SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Penny Drops (New)

Penny Drops

Starlight was grateful that she hadn't been stabbed in the back yet in the course of this fight.

She hated it.

Not that she wanted to be stabbed in the back, obviously, but she hated — she absolutely hated — the fact that she was grateful.

She blamed the General.

Starlight was — or liked to think she was — a more realistic sort of person than some of her friends and fellow students. She didn't put General Ironwood up on a pedestal — certainly not anymore — and she didn't wholly believe in all that 'rah rah, we're Atlesians, sorority of sisters' stuff that Trixie or Rainbow could make sound so grand and that had possessed so much dazzling allure for Blake that she was prepared to chase it all the way to the frozen north. Starlight knew better. Starlight, in her own opinion, saw the world more how it was, with all the shades of grey. Not everyone could be trusted, even if they wore an Atlas uniform, and sometimes, General Ironwood would call you into a secret meeting and tell you that you had to hang around a dying woman for the foreseeable future so that she could pass on her secret magic powers to you and then you could spend the rest of your life keeping them every bit as secret.

A lot of shades of grey, and some of them could get pretty dark.

But you could go too far with an attitude like that; it was one thing to acknowledge shades of grey in the world and another to go all in on cynicism. Just because not everyone could be trusted was no reason not to trust anyone; in fact, the very fact that some people were not to be trusted made it even more imperative to find people you could trust and cling onto them tightly. Otherwise, if you prided yourself on trusting no one, you were liable to end up trusting precisely the wrong person at precisely the wrong time.

And top of the list of people you should trust — or ought to be able to trust — were your teammates. If you couldn't trust them — if you couldn't rely on them — then you really were screwed.

Starlight trusted Trixie with her life; she trusted Sunburst absolutely — the difference between with her life and absolutely being largely a value judgement on Trixie and Sunburst's relative competence — and Tempest … even if Starlight had never liked Tempest — and it was fair to admit that she hadn't — she'd never actually distrusted her. Tempest was spiky sometimes, snide often, unpleasant to be around frequently, but Starlight had never doubted that she was on their side. She was unlikeable, but she knew what she was doing, and Starlight had never been afraid to fight by her side.

Until now. It was all General Ironwood's fault, coming around with his insinuations, his unverified intelligence that suggested that Tempest might — might, mark you, not was, but might — be working against them. No proof, or at least no proof that he could share with Starlight or Trixie, just instructions to keep an eye on her.

That had gone out of the window now, for obvious reasons, and now, Starlight was fighting side by side with Tempest, and her back itched in the process, and she was grateful for every moment that Tempest didn't attack her instead of the grimm.

She hated it. She wanted to be able to focus squarely and solely on the enemy in front of her, not have to worry about the possible enemy beside her all the time.

Tempest wasn't actually right behind her at this moment; Starlight was the only one of Team TTSS presently holding the line; Trixie had had an idea to even the odds a bit and had taken Sunburst off to help her carry it out, while Tempest had gotten tired of not being able to act until the grimm came closer; maybe someone should have gone with her as well, but with Trixie having taken Sunburst away, Starlight couldn't exactly go anywhere because, as stated, she was the only one left holding the line.

There were other huntsman teams still in or around Beacon — Starlight could hear some of them fighting back in other areas — but right now, right here, in this particular part of the fairgrounds, it was only Team TTSS, which meant that it was only Starlight for the moment.

She was crouched in one of the fairground stalls, behind the counter, where the guy actually running the stall would have stood before they ran off in fear of the grimm; there was a wall full of plushies behind her, grinning down at Starlight with big googly eyes while her knees bumped against plastic boxes full of tennis balls.

The grimm advanced in a mass, a black mass enlivened by blotches of white where you could see their faces, white with touches of red, be it gleaming eyes or marks like paint. It was weird how some grimm looked like they put on warpaint.

Perhaps they did put on warpaint; even the Grimm Studies teachers didn’t know a lot about what grimm got up to in their spare time. Perhaps they all sat around painting their skulls in preparation for the big fight.

Then I’d best give them the fight they were preparing for.

Starlight gritted her teeth as she fired Equaliser into the advancing grimm; the blue beams seemed to be disappearing into the black mass, swallowed up by the sheer numbers of the advancing grimm. Seemed, not were; Starlight aimed for the heads, for the white masks with the red eyes and markings, and she could see the masks shatter, see the heads disappear, see the grimm fall, even if they were so swiftly subsumed within the advance that, if she didn’t trust her own eyes, she might not have believed they fell.

But they indeed fell. She was thinning the ranks.

Just not quite fast enough all by herself. Sometimes, it took two, three, maybe even five shots from Equaliser to kill a single big ursa or alpha beowolf; yes, the weaker creatures, the creeps or the juveniles, she could get in one, but there were just so many.

So many of them and only one of her.

Come on, Trixie, where are you?

At this rate, she might have to fall back. She didn’t want to do that; they’d already fallen back once, having intended to hold the grimm beyond the edge of the fairground; the numbers of the enemy — and the fact that they were kind of on their own out here — had forced TTSS to fall back into the fairgrounds itself, giving up the burger van, the Bat the Rat, and the Bucket Toss; if Starlight had to fall back again, the grimm would be on top of the carousel.

It all might seem trivial stuff, but every step that they retreated reduced the amount of safe space for the civilians.

But Starlight might have to do it, because if those grimm kept on coming like they were coming now, then the alternative … well, she didn’t want to die for some kind of bucket toss and a lot of smiling plushies.

She glanced sideways as Tempest returned, carrying a rifle with a pipe attached to it, a pipe that led to some kind of canister which Tempest dumped on the floor.

“What’s that?” Starlight asked, as she kept shooting.

“A rifle,” Tempest replied, stating the obvious. As she loaded it, she said, “I got tired of having to wait for the grimm to get close, especially since you and Trixie don’t like letting the grimm get close.”

“Forgive us for preferring to keep the grimm at a range where they can’t hit back,” Starlight muttered. “Did you get that from a fairground game?”

“I doubt the grimm care what they get shot with,” Tempest declared, as she loaded a magazine into the rifle. She raised the gun — it had a wooden stock and a slender barrel extending out past said stock — and fired. “Sights are off, though.”

“I wonder why that might be?” Starlight muttered.

Tempest didn’t reply; she just scowled a little bit — not unusual for Tempest — and then fired again. This time, she hit something; a beowolf yelped in pain and collapsed on the ground, not dead but clutching at its chest.

“You grasped it quickly,” Starlight observed.

“I was aiming for the one to the left,” Tempest replied.

There were times, when she was feeling agreeable, when Tempest could muster a wit that wasn’t aimed at any of her teammates or their friends; Starlight wished that she could appreciate it without wondering if Tempest was putting on an act.

Don’t think about that. We have bigger problems right now.

I might not think that if Tempest actually betrayed me.

Maybe not, but she hasn’t yet, so worry about it when she actually does.

Trixie arrived, running up on the right hand side of the stand, carrying several big crates stacked one on top of the other, piled high in such a way that she couldn’t actually see what was in front of her, and it seemed like a miracle that she didn’t run right into the grimm.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for the delay to today’s extrrrrrraordinary performance!” Trixie declared in her grandiose style as she put down the crates. “The unexpected circumstances forced some last minute adjustments. Sunburst, that’ll do.”

Sunburst had come up behind Trixie, similarly laded with the wooden crates, and if it hadn’t been for Trixie’s warning, he wouldn’t have stopped when he did and started, like her, putting the boxes down.

“I hope it was worth it, whatever it was,” Starlight said as she fired some more shots from Equaliser. The power pack was almost drained, so she quickly swapped it out, putting the old one back into a pouch at her belt, to be used again if she ran out of fresh power cells. “What was it you went looking for?”

Trixie grinned viciously as she kicked over one of the crates; an array of fireworks, large and small, painted in bright colours and decorated with shooting stars and fizzing lines like the waves of an explosion, spilled out onto the grass.

“The Grrrrreat and Powerrrrrrful Trrrrrrixie thought that this situation called for some artillery support!” Trixie proclaimed. “After all, it’s not as though there’s going to be a show tonight.”

“That’s true,” Sunburst said as he upended more of the crates so that their fireworks spilled out onto the grass. “But will this actually work?”

“I don’t see why not; they’re filled with dust,” Trixie said. She flourished her wand as the chill breeze made her cape flutter behind her, the moonlight dancing upon the stars. “And if it doesn’t, we’ll get a light show out of it. Stand back, Sunburst! Don’t try this at home, children!”

“Who’s she talking to?” muttered Tempest.

Nobody replied as Trixie pointed her wand down at the first crate. There were warnings about the flammable contents and to keep away from flames.

Fire leapt from the tip of Trixie’s wand; the flames caught the wooden crate and began to devour it; the fire spread as she Trixie flourished her wand sideways; soon, all the boxes were aflame, even as Trixie retreated from them.

Starlight and Tempest kept shooting as the grimm advanced, heedless of what Trixie had just done — or were they? Starlight could see some of the larger grimm, the ursai major and the alpha beowolves, beginning to retreat, or at least to stand still and let the younger, more numerous, less experienced grimm pass around them and take their places in the front line. Did they know? Did they recognise what a firework was?

But if they knew, then why not save their followers instead of letting them press on like this?

You could get a headache trying to understand why the grimm behaved the way they did, at least when they were doing anything more complicated than trying to kill someone.

Anyway, the grimm — some of the grimm, a lot of grimm — kept coming, and Starlight kept firing, Tempest too.

The flames consumed the wooden crates and their warnings. Starlight could hear spitting sounds from the fireworks within.

“Fire in the hole!” Trixie yelled.

The fireworks erupted out of the burning crates, showering sparks of blue, green, white, yellow — the colours of the four academies the most prominent amongst the set — in a host of hues and shades, along with lesser-seen examples of a riot of other colours too; they all leapt out of the burning boxes, sparks flying out behind them. They moved erratically, some of them flying upwards into the air, corkscrewing wildly over the heads of the grimm to hit nevermores in the skies above or just to explode with loud bangs and showers of colourful sparks that lit up the night sky; most of them didn't miss like that, some rose a little off the ground but not so high, others flew along the ground itself like startled snakes, turning this way and that even as they moved forwards. Their sparks singed the grass or even lit it on fire, trails of flame following in the wake of the fireworks even as the fire that Trixie had set began to spread out too.

The grimm were so numerous that they could hardly miss.

Most of them didn’t.

The fireworks flew swiftly into the midst of the great mass of grimm, causing yelps and howls of pain as the sparks flew, making beowolves flail with their paws as low-flying fireworks slammed into them, and then they exploded. They exploded in so many colours, with so many sparks of light erupting out of every firework that it was blinding. Starlight couldn't see the grimm before them, she couldn't hear them roar or growl or bellow in their rage, she couldn't hear anything but the banging of so many fireworks exploding, couldn't see anything but the field of explosions flowering in front of her. She had to shut her eyes against the brightness and the colours, and even when she did so, the many hues danced in the darkness before her eyes, the echoes of the explosions shifting first this way and then that.

The explosions continued to sound in her ears, sometimes fading a little but then returning again with renewed volume and intensity; the fireworks must have come with a variety of different fuse lengths, cut to get the fireworks going off at different points in the sky; now, it sounded as though they were going off at different points amongst the grimm; sometimes, Starlight could hear them when the fireworks themselves became less loud — bellowing, mewling in pain, pounding feet like a stampede — but then the fireworks rose in sound to a new crescendo and drowned them out again.

