• Published 31st Aug 2018
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SAPR - Scipio Smith



Sunset, Jaune, Pyrrha and Ruby are Team SAPR, and together they fight to defeat the malice of Salem, uncover the truth about Ruby's past and fill the emptiness within their souls.

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Things Are Always Darkest Right Before a Hero Enters

Things Are Always Darkest Right Before a Hero Enters

Spitfire had been commander of the Wonderbolt squadron for five years, and she’d been flying planes for Atlas for twelve, and in all those years she’d seen a lot of things. But she had never seen anything quite like the truly enormous grimm – seriously, it was the size of a cruiser! – that was flying in over the wilds towards the city.

And towards the Atlesian forces.

As Spitfire’s Skygrasper flew towards the immense grimm, the comms lit up with so much chatter that it was hard to keep track of what was being said and absolutely impossible to work out who was saying it or where – air, ground or warship – they were talking from.

“Oh my god.”

“Look at the size of that thing!”

“What is that?”

“-never seen anything like it-“

“Is that a grimm? That’s a grimm, right?”

“-don’t know but it’s stirring up the others real good.”

“What do we do?”

“-the size of a gods d-“

“What are we supposed to-“

“How do we-“

“What should we-“

“-repeat, General Ironwood-“

“Cut the chatter!” General Ironwood’s voice rose above the din, silencing all other voices. “You have your orders: infantry and ground support units will fall back by sections providing suppressing fire as you withdraw; cruisers will maintain defensive positions and lay down a bombardment to cover the retreat. Air units, you have your assignments. Spitfire.”

“Yes sir,” Spitfire said.

“Wonderbolt squadron is being re-tasked.”

“I can’t imagine why, sir.”

“That grimm is being designated ‘dragon’,” Ironwood said. “Take it out.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Spitfire said. She reached up to the controls above her and switched to the squadron only channel. “Okay Wonderbolts, listen up: I know that this thing is big and I know that it’s weird but we have seen plenty of weird and we’ve seen plenty of big and we are going to see this thing turn to dust before the night is out. I hope you’ve all got some missiles left because we are going hunting. All pilots form up on me. Acknowledge and give me a missile check.”

“Copy that Spitfire, Soarin’ is in the slot. Three missiles ready.”

“Understood leader, Misty Fly falling into position. Four missiles ready.”

“High Winds moving into position. Six missiles ready.”

“Fleetfoot falling in. Eight missiles ready.”

“Rapidfire assuming formation. Two missiles ready.”

“Blaze in position. Five missiles ready.”

“Surprise moving into place. Three missiles ready.”

“Silver Zoom assuming position. I got one missile left, captain.”

“Fire Streak ready with six missiles.”

“Lightning Streak ready with five missiles.”

“Sun Chaser in position, locked and loaded with seven missiles remaining.”

Spitfire grinned as a quick glance out of her cockpit told her that the whole squadron was indeed in position, spread out to the left and to the right of her lead Skygrasper, in an arrowhead formation with herself at the tip. Sure, this grimm was big, maybe the biggest grimm that they’d ever come across, but as the dragon flew towards them, its red leather wings flapping ponderously in the air, and as the Wonderbolts flew towards it at a moderate speed, Spitfire felt her initial shock wearing off more and more with every passing moment. Sure it was big, but they were the best air combat squadron in the Atlesian forces and they’d taken out plenty of big grimm in the past.

They were the Wonderbolts, and this was just another day in the office.

“Fleetfoot,” she said. “You haven’t fired any missiles yet tonight?”

“Don’t need to, leader, my guns work just fine.”

“Apparently Silver Zoom’s don’t,” Spitfire said. “What have you been shooting at, Silver?”

“When I see a nevermore or a griffon about to come down on top of a Skybus that’s moving slower than molasses I’d rather get a guaranteed kill than take the risk it’ll survive the gunfire long enough to tear through the soft skin on those things,” Silver Zoom said defensively.

“Point taken,” Spitfire said. “Never mind. We should have enough fire power between us to take care of this. We do it quickly, we get in, we get out and we don’t wait around for any of its friends to decide to join the party, understood?”

“Yes sir!” the other Wonderbolts chorused over the comm.

The dragon was definitely aware of them by this point. It opened its mouth – as wide as it could anyway, parts of it looked like they were stuck together, but that still left a maw big enough to swallow a Skygrasper whole – and roared as it changed direction a little bit, angling towards the squadron of Skygraspers and heading straight for them.

“It looks like it wants to play, captain,” Soarin’ said.

“Then let’s show him that we play hardball,” Spitfire said. “All Wonderbolts, accelerate to combat speed, break by pairs and surround this thing.”

“Roger that, captain,” Misty Fly replied, as ten Wonderbolts broke from the arrowhead formation in their pairs, darting up or down, left or right, swerving and gliding through the night sky as they moved in curved patterns bringing them around the dragon and back towards it from all angles. Only Spitfire and her wingman, Silver Zoom, remained on course, going head to head against the grimm.

The red targeting box on Spitfire’s HUD went green, indicating a missile lock right on the dragon’s immense white skull of a head. She briefly switched to the command frequency. “General, we have Heavens Fire missiles locked on, moving to engage.”

“Acknowledged Wonderbolt Leader, good hunting.”

“Roger that, sir,” Spitfire said, as she switched back to the squadron only channel. “All Wonderbolts move to engage. Fire at will, repeat fire at will.”

“Copy, captain; this is Soarin’: missiles away.”

“Misty Fly, missiles away.”

“Spitfire,” Spitfire said, squeezing the trigger on her stick. “Missiles away.”

Missiles streaked away from under the wings of the Skygraspers, either singly – in the case of the more cautious Wonderbolts, or simply those who didn’t have many missiles left – or in pairs or even three of them from Fleetfoot who had missiles to spare. A missile from Silver Zoom, his last missile, streaked past Spitfire’s flank. They headed away from all the Wonderbolts, leaving white trails in the air as they converged upon the dragon from all directions, from above and below and from both sides and even some headed right for its face. It roared, but it didn’t try to dodge as the missiles struck home, exploding along its black sides, exploding in its white face, exploding everywhere they hit as the explosions blossomed all along the immense body, the flashes of fire temporarily obscuring the dragon from visual.

“Direct hit!”

“We got it!”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

Spitfire glanced down at her instruments, which showed the dragon very much present on the scope and…speeding up?

“Silver, incoming, break left!” Spitfire snapped, hauling on the stick as she broke to the right, her Skygrasper turning away as the dragon emerged from out of the fire, looking untouched by all the missile impacts, moving much faster than it had been just a moment ago, its wings beating quicker as it surged through the air right towards the two Wonderbolts right in front of it. Spitfire pulled on the stick, turning her plane, letting it carry her to the right and out of the dragon’s path as she dived beneath its flapping wing.

Silver Zoom wasn’t so lucky. He was still trying to turn his bird out of the way when the dragon slammed right into him. His Skygrasper exploded in a fireball, and he didn’t even have time to scream.

And the dragon just kept right on going, ignoring the other Wonderbolts as it flew on towards Vale, screaming and roaring as it went.

