades of Midnight. 
Pyrrha’s face was set like stone, her eyes as hard as emeralds as she drove Cinder back, thrusting, lunging, slashing. Cinder, by contrast, was still grinning. 
Pyrrha thrust Miló forward for Cinder’s face. 
Cinder caught the stroke between her blades, stopping the movement of Pyrrha’s spear. 
She was still smiling. 
The smile faltered a little as Pyrrha transformed Miló into rifle mode, with the barrel poking out from between Cinder’s swords. 
Pyrrha fired, hitting Cinder squarely between the eyes, hurling her backwards. Cinder converted her fall into a backflip, then another, putting a little distance between the two of them. 
She was not smiling now. 
As Miló formed back into spear mode in her right hand, Pyrrha raised her left and summoned Akuou back out of the murky depths of the corridor, flying straight and true and aimed for the back of Cinder’s head. 
Cinder caught the shield with one hand, reaching out to arrest its progress, but she could not resist looking at it, and as she looked, Pyrrha was on her once again. She slammed the shaft of Miló into Cinder’s gut and then, when she doubled over, her face. She brought down the tip of the spear upon her back and raised and drew back Miló for a thrust. 
Cinder threw Pyrrha’s own shield back at her. Pyrrha caught it on her arm, Akoúo̱ fitting itself to her vambrace with a practiced ease. Miló switched from spear to sword as she advanced, turning aside the stroke of Midnight and thrusting for Cinder’s eyes.
Cinder turned that stroke aside. Pyrrha pirouetted in place, slashing first with the edge of her shield and then with the edge of her sword. Cinder gave ground, one of her blades falling away, crumbling to shards of glass which glistened as they fell to the floor beneath her. 
Cinder slammed her hand onto the outer wall of the apartment block. 
The wall beneath and all around her hand began to glow bright yellow, getting brighter all the while. 
“Pyrrha!” Jaune cried. “Look out!”
Too late. The wall exploded, debris blasting inwards, shards of stone and fragments of wood ripping into the corridor, tearing at Pyrrha’s aura like biting fleas upon an unclean dog. Worse than the debris, however, was the steam from the pipes that had obviously been built into the wall, and which – heated again after long last – burst out into the corridor, not only burning Pyrrha’s aura, not only making her cry out in pain, but blinding her as well, as all that she could see was consumed by milky whiteness. 
She began to retreat, her shield held up before her chest and face.
Something erupted up from the floor, making her cry out again as it sliced into her aura. 
“Something else you won’t learn in the coliseum,” Cinder snarled gleefully. “How to mind your surroundings!”
Pyrrha couldn’t see, and couldn’t hear over the hissing of the dispersing steam, and before it dissipated, Cinder had closed with her, her slashes wild but wildly ferocious, like she was carving slices off a butcher’s ham. 
Except it was Pyrrha’s aura she was carving into as Cinder’s glass sword slammed into Pyrrha’s side. Pyrrha recoiled, trying to shield herself, but the next blow came in straight at her belly, powerful enough that she almost doubled over. Pyrrha slashed blindly with her sword in turn, but her stroke cut only through the empty air as Cinder’s blow – how could she see while Pyrrha was blind? – struck home for Pyrrha’s face and would have extinguished her eyes if her aura had not protected her. 
“Behold, the Champion of Mistral!” Cinder cried, her voice somewhere between a triumphant crow and a furious snarl. “You’re not the one to bring me down. You’re just an old name and a pretty face!”
And a semblance, Pyrrha thought, as she reached out with Polarity to grasp the metal pipes embedded in the wall, all the pipes that Cinder had ruptured and those that she had not, all that metal lurking unseen. 
I’m not the only one who needs to mind my surroundings, Cinder. Pyrrha couldn’t see the metal; she could barely see her own hand, with its black outline surrounding it, but she could feel the pipes, and she could start to hear them groaning as she wrenched at them with her semblance, pulling them, commanding them. They groaned, they creaked, they screamed in protest as she wrenched at their fittings and the concrete in which they were embedded, but finally, they came, tearing through the wall, spraying cold and stagnant water, showering the corridor with fragments of debris and slamming the pipes into Cinder hard enough to push her through the other wall into the apartments beyond.
The steam was dissipating now, and Pyrrha could see again. She switched Miló into spear form-
“Pyrrha!” Jaune cried, running towards her, one hand held out. “Your aura, do you-?”
“Not yet,” Pyrrha told him. She wasn’t exactly sure where her aura was, but now wasn’t the time to let Jaune stimulate it back into the green, not when Cinder wasn’t beaten yet. All that would do was give her a sitting target. 
She would win the battle first, then let Jaune work his magic. 
“Stay here,” she told him, before darting through the doorway into the apartment into which she had just thrown Cinder. Pipes littered the floor, crushing the coffee table which had sat in the middle of the room and wrecking the chairs besides.