It sounded, when she could hear them, like the grimm were panicking; they had swarmed forward expecting a victory against a token force arrayed against them, first one huntress, then three and one huntsman, then they had been assailed by such a sudden force out of nowhere; doubtless, the young grimm could not comprehend it; they would have never seen anything like it before.

The sound of the fireworks dropped; Starlight opened her eyes to see that the field of sparkling flowers had ceased to bloom, although a layer of smoke had settled over the battlefield, drifting listlessly over smouldering grass and the ash-shedding remains of fallen grimm.

Sunburst carried a long staff, taller than he was at its maximum length, and he set an ice dust crystal into the head of the staff and waved it in front of him. A small wave of ice emerged out of the staff to quell the flames that Trixie had begun, covering the remains of the burnt out boxes and the grass in a layer of sparkling ice.

The colours drifted across Starlight's vision like the smoke, both serving to slightly obscure what was before her blue eyes. But they could not conceal the fact that the grimm were thinned out in numbers, the great black mass that had borne down on Starlight diminished. Some grimm, not quite dead, lay on the grass amongst their smoking fellows, moaning and mewling; they were missing limbs or else had chunks taken out of them.

Others hung back, standing still or even starting to shuffle backwards, glaring at Team TTSS warily.

Starlight despatched each wounded grimm with singular well-aimed shots of Equaliser. Still, the grimm continued to hold, or slowly back away, staring at the Atlesian team from across the battlefield.

If they had had reinforcements, if the numbers on their side had been greater, if they had even been sure that backup was coming soon though it was not there yet, then now, Starlight was sure, would have been the moment for a counterattack. Now would have been the moment when Trixie could — and would, no doubt — have stepped forward, flourishing her wand in the air above her head, and called for a charge. Dazed as they were by the effects of the fireworks, confused, injured, the morale of the grimm would not have stood before it, and the older, wiser grimm would have broken and fled, leaving the younger and less experienced to be cut down.

If, if, if. If they had had the numbers for it, or the numbers on their way that they could trust to hurl themselves into the battle on their behalf, but they didn't. There were no reinforcements coming — at least, not that they knew of — and with just the four of them, they might make the grimm recoil temporarily, but they would soon recover their courage along with the knowledge of their numerical advantage, and Team TTSS would be surrounded and destroyed.

As it was, Starlight thought that what was mainly holding the grimm back was the worry they might have more fireworks.

And the moment they figure out we don't…

The grimm began to growl. It was low at first, a rumble like far-off thunder, but the thunder got closer, closer and closer to TTSS until all the grimm were roaring.

And then they were surging forwards once again.

Starlight leapt over the counter of the bucket toss. "Fall back?" she asked as she raised Equaliser to her shoulder and resumed firing.

"Not yet," Trixie replied, her voice calm as she took two steps forward. Her cape fluttered behind her as she thrust out her wand and a jet of fire burst from the tip, expanding outwards into a cone, a mouth that devoured a chunk of the onrushing grimm.

Tempest fired her fairground air rifle again, then threw it down in frustration. "Sunburst!" she snapped. "Give me something."

Sunburst planted his staff in the ground and reached behind him for the book — an old-fashioned looking, leather bound book, the sort of heavy tome one expected to see as a prop in a movie about sealed tombs and ancient curses — that he carried strapped to his back under his star-and-moon cape. He opened the tome, holding it in one hand and flicking through the pages with the other. "Rapid fire or penetration?"

"Do you have anything with both?" Tempest asked.

Sunburst pushed his spectacles back up his nose. "I think I might, yeah. Just a second." He held his hand out over the back, fingers spread out, as the pages began to flicker and dance as though the wind were so much stronger than was actually the case. The book began to glow with a golden light, the same soft gold as Sunburst's aura shining out of the book to light up Sunburst's lean, whey face.

He thrust his hand out in Tempest's direction. "Tempest! Catch!" he cried as what looked like a boxy, chunky handbag formed out of golden light and flew through the air in her direction.

Sunburst's semblance, Analytica, enabled him to understand a weapon just by looking at it — just once, just seeing it in operation, and he got it; everything snapped into place in his mind. Starlight thought that once his semblance evolved, he would be able to do the same thing to other semblances too, but he wasn't quite there yet. His book, Tome of Knowledge, contained page after page of schematics from which he could summon constructs — none of which he could use himself. It was the weakness of his semblance; for all its versatility, it was of no use to him personally whatsoever; all his understanding could only benefit others.

Like Tempest, as she followed Starlight over the stall counter and grabbed the handbag with one hand. She placed her other hand upon it as the handbag started to transform in her hand, folding and unfolding and expanding in her grasp into a rotary cannon.

Right, that's the leader of Team CFVY's weapon, isn't it?

Tempest grinned. "Oh, yes, come to mama." She was still grinning like a maniac as she levelled the rotary cannon in the direction of the grimm and opened fire.

Magenta 'bullets' — Sunburst's aura created the weapon, but Tempest had to pitch into it also — spat from the cannon as the barrels rotated rapidly, spitting a storm of fire towards the grimm. The grimm wilted before the storm, mowed down by it, beowolves tumbling, ursai only lasting a few moments longer before they, too, were cut down.

Tempest had a wild look on her face, her opal eyes gleaming as she began to advance, turning from the waist this way and that to spread her fire in a wide arc. "That's right, come and get it," she growled as she bore down on the grimm, firing as she went. "Come on!"

"Tempest, what are you doing?" Trixie demanded. "Get back here!"

Tempest ignored her; she just kept on walking towards the grimm, the golden light of Sunburst's aura dancing in her eyes as she swept deadly fire across the front ranks of the grimm. "That's it, come and get some! And some for you as well, plenty for everyone!"

"Tempest, stand fast!" Trixie shouted.

Tempest took no notice. She kept on walking, heedless of the way that the grimm were moving in from the flanks to surround her.

Starlight started to advance as well, and Trixie too; Starlight fired as she moved forward, bolts flying from Equaliser's barrel; Trixie's cape billowed out behind her as she ran forwards.

Tempest had stopped moving by now, and it was the grimm who were moving, closing in all around her as she fired, heedless, still wearing that manic look as though she were in no danger whatsoever.

Trixie pointed her wand towards the grimm, and more fire spilled out from the tip; Starlight switched Equaliser from rifle into polearm mode as she charged forward, if she could only reach Tempest, then she could drag her out and to safety—

The grimm closed the net. Tempest disappeared from Starlight's view, but Starlight could still hear her laughing wildly, consumed with battle madness.

Starlight's own eyes were wide as she hurled herself against the grimm, Equaliser whirling in her hands as she slashed at them, cutting through beowolves, hacking off the heads of ursai. But the grimm kept coming; where they had advanced in a mass, now they closed in on a point, intent on bringing Tempest down and blocking off all attempts to reach her.

Tempest's wild exultations turned to screams of pain.

"Tempest!" Starlight cried. No, no, they couldn't lose her, this could not be it, this could not be how she died: mistrusted by her teammates, suspected of treachery, thought ill of by those who should have trusted her. This … this couldn't be it. This couldn't be how Tempest died. This couldn't be how Team TTSS lost someone.

Tears pricked at the corners of Starlight's eyes as she hurled herself against the grimm, hacking and slashing, cutting wildly, desperate to get through them. The grimm were moving to surround her now, but Starlight didn't care. Tempest was in front of her; if she could just get to her, then—

"Starlight!" Trixie yelled, grabbing Starlight by the collar and hauling her back. "Starlight, get back!"

Trixie was casting fire in both directions, fending the grimm off with her flames as she tried to pull Starlight away, but the flames were flickering; she was running out of dust in the cartridge. "Starlight, come on!" she yelled. "If we don't fall back, we'll be cut off!"

"We can't just leave her!" Starlight yelled, straining against Trixie's grip.

"Starlight, it's too late, she's gone!" Trixie bellowed into Starlight's ears. "She's gone, but I am not losing you too; now, do as I say and FALL. BACK!"

Starlight obeyed, the instincts of obedience kicking in, the same instincts that Tempest had ignored. She and Trixie both stumbled backwards, away from the grimm who remained arrayed as though they were surrounding Tempest, although Starlight…

Starlight couldn't hear her anymore.

Damn you, General.

Trixie's hand shook a little as she tried to reload her wand. She dropped a dust cartridge down on the floor at her feet and fumbled for another. "We'll … retreat to the carousel," she said, gulping. "And use the roof as high ground. I'll be the rearguard."

Starlight blinked. Her eyes stung. "Trix—"

"I'll do it!" Trixie declared, her voice fierce despite — or maybe because — of the way it trembled. She pointed her wand towards the grimm. "Go on, I'll follow."

The grimm turned towards them, and in a mass, as though they were one mind, they started towards them — but then were checked; their advance ceased, and many grimm turned their faces southwards as cries of pain and despair rose up from that direction.

Grimm cries, not human ones. The grimm were crying out as something, some great force cut through them, throwing their ranks into disarray.

Not something, someone: a girl with a scarred face, with one eye seeming to burn through use of dust, a girl that Starlight had often seen lately in the company of Team SAPR, and sometimes of Team RSPT as well.

Amber. Her name is Amber.

---

"I didn't want this," Amber whispered as she stared up at the nevermores wheeling and darting through the night sky above, blocking out the clouds, fleeting across the moon, darting down with talons outstretched to pluck people up from Beacon below like … like worms at the mercy of the magpies in the garden.

She hadn't wanted this.

Dove was stood a little in front of her, sword half-drawn, steel showing from the scabbard at his hip. Bon Bon had one hand on Amber's arm — Amber didn't like the feeling; her grip was too sharp and too insistent — while Lyra stood just a little behind.

Dove didn't say anything to her; he had no words of comfort to offer. It pierced Amber more surely than his half-drawn sword would do, as much as the shrieking of the nevermores above and the growling of the beowolves and the ursai on the ground did.

She had … she had let him down. He was upset with her; he had been ever since she had suggested … since she had tried to… she had let him down over the way that she had treated Ruby. He was upset with her, and he had a right to be upset. She had behaved … she had not been worthy of herself, and certainly, she had not been worthy of him.

This was … when the grimm had started to attack that great floating arena up in the sky, when Lyra had come back — with Bon Bon only a step behind — to tell her that the flying arena was under attack; when she and Dove had looked out of the window to see the fire from the Atlesians floating warships trying to destroy the grimm, Amber had not liked it. She hadn't liked to think of Pyrrha and Jaune, or Penny, or sweet Ciel who knew so much about makeup, in danger so very high up in the sky, their very footing in danger of being ripped out from under them by flying monsters. She hadn't liked it, but she had salved her conscience by telling herself that they were brave and bold and far from helpless; she had told herself that these Atlesians, these northmen, were much vaunted — by themselves, to be sure, but by others too — and that should mean they could defend the flying arena, shouldn't it?

She had told herself that a distraction had been necessary, that something like this to distract Ozpin's eyes and keep her friends — her friends who, unfortunately, were also her gaolers and would choose their task as gaolers over their friendship with her the moment they learned of her intent — occupied while she escaped.

She had told herself all of this — told herself silently, because Lyra knew nothing of this, and Amber, for one, was in no hurry to enlighten her — and hoped that they would all come through it alright, even while she feared that Dove's misgivings were stronger and working harder on his spirit.