“Ever single missile hit the target,” Soarin’ said. “But it looks as though we didn’t even scratch it.”

“Grimm never look as badly hurt as they are,” Spitfire snapped. “We hurt it and now we’re going to kill it. All Wonderbolts pursue and keep firing.”

“Copy that, captain,” Misty Fly said, as the Wonderbolts raced in pursuit, rotary cannons blazing from under the noses of their aircraft as they followed where the dragon led, their Skygraspers beginning to close the distance on the giant grimm as it passed over the green woods and closed in of the Green Line protecting the city. As they flew Spitfire tore her eyes away from the monster that had snuffed out her wingman as though it was nothing at all to glance down at the ground, where she confirmed that the grimm were definitely excited to see the dragon in the air above them; they were going nuts, howling at it and pounding their chests as though it was their god or something, and the other fliers were getting more excited as well; right now they were only circling around but that wasn’t going to last for long.

We need to end this, and quickly.

The dragon passed over the heads of the defending forces in the Green Line, passing between the Resolution and the Vigilant before either of them had a chance to get a proper lock on it, and passed over the mostly unmanned Red Line that was the last line of defence before you got into Vale itself. The dragon roared as it flew over the Red Line, paying not attention at all to the tracer rounds rattling out of the Wonderbolts’ cannons, not paying much more notice to the missiles that streaked from under the wings of their Skygraspers to hit it on the tail or the back legs. It flew over Vale, turning in a lazy circle, and as it turned it looked to Spitfire as though there were black globs of some kind of goo dripping down form its torso to the streets below.

“Is it…leaking?” High Winds asked. “That’s disgusting.”

“Head down towards the deck and check it out, the rest of us will stay on the dragon,” Spitfire said.

“Aye aye, captain, heading down now,” High Winds said, as she broke off her attack on the dragon and angled the nose of her Skygrasper downwards towards the city streets. “Oh my god.”

“What is it, High Winds?”

“Command, are you seeing this?” High Winds said, as the image on Spitfire’s monitor became the image that High Winds was seeing through her camera. It showed the pools of goo that the dragon was dripping onto the pavement turning into grimm, bewolves and creeps and boarbatusks forming out of the ichorous black substance, or crawling out of it, or maybe a bit of both it was hard to make out, but either way there were now grimm on the streets of Vale. “We have grimm in the city, repeat there are creatures of grimm in the city.”

“Understood,” General Ironwood said. “I’ll alert the Vale authorities and Professor Ozpin. Spitfire, you need to take that dragon out now before it spawns even more grimm.”

“Yes sir,” Spitfire said, although with less confidence than she had said it the first time he had given her the order, but what could they do but keep trying? To be sure, the bullets which they were currently pumping into the dragon as their tracer rounds lit up the sky over Vale were doing nothing visible, but they had to be doing something to it, right? They had to be chipping away. “High Winds, start strafing those grimm down there, we need to keep them contained before they spread all over the city. Wonderbolts, we’re going to use every missile we’ve got this time.”

“Roger that, captain,” High Winds said, and immediately opened fire on the grimm emerging out of the black pools, spawned by the dragon’s…sweat? She started firing at them, anyway, her rotary cannons spitting fire that sliced through an emerging beowolf and struck down a boarbatusk before it had gone much more than a few steps.

And the dragon shrieked, as though it hadn’t felt the bullets slamming into its neck but it had felt them hitting the grimm that it had birthed. It shrieked and it dived with an astonishing agility, pulling a turn that would have sheared a comparably sized cruiser in half and diving like a sparrowhawk down upon Vale, down into the streets, down through the midst of the skyscrapers and the high rises, down upon High Winds’ Skygrasper.

“High Winds, coming right at you!” Spitfire shouted. “Accelerate and hit the deck, try to get too low for him to follow.”

It was too late. The dragon was on her before High Winds could react, diving down between the towers to swoop down on her as she tried to speed up, grabbing the slender tail of the Skygrasper in its claws and dragging it along – the tail rising and the fuselage falling as the aircraft threatened to go tail over tip – as it flew down the wide thoroughfare.

Spitfire could hear the alarms blaring in High Winds’ cockpit over the comms channel. “Unable to regain control. Engines at maximum, no effect.”

The dragon flew down the street, so low that each thrumming flap of its wings produced a shockwave that tossed cars aside and shattered the windows in the fancy storefronts. It opened its enormous mouth and roared as, rising upwards slightly, it tossed High Winds’ Skygrasper away like a toy.

The tail was sheared off the aircraft, snapping off and remaining clutched in the dragon’s claws before it was dropped idly in the middle of the road in the midst of more new-spawning grimm. The rest of the Skygrasper pinwheeled through the air, going round and round in the air before hitting a tall, glass-fronted skyscraper. The windows shattered as the aircraft disappeared into the tower, emerging out the other side a few moments later, missing the right wing and with the fuselage looking considerably more battered than it had been a moment before, bursting out of the windows – breaking those too – before landing upside down outside an artisanal café with a hand-painted sign.

“High Winds,” Spitfire said as she circled around the sight of the crash. “High Winds, what is your situation, respond.”

High Winds groaned. “I think my aura just broke but I’m alive, captain.”

“Can you get out?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Good,” Spitfire said, with an unrestrained sigh of relief. “Listen, I can’t spare anybody to recover you right now, they’d be sitting ducks with that thing on the loose. So get to high ground, keep your eyes open for grimm, and wait for this to be over and we’ll pick you up.”

“Understood, captain,” High Winds said. “Go get it.”

Some of the Wonderbolts were doing their best to ‘go get it’ already’; as the dragon continued to soar along the boulevard, seemingly completely unconcerned with the Atlesian aircraft on its tail, Rapidfire and Fleetfoot had descended to its level, trailing it down the street, firing as they kept up the pursuit. Misty Fly and Blaze were keeping pace with the dragon from above, guns blazing, but it was Rapidfire and Fleetfoot that concerned Spitfire more right now. They were both gaining on the grimm, which had slowed down to take a lazy approach – or maybe just to spread more grimm around – and they were getting awfully close.

“Rapidfire, fall back,” Spitfire said. “You’re too close to that thing.”

“That’s the idea, captain,” Rapidfire said. “If I get much closer I’ll be able to put a missile right up it’s-“

The dragon lashed out suddenly with its tail, cutting Rapidfire off in mid-sentence as it hit his aircraft so hard that it exploded, the pilot’s confident words fading into an explosive bang and the crackle of dead air. Before Spitfire could even process the fact that she had just another pilot the dragon rose up, putting on a burst of speed as it rose like lightning going in reverse, its gigantic maw opening as it embraced Blaze’s Skygrasper, closing around the aircraft so completely that barely any traces of the explosion that claimed the craft escaped from between the monster’s teeth.

“Misty, get out of there!” Soarin’ yelled as Misty Fly sped away, the dragon in hot pursuit. And it was gaining on her. The Wonderbolts – the remaining Wonderbolts, with three down and High Winds out of commission – fired, loosing their remaining missiles, all of their remaining missiles in most cases, at the dragon, but even though the warheads struck home the dragon took absolutely no notice of them whatsoever. Its attention was entirely fixed on Misty Fly.