Cinder was waiting for her, standing amidst the shattered pipes, a glass bow in her hands. As Pyrrha appeared, she loosed a shaft. Pyrrha swatted it aside, shattering the glass arrow in the edge of her shield. She rushed forward, spear drawn back-
Something struck her from behind. The arrow – but she had broken it? Whatever it was, the force of the impact knocked her temporarily off balance, and in that moment, Cinder counted, her glass weapon changing from bow to blades once again with a fluidity that would have done any mechashift proud, her twin obsidian scimitars slicing up to strike at Pyrrha’s exposed belly. 
Pyrrha grunted with pain, and with her semblance, she shuffled the broken pipes across the floor, disturbing Cinder’s footing, making her stumble as Cinder had made Pyrrha stumble, and as she stumbled, Pyrrha flung her shield, striking Cinder on the forehead. 
Cinder’s head snapped backwards. Miló whirled in Pyrrha’s hands as she brought it down.
Cinder took the blow upon her wrist, the other hand grabbing hold of Miló by the golden shaft. She was leaning backwards, knees bent, the smile gone from her expression, which was now a scowl of effort to hold Pyrrha at bay. Her arms shook as Miló pressed down upon her. 
For her own part, Pyrrha was scowling too as she pushed down upon her spear, exerting all her strength to break down Cinder’s guard. 
She was not just an ancient name. She was not just a laundry list of airy titles. She was not just a pretty face. She was strong and well-trained in equal measure, and Cinder would feel both!
She would have pulled away and reversed her stroke, but Cinder’s grip on Miló was too tight. Very well then, she would have to force her way through.
Embers began to float around her like motes of dust. 
Pyrrha looked down at the floor, which was glowing a fiery yellow beneath her feet. 
The smile returned to Cinder’s face. 
The floor exploded beneath Pyrrha before she could react. A scream tore from Pyrrha’s throat as the flames washed over her, the heat engulfed her, the light blinded her, and heat and fire alike consumed her aura as she was hurled up and backwards through the air, hurled through the wall and into the next room, hurled to the floor in a heap with a thud and a crunch, her red hair pooling around her head. 
The Champion of Mistral. The voice in her head sounded like mockery. Her aura hadn’t broken, not yet, but-
A wordless shout from Jaune echoed in her ears. 



Jaune wasn’t sure who he was more mad at right now. 
Okay, he was more mad at Cinder, obviously, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t kind of upset at Pyrrha too. 
She had promised. She had promised! She had just reassured him like five seconds ago that she wasn’t going to break that promise, and what had she done?
Well, okay, she hadn’t technically broken the promise – she hadn’t left him behind or sent him away – but fighting a battle without him, didn’t that count, sort of? A little?
He hadn’t objected. He hadn’t told her to stop. He had… he had stood there and watched and even kind of looked forward to watching Cinder get her ass kicked – God knew she had it coming – without Sunset there to get in the way. He hadn’t objected until things had stopped going the way that he had thought they would go. 
And now, Pyrrha was screaming. He hadn’t thought that he would ever hear a sound like that. He never wanted to hear a sound like that again, and it was…
Jaune found that he wasn’t nearly so angry at Pyrrha as he was at himself. She hadn’t even told him to stay back until after the fight was halfway through; she hadn’t told him to help, but she hadn’t told him not to either. He had stayed back of his own volition because he knew that he wasn’t in the same league as her or Cinder, he knew that he’d only end up getting in her way, he knew that he ought to stand aside and let her handle it. 
Except that she couldn’t handle it. Not on her own. 
Maybe if she had a better partner…
Well, she didn’t. She had him. And if he wasn’t on the same level as her, if he wasn’t able to stand up to Cinder Fall, then he at least could give her something else to think about. 
And so, he charged, shield held before him, Crocea Mors raised above his head, howling wordlessly, crying out his anger, crying for courage, his tread heavy and thudding like a drumbeat as he rushed through the broken wall straight at Cinder. 
The shield is a weapon, not something to hide behind. That was one of Pyrrha’s first and most persistent lessons to him, and so, as he closed with her, Jaune sought to hit her with his shield, lashing out with it in a sideways swiping motion. 
Cinder dodged it, her body moving with willowy flexibility. 
Jaune slashed at her with his sword. 
Cinder caught Crocea Mors in one hand, her fingers closing around the metal of the blade. 
Jaune tried to pull the sword free – and hopefully take off a slice of her aura into the bargain – but it would not budge. Cinder’s grip upon his weapon was too tight. 
He tried again to hit her with the shield, but she grabbed that with her free hand and held that as tight and immobile as his sword. 
His sword which was starting to glow. No, not glow; it was starting to heat up, the metal getting hotter and hotter, the glow of said heat spreading out from Cinder’s palm up and down the venerable blade.
Jaune tried again to tug it free. It would not move. 
Cinder squeezed.