As they had looked out of the window, as Lyra had wondered what could be causing this sudden grimm assault, Amber had watched Dove's face twitch once or twice, seen a scowl flit across his face, as though he were struggling to hide his distaste.

She was trespassing upon the boundaries of his affection. She was reaching the limits beyond which he would not be Dove Bronzewing, good Dove, her Dove, and by reaching those limits … he might not be her Dove much longer.

They could not get out with a distraction, but Amber understood why that was cold comfort; the dish sat uncomfortably upon her own stomach. If Pyrrha were to perish, so beautiful, so kind, and so in love, why should Pyrrha die for Amber's sake?

If she should die, take her and cut her into little stars, and she shall make the darkness sparkle so that all the world shall be in love with night.

Why should all Remnant be in love with night that Amber may walk freely in the sun?

Why should Jaune be plunged into misery, cast into despond's darkest and most murky depths? Why should he grow his hair wild with misery and let a beard consume his face — or would he cut his hair instead, shedding the luscious, lovely locks that Pyrrha loved so well? Why should he do either of those things, so that Amber might be happy with Dove?

If she could be happy, after this. If Dove could be happy, if he could find happiness within him — or within her, more to the point.

I told myself my freedom was worth any cost, but now, the time has come to pay the bill.

That had all been bad enough, these thoughts and feelings had been bad enough before, when the battle was up above them in the sky, but now … now, there were grimm in Beacon, in the air above, on the grounds … now, the bill looked grave indeed, and the hand of the waiter tight upon her arm.

People were screaming. Some were running away, towards the docking pad, although there were no airships there; others had been trying to get into the school buildings — as Amber, Dove, Lyra, and Bon Bon had tried to get out, they had met by a crowd of people trying to get in, the doors to the dorm rooms thrown open to admit them and offer some shelter from the nevermores — but now, it seemed the grimm were getting too close to the buildings for comfort, and people were flying out again.

From where she stood in the courtyard, Amber could see to the dining hall, where they had all sat and eaten together, and she could see an immense ursa with great spikes erupting out of its back smash through the wall, opening the way for a pack of smaller grimm to swarm in behind and begin to tear up that place of memories, to smash the seats and devour the tables that had once been theirs.

Amber could hear some shooting, some battle cries, she could hear a lot of fireworks going off from the direction of the fairground, but it seemed that there weren't enough people left to defend the school. Either they were up in the sky still, or else they had gone into Vale with Professor Goodwitch, to deal with some trouble there.

They had gone and left the people here with too few protectors.

All part of the plan.

Amber felt sick.

"Amber," Lyra murmured. "Why would you say something like that? Of course you didn't want this, how…?" She trailed off.

Amber turned her head to look at her. Lyra had a frown upon her face, her brow furrowed intently.

"How," she repeated, slowly, each word stumbling out of her mouth, "could you even know that this was going to happen." She paused for a moment, and the furrow of her brow deepened yet further. "Did you know—?"

"Of course not," Bon Bon said quickly. "Of course not, Lyra, how would Amber have known that there was going to be a grimm attack?" She chuckled, or tried to; it came out as a rather strangled sound. "But I knew that—"

"You knew?" Lyra exclaimed.

"We needed a distraction!" Bon Bon hissed. "What did you think, that Professor Ozpin was just going to let us walk out?"

"But, but…" Lyra stammered. "People are dying, Bon Bon! People are scared, and … Sky wouldn't have wanted this."

Bon Bon shuddered but didn't reply to Lyra. She pulled at Amber's arm. "We have to go. Everyone's heading for the docks, straight away from the grimm, so we can head south across the face of the grimm, down the road, and into the open country behind the Green Line; we can lie low there and wait for Tempest to join us, if she can."

Dove half-turned his head, although he didn't quite look back. "What about the—?"

"Later," Bon Bon said. "We can't get it now, it's still too risky; we'll come back for it after, when things are quieter."

"Come back for what?" Lyra asked.

"Something that we need," Bon Bon replied. "Something stolen by Ozpin; Amber needs it to bargain for her freedom."

"'Bargain for her—'" Lyra repeated. "I thought we were doing this because it was right!"

"We are."

"It doesn't look or sound like it!" Lyra cried.

"Lyra, just—"

"You're right," Amber said, shaking Bon Bon's hand off her arm. She turned to face Lyra. A light breeze blew through the embattled school, grasping at the edges of Amber's forest-green cloak, making the hem dance around her legs; she planted one end of her staff, Sapphire — ironic name, now, and never seeming more inappropriate than in this moment — upon the courtyard stone as she placed her free hand on Lyra's shoulder. "You're right," she said again. "What we are … this is wrong. This should not have been done. For my freedom, I thought myself willing to pay any price, but now, I find myself recoiling from the cost." She smiled. "But we will make it right, before we go."

Dove turned around, spinning on one toe until he faced her and Lyra. "'Before we go'?"
Amber let her hand fall from Lyra's shoulder. "Will you … will you fight with me, my Dove, my knight, my Roland?"

"'Fight'?" Dove repeated. His mouth hung open. "You … you want to fight?"

Amber bowed her head a moment. "No," she confessed. "But I … though I did not ask to be made thus, I think that I must be what I was made to be, this one occasion." She reached up and stroked his face, her golden bangles bumping gently against his skin. "You have been my conscience, and my better half. Now be my sword, if you will, as I will be your rod and staff."

"You can't be serious!" Bon Bon exclaimed. "This … this is madness!"

"Since my mother died, I have been consumed with madness," Amber replied. "I have slept in madness, dwelt in madness; all the world has been consumed with madness; and the madness of the world has made me frantic, fearful, and unkind. Let this be hope's madness, then, a good heart's madness. Love's madness."

Dove let out a ragged gasp that set his whole body trembling. He closed his blue eyes as he took her hand and pressed it fiercely against his cheek as though he hoped her fingers and her palm would leave a permanent mark upon his skin. He was still clutching her hand — firmly, but not at all painfully — as he raised it to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

"I will fight," he said, his voice hoarse. "I will fight with you."

Amber closed her eyes and felt like sighing herself, for whatever happened now, whatever befell, she had restored herself into the good graces of Dove's heart, and that … she would rather die in his love than live a hundred years out of his affection.

And perhaps, when my friends discover what I have done, they will learn all that I have done and wonder that I could not be all wickedness, for I fought for the people on this night.

I was the Fall Maiden once, before I took my leave.

She walked forward, stepping around Dove and just ahead of him, letting her hand fall by her side as she looked forwards. There were grimm before her, in the dining hall and creeping around the dormitory of the Beacon students; possibly, they were inside the dorm as well, though Amber could see them not.

Having declared her intent to fight, Amber did not lack for enemies. They were before her, in all their fury, in all their howling noise, their gnashing of white teeth, in all their spikes and crimson marks upon their skulls, there they were.

Sapphire remained resting upon the ground, the wooden butt of the staff upon the stone.

The enemy lay before her, and Amber was still as the statue of the huntsman and the huntress; like them, she stood posed before snarling monsters, and she was doing as much to fight the real and living monsters.

She had never fought a battle before. She had trained for it — even before she became the Fall Maiden, she had been taught a little of fighting by her mother and Ozpin — she knew how to wield the quarterstaff in her hand, but she had never fought. Not until the day that Cinder came for her with her companions had Amber had to fight, and that battle had nearly been the death of her. Fear lay on Amber's shoulders as much as her cloak. Dread rose out of the ground and clasped its monstrous hands around her ankles and held them fast. Terror blew its breeze across Beacon and froze her solid.

And yet, in the midst of the chill wind, there was warmth. The warmth of a hand taking hers. Dove's hand closed around hers.

"Courage, Amber," he whispered to her. "Courage, for all that is to come."

He drew his sword with a resounding ring. His look was resolute, his jaw set, his handsome face suffused with courage as he cast his eyes around the battlefield. Amber kept her eyes on him, their hands clasped together, taking him in, drinking in how much more a hero he looked to her than he had ever looked before. Despite its dun brown colour, the moonlight that fell upon them seemed to make his armour shine.

Her Dove. Her knight. Her hero.

Courage, she thought. Yes, I must have courage, this once. Though I am a coward all the days of my life that are to come, tonight, I must have courage.

Music began to float into her ears from behind her. Lyra was playing her harp, her lithe, deft fingers plucking upon the tender strings, and the rising notes made Amber's heart rise with them. The heat of Dove's hand melted away the chill that froze her; dread hands unclasped her ankles, and the mantle of fear lay less heavily upon her.

She was the Fall Maiden; she had not sought to be, nor asked to be — it was an unwelcome inheritance, the most unsentimental heirloom that a mother could bestow upon a child — but she was the Fall Maiden. And tonight, she would be the Fall Maiden, that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, she might be but Amber Bronzewing and in some humble cottage dwell in peace beside her love.

Tomorrow.

Tonight, she called upon her magic. It was not easy; it had never been easy for her, it was as though the magic could sense her nerves the way dogs could sometimes, and now, the magic felt … different than it had done before, scarred and wounded. But she was not so nervous now; a calm settled over her, and with that calm came authority over the power that had been bestowed on her whether she would or no. She was the Fall Maiden, and the magic of the Maiden — what remained — would respond to her.

The dog came, responding to authoritative command. As Amber pulled her hand away from Dove and gripped her staff tightly in both hands, a wing of fire leapt up from and around her left eye.

Another flame, a little lick of flame, burned on the tip of her staff.

Still, Lyra played her lovely harp.

Amber and Dove charged forth. They made no sound, neither of them shouted a loud war cry, they just charged towards the nearest grimm, to finish them before they could finish anyone else.

Her lessons with the staff pounded like a drumbeat in Amber's mind as she approached a group of snarling beowolves. As she closed, the first one swiped at her with a paw larger than her head; Amber slowed a little, but not completely; she slid forwards upon her armoured boots, leaning back to duck beneath the swiping stroke before she hit the beowolf with the end of Sapphire hard enough to make its head whip around. She drew back her staff and used it like a spear, thrusting the butt forward many times in quick succession, laying hit after hit upon the beowolf's unprotected chest as the howling beast recoiled before her. The sixth or seventh stroke finished it, and as its body toppled back and began to smoke, Amber whirled her staff around, letting fire rip from the tip to erupt outwards in a flaming shockwave. She spun upon her toe, cape whirling around her as she twirled, to unleash a second and even greater wave — careful not to hit Dove — to follow hard upon the first. Beowolves wilted before her flames. Amber spun her staff around before her so fast that it became a blur, gripping it in one hand before she thrust out her hand to unleash a gust of wind that sent beowolves flying backwards; when they slammed into the ground, the impact finished off what the flames had begun.

Dove had sought out the alpha of the group, the largest of the group and with the largest teeth and claws, yet when the beowolf brought one massive paw down, Dove took the blow upon his arm, bracing himself, quivering but not yielding. With his other hand, he drove his sword into the beowolf's chest all the way up to the hilt. He shot twice with the gun part of his gun sword, the bangs slightly muffled by being buried in the grimm itself.