“It’s still on me, what do I do, captain?”

“Misty, calm down,” Spitfire said. “You’re going to pull a Crazy Ivan and make a run for-“

The dragon opened its mouth and roared, but as it roared a beam of golden energy shot from out of its mouth, lancing through the night to skewer Misty’s Skygrasper, obliterating it in a beam of light that left nothing behind.

Spitfire swallowed. This wasn’t happening. She hadn’t just lost four pilots in the space of minutes.

Four pilots dead, five planes down, and they hadn’t even hurt this thing.

The dragon turned towards her.

Spitfire realised that what she was feeling was nothing less than terror. “Wonderbolts, scatter!” she yelled. “General, our best shot isn’t even scratching this thing and we’re getting ripped to pieces out here.”

“Understood, Spitfire,” General Ironwood said. “Get your people out.”

Spitfire turned away, the dragon closing the distance with her. Would it go for its fangs, or that beam attack that had taken out Misty?

The dragon opened its mouth. A pair of crimson laser beams slammed into its flank, and it might not have felt the Wonderbolts’ missiles but it felt those lasers, because it howled in pain and turned away from Spitfire, its immense wings flapping as it turned instead to face the source of its newfound pain.

The cruiser Thunder Child glided silently through the night, prow pointed towards the dragon like the tip of a spear.


The grimm on the ground had been excited by the presence of the dragon in the skies above them. Excited enough to make an awful lot of noise, anyway, although not excited enough to actually do anything right now. They were massed just outside the killzone, catching the occasional shot from a Paladin’s main guns but otherwise out of range of the Atlesian defence line, and what weapons the Atlesians did have capable to carrying that far they were – mostly – holding fire with because they didn’t want to poke the bear until they’d killed the…well, whatever it was you killed before you started poking bears (although whatever it was Fluttershy would probably disapprove of it, and of poking bears too). It was the dragon, anyway, they didn’t want to poke the ursa (or the beowolf, or the deathstalker, or the goliath) until they’d killed the dragon.

And besides, Atlas’ air assets were a little busy right now dealing with the riot of griffons and nevermores that seemed energised by the dragon’s presence in the skies above them.

And so, while the Skygraspers and the flying monsters duked it out, their land based cousins gathered out of range, safe and sound and free to wave their paws in the air and howl at the moon like the spectators in the arena had done for Penny’s match with Pyrrha; although Rainbow hoped that it wasn’t the same instinct driving them both on the way it seemed to be. She didn’t want to think that humans and grimm were that similar.

Although the alternative – that by cheering their big buddy on the grimm might actually be making it stronger or something – might be even worse.

But the fact that the grimm were only cheering, and not actually making a move right now, meant that Rainbow could stand in the trench and look up as the Thunder Child, Endeavour and the Hope closed in on the dragon from three sides, the three remaining ships of the First Battle Squadron each approaching from a different angle, firing their scarlet lasers in turns to hammer the dragon from all sides, their prows moving like knives as they advanced as though they meant, all else failing, to skewer the grimm upon the point of one of their ships if they couldn’t kill it any other way.

Not that it would come to that. This thing may have taken the Wonderbolts – and Rainbow’s hands were still trembling a little from seeing that, the way that it had just blown through Atlas’ top pilots like that, taking out a third of the squadron as though it was nothing at all; it worried her more than her own loss to Tempest Shadow had, because at least then she could tell herself that she and her team were still learning – but there was no way that it could stand up to three Atlesian cruisers.

Could it?

Rainbow pushed that disloyal thought to one side. No. There was no way. The cruisers were the pride and heart of the Atlesian fleet, and with said fleet Atlas ruled the skies.

They were going to get it done.

“Are they going to be okay?” Penny asked anxiously.

“Of course,” Ciel said quickly. “Those ships make up the First Squadron of the fleet, there is no way that one single grimm, however powerful, will triumph over our combination of discipline and technological prowess.”

She spoke confidently, and yet Rainbow could swear that when she had finished speaking she started praying underneath her breath. It was barely perceptible, but Rainbow knew what to look for.

“I think the lasers are hurting it,” Twilight said optimistically. “I mean…that is a cry of pain, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said uncertainly, as the dragon shrieked again. “I think so. But I’m not sure even Fluttershy would understand a thing like that.”

Penny blinked as she stared up into the night sky. “Why isn’t it moving?”

“Huh?”

“It’s just hovering there,” Penny said. “But you should move when you’re coming under attack.”

Penny had a point, the dragon wasn’t moving much. It was flapping its wings just to stay in place, barely even trying to dodge the laser fire even though it seemed to hurt when it got hit.

“It’s boxed in,” Rainbow said. “The ships have it covered from all sides.”

“What about going up or down?” Penny asked.

Rainbow frowned. “They could angle their guns enough to keep it in sight while they change the bow angle,” she said, although even if the grimm was smart enough to know that – and it might be, it hadn’t started out that size; or had it? Rainbow wasn’t sure, they’d never covered this guy in grimm studies; or perhaps they had and she’d been on a mission during that lesson – it didn’t explain why it wasn’t trying to get away.

Was it just waiting so it could drop more grimm on the street below? Was that its sole ambition before it got killed?

The dragon took another laser blast straight to the chest, and it raised its long neck, thrusting its head up into the air and it let out such a shriek of pain that Rainbow flinched away from that awful sound, and she wasn’t the only one. Everyone who heard it seemed to be affected by it, even Ciel seemed to feel it like a sawing in her brain, and Twilight put her hands to her ears to try and block the sound out.

The grimm seemed to lap it up though, because to hear the screech made them roar and growl and snarl and hoot louder than ever, waving paws and claws and stingers as if they the dragon were winning and not about to die. The goliaths trumpeted defiance at the Atlesian lines.

And a host of aerial grimm swooped down upon the Hope from behind it, nevermores diving down to swirl around it, flying all around the warship even as its point defence cannons cut the black mass to ribbons they still flew, some of them attacking the engines, some of them landing on the deck, most of them just flying in close and around the cruiser like they were trying to mob it. Had the dragon…had it summoned them? Is that what it was screaming about? Could it call other grimm?

Was it like…was it some kind of king among their kind and they all jumped when it said ‘back me up’?

“What are they doing?” Twilight asked.

“They’re masking the guns of Hope!” Ciel snapped.

Now that she had pointed it out, Rainbow saw what she meant: the Hope could fire her lasers, but there was always a nevermore in place to take the hit, and though the cannon at close range turned any one of bird-like grimm to ash immediately that didn’t matter; what mattered was the dragon wasn’t hit by laser fire or by the missiles that Hope was firing to try and clear the nevermores away, even though at that range the ship had to be taking a beating from its own explosions. That didn’t matter either.

What mattered was that there was a gap in the net. A gap through which the dragon soared with a roar which might have been gratitude or maybe some new orders for the grimm as it dove first towards the embattled Hope and the flock of grimm that swarmed around it, then away from and around the engaged cruiser, using it as cover against the fire of the Thunder Child (which couldn’t shoot for fear that any misses with its laser cannons would hit Hope) and Endeavour (which found Hope suddenly between it and the target as the dragon turned, angling its wings towards the ground, passing behind the cruiser) before, having passed behind and around the Hope and used it as a shield, the dragon turned again to round upon Endeavour.