And Crocea Mors, the sword of heroes, the venerable blade that his great-grandfather had carried through a hundred battles or more, the heirloom of the Arc family, shattered into fragments, shards of broken metal which fell to clatter to the floor at his feet. 
Jaune was left holding a hilt with a broken stump of a blade attached.
Jaune’s eyes were wide with shock. It broke? It broke? He’d broken the ancestral weapon of his family?
Now of all times?
Can I not catch a break just once?
“Oh, come on!” he yelled.
Cinder, meanwhile, was looking at him, and with undisguised irritation too. Her amber eyes smouldered angrily. “Stand still,” she snapped, “and wait for orders from your betters.” She hit him in the face with the palm of her hand, hard enough to knock Jaune off his feet and land him on his back. “You who are worthless, counting for nothing in battle or debate.” She planted one foot upon his chest, pressing down upon him hard enough to pin him to the floor. Cinder cocked her head to one side as she regarded him. 
“What does she see in you?” she asked.
There was no answer but Pyrrha’s furious war cry as she rejoined the battle, her red sash flying. 



Pyrrha had underestimated Cinder. Or she had overestimated herself. Or both. Either way, she might not be able to best her in arms, she might not be able to finish this battle as she had wished, but she would not, by all the gods of Mistral she would not, permit Cinder to do any harm to Jaune. 
Not while she lived. She would sooner die and give Jaune up into Ruby’s small, pale hands than let any harm come to him while she drew breath. 
She was afraid for Jaune, she was angry at herself for letting things come to this, and she was incandescently furious at Cinder for daring, for presuming, for dreaming to threaten sweet brave Jaune while Pyrrha lived. 
You will deal with me first, or while I live, I’ll give you cause to regret that you did otherwise!
Her fury lent her strength beyond her diminished aura as she physically collided with Cinder, wrapping her arms around Cinder’s waist, hurling her off Jaune and slamming her head-first into the ground. She threw her enemy aside, hard enough to cast her out of the room, out through the broken outer wall and into the streets of Mountain Glenn beyond. 
With Polarity, she summed Miló into her grip, the weapon changing fluidly to rifle form in her hands as she fired again and again, emptying the magazine at Cinder, who held out her hands to block the shots, suffering no visible hurt from them. 
But damage to aura wasn’t visible, was it?
Pyrrha charged out after her into the street, lashing out with tip and shaft of Miló, first one and then the other. Cinder parried with her blades of glass, but she had to be close to the end now, surely?
She had to be close to the end if Pyrrha was?
Just a little longer.
Pyrrha was distracted by the roar of the largest beowolf that she had ever seen, larger than the green creature on the other side of the street, larger than any ursa major that she had ever come across. A beowolf large enough that its head was level with the top of the apartment complex, and its fangs were each the size of a motorcycle. 
And those fangs were bared as it advanced upon her, the street shaking with its tread. 
Pyrrha leapt back, summoning Akoúo̱ into her off-hand, drawing back her spear. 
But the beowolf was gone. 
And so was Cinder. 
“You are stronger than I gave you credit for, Pyrrha,” Cinder’s voice, insufferably smug, floated down from on high. “I hadn’t expected you to give me such a challenge. We should do this again sometime.”
Pyrrha looked up, her eyes darting across the dark skyline, searching above her for some – there! A flash of red, disappearing out of sight. 
Pyrrha’s legs bent as she prepared to leap after her. If she could gain the roof-
“Pyrrha, wait!” Jaune cried, running to join her with his shield and scabbard and his sword – his broken sword, for which she felt a punch of guilt as strong as any blow Cinder had dealt her – sheathed there. He didn’t hesitate or ask her permission to raise his hand to her, a golden light spreading from his palm to spread across Pyrrha’s body. “You can’t just go off on your own.”
Pyrrha looked at him through the spreading golden light. Ordinarily, Jaune’s semblance felt so warm and gentle, an embrace of sunlight, comforting and renewing in equal measure. Now, it felt prickly, and a little cold, even by the standards of this place. 
Was that because he was upset with her? Or because she was upset with herself?
“She’s getting away,” she said.
“We’ll see her again,” Jaune replied. “All of us. But right now, we shouldn’t get separated, and I think… I think our friends might use your help.”
All of us, because I couldn’t beat her on my own, Pyrrha thought bitterly. But he was right. They had heard shooting before, and although that had stopped now… she couldn’t just run off and leave everyone. “Of course,” she murmured. “Jaune, I-”
“We can talk about it later,” Jaune said.
“But your sword-”
“That’s not your fault,” he said. “And… I don’t know, maybe it can be repaired or something. Either way, we should get back.”
“Right,” Pyrrha said, and tried to put her guilt aside as she headed back inside, to find another way out into the street and whatever awaited them there. 
But the cold, hard, uncomfortable fact lingered in her mind. 
She had failed.