Amber scowled as she slammed her staff into the back of the beowolf's leg hard enough to drive the grimm down to its knees on the ground. Dove twisted his sword, drew it out of the monster's chest, and with a single smooth stroke, cut off its head.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

They said nothing as they pushed onwards, into the dining hall. Amber set fires as she flung flames round; the fire that leapt from the tip of her staff did not just strike creeps or beowolves but the tables and benches as well, the seats where she had sat with all her friends beginning to burn, fire licking at the corners of the hall, smoke rising. But she killed the grimm. She and Dove killed the grimm together, so what did a little fire in an empty dining hall matter compared to that? She burned the grimm as they tried to rush in through the hole in the wall that the ursa had made, and then she and Dove were in amongst them; Amber lashed out with her staff, her body moving a lithely as a willow tree under a strong wind, weaving and swaying and staying out of the way of grimm paws and grimm teeth; Dove was more solid, and more stolid, enduring blows as though he felt them not — Amber would have to take more of the lead, to spare his aura — before making strong counterattacks, his sword thrusting in and out or slashing from side to side. Amber thrust with her staff in rapid blows that landed in close clusters, one after another, the way that Ozpin had taught her, or else she fought in more the fashion of her mother, clubbing grimm across the sides of their heads with her staff, driving them to the ground before hammering them upon their backs until the smoke began to rise. The tip of her staff was always aflame, the fire adding a touch to every stroke or blow, making the grimm howl just that little bit harder.

They killed the big ursa together. Dove led the way, drawing the grimm's attention, but as it raised a clawed paw, Amber loosed a little narrow jet of flame over Dove's head to strike the ursa in the eyes. The grimm recoiled, covering its bony face with one paw, flailing with the other, and as that paw flailed, Dove began to hack at it with his sword. Once, twice, three times, he hacked, his sword glimmering in the fires Amber had started, before he severed the paw and left only an ugly red stump in its place. The ursa roared as it dropped down onto its remaining three legs, presenting his spike-covered back and shoulders in place of its less well protected chest. Dove fell back a little as the ursa lunged for him, jaws open. Amber leapt over a smouldering table and assailed the ursa from its side, thrusting her staff forward in seven quick consecutive thrusts, then darting away, then stepping forth once more to swing Sapphire into the ursa's hind leg.

The ursa turned her head towards her, but as it did, Dove returned to the fray, slicing into the ursa's neck.

The ursa roared and swung its head back around to bodily slam into Dove and knock him off his feet.

Amber jammed her staff into the black of the ursa's leg and let the flames engulf the wood and rush down towards the monster.

The ursa howled, mouth opening.

Dove rammed his sword into that same mouth, until his arm was in its maw up to the elbow.

But the ursa's bite did not close around his arm; rather, the ursa remained frozen, mouth agape, before its remaining legs gave way and it slumped to the ground. Ash and smoke began to rise from its remains.

Dove climbed, only a little unsteadily, to his feet. His blade hung by his side. "You … you stand on the verge of making me feel inadequate," he murmured.

Amber smiled, but only a little, to show she meant no mockery. "I would not be here if it weren't for you," she said. "I … I would have no will nor constant heart to fight were it not for you, is that not enough?" She paused. "But … guard yourself, I pray you, for my happiness."

Dove offered her a courtly bow from the waist. "How can I refuse such a fair request?"

Together, they fought their way north from the courtyard, across the edge of the fairgrounds, coming to the aid of civilians and students — including Tempest, whom Amber might rather have let the grimm devour except that if she did that, then who knew what might happen to her and to the bargain that she had made for her security? — alike, scything their way through the grimm as they came on. And as they fought, and as Amber's eye burned with the magic that remained to her, all the remnants of the fear that bound her like chains, that clung to her like cold, shattered and melted away into nothingness.

I can kill! She thought. I can kill as well as you can, Ruby! Or Pyrrha or Sunset or any of you! I don't have to be afraid of Cinder anymore!

I'm not afraid anymore!

I'll take my freedom, and no one will stop me. Even if you come after me, Ruby, I won't yield to you. I won't let anyone stand in my way.

No one will ever bind me again.

She could fight. She could protect herself, and Dove, and anyone she chose. Let Ozpin send hunters after her if he wanted to; she'd fight them too.

She could fight if she had to, and she would if she needed to.

With Dove beside her, she could do anything.

And with Dove beside her, and with Lyra's music and destiny itself driving her on, she fought all the way across the face of the advancing grimm, across the fairgrounds, relieving the pressure for a little while and only stopping her rampage when she reached the farm.

The farm where they had all gone on that night, after everyone had taken Amber into Vale, when they had all been together and talked about … everything and nothing and what the future might hold. When she had dreamed of visiting Mistral with Team SAPR and Penny.

That future would never be now. She would never see Mistral, certainly not in the company of Pyrrha and the others, but the Beacon farm was still here, and the chickens clucked and waddled about within their pen as though nothing at all was amiss, as though the world was carrying on just as it always had, in complete ignorance of all that had occurred and all that was occurring not so far away.

The goat raised its head, baaed at the group, and then lay down again.

Of course, grimm didn't trouble animals; neither the goat nor the chickens would be in any danger from a beowolf, unless they picked a fight, and why should they do that? They were very fortunate, and they didn't even realise how lucky they were.

Amber rested the butt of her staff on the grass and leaned on Sapphire for a moment, as the fire faded from around her eye. She felt rather tired, and though she hoped that her breath and strength would return shortly, right now, she could use a moment to rest.

"Are you alright?" Dove asked solicitously.

"I will be," Amber assured him. Dove, she thought, could also use a little respite to recharge his aura, although she did not say so.

Lyra let the music die. "That was," she began, "that was incredible! I see what you mean, Bon Bon, that was amazing! That wasn't dust you were using, was it? For the fire? Or the wind? Some people might think it was, I suppose, but from where I was standing … where was the dust? It wasn't on your staff, not the way you were using it; you don't have a sleeve to hide dust up, so where was it?"

Amber took a deep breath. "There is no dust, it is as you say," she said softly. "I am … empowered. It's why Ozpin wants to keep me under his control. And why I must buy my liberty with something of great value, else my powers make me too valuable to be allowed to go quietly into peace."

Lyra bit her lip for a moment. "I see," she muttered. "But, all the same, you did the right thing here, as well as the cool thing." She paused for a moment. "What now?"

"Now, as impressive a display as that was," Tempest said as she emerged out of the darkness, "we need to go, before someone comes looking for you, or my teammates realise that I wasn't devoured by beowolves." She paused. "This was an unwise move."

"It was the right thing to do," Lyra declared.

Tempest glanced at her. "And who are you?"

"She's a friend," Amber said, taking a step forward because she wasn't afraid of Tempest anymore either. "She's my friend."

Tempest looked down at her. "I see," she said softly. "And your minder?"

"She … you don't have to worry," Amber replied.

Tempest nodded. Perhaps she thought that Ruby was dead; if she thought that, then Amber wasn't going to correct her. There was a part of her that still wished Ruby was dead, nasty girl. If she came after Amber, then Amber was prepared to fight her now, fight her and kill her, but that being the case, why not kill her now and get it over with?

Because Dove wouldn't like it. Because Dove didn't want it.

Because Dove is an honourable man, and because he likes Ruby.

But if she came for me, he would choose me over her; once more, he would; I have won him back.

"We should go," Tempest said. "Now."

"But the grimm are still coming!" Lyra protested.

"It wouldn't be much of a distraction if they weren't," Tempest replied sharply.

"People are still in danger," Lyra said. "If Amber leaves now, then what was the point?"

Tempest didn't reply; Lyra was answered instead by the sound of explosions in the sky above and the whine of airship engines. Faces and eyes were turned towards the heavens, to where airships, the fat and bulbous-looking Atlesian transports, were descending from the Amity Arena, escorted by the smaller, blockier Atlesian fighters. Both kinds of airship were firing at the grimm as they descended, with guns and lasers and missiles fired from the noses of the transports.

"Reinforcements," Tempest muttered. "They must be bringing the students down from Amity to join the battle." She returned her attention to Amber. "Now do you see? You can skip away with a clear conscience knowing that Rainbow Dash and all the rest are coming with enough warm bodies to hold off the grimm and make sure none of the ungrateful populace gets hurt — they'll all be around to sneer at the wounded and turn their backs on them tomorrow morning, I guarantee it — or you can stay and see what happens when Pyrrha Nikos and the rest catch up with you."

She made a very good point. Several good points, actually. If she left now, she would hardly be leaving people in the lurch; everyone was coming down from the Colosseum, and protecting people was what they were trained for. More importantly, it was what they wanted to do; Amber had never wanted any part of this, but everyone else had chosen to come to this school. So why shouldn't she put down the burden for them to take up? Taking it up was their dream and goal, while to her, it was nothing but a burden.

And if she did not go, well, they would doubtless be looking for her.

Best to slip away quietly, if she could.

"Alright," she said, "let's go." To Dove and Lyra she added, "It will be alright now, I'm certain. Now that Pyrrha and Penny and the rest are coming, these people have nothing to worry about."

---

"I think we might be getting everyone out of here soon," Rainbow observed. "Most of the grimm seem to have been taken care of."

Blake, standing beside her on the docking platform, nodded. "Makes you wonder what the point was."

Rainbow frowned a little. "To kill us all?" she suggested. "To provide cover for the Valish ship to try and sucker punch us? Both?"

"Perhaps," Blake murmured. She glanced behind her. Civilians were few and far between on the Promenade now, with most of them having retreated down into the interior corridors, but it was as though Blake could see them in her mind's eye, waiting in the corridors and the break rooms. "Although, where are people going to go? Can they really go back to Vale?"

Rainbow didn't reply straight away; they'd heard the news from Vale while they waited up here: grimm cultists, martial law, it sounded as though the city was kind of in chaos. It sounded as though their problems with the Valish Defence Force weren't over just because their destroyer and fighters had been taken out.

It didn't sound like the kind of place you could just drop civilians into and say 'well, best of luck!'

"I'm sure," she began, "that the General has a plan to deal with this. I mean," — she lowered her voice, just in case — "it's not like he didn't know this might be coming, right? I'm sure there's a plan to retake Vale and make the city safe. And in the meantime, people can wait at Beacon. It's probably more comfortable than getting stuck up here." She ventured a smile. "They can all get dinner at Benni Haven's while they wait."

Blake's eyebrows rose. "That's a lot of dinners."

"Well, it is their busiest time of the year, right?" Rainbow replied.

Whether Blake might have had a response to that or not, she got no chance to give it as Twilight's voice floated out over the intercom. "Rainbow Dash to the information desk, Rainbow Dash to the information desk, thank you."

Rainbow glanced at Blake. She started towards the desk, with Blake silently falling in behind her as they strode across the Promenade. Weiss, standing with Team WWSR not far away, followed them with her eyes for a moment, before she began to follow them with her feet also, leading her team in their footsteps.

There seemed to be fewer children around the information desk, but Pinkie still had a few children to entertain. She had a rubber chicken out as Rainbow and the others walked by. It flopped about by the neck in her grasp as she waved at Rainbow and Blake.

Rainbow waved back as she walked to the desk. She leaned on it, looking down at Twilight and Fluttershy. "Hey, is everything okay?"

"It's the General," Twilight said softly, holding up her scroll.

Rainbow took it, then put it down on top of the desk. She was conscious of Blake silently leaning in towards her, their shoulders touching.

"Sir?"

"Dash," General Ironwood said. "I wasn't sure if this would be a bad time."

"The fighters have done most of the work for us, sir," Rainbow replied. "Blake is here too."

"Sir."

"Belladonna," General Ironwood said. "I don't know how much you're aware of, but Vale is in chaos right now. There are blackouts, reports of fights between police and grimm cultists all over the city, and General Blackthorn threatening to shoot people on the streets. To make matters worse, Beacon has just come under attack."