As soon as the dragon was clear of Hope the Endeavour fired again, it’s laser cannons sending red streaks through the night sky. Missiles flew from the ports upon the cruiser’s flanks, streaking out with white trails as they banked towards the grimm; tens, dozens, scores of missiles all flying for the dragon even as it passed out of the arc of fire of Endeavour’s lasers, moving faster than the cruiser could turn to match it. The missiles struck home, explosions blossoming in the darkness, temporarily blocking the dragon from the view of Rainbow Dash and the others on the ground. Some of the soldiers watching from the trench let up a cheer as the host of missiles exploded, and Rainbow Dash herself dared to hope that the explosions would clear to reveal nothing there at all.

The dragon soared out of the explosive cloud with a roar that could only seem defiant, and as it roared it unleashed its attack – fire? Did it have a laser of its own? – upon the Endeavour, the golden beam striking the cruiser amidships, rocking it as the beam began to burn through the black armour plating that protected the hull.

The dragon flew closer, and with the Hope still mobbed by nevermores in spite of the fact that Skygrasper squadrons and the Resolution were now on their way to try and assist and with the Endeavour itself now blocking the fire of Thunder Child there was nothing to stop it giving Endeavour its full and undivided attention as its beam began to cut through the cruiser’s armour like a blade.

The dragon struck the warship, slamming into it head first, and the weakened hull snapped under the impact as the ship was split in two, both halves falling to the ground.

“By the lady,” Ciel murmured, while Twilight gasped in shock as her hands flew to her face. Penny’s eyes widened, and Rainbow felt her teeth clench as she watched the ship fall.

The airfleet was the heart of the Atlesian military, and this creature was ripping that heart out right before their eyes. Atlas ruled the skies with its fleet but the skies over Vale belonged to the dragon now. These ships were the might of Atlas rendered in physical form and this one grimm had torn through one in a matter of moments.

What in gods’ name is this thing?

And then the dragon turned on Thunder Child. It didn’t use its beam attack – maybe it was too close for that – it just hurled itself upon the ship, not letting lasers or missiles or the point defence cannons deflect it from its aim. It rose up, above the lasers’ firing arc, and then descended upon the cruiser’s top deck, claws digging through the armour as it latched on. The two were of a size, the monster and the work of man, and Rainbow could see the Thunder Child’s engines straining against the power that the grimm was bringing to bear, the two titans pushing against one another. Then the dragon snapped down, closing its maw around the Thunder Child’s bridge. Twilight let out a squeak of alarm as the dragon’s mouth closed around the ship’s controlling centre, not even flinching at the explosion from within. The two turned lazily in the air, turning in circles since neither could push the other back. Then Rainbow realised that the dragon was deliberately turning the cruiser in circles, and that it was speeding.

“Incoming!” Rainbow yelled as the dragon threw the warship, hurling it down out of the skies and upon the Atlesian lines below.

Rainbow grabbed Twilight and shoved her down into the dirt, with Rainbow on top of her, hands pressing into the rough soil. Penny fell backwards as though she’d suddenly been turned off, while Ciel dropped into a crouch keeping her rifle from getting pressed into the muck that might have fouled the barrel. All around them soldiers and students and huntsmen were hitting the dirt – Rainbow saw Flynt’s hat fly off his head as he threw himself to the ground, only for Neon to crush the fedora beneath her body as she too fell to earth just moments later – as the Thunder Child tumbled through the air, propelled by the dragon’s power beyond the ability of the engines to compensate for, growing larger and larger like a meteor falling from the sky straight towards the Atlesian troops it was supposed to protect.

It flew over the heads of Rainbow Dash and Team RSPT, bouncing once then twice off earth, shedding bits of armour plate and the tips of its exhaust ports as it went, smashing through a defence turret so that there was only a stump of metal and concrete left, crushing concrete bunkers under its weight, turning Paladins to ruin, before on the third bounce in exploded in an immense ball of fire.

When the smoke cleared a whole section of the defence line had been obliterated, the trench and all its obstacles vaporised, turrets and bunkers alike nowhere to be seen, and any soldier or paladin who had not got out of there in time…gone.

And out of the smoke the dragon descended upon them, a shadow passing over the heads of the defenders before it turned its head straight down and fell like a thunderbolt from out of a stormy sky. Fire rose to meet it, but if it hadn’t minded the missiles and it had been able to withstand multiple hits from the main battery guns of three cruisers that it wasn’t likely to mind rifle fire or even the cannons on the paladins as it dropped, wings swept back, upon the stunned Atlesian soldiers. Paladins were crushed beneath its claws, men were swallowed by the squad-load or more as they disappeared inside its enormous mouth, bullets and grenades troubled it not at all as beowolves, creeps and boarbatusks emerged from the black ooze it was sweating off to charge out from underneath the dragon to give it some back-up that it didn’t seem to need as it unleashed its breath attack, sweeping the trench before it with that deadly golden light. Rainbow lost sight of Flynt and Neon as the golden light blinded her to everything even through her goggles. Then the dragon roared.

The roar was terrible. It wasn’t just that it was deafening, it was more that that, it was…there was something in this roar. There was something wrong about it, something that made this different from just hearing a beowolf or an ursa make some noise, this was…this was turning Rainbow’s bones to water, this was making Twilight cry out in fear, this was making Ciel tremble as her eyes widened and she looked as though she might faint at any moment. This was making soldiers of Atlas drop their weapons and clutch at the sides of their helmets to try and block out the sound even with the enemy in the trench with them. This roar was something else, and something wrong.

The dragon took off, leaving behind it a defence that was shattered, broken in body and in spirit, with grimm in the trench and the great horde of grimm beyond now beginning to charge towards them to take advantage of the breach their king had made.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. We’re getting ripped to pieces and there’s nothing we can do about it.

There’s nothing we can do.

Nothing.

“Fall back!” General Ironwood’s voice cut through the confusion left in Rainbow’s mind, snapping through the earpiece she was wearing into her mind. “All units fall back, now!”

The general’s voice was like a trumpet rallying them to arms. It cleared away the confusion and the fear from Rainbow’s mind long enough for her to remember where she was, to see Twilight cowering underneath her. Twilight. She had to protect Twilight. She had promised Pinkie that she would keep Twi safe.

Rainbow pushed herself up and onto her feet. “Applejack!” she yelled. They had gotten separated during the earlier fighting, she couldn’t see her. “Applejack, where are you?” Please say that she wasn’t…she couldn’t be…how was she supposed to explain to-

“Here I am,” Applejack said, running down the trench towards them, her face stained with dirt and soot but otherwise looking unharmed.

Rainbow gasped. “Thank…I thought…”

Applejack shook her head. “It was close, but I got clear just in time.”