"Beacon!" Blake exclaimed. "How?"

"Grimm are scaling the cliffs in conjunction with assault from the air," General Ironwood explained. "The remaining students on the ground are attempting to mount a defence, but a number of them had already been sent into Vale to assist in restoring order to the city; Professor Goodwitch was with them."

"Understood, sir," Rainbow muttered. It was starting to become clear now: hit Amity to try and take out a lot of huntsmen and huntresses, stir up trouble in Vale to pull huntsmen away from Beacon, then hit Beacon last of all. It was why it had been done this way, one step at a time.

It still wasn't good for them that their attack on Amity had failed, that … that was looking like their saving grace, that the enemy had so drastically underestimated Atlesian airpower.

Because the number of huntsmen they had managed to pull away to Vale could now be replaced by a mighty fist dropping out of the sky.

"Sir," she said, "there are a lot of us here, and—"

"I'm ahead of you, Dash; I need you to take as many of the students as are prepared to fight down to Beacon to reinforce the school. Leave a small group to hold the arena. Our primary objective is to safeguard the evacuation of civilians up from Beacon to Amity Arena."

Rainbow’s eyebrows rose. “Did you just say ‘up to Amity Arena,’ sir?”

“I did, Dash,” General Ironwood said. “Beacon isn’t safe for them, and Vale certainly isn’t safe, but with the skies cleared, Amity is safe, and we should be able to keep it that way for the duration of this battle. So that’s what we’re going to do: keep the civilians up on the Colosseum until the battle is done and they can be removed, hopefully to Vale.”

“A lifeboat, sir,” Dash murmured.

“Exactly,” General Ironwood replied.

“That might not be popular,” Blake pointed out. “And what about food?”

“I’m afraid they’ll just have to manage with what’s available on the arena,” General Ironwood said. “Perhaps, once Beacon has been secured, some food can be brought up to them from there, but it’s not our priority.”

“But once Beacon—” Blake began.

“Even after it’s been secured, there’s no guarantee that it won’t come under attack again,” General Ironwood pointed out. “Everyone will be safest up in the sky.”

“Yes, sir,” Blake said softly. “Understood.”

“What about Lady Belladonna, sir?” asked Rainbow. “What about Councillor Cadenza?”

There was a moment’s pause from the General before he replied. “Leave them on Amity as well,” he said. “They’ll be safer there than aboard the Valiant if I have to take her into battle. I’m sure the Councillor will understand. Belladonna, try and impress on your mother—”

“I’m sure that Mom won’t have a problem with it,” Blake assured him. “She probably would have hated the idea of getting special treatment.”

“Sir,” Rainbow said. “What’s the status of Ruby and Amber?”

“Unknown. I’m afraid that I haven’t had the chance to check up on your friends, Dash,” General Ironwood replied, a little testiness creeping into his voice.

Rainbow winced. Of course, General Ironwood wasn’t alone on the bridge; all the officers could hear him, and they didn’t know why Amber was so important. It had been a mistake for her to ask.

But the General’s answer had told her something important, even if it did make her look self-centred: they hadn’t heard from Ruby or Amber. That was good to know.

She didn’t ask about Team TTSS; she could only imagine that they were in the thick of things right now. Rainbow hoped that Trixie and Starlight remembered to watch their back around Tempest, as awful as it was to think that way about a fellow Atlesian.

“Sorry, sir,” she said. “What about air support?”

“I’ve ordered a Skybolt squadron to commence strafing the cliffs and cut off the grimm reinforcements,” General Ironwood replied. “But close air support is out while there are still civilians in the zone.”

“Understood, sir,” Rainbow said. “Can I recommend drop sites?”

“Go on.”

“The skydocks, the courtyard, and the fairgrounds, sir,” Rainbow said. “Three zones, in more or less equal strength.”

There was a moment of pause before the General said, “Vey well. The pilots will be instructed to take their lead from you.”

“Thank you, sir!” Rainbow exclaimed. “We’ll get it done; you can rely on us.”

“I know I can,” General Ironwood said. “Watch each other’s backs out there.”

“Always, sir,” Blake replied.

“Then go to it,” General Ironwood commanded. “The airships will be there shortly. Ironwood out.”

Twilight’s scroll went dark.

Rainbow breathed out as she nudged the scroll back in Twilight’s direction. “Thanks, Twi.”

“Anytime,” Twilight said. She almost smiled. “Check you out, getting to order the pilots around.”

“Yeah, well…” Rainbow muttered. She pushed herself off the desk. “I mean … under the circumstances—”

“Finding a little thing to take pride in can’t hurt,” Blake pointed out. “Congratulations.”

“…thanks,” Rainbow said and allowed herself a second to grin and take a degree of pride in the fact that she was being given this opportunity.

That she was trusted for this. It was responsibility, sure, but it was also an honour.

She allowed herself a second, at most, before the smile faded from her face. “Right, time to break the news. Twilight, can I have the microphone?”

“How do you think people will take it?” Twilight asked.

“Not great,” Rainbow said. “But as long as they don’t panic so much that they draw another wave of grimm, I think we should be okay.” She paused. “I mean, are you gonna be okay? Staying up here, I mean?”

“Where all the grimm aren’t?” Twilight asked. “Yeah, I think I’ll manage.”

“Fluttershy?” Rainbow asked, looking in her direction.

“I don’t think that there’s a lot of choice, is there?” Fluttershy asked. “Which means the real choice is whether to make the best of it or not, which is always the right choice to make.”

“Are you really coming up with these spontaneously or do you write them down in advance?” Rainbow asked teasingly. She shook her head, marshalling her words. “Okay, Twi, put me on.”

Twilight nodded. The fact that she didn’t say anything was a sign that the next words would be broadcast all over the arena.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rainbow said, and sure enough her words emerged out of the intercom all over the promenade, all over the arena. “Huntsmen and huntresses. You’ll all be glad to hear that, thanks to our Atlesian pilots, the grimm — and any other dangers — have been driven away from the Amity Arena. The sky around Amity is clear.”

Since that was the good news, she paused for a second to let it sink in. She could hear a cheer going up from somewhere around the Promenade.

“Unfortunately,” she went on, raising her voice a little bit to be heard in case anyone else was celebrating, “for those of you who haven’t had your eyes glued to your scroll, it is my duty to inform you that while we’ve been up here, both Beacon and Vale have come under assault. Grimm have scaled the cliffs and gained the grounds of Beacon as well as the skies over the school, while in Vale, the situation is very confused: power stations are under attack, and the military has declared martial law. In light of this, General Ironwood believes that it is impossible to move you anywhere safer than you are now, and so I have to ask for you all to remain calm and stay where you are for now. I know that that isn’t the news that you wanted to hear, and I know that I said that you’d be getting out of here, but that was when I assumed that Beacon would be a safe destination, and then Vale after that. Things have changed. Things have changed so much that we’re actually going to be moving people from Beacon up here where it’s safer, so although the Promenade is now safe to come out, can you please bear in mind that there will be other people joining you shortly?

“I really am sorry about this. On behalf of Atlas, I apologise. I’m sure that some of you are probably getting hungry, and so if anyone would like to get the hotdog stand and the coffee shop and anything else like that up and running again, I’m sure that everyone else would appreciate that a lot.” She took a breath. “I’m sure that some of you are probably scared. Maybe you have friends or family down in Vale or at Beacon. All I can say to that is that there is already a party of huntsmen and huntresses on their way into Vale to assist the police, and we’re going to do everything that we can for Beacon.

“This is for the huntsmen and huntresses: anyone who is willing to drop down and join the defence of Beacon, regroup in the arena, and I’ll outline the mission plan and assign companies. If you aren’t willing, then stay here and guard the arena and everyone on it until this battle is over.

“To everyone else: please be patient and trust us. We’ve won the first stage, and we’re not about to stop now.”

She stepped away from the microphone.

Blake put a hand on Rainbow’s shoulder and nodded.

Rainbow started in the direction of the nearest tunnel that led to the arena. Blake followed, as did Weiss and the rest of Team WWSR. And other students, too, began to make their way off the promenade back towards the battlefield, most of the ones who had come down into the battlefield to fight in the first place.

Nevertheless, Rainbow Dash made it back there first, passing through the dark tunnel and into an arena that was a lot more badly damaged than it had been when she’d left it; something had blown a chunk out of the ceiling and scattered debris all around — and when Rainbow looked more closely at some of that debris, she realised that the something that had caused the explosion had been an Atlesian airship. There were claw marks in the metal floor, and dents; parts of the stands looked as though they’d been torn to shreds.

It was unfortunate that this wouldn’t be a fit place for the civilians to spill once they started evacuating them from Beacon, although some of the stands looked a little less torn up than others.

People would have to make do, she supposed.

Team SAPR — three quarters of the new Team SAPR, anyway — were waiting amidst the torn up battlefield, and all three of them rushed towards Rainbow as she came in. Their eyes were wide with shock, their mouths open with concern.

“Is it true?” Penny asked. “Is Beacon under attack?”

“What’s happened to Amber?” asked Pyrrha.

“Have you heard anything from Ruby?” demanded Jaune.

“Yes, no, and no,” Rainbow said quickly, and in a quiet voice as more people followed her inside. “But when we get on the ground, I need you three to find Amber and make sure that she gets on an airship back here unless Professor Ozpin tells you something different, then do that.” She wasn’t sure if Professor Ozpin would have any special plan for Amber in this circumstance — maybe he had an airship standing by to fly her somewhere else even safer than Amity — but if he did, then he could tell Team SAPR that himself, assuming that he hadn’t already just bundled her and Ruby aboard by now. If not, then if the Amity Colosseum was safe enough for everyone else, then it was probably safe enough for Amber too right now.

She didn’t bother to ask if Team SAPR was coming down to join the fight; she took that as going without saying.

Penny nodded. “And then … once she’s here … should we stay with her?”

Rainbow didn’t reply, although it was a good question. The fact that it was a good question made it a hard one to answer: should they stay with Amber, or was the fact that she was up in the sky protection enough?

Rainbow couldn’t help think that the right answer was, in fact, stay with Amber, but at the same time, that would mean Team SAPR sitting out the rest of the fight, which might be … well, it might be hard for some people to understand, to say nothing of how they might feel about it themselves.

“You’ll have to use your own judgement on that one, Penny, 'cause I don’t know,” Rainbow said, taking the coward’s way out. “Welcome to being team leader.”

“Thank you,” Penny murmured, not sounding very grateful.

By now, other teams were arriving in the arena, stepping lightly around the rubble and the wreckage and the flames to fill up the open space that remained: WWSR, YRN, SSSN — Sun had rejoined his teammates, presumably because Lady Belladonna didn't seem to be in much danger at the moment — ABRN, FNKI, Rarity, Ciel, Maud Pie too.

"Maud?" Rainbow asked.

"Applejack can keep an eye on everyone up here," Maud said in her usual subdued voice. She paused for a moment. "Starlight's down there, right?"

Rainbow nodded. "That's right."

"Then I'd like to help," Maud replied.

Rainbow's eyes narrowed a little. "Do you have your weapons?"

Maud raised her hands. "I have two weapons right here," she said in a voice of absolute serenity.

Rainbow snorted. "Okay then, welcome aboard."

She looked around, surveying who had come and who had not; there was still not much sign of a Shade Academy presence, outside of Team UMBR and a couple of other teams who had answered her call the first time. Rainbow still couldn't blame them too much: it wasn't their fight, and just as importantly, it wasn't their way of fighting. If the Vacuan way was to sit on this arena and wait for the whole thing to blow over, then … more power to them, she supposed. They'd all be alive come morning, and it seemed they wouldn't even think badly of themselves for it.

But it was lucky for Beacon that the other schools didn't feel the same way, and most of the students who had answered the call to defend the arena had now come back, ready to drop down into Beacon. As she looked around, the only notable absentees that Rainbow could see were Team JAMM of Haven and half of Team BALL of that same school, the latter having a very good excuse.

Although, if Team SABR had stayed behind, maybe it would have been better.

"Sabine—" Rainbow began.

Sabine put one hand upon her hip. "We're not staying here tending to cuts and bruises while a battle's raging down below, Dash," she declared flatly, in a voice that brooked no argument. "Get General Ironwood to send a medical team up here to take care of people."

Rainbow raised one hand. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

She paused for a moment. Team JAMM and the Shade students, and Applejack, and Shining Armor. That should be enough to defend Amity now, shouldn't it? To protect Cadance and Lady Belladonna and the kids.

And the airships.

Yeah. Yeah, that should be fine. I don't need to assign anyone else to defend the arena.

I don't need to leave anyone behind.

"Okay," she said for the third time, raising her voice. "Everyone, listen up. The airships are already on their way, so I'll be quick. The situation is as you already heard: grimm are attacking Beacon by air and land; they're attacking in numbers, they're advancing against limited opposition, and close air support is out until all civilians have been evacuated from the combat zone. This will not be easy.

"But just because it's difficult doesn't mean that it can't be done. Already, Atlesian Skybolts are pounding the grimm at the base of the cliffs to try and cut off their reinforcements; that will reduce the numbers that we have to deal with when we get down there, and our fighters will escort us down and take control of the skies the way they have up here. All we have to do is secure three locations: the docking pads, the courtyard, and the fairgrounds, as well as maintaining connective routes between the three. That's why we will drop in three companies: Yang, you'll lead Alpha Company to secure the docks; I'll lead Bravo Company dropping into the courtyard; and…" Rainbow paused for a second. She thought it was probably important to pick a Haven student to lead the last group — Mistralians were a touchy lot, after all, very proud, and they might take offence at having multiple Beacon or Atlas students chosen while they were passed over — but she didn't really know that many Haven students, and the one she knew best, Sun, didn't strike her as well suited to this, no offence to him. Pyrrha's friend Arslan was a celebrity, and people might follow her for that reason alone, but Rainbow wasn't sure how much of a leader she was. "Violet Valeria," she said, naming the leader of Team VLCA; it was true that Rainbow didn't know much about her, but she was a second-year, and she'd gotten her team through the four-on-four round, so she couldn't be terrible. "You'll lead Charlie Company, dropping into the fairgrounds. Each group will have two objectives: to secure the area, if necessary by pushing beyond them to deny the grimm an approach, and to make a link to the other nearest objective or objectives. So, when all objectives are met, we will have established a safe chain to pass civilians from the fairground to the courtyard to the docking pads where the airships will be waiting to take them up here to Amity.

"That's all we have to do: three locations and connective tissue. If we can do that and hold that ground, then we can get everyone evacuated, and once that's done, then our airships rain fire down on the grimm from above, and we can mop up the rest of them.

"If we do this right, if we succeed, then everyone currently down at Beacon will be gotten away safely and will take refuge here until the battle is over and order is restored to Vale. If we don't do this, then there will be a massacre.

"But I know you won't let that happen. Any questions?"

Weiss raised her hand. Rainbow might not have seen it if she hadn't been so close by. "When you say 'push forward'—?"

"What I mean is that it will be easier to secure the courtyard if we also control the surrounding buildings," Rainbow explained. "Otherwise, while we might technically hold the courtyard, grimm could jump out at us from the top windows of the dorms or something. And of course, Alpha will need to push towards the courtyard even while Bravo pushes back to the dockyards. But no one should overextend themselves, no one should go running off chasing the grimm towards the cliffs; that's not our mission. We take and hold what we need to to pass the tourists out, nothing more, not until the evacuation is complete."

"What about the other flank?" asked Umber.

"Yeah," Yang added. "What about Benni Havens'?"

"It's too far away; we don't have enough people to hold it and all the space between there and the courtyard," Rainbow replied. "Not to mention, it's the farthest point from the cliffs; the grimm probably aren't heading in that direction, and anyone there can evacuate down the road to Vale." She paused. "We can't try and reoccupy the whole school, not at once; we don't have the numbers."

Yang didn't look thrilled by that answer, but she didn't contradict Rainbow or press the argument either. Rainbow was free, then, to assign companies: she gave her own Bravo Company Team SAPR, at least nominally, while more actually giving herself Team WWSR, SABR, ABRN, and UMBR; to Yang and Alpha Company, she assigned Team FNKI and Team CFVY; to Violet and Charlie Company, she assigned Team SSSN and the remaining half of Team BALL. Overall, she weighted the numbers a little in favour of Bravo Company, which not only had to cover the courtyard and the surrounding buildings, but also push outwards towards both the docking pads and the fairgrounds, in contrast to Alpha and Charlie which both only had to push towards the courtyard. Thus, she tried to get an even split between those two companies, although she suspected that in numbers terms, Yang might end up with the short end of the stick, since both Bravo and Charlie could expect to be swelled by the huntsmen and huntresses already down at Beacon fighting the grimm, which Yang couldn't really count on. On the other hand, you could also say that she had the easiest job, since few grimm could have gotten to the docking pads yet, so it all balanced out.

"Okay," she said, when she'd assigned all of the teams. "When you mount your Skyray, just tell the pilot where you want to go, and they'll drop you off. Let's move out!"

They headed out, just as they had headed out once before, swarming through the shady tunnels and out, only this time, the Promenade wasn't completely blocked off by a squeeze of frightened people waiting for skybuses that weren't coming. Now, though there were still some forlorn and abandoned balloons floating near the ceiling, the few people who had emerged back out onto the Promenade were watching from a respectful distance as Skyrays landed on all the intact docking pads.

The doors slid open in expectation of their charges.

The various teams of huntsmen and huntresses split up, choosing Skyrays based on other teams in their company or, in some cases, getting Skyrays all to themselves. Rainbow chose one of the nearest airships, with the word 'Foehammer' painted on the nose. She was followed there by Blake, Ciel, Rarity, Maud, and Team SAPR; there would still be plenty of room.

Rainbow was the first one in, leaping up and moving briskly into the cockpit. "Hey," she said to the pilot and copilot. "I'm Rainbow Dash; thanks for the lift."

"The General says we're to take you where you want to go," the pilot, a woman of indeterminate age whose features were hidden behind her helmet and visor. "So where do you want to go, kid?"

"Beacon courtyard," Rainbow said. "As close to the statue as you can manage."

"Copy that," the pilot said. "You might want to man the guns; it could get hot on the way down."

"Understood," Rainbow said as she left the cockpit and left the pilots to it. "Blake, Ciel, man the guns," she said, as everyone else mounted up. "Everybody else, hold onto something."

She reached up and grabbed one of the loops that hung down on a rail running the length of the main compartment. Rarity, Maud, Penny, Jaune, and Pyrrha all did likewise, forming a rough line moving towards the back of the airship, while Blake and Ciel brought the twin rotary cannons down from the ceiling on their mountings and turned them to face outwards.

"Rainbow Dash," Blake said, pointing out towards the Promenade they had just left.

Rainbow looked and saw Lady Belladonna standing on the Promenade, with Cadance standing next to her and Shining Armor at his wife's side. Twilight and Applejack stood not far away, Applejack holding One in a Thousand loosely in both hands.

She touched the brim of her hat.

Rainbow grinned and gave her a quick salute with her fore and middle fingers, almost flicking it off her brow, touching the longest bang of her hair. Rarity blew them a kiss.

Lady Belladonna waved. "I love you!" she cried.

Blake smiled tightly. "I know, Mom," she said softly.

"Then perhaps you should say it louder, darling, as a suggestion," Rarity murmured.

The drone of the Skyray's engines grew louder as the airship began to lift off, forcing Blake to shout to be heard over them, but nevertheless she did shout, "I love you too!"

Lady Belladonna must have heard, for the engines were not so loud, nor Blake so quiet, but whether she heard or not, she kept on waving as the Skyray turned away from them and dipped out of sight as it began to descend on Beacon.

---

Pyrrha held on to the ceiling strap with one hand as, with her other hand, she put her scroll away. "No answer from Amber or Dove."

"Or Ruby," Jaune added, from behind her.

"Perhaps," Penny said, "they're too busy to respond." She paused. "That's not very comforting, is it?"

Not in the circumstances, no, although Pyrrha saw no point in saying that to Penny, who seemed to have worked it out for herself; it would have seemed petty and unkind to have rubbed it in. Still keeping one hand on the ceiling strap, she turned around as best she could to look at Jaune and Penny behind her. "Might they have joined the battle, do you think? With so many people in danger, it would be Ruby's instinct."

"Ruby would want to go and fight, sure," Jaune said, looking around at Penny before looking back at Pyrrha. "But she wouldn't put Amber at risk; she knows…" He trailed off; after all, not everyone in the airship knew what Amber was or what was at stake. "She wouldn't put Amber at risk," he said again. "And Amber wouldn't want to fight, would she?"

Pyrrha thought; although Amber had demonstrated that she knew a little of fighting, it was hard to imagine her actually wishing to put that knowledge to use. She was so frightened; surely, her instinct would be to get as far away as possible.

"No," she agreed. "No, she wouldn't."

"And Ruby wouldn't leave Amber undefended," Jaune declared. "It'll be killing her not to fight, but she'll have stuck with Amber. Wherever they are, they're together."

"Alright then," Penny said. "Where shall we find them?"

Neither Jaune nor Pyrrha said anything, not for a few moments.

"Is this something I have to decide?" Penny asked. She frowned. "You deserve a team leader who knows what they're doing at a time like this."

"You're doing fine, Penny," Pyrrha assured her. "And we would help you, gladly, if … I fear there is no easy answer to the question." She paused a moment. "Professor Ozpin might be our best chance of finding out where they have gone; Ruby might have taken Amber to him when the battle started, seeking either a safe refuge or instructions as to what to do next."

"Then why aren't any of them answering their scrolls?" Jaune asked. "If they're safe, if they're in Professor Ozpin's office drinking hot cocoa waiting for all this to blow over, then why don't they pick up? Why doesn't Professor Ozpin tell us where to find them?"

"You make a good point," Pyrrha murmured. "But where, then? You yourself said that Ruby would not take Amber into battle."

"Perhaps they stayed in the dorm room," Penny suggested. "Or at least left a note to say where they were going."

"I can't imagine them sitting tight while all this happened," Jaune replied. "But I admit that I can't think where they might have gone, either. They might have taken the Vale road south then east, but again, why not answer if they went that way? Unless a battle found them, no matter how hard they tried to avoid it."

"If it did, then … then they'll be okay," Penny declared. "They're all strong in their own way; they'll be fine." She paused. "I think that we should check the dorm room first; it's closest to where we'll be landing, so it won't take long. Then, if we don't find them, or anything that tells us where they went, we'll go to the CCT and see if Professor Ozpin knows anything. And if he doesn't, then … then we'll search the whole school, and if we still don't find them, we'll search on the road towards Vale."