Rainbow nodded, as the grimm roared as they closed the distance to the shattered Atlesian line, a line that was already being abandoned as men scrambled out of the trench, ad-hoc fire teams forming to provide cover while other units fell back, before those turned to provide covering fire in turn for the previous rearguard to retreat. Paladins stomped as quickly as they could in the direction of the Red Line, while those Skygraspers that could be spared from the aerial battle landed to pick up the wounded men and the field medics.

“Ciel,” Rainbow said, as she pulled her pistols out of her holsters. “Get Twilight back. Penny, fall back forty yards, turn and give me and Applejack some covering fire. We’ll wait here until you do.”

Penny nodded. She looked as shocked as anyone organic by the sudden turn the battle had taken. “Is everything-“

“I don’t know, Penny,” Rainbow admitted. “But we’ve got to do what we can.”

Ciel had already left, taking Twilight by the arm – Twi had the sense not to protest this time – and scrambling out of the trench and towards the rear line; now Penny silently, but with uncertainty in her green eyes, leapt out of the defences and began to run backwards.

Applejack levered a round into the chamber of her rifle. “It’s been a while since the two of us have done this. Almost brings back memories.”

“These are good memories for you?” Rainbow asked.

“No,” Applejack said. “But I never said nothing about good memories.”

The dragon roared again, and Rainbow’s heart quailed – not that she would ever admit it – for fear that it was about to come back. But it wasn’t. Not for them at least.

It was the Mistralian’s turn to take their medicine.


The dragon destroyed the Dingyuan. The slow, lumbering war galley was trying to follow its orders from Commander Yeoh, using its ventrally mounted gun turrets to rain down incendiary fire on the grasslands ahead of the Mistralian line, setting fire to the terrain and putting a barrier between the soon-to-retreat Mistralians and the grimm massed beyond. And the dragon must have been aware of what they were doing. It sounded impossible, but it was the only possibility in Pyrrha’s mind as she watched the dragon soar swiftly and with deadly grace across the night sky to interrupt the battleship in its task, blowing aside a cruiser that tried to stand in its way – literally blowing it apart with its energy weapon before with tooth and claw and the talons on the ends of its blood red wings it fell upon the battleship though all the guns upon the Dingyuan’s flank blazed away to ward it off. The great guns in their mighty turrets boomed, the lesser cannons in their broadside mountings and barbettes thundered forth, the entire side of the great ship was consumed with fire, so much fire that the very recoil of it seemed to be pushing the battleship off course, so much fire that Pyrrha could hear nothing else though Commander Yeoh was standing right beside her shouting something that was less than a muffle to her; Jaune was saying something as he looked up at the sky, and it looked like Ruby was cheering the warship on in defiance of the expectations set by the defeat of the Atlesian air forces, but she couldn’t hear the words that were passing through any of their lips. All she could hear was the thunder of the guns as the Dingyuan blazed with fire, sending shells arcing into the darkness, shells that burned like shooting stars as they cut their trails across the sky. Most of them missed, flying over or under or to either side of the dragon as it plunged towards the boxy vessel, arcing through the darkness to land on either side of the Mistralian line, or in some cases in the trench that the soldiers were even now scrambling to vacate as the explosions of their own shells encouraged them. A few struck home. A few struck the dragon on the breast or even on its armoured skull, but they were few and far between. A few struck the nevermores and the griffons that, summoned it seemed by the dragon’s roar, were following in its wake, but they did not deter the grimm who led them on as it reached the great ship and began to tear it apart.

The firing of the great guns stopped, and with that sound ended Pyrrha could hear the cries of dismay from all around her rising in sharp contrast to the eager cries of the grimm from up above as the dragon pulled the ship apart, literally tearing chunks of plate and deck apart with teeth and claw and throwing them down to the ground below, leaving holes for griffons to plunge into while nevermores pecked at the gun turrets.

Then the dragon began to breathe into one breach he had made, its golden attack emerging out of the other side of the warship making a new and larger hole on the other side.

It was at that point that the explosions began to go off inside the stricken vessel, and it was at that point that the dragon, seeming satisfied that the work left to do could be left to other and to lesser claws, turned its attention to the Mistralian forces on the ground.

It was still hanging on to the Dingyuan, gripping the now-burning ship by talons that dug into the armour like it was made of wood, as it looked down to earth and fixed its burning gazed on Pyrrha.

That was how it felt, anyway. Though the distance was great, and though the burning wreckage of the other Mistralian battleship was still sending up great columns of smoke into the air to obscure the sky, though the dragon might have been looking at Commander Yeoh or else at Ruby with her silver eyes, though there was no reason it should affix its gaze on her nevertheless Pyrrha felt as though the monster was looking straight at her.

And she was terrified.

It was even worse than when she had witness the full power at the command of Cinder Fall, worse then when she had realised that Cinder was only half a maiden with the potential to grow even more powerful.

Pyrrha thought herself brave, braver than some, as brave as most, but this…as the dragon stared at her its very gaze was enough to chill her heart.

And then the dragon descended, shrieking as it fell like judgement from the heavens, a punishment for the hubris of men, and as it shrieked so too did the men of Mistral cry out in terror. Dread was upon those wings, and as its shadow passed over the world it stilled all courage in men’s hearts, and they fled, crying terror.

Pyrrha fled. She fled as the dragon came down towards her, mouth opened, emitting that sound, that awful sound that robbed her of all desire but to survive, to find some way to escape it somehow. She ran, but with that sound ringing in her ears even running was too much for her and she fell to her knees, crying out and clutching at her ears as the dragon swept across the field and swept away the defence. It picked up cataphracts in its claws and crushed them in its grip or else threw them aside, it swallowed men whole by the dozen or the score or else it picked them up too and briefly rose up high enough to drop them back to earth from a great height, it swept its fiery breath across the land turning it all to flames and ashes and then it descended to the ground again, still shrieking, and none but fled in terror of its coming.

All except one.

Ruby alone did not cower. Ruby alone did not run before this lord of grimm. As the heart of Pyrrha Nikos gave way and quelled in fright she looked up and saw Ruby Rose of all men on the field yet standing as tall as her height allowed, the blade of her scythe glinting in the light of the many fires that blazed across the field, and in that same fire light her red cloak seemed as bright as the first blush of dawn.

She faced the dragon without flinching without a trace of fear upon her face or in her gleaming silver eyes, although that face now seemed so pale and so youthful, while her eyes seemed to carry behind them a weight that Pyrrha had not seen there before, or else she had simply been too wrapped up in herself to notice until now.

She faced the dragon without flinching, but as Pyrrha looked from the dragon's immense head, bony and hard and with a mouth full of crushing fangs each as tall as Ruby, to Ruby's own face staring at the grimm before her, Pyrrha realised that this was not a face full of confidence in her impending victory.

At best, it was the face of someone who knew they could not win, and probably would not return...but who also knew, or thought they knew, that they were the only one who could try.

The dragon stared at Ruby as though it was astonished by her courage, and yet at the same time it looked at her as one might an insect, or a mouse. As it rested its wings upon the ground and bents its neck so that its head was down at Ruby's level Pyrrha could not but read a smirk upon that many-toothed mouth.

The grimm snorted into Ruby's face. She did not flinch though it's breath ruffled her hair and made her cape billow out behind her.