Pyrrha nodded. "A sound plan."

"The best we can come up with," Jaune murmured.

None of their Atlesian friends or comrades said anything; either they thought that it was none of their business, even Rainbow Dash and Blake, or else they didn't understand enough of what the three of them were discussing to comment. Or perhaps they were just naturally taciturn. Or perhaps, and perhaps most likely, they were preoccupied with their own concerns and with the battle that awaited them on the ground below.

Atlesian fighters zoomed past the open hatches on either side of the airship, and when they passed, Pyrrha could see the other Skyrays on either side of them, the small armada of airships carrying the students down from the Amity Arena to Beacon. They were quite different from the bunting-adorned skybuses in which they had ridden up this morning, but then, these were quite different circumstances, weren't they?

Below, but getting louder, Pyrrha could hear the screeching of nevermores and griffons. She could hear the rattle of machine guns, and out of the side hatches, she could see some of the other airships, lower than their own, already firing their own rotary cannons out of the side hatches, although what they were firing at, she couldn't see.

But she imagined the flying grimm just below them, bobbing and weaving through the dark sky, rising up from terrorising the poor people on the ground to intercept the reinforcements before they could land and join the battle.

An explosion beneath them made the Skyray shake, but what had made the explosion, Pyrrha could not say.

"Just a little turbulence, that's all," Rainbow said.

It was not a little turbulence that attacked the Skyray closest to them on the left-hand side; it was a nevermore that erupted up into the view from below to assail the other airship from the front, digging its claws through the windows and into the cockpit.

Blake opened fire with her rotary cannon, the barrels whirring as they spat bullets into the nevermore's black body. For a few seconds, the grimm clung on, enduring the fire, its talons jammed inside the airship, its black wings half engulfing it. Then it let go, releasing the airship and flying upwards — only to rain an almost spiteful shower of feathers down upon the Skyray from above, slamming into the fuselage and piercing the engine on the right wing. Flames began to billow out of the engine as the plane began to drop, nose downwards, heading straight for the ground.

There was another explosion, and their own airship jerked alarmingly, throwing everyone sideways — and 'thrown' would have been right if anyone had had a less than secure grip on the ceiling strap; Pyrrha's feet left the ground for a second as the Skyray tilted, legs pointed towards the open hatch and empty air beneath, and when the airship righted itself again, there wasn't anyone aboard who hadn't been knocked askew by the experience. Jaune was holding onto the strap with both hands now, as was Rainbow's friend Rarity. Blake had wide eyes and was breathing heavily.

An Atlesian fighter flew in front of them, laser blasting away at some unseen target.

Out of the right-hand hatch, Pyrrha saw a Skyray explode, the whole airship consumed by a fireball, with no sign of any survivors.

"Gods," Jaune muttered.

How many people were onboard that airship? Pyrrha thought. To what school will they fail to return? From what tower will they watch for their coming? In what kingdom will they weep for them? And how many tears?

"May the Lady speak with grace and eloquence on their behalf, that they be judged not justly, but with mercy," Ciel murmured.

There are times when I envy you your faith, Pyrrha thought. It seems so warm and comforting. My own faith has a rather cold embrace by comparison.

Perhaps I should pray to the old gods of Mistral.

But how can I, when I know that they are not, and never were?

Ciel opened fire upon a griffon that was coming close, but as soon as Ciel started to shoot at it, the grimm darted away again, and Pyrrha lost sight of it in the dark.

They were getting lower now. Out of the left-hand hatch, Pyrrha could see the Emerald Tower; she half thought to see the emerald lights obscured by grimm flitting this way and that before them, but there were none. The lights burned unobscured, as though the emerald light itself kept the monsters at bay.

Then the lights were above them, and then so far above that they were out of sight as the airship began to descend increasingly rapidly.

The points of a flurry of feathers burst in from above, penetrating the ceiling, jamming into Rainbow's knuckles as she held onto the ceiling strap. Rainbow winced but didn't let go.

"Didn't hit any vital systems," the pilot called from the cockpit. "Nobody panic; we're almost there."

The airship began to rotate as it descended, turning so that, out of the left-hand hatch, Blake's hatch, Pyrrha could see the dorm room. She could see the roof on which she had first suggested that Jaune train with her, and Team WWSR's dorm room below that. The lights were off there. The lights were off everywhere in the building as the airship descended; no lights shone out of the windows or out of the shattered holes where the windows ought to have been. An ursa stuck its head through one such hole in the wall, but Blake opened fire on it, and it disappeared, either dead or retreated.

Pyrrha hoped that Ruby, Amber, and Dove had not remained in the dorm room. But Penny was right; it made sense as a place to start their search.

"This is it," Rainbow called out as the airship dropped so low that the statue was visible in the courtyard. "Go! Go! Go!"

They leapt from the airship. Pyrrha pulled Miló and Akoúo̱ over her shoulders and into her hand and onto her arm respectively as she descended the modest drop, her knees bending as she landed. Grimm and civilians mingled in the courtyard, but Pyrrha couldn't see any other huntsmen except for those who were dropping from the airships.

She threw Akoúo̱ at the closest grimm, a beowolf menacing some poor man in a Haven Academy t-shirt, and it decapitated the creature before her shield flew back onto her waiting, outstretched arm.

Pyrrha began to run towards the dormitory building, taking the lead and expecting Jaune and Penny to follow — after all, Penny had already issued their instructions. She heard gunfire as she ran, the booming of Rainbow's shotgun, the softer snapping sound of Blake's pistol, the immense thunderous report of Ciel's rifle, but she paid little attention to it, trusting them to take care of themselves, and of the courtyard, for that matter.

She — Team SAPR — had other concerns.

More beowolves barred her way, though Pyrrha could see the green bolts of Penny's lasers flying over her shoulder to assail the group even as Pyrrha charged them. Miló was in spear mode in her hand as she thrust it deep into the first beowolf's belly; as it died, Pyrrha whirled on her toes, sash spinning around her, and as she spun, she switched her weapon from spear to sword and slashed once, twice, three times across the chest of the beowolf before her fourth stroke took its head. A third beowolf lunged at her, crouched down low, jaws open; Pyrrha swayed her whole body away, letting those open jaws close upon empty hair before she rammed Miló up to the hilt in the grimm's neck. She threw Akoúo̱ at the alpha beowolf, her shield bouncing off the grimm's bony skull and back onto her arm even as it staggered the grimm. Pyrrha rushed and then dived forward, skidding along the ground between the alpha beowolf's legs to slash at both its ankles with swift slashing strokes, one before and one behind. The grimm went down as Pyrrha rose up, slashing once at the beowolf's neck — it was too thick to cut through — as she danced gracefully around the creature, Miló transforming back to spear in her hand before she rammed it into the beowolf's open mouth. She thrust the weapon home until she felt the point strike something hard and immovable.

Miló was still in the monster's gullet as she transformed it into rifle mode and fired a single shot.

The alpha beowolf fell over, dead.

Penny killed three more beowolves by skewering them all at once upon the blades of Floating Array, while Jaune encased the body of one of them in ice dust, giving him absolute freedom to cut off its head. When another came at him, he took its swiping claws upon his shield then slew it with a strong disembowelling blow across its belly.

The air still rang with gunfire as Pyrrha resumed her course — almost her charge with the speed she was moving, sash and hair flying out behind her like banners — across the courtyard, reaching the dormitory door. She didn't know if the ordinary lock was working or if it had been disabled, but the door opened when she kicked it.

The lights were off in the hallway and on the stairs. She couldn't see a single light on anywhere.

Pyrrha paused just a moment, to give Jaune and Penny a chance to catch up with her. Then, in a less headlong rush now, more slowly and more cautiously, she began to move forward.

The stairs creaked underfoot as she climbed them, and behind her too, as Jaune and Penny made the steps groan in their turn. Glancing up, Pyrrha could see two swords of Floating Array, both folded into their laser configuration, hovering over her head like guardian spirits. As she climbed the stairs, her watching swords turned in unison first to the left and then to the right, as though they were eyes and Penny could see out of them to glance in both directions before she went any further.

On the first floor landing, Pyrrha could see that doors had broken down, walls smashed, objects spilled out of dorm rooms and across the floor. There was blood on the carpet, although there was no sign as to whose blood it was; with good fortune, that meant they had escaped.

There was no sign of anyone else, nor sign nor sound of anything else, just the creaking of the stairs as they climbed up to the next floor.

On their floor, there was no sign of anyone either; it was as deserted as it had been downstairs, just the same evidence of destruction and devastation. Something had broken into Team YRBN's room, and a great quantity of sugary snacks and drinks bestrewed the corridor floor, some of said drinks leaking and staining the carpet.

Better that than blood.

Team SAPR's door had also been broken, ripped off its hinges, the letters that spelled out their team name scattered on the floor. The photo of their team at Benni Havens', taken in times so much simpler and happier than now, before she and Sunset had both contrived to fall out with Ruby, lay on the floor as well. Something had stepped on the frame, shattering it, spilling glass all over the crumpled photo.

Worse, it sounded like there was something still inside their room. Certainly Pyrrha could hear a rumbling coming from within.

She drew back Miló for an overarm thrust as she approached the broken doorway.

She stepped delicately over one of the white knights they had taken in the forest during Initiation; it looked as though something had chewed on it. As she shuffled forward, Pyrrha's foot bumped into another, smaller chess piece, one that Sunset had found during another trip into the forest, the one that had ended with them confronting Doctor Merlot on his island.

The floor of the dorm room itself was covered in the torn out pages of books, although which books, Pyrrha could not say because her attention was rather on the ursa that was standing in the closet doorway.

It was a young-ish ursa, judging by the lack of extravagant bone sticking out of the back which it presented to Pyrrha, but big enough for all that; it was having to hunch down in order to fit even halfway through the closet. It sounded as though it was eating something. It turned, banging its head — cracking the wall — at first, then managing to get around and show Pyrrha that it was munching on something far worse than Pyrrha's dresses.

Ruby's legs dangled out of the ursa's mouth; nothing above her skirt was visible; it disappeared down the creature's maw.

Pyrrha made a sound that mingled shriek and roar and outraged howl all at once. She threw Akoúo̱ across the room and charged after it herself; the shield struck the ursa in the belly, then rebounded off to slam into the wall and bury itself there, but by then, Pyrrha had already closed the distance and, with both hands, thrust her spear deep into the grimm's extended gut. Miló roared as she extended the spear out further into the grimm.

Pyrrha kept one hand upon Miló, but with her other, she grabbed one of Ruby's motionless legs and tried to pull her free from out of the ursa's jaws. The ursa bit down, holding on tightly as it flailed at her with its paws.

Jaune blocked the blow of one paw with his shield as he stepped up beside her, screaming in anger as he thrust Crocea Mors into the torso of the ursa time and time again. From the doorway, Penny did likewise, the blades of Floating Array flying across the room to rise and fall, rise and fall like the knives of the conspirators that strike a statesman down, piercing the ursa over and over again.

The grimm hung onto Ruby with its teeth.

Pyrrha drew Miló out and transformed her weapon fluidly into sword mode as she hacked down on the ursa's paw, severing it from its body in two strokes.

The ursa opened its mouth to roar in pain, and Pyrrha fell backwards as Ruby abruptly flew out of the creature's mouth and landed on top of her. Jaune stepped back, covering both of them with his shield.