She looked resigned to what was to come. Had she always carried that within her, and Pyrrha had not seen? Had she given hope to her friends but kept none for herself? Or was it the arguments that had followed Sunset's revelation that had brought this to the fore? Was she determined to show them all what a true huntress should be, no matter the cost?

Like a spark that catches to become a flame Pyrrha felt her courage stir once more within her; she should not die, so young, so brave, so desperate; at the least she should not die alone, unaided.

Pyrrha surged to her feet, running across the burning land as the fire light glimmered off her armour, and as she ran the dragon struck.

The dragon lunged at her, mouth open, jaws agape wide enough to swallow Ruby whole if Ruby had been there. But Ruby was not there, the jaws of the dragon closed upon empty air as Ruby leapt - she had moved at the same time as the beast itself - up into the air, turning almost lazily as she seemed to hang, suspended, Crescent Rose gripped behind her back, before dropping in a whirl of rose petals down upon the dragon's snout. Crescent Rose skittered off the bleached bone as the dragon snapped at Ruby, who leapt clear to land some dozen feet away, turning her scythe to point the barrel at her foe as she fired once, twice, three times upon the dragon before she charged again, dodging around the dragon's somewhat clumsy lunge to take the side of its neck with the point of Crescent Rose.

She scratched it. Ruby did what Atlesian planes and Atlesian ships and all the great guns of a Mistralian war galley had failed to do and put a scratch down the side of the dragon's neck. It was only a scratch, but it made the behemoth howl as it tried to turn its head towards her. One of its feet, the size of a cataphract, was lifted off the ground before it slammed down again hard enough to make the earth tremble. Pyrrha was thrown off balance, nearly falling to her knees in her run towards the combat, and Ruby was thrown too although she converted her fall into a roll before unleashing another pair of shots upon the dragon that troubled it far, far less than her scythe blade had.

The dragon was still dripping that black ooze, and from a pool of it a beowolf emerged to spring at Ruby. She sliced it in half almost casually as she leapt at the dragon, catching it as it started to rise into the air and slicing at its leg.

More grimm were spawning from the excretions of the dragon, and more were coming that it had spawned in other parts of the field upon its deadly rampage. Pyrrha threw her spear to despatch one that was running towards Ruby from behind, and used her shield to stun a second until she could recover Milo and finish it off.

The dragon hovered only a little off the ground, not higher than Ruby could leap while also not higher than the dragon could reach its neck down to the ground to snap at her. The grimm that the dragon spawned were keeping Ruby occupied for now and Pyrrha was absurdly reminded of the time that Ruby had tried to teach her how to play video games. Ruby was dealing with the grimm - fortunately they were all young and immature - but while she was preoccupied she was not dealing with the dragon, which hovered above, watching hungrily.

Pyrrha switched Milo to rifle mode and snapped off a shot to kill a creep sneaking up behind Ruby. She didn't notice, but that was of no matter. Pyrrha intercepted another beowolf Ruby-bound, and then she saw Jaune emerge out of the smoke to carve his way to Ruby's side.

For a moment Pyrrha's heart stopped as she feared that he was about to do something very foolish like challenge the dragon, but he called out, "Don't worry about these, Ruby, focus on the big one. Here." He raised his shield as a platform for her to leap off of, launching herself up to slash across the belly of the dragon before falling on her feet once more to cut a swathe through the gathering grimm.

The dragon dropped heavily to the ground, with another earth-shaking thud That knocked down Jaune and Ruby both, but it was upon Ruby's chest that the dragon planted a claw, holding her down and pinned in place.

The dragon seemed to wear a savage smile as it opened it's mouth, which began to fill with a golden glow.

"Ruby!" Pyrrha cried.

The golden, fiery beam ripped from the dragon's throat, only to stop ad it ran into a white glyph which hovered barrier-like between Ruby and destruction.

Weiss Schnee gleamed effulgent in the darkness, rapier pointed at the dragon and hand outstretched as she conjured the glyph.

Pyrrha spotted an abandoned cataphract lying on its side not far away from her. As quickly as her semblance allowed she picked it up and threw it at the dragon. The war machine shattered upon the side of the dragon's head, but it got the monster's attention. It turned its gaze on Pyrrha once again, but she was able to withstand it now, the example of Ruby's dauntless courage giving her courage - courage for Ruby, courage for Jaune - and if she could not say she faced the monster without flinching she could at least say she faced it.

Of course she had no idea what she was going to do now that she had its attention.

A broad green beam sliced through the night to strike the dragon on its haunch. The grimm roared, and must have decided that it was too vulnerable upon the ground because it took off, rising into the sky and showing no sign that it intended to return, or at least not swiftly.

Pyrrha followed where the beam had come from: Penny, of course; she waved from the other side of the battlefield. Pyrrha barely had time to raise her spear in grateful acknowledgement before she joined Ruby, Jaune and Weiss in finishing off the remaining young grimm that the great old grimm had spawned.

"Tell me something," Weiss said, as she stepped across the field, impaling the last beowolf upon the tip of her rapier as she did so. "Did you actually think that you could kill that monster? You clearly didn't have a plan."

"I didn't know," Ruby admitted. "But if I hadn't done something then who knows what else it would have done. Someone had to do something."

Weiss shook her head in theatrical despair. "Are you always this reckless?"

Ruby shrugged. "I haven't died yet."

"There's a first time for everything," Weiss observed in an arch tone.

Pyrrha said nothing, even as she felt that -as the acting team leader - she probably ought to say something. But it was difficult because, well, it was Ruby; she'd always been careless of her own safety in the face of danger, even if it had usually been less obvious than it had been here, and they had always turned a blind eye to it, in fact they might even have encouraged it because it was, frankly, part of what made Ruby such a good huntress. But it made it hard to address now, as if they hadn't known all along what kind of a person Ruby was. In that way Weiss was probably the only one who could say anything, being a stranger and outsider to the team.

It was clear from his uncomfortable expression that Jaune felt the same way.

"None of us," Weiss continued. "Should even think about engaging something like that without a plan."

"Try not to die," Ruby suggested.

"A real plan."

Ruby frowned. "I was hoping that my eyes might work, like they did during the Breach."

Pyrrha again said nothing despite the sense of unease she felt. She wasn't sure whether that unease was directed at Ruby or herself, because with all other options exhausted Ruby's silver eyes - reputed in legend to have slain a dragon - might be their last shot, but on the other hand the toll that they took on her...she wished that she knew what to think. She wasn't cut out for this. What would Sunset have done? Said something, probably, but then Sunset always felt able - always seemed to feel able anyway - to say what she thought and it didn't matter whether you liked it or not. It mattered to Pyrrha; probably it mattered too much to her but there it was. And besides, how could she say anything when she didn't even know what she thought?

"Ruby!" Yang yelled as she ran across the battlefield towards them, with Ren and Nora trailing after her. "What were you thinking?" Yang demanded.

Pyrrha left them to it, secure in the knowledge that Yang would be able to do this much better than Pyrrha could dream of, and turned her attention to the rest of the battlefield, where Mistralian soldiers scattered in flight and who had cowered before the dragon's cry re-emerged and began to tentatively regroup.

They called out for Commander Yeoh. Pyrrha froze. They didn't know where she was? Pyrrha tried to think when she had last seen the officer: when the dragon swept down and Pyrrha's courage failed her. Gods, had she-

"Champion!" a soldier called to her, waving his arm to attract her attention, and such was the urgency in his voice that Pyrrha did not bother to protest that she was no longer the champion, but went to him to see what the matter was. Her team followed her, and Team YRN, and Weiss, and others drifted there as well: Arslan and Bolin, Neptune and his team-mates and a throng of soldiers all gathered around the spot where Commander Yeoh lay.

She was not dead, yet, but she was gravely wounded. The dragon's breath had caught her and the lower half of her body was fearfully burned. The rise and fall of her chest was shallow.

"Jaune," Pyrrha said, and at once Jaune knelt down beside her; but when he tried to place his hands upon her injuries she pushed them away.

"Save...save your strength, young man," Commander Yeah said. "Save it for she who has more need of it. Miss Nikos?"

"Yes," Pyrrha said, kneeling down beside her. "Commander, Jaune can restore your aura, he can-"

"Your need is greater than mine, or will be soon," Commander Yeoh murmured. She awkwardly grasped the sword Green Destiny with one hand, and held it up to Pyrrha. "Take the sword. Take it, pride of Mistral. Take it...and become who you were meant to be."

Pyrrha took the blade from the commander's unresisting hands. It felt heavier than she had expected in her grasp.

Commander Yeoh smiled. "Now I am content. Save the army. Lead them home to Mistral. Protect our people."

"I..." Pyrrha hesitated. "Take heart, Commander, your army will see home again, I swear it. They will return, and the city shall not fall."

But Commander Yeoh was dead before Pyrrha was finished speaking.

Pyrrha looked up, at the soldiers and the huntsmen staring in abject disbelief down at the fallen commander.

She stood up. "Will...will someone take the body?" She asked. "We must take her back to Mistral to be interred alongside her ancestors."

Bolin stepped forward. "I will bear her," he said, as with great gentleness he knelt and scooped her up in his arms.

"Thank you," Pyrrha whispered. She looked around. "Who is in command now?"

No one answered, but after a moment or two Pyrrha realised with a sickly feeling in her stomach that everybody was staring at her.

"She gave you the sword," someone said from out of the crowd.

It took Pyrrha a moment to register what he was saying, because it was so hard to believe it. Her? They wanted - expected - her to lead them? Her? Yes, she taken the sword out of Commander Yeoh's hands, but...was that what she had wanted? When she had told Pyrrha to take the sword had she been saying 'take command'?

That was...that was ridiculous. Why would she do such a thing? Why did taking up a sword confer such responsibility? Yes, it was the sword of emperors, the sword of her ancestors, but this was the modern world, not the Age of Heroes. Surely there were officers, a chain of command...

Pyrrha's gaze swept over the assembled soldier. Yes, there were officers, she could mark them by the insignia on their shoulders: they were barely older than she was and probably less experienced at fighting grimm.

Two horrible thoughts crept over Pyrrha: the first was that, as much as she loved her home, it had been a profoundly stupid thing to raise this army of boys and girls and send them off to Vale like this; the second was that she might actually be the best person for the job, and that was terrifying.

Of course, the fact that she was the Invincible Girl, the Princess Without a Crown, probably had a lot to do with the way that they were all looking to her as though she had all the answers.

Sometimes she really hated being a celebrity.

The soldiers waited, expectant, upon her word. They were frightened; she could see the fear in their young eyes, mirroring the fear that she had felt when the dragon turned its gaze upon her. They were ready to run. It was almost as if the only thing holding them here was the belief that she would save them somehow.

She looked at her friends, the other students, to see what they made of this...this nonsense: Jaune looked supportive, which was sweet of him even if it was misguided; Yang was wearing a look on her face that said she was totally going to tease Pyrrha mercilessly about this later, which was optimistic in as much as it assumed there would be a later; Arslan looked torn between a similar expression and a kind of 'of course this would happen to you, wouldn't it' exasperation; if Weiss rolled her eyes any harder they were going to drop out of her head; Ren was as inscrutable as ever; Ruby and Nora actually looked honestly pleased for her. It suggested they had more confidence in her than she did.

Because Pyrrha did not feel pleased for herself. At all. She wanted nothing more than for somebody - Professor Ozpin, General Ironwood, Sunset, her mother - to take this away from her and tell her what to do next.

None of them were here right now.

"What are your orders, Champion?"

Pyrrha was not terribly well disposed towards the person – whoever they were - who asked her that, but she was distracted by the sound of trumpeting carried through the air. She turned to see a line of goliaths advancing on their lines, shaking the earth with their tread and trumpeting their approach, while a horde of smaller grimm pressed at their tails.

"Back!" Pyrrha cried, because there was no way that they could hold them off, not here, not now. "We go back at once. Pass the word. Stay together." She tried to think of anything else immediately urgent. Nothing was forthcoming. "Back." She repeated.

They began to retreat. Actually that made it sound a lot more professional than it was. They started to run was a more accurate phrasing, the men often managing to outpace the remaining cataphracts as they fell back for the safety of the more comprehensive defences of the Red Line. Though Pyrrha could have outpaced tanks and troops alike she did not, rather she hung back at the rear and her team and Yang's team hung their with her, watching the grimm move faster than the Mistralians.

Nevertheless they were still sufficiently far out that Pyrrha was able to get out her scroll and contact Twilight Sparkle, selected on the grounds that she was the least likely to be in the thick of the fighting in the Atlesian section of the battlefield.

"Pyrrha?"

"Twilight, hello," Pyrrha said. "I'm terribly sorry to bother you but could you put me through to General Ironwood please? It's very important."

"Uh, sure, hang on," Twilight said.

General Ironwood's voice came over the line. "Miss Nikos, I'm a little busy right now."

"I know, sir," Pyrrha said. "Commander Yeoh is dead."

General Ironwood was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry to hear that. Who's in command now?"

"I...I'm afraid it's me, sir," Pyrrha said.

She was sure he would have laughed in less dire circumstances; as things stood she appreciated the professionalism with which he said, "I see."

"Any assistance you can give us will be gratefully received, sir," Pyrrha said, because Mistral's pride meant less to her than seeing Mistral's sons and daughters live out the night.

"I would have been glad to hear that a little while ago," General Ironwood said. "As it stands we're a little thinly stretched ourselves right now, and with that dragon on the loose I can't say I'm in command of the skies. But I'll give you everything I can."

"Thank you, so much," Pyrrha said. "I'm…General, what should I do?"

"Are you asking for advice?"

"I'm asking you to tell me what to do, sir," Pyrrha said.

"What are you doing now?"

"Retreating."

"Keep doing that until you reach the Red Line, but keep your men together and don't let the retreat become a rout. Once we reach the Red Line I'll send you an officer to act as an advisor and help you set the defence."

"Very well, thank you again, sir."

"Good luck, Miss Nikos. No offence, but I think you'll need it."