The swords of Floating Array flew back to Penny, forming a tight ring in front of her as the blades retracted.

The tips of the carbines began to glow bright green.

The wounded ursa let out a mewling sound of confusion.

The laser blast consumed the ursa, causing everything above the belly to vanish along with the SAPR closet, a good deal of the contents, and parts of several walls behind running through the building.

As the remains of the ursa smoked, Penny folded her swords up behind her. "How is she? Ruby?!"

"I don't know," Pyrrha said, sitting up a little. Ruby was unconscious; she was alive — when Pyrrha held her vambrace up to her mouth, the metal misted up — but her eyes were closed, and there was no sign of her stirring.

Pyrrha turned her onto her side, face downwards, not pressed into the floor but positioned so that if she vomited or the like, she would not choke upon it.

"Ruby?" she said. "Ruby?"

There was no response. A frown creased Pyrrha's brow beneath her circlet. Yes, being eaten by a grimm had a paralysing effect — if you were unfortunate enough to be swallowed by one, you couldn't fight your way out again; someone else would have to act quickly to rescue you — but if you were rescued, then the paralysing effect wore off quite quickly; at least, that was Pyrrha's understanding — and her experience, with Sunset in Mountain Glenn.

Jaune sheathed his sword and knelt down over her. One hand glowed with the shimmering golden light of his semblance, but he said, "If her aura was broken, then that ursa would have bitten her in half, but she isn't even injured. Not a bite mark on her." His brow creased. "And how did one ursa — and that ursa wasn't that strong or that smart — get the drop on her enough to half eat her before we came along? How did it get the drop on all three of them? There's no way that thing ate Dove and Amber and then was onto Ruby without any of them doing anything to stop it. No way that happened."

"Then where are Amber and Dove?" asked Penny.

"Amber," Pyrrha whispered, with one hand stroking Ruby's cheek. Ruby's slumbering cheek. A chill dread stole over her. The memory of the first day of the tournament, just the day before yesterday, when they had all tested Penny's new semblance, and Amber … Amber had shown them her semblance.

Golden motes of light floating through the air, and a feeling of drowsiness.

No. No, it can't be. It can't, it … it just can't.

I cannot be, but I fear, I very much fear, I dread … what a fool I was, what fools we were.

Amber.

Pyrrha got to her feet. Though her legs trembled beneath her, though they felt like melted chocolate being held in place only by her armoured greaves and cuisses, or perhaps because they felt so weak, she rose nonetheless. She rose and almost staggered backwards, having to put one hand out to the wall for support.

"Pyrrha?" Penny asked, looking at her. "What's wrong?"

"Amber," Pyrrha whispered. "Amber did this. She has betrayed us all."

Author's Note:

The very nice picture of Amber and Dove is by the talented Rainbow Zebra.

I really wanted to give Amber (and Dove, to a far lesser extent, but mostly Amber) a moment of heroism. While I think I've done a lot better in the rewrite at making Amber more three dimensional, a lot less hateable (well, before she betrayed everyone anyway, I think a lot of people still hate her now), the fact is that she still betrays everyone and joins the villains, but in spite of that I wanted to give her a moment where she rises above that and does the right thing, kind of shows that she could have been a decent Fall Maiden if the chips had fallen differently.

Also I wanted a moment with Dove and Amber as a battle couple of bring home the Arkos parallels one last time.

As for the rest of this chapter, I know that everyone finding out that Amber had betrayed them was something a lot of you were keen to see, and obviously the next chapter will continue to explore this a bit more. I thought that having them find Ruby asleep worked as a mechanism for Pyrrha to realise the truth, because they have seen Amber's semblance before and there's only so many things that could put Ruby to sleep beyond waking like this.

Comments

[Stet709]

And thus, Cinder's word is more believable. That's not to say Cinder is trustworthy, mind you, but her word was the truth at least.

While I'm happy that moment of heroism gave Amber some confidence, I fear it may have made her overconfident. She may think she doesn't have to fear Cinder anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that she and Cinder have different levels of ferocity. Cinder can be downright vicious when she wants to be. And that's to say nothing of Ruby, who was ready and willing to kill Cinder during the Merlot mission.

Speaking of Ruby, unless Penny can apply her semblance to others, I stand by the assertion that Sunset and her semblance is the only thing that can wake Ruby now. Unfortunately, Sunset's kinda busy at the moment.

[Kiue Jin]

I fully believe that Tempest is going to betray and murder Amber, Dove, Bon Bon and Lyra the moment she can physically get the Relic and no longer needs Amber, regardless of Salem giving her word that Amber would be free to go. There are a number of reasons that Tempest would be happy to see Amber dead by her hand, one of them being the possibility of stealing the Fall Maiden's powers for herself. After all, once Cinder is killed those powers have to go to someone and slaying Amber after she gets them back seems hard. Since Cinder is currently Sonata's meat puppet (at least as far as Tempest and Sonata are aware), making her the full fall maiden and then killing her since she cannot fight back seems like the way to go.

Of course, it would be interesting if Sunset and Cinder's salvation came about due to Tempest giving Cinder the full Fall Maiden powers to use, not knowing that Sonata's control over her isn't as secure as they believe.

[Mastermind4892]

Amber.

I respected you when you wanted to speak the truth, only holding your silence in fear of Ruby’s ruthless judgement. But you cannot look out at the carnage of Vale, nor listen to the screams of the innocent, and dare to believe you have the right to say Ozpin was a villain for keeping you safe from this.

Other than that, this was an excellent battle chapter full of all kinds of POVs! And yes, at long last, Cinder’s truth is out.

[solusjbj]

Oh snap so Starlight saw Amber start to fight, wonder if she also saw Tempest regroup with them and leave when it ended.

[AngelicTitan]

And so the shoe drops, and all the cards are on the table; Pyrrha realizes that Amber has betrayed them, and now it’s only a matter of time before things escalate further.
Tempest is kind of smart to make her team think of her dead instead of a traitor, it keeps them off her back instead of furiously pursuing her to gain justice, Tempest know more about Starlight and Trixie than most, after all. I find fitting Sunburst Semblance and curious if it will come forth again, considering everything that’s happening Right now.
One last heroic moment for Amber before her downfall into villainy begins; it will start to become more and more difficult for Amber to justify her betrayal the more she goes deeper into Salem’s grasp. Tempest will more than likely betray Amber and things won’t go well to the rest of BBL as well. Now I’m excited to see what will happen now that Pyrrha knows about the betrayal, and what direction things will take from now on.
Now the question is, how will they wake up Ruby, and what will they do to Amber?

[XxLadyGameliaxX]

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I remember in the original that Sunset transferred the Maiden magic from Cinder to her then to Pyrrha. I mean, I wouldn't mind that except keep them separated. Like I think the transfer thing should still happen but having Tempest kill Amber. Gives another reason to kill Tempest.

[BeardedRedMane]

Y'know I would like to see an AU story where everything goes wrong here. Something told from Rubys PoV where she awakens in a barricaded room hooked up to life support and wanting to rush out to stop Amber but realizing that more time has passed then she has realized. Throw in the maiming or killing of choice teamates/friends, no Amber to kill as the entire reason Ruby woke up was because Amber was killed and maybe Sunset being the one who hid her after not being able to wake her.

[Stet709]

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The thing is that Tempest lives in the original and essentially becomes Cinder's replacement in Salem's service since she was the one that secured and handed over the crown to Salem. Tempest could still kill Amber, but Amber's thoughts could go to someone else for succession, either Sunset or Pyrrha, or possibly one half of the Maiden powers reunites with the other in Cinder.

[Tsuguri]

So, tongue in cheek I found your title funny. Granted I was a little worried that something might happen to Penny, but having it mean that she drops in and that the truth is unveiled is kind of clever.

Also small note that the picture seems to be broken, says the file is too big. I found it in their gallery though. They do make a cute couple. Shame someone is setting themselves up with multiple death flags though.

[Antiquarian]

"Since my mother died, I have been consumed with madness," Amber replied. "I have slept in madness, dwelt in madness; all the world has been consumed with madness; and the madness of the world has made me frantic, fearful, and unkind. Let this be hope's madness, then, a good heart's madness. Love's madness."

Courage, she thought. Yes, I must have courage, this once. Though I am a coward all the days of my life that are to come, tonight, I must have courage.

This is an incredibly effective scene. I've long appreciated that this Amber is more sympathetic, though more for the fact that it lets Dove be his own agent in all this. (Her being straight evil in the original I never minded much - the possessive manipulator is a trope I seldom see handled well, but you did; that said, this version is more interesting, and it let's Dove, Lyra, and Bon Bon - and even Sky post-mortem - all have way more depth). This scene really brings that home, with it killing Dove to not be out fighting - and the strong implication that he may just go and fight the grimm anyway if Amber doesn't - Amber deciding to do the right thing, Lyra stepping up with her words to rightly chide all their consciences, and Bon Bon so committed to this path of sunk cost fallacy that even being reminded of Sky doesn't quite snap her out of it. It really shows where they all are.

Starlight's perspective is understandable, even if she's missing some critical context, and is a healthy balance point to a lot of the other Atlesias, showing they're not all the same in attitude. Also, her noting that being a skeptic shouldn't make one stupidly cynical is a good character moment for her.

Trixie shows herself an exceptional leader once again.

Echo 419, callsign Foehammer, UNSC. Never forgotten.

Rainbow does an excellent job of taking care of the chief priority - securing the civilians - while also discretely giving a plausible reason for searching for Amber and company. Two objectives, one order that makes good sense for both, plausible deniability, all on the fly. That and Ironwood subtly giving her info on Ruby and Amber while keeping it deniable just shows that Atlas' bragging about the tradition of military excellence is not empty bragging. They genuinely teach tactics, and it shows in how they operate. Dash rightly comes across as a competent, well-trained, natural young officer who's still rough around the edges and green in some respects, now having to grow up much to fast and yet rising to the occasion, if imperfectly.

And, finally, the haunting realization comes home to Pyhrra.

All in all, one of your best chapters.

[RanmaChaos]

This was a really good chapter, thanks.

[AdverseFlower95]

It finally happened! Little Red Riding Hood has finally gotten its most memorable part referenced by having Ruby being eaten by a bear! Wait a second something doesn’t sound right about that last part.

[Mastermind4892]

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I wonder how it might transpire. In the original, Sunset’s semblance was how she and Ruby finally reconciled, and I don’t know if any such thing would happen this early tonight.

And since Amber and Tempest are heading for the Relic right now, if Tempest betrays and kills Amber right there, it will both make Sunset’s showdown with Cinder more epic and Ruby will wake up once Amber’s semblance is cut off. This would allow Ruby to take part in the rest of the battle, since there is still the hoard of Grimm… and the dragon. She’ll have plenty of time to make the same harrowing mistake and wake-up call she did before.

But another question is the composition. Pyrrha, Jaune and Penny still have to fight through the Grimm at Beacon to get to the Relic. Ozpin is likely to intervene, and he’ll definitely head for the Vault once he learns of Amber’s betrayal. But since Tempest isn’t as strong in this version and the rest of Bluebell is hardly capable, will Amber be the one to defeat him, so full of confidence after this chapter? And will Ozpin take Pyrrha and the others, or will he resolve to face this burden alone?

And finally, I anticipate that Sienna Khan still has a role to play. She will likely break out Gilda and Ilia, and then Blake and her mother will have one last battle in their story with the White Fang.

[Eyup nope why because]

Control find “empty hair”