Anything that General Ironwood could spare turned out, l at least at first, to mean Team RSPT, plus their friend Applejack, who jogged across the battlefield from the Atlesian sector to reinforce them.

"Sorry that Atlas couldn't spare any real soldiers," Applejack said.

"But, on the other hand, it looks like Mistral couldn't find any real commanders either, so it all evens out,” Rainbow added with a grin. “Congrats on the promotion.”

Pyrrha managed a smile, "I'm very grateful," she said with perfect sincerity: General Ironwood had been under no obligation to send any assistance at all, much less to send Penny and the rest of their talented friends. When she saw him again her gratitude would be profuse.

In the meantime there was a battle to be fought, and fight it they did. Pyrrha and her friends formed the rearguard, with Pyrrha - with Jaune's advice - sending the huntsmen ranging up and down the line to try and keep the pursuing grimm at bay while the rest of the forces fell back. In their disordered and bloodied state, with morale hanging in the balance and absent any fortifications the Mistralian troops were simply no match for the grimm, and even their tanks could not stand up to a rampaging goliath, as they found out when one managed to slip past Pyrrha and charge an Archer-variant cataphract. The cataphract fired its main gun, but missed, while its machine-gun rounds bounced harmlessly off the goliath’s skull before the large grimm rammed it so hard the armoured vehicle was sent flying. Pyrrha grabbed it with her semblance and set it down safely on the ground before she leapt upon the goliaths back and drove Milo into the back of its skull, but the crew abandoned their vehicle after that and Pyrrha couldn't think it was any loss.

They retreated, sometimes turning at bay to fend off any grimm who got too close, sometimes failing to keep them off the untrained troops who were forced to turn as well and fight with them. But whenever they fought Milo and Akuou were always in the forefront of the fighting and always the last to turn back in the retreat. And so, with the help of her friends and comrades, Pyrrha was able to protect the Mistralian expeditionary force to the Red Line.

As they approached Pyrrha became increasingly aware that the Mistralian forces were clustering; where they had begun spread out across a great swathe of Vale's frontier now they were bunching up more than could be explained by the contraction of the perimeter. They were all moving to one single point, the point at which she was approaching the defences with her team-mates.

She didn't understand why until she arrived, and then she understood perfectly.

The Red Line was Vale's inner defence perimeter, the last line of defence beyond which all of Vale would like exposed to the creatures of the grimm. Whereas during the retreat they had skirmished around abandoned farms and old manor houses, now the high towers and city blocks of Vale lay before them. The Red Line was no trench nor set of bunkers connected to half-built wall sections; it was a wall encircling Vale to keep its enemies at bay, and this wall stood strong and durable and well-maintained, a sheer black structure rising up out of the ground, with watchtowers and sturdy gun turrets and artillery emplacements built into the ramparts, and more guns and cannons set into the lower sections of the wall, and firing slits marking the different levels of the barricade. Mine fields had been laid before the wall; breaking only to allow passage through the many-layered gates that offered the only safe passage through the wall, although they were not that safe for enemies considering how many guns covered each gate from what looked almost like a fortress built around it.

It was before one of those gates that the Mistralians, thousands of men and their surviving tanks, had gathered when Pyrrha arrived. She was confused at first by why they were waiting, and then she saw: the gates were shut.

"Excuse me please, thank you," Pyrrha murmured as she moved through the press to reach the front of the mass of troops. She found Arslan there already there, waving her arms and shouting up at the wall. The defenders of the wall - few in number but definitely present, they looked from what Pyrrha could see to be heavily armed units of the Vale police - took no notice.

Arslan scowled. "It's the same at every gate," she growled. "They won't let us through."

"Have they said why not?" Pyrrha asked.

"They haven't said anything," Arslan growled.

Pyrrha frowned. She turned around, to where her own team stood along with YRN and RSPT. "Rainbow Dash, if we made it to the Atlesian sector-"

Rainbow shook her head. "I just heard from the General: all the gates are closed. He's trying to get a hold of the authorities now."

"Professor Ozpin-"

"Doesn't know anything about it."

"Airships?" Pyrrha suggested.

"You don't have the airships, neither do we if we also want to keep the grimm away while we load up, and we don't have the time for an airlift anyway. The grimm are too close."

Pyrrha could have laughed as she understood. She understood and the bitter irony of it struck her. "Of course," she said. "The grimm are too close. They daren't open the gates in case the grimm get through before they can be shut again."

"That's-" Penny began.

"Sunset's choice," Pyrrha said. "Whether to risk the whole of Vale for our sakes or not. Sunset made one choice, the authorities...have chosen...otherwise." She might have said that they had chosen rightly, as indeed they had, but she did not think it would please the soldiers to hear it.

Comprehension dawned on every face, and acceptance upon most. The grimm were close, uncomfortably close and bearing down on them. It was unlikely - very unlikely - that all the troops of Atlas and Mistral would get through before the creatures of grimm were among them like wolves in the fold.

What right did any of them have to demand that Vale put itself at risk for their sake, endanger hundreds of thousand, even millions of lives for a few thousand? Sunset had endangered all those lives to save eight, but even she had admitted that it had been a monstrous thing to do. What right did Pyrrha or anyone else here have to demand that Vale expose itself for them?

None at all.

Sunset had made her choice, but now it would all be for naught because Pyrrha could not make that same choice now, not even for the Mistralian army and her promise to Commander Yeoh.

At least she would not live to be called an oathbreaker.

"So, what happens now?" Ruby asked.

Pyrrha knelt down in front of Ruby, putting them at a height, more or less; Pyrrha has actually lowered herself just a little below Ruby but that was no matter at all. With one arm she embraced her, her fingers running through Ruby's hair as she pressed her youngest friend's face against her shoulder.

"Uh, Pyrrha," Ruby said. "What are you doing?"

Pyrrha released her, and smiled. "When we meet again," she said. "It will be in green fields, beside the waters of the river, where we may rest under the shade of the trees." She hesitated, still smiling, for just a moment. "But not for some time yet," she added, before she grabbed Ruby, picked her up and hurled her bodily up and over the wall. Ruby's squeak of alarm like a scalded cat carried through the darkness as she disappeared on the other side of the rampart.

Pyrrha gave Yang an apologetic look, half-expecting to see anger in the other girl's eyes. "Fifteen...is too young," she said, by way of explanation.

Yang smirked. "Hey, if you hadn't done it, I would have."

Pyrrha was grateful for her understanding, although she thought that perhaps not everyone would see it the same way. She climbed up onto one of the tanks, and watched the grimm bear down upon them. There was not much time, but perhaps time enough.

She turned from the monsters to the soldiers, the frightened young men and women and the huntsmen who perhaps could have abandoned them to their fate but were too virtuous and honourable to do so. They remained, and remained all trapped together, caught between the rock and the hard place, and all looking at her.

"I," Pyrrha began, then stopped. She swallowed, for her throat was dry. "I can't say anything that will make this better," she admitted. "I don't have a lot of talent for words. All I can say is that I came to Beacon because I wanted to fight for humanity and so I will fight for you until my last breath. And I ask...I ask all of you to stand with me until...stay with me and we will make Mistral proud, if nothing else." She raised her hand, brandishing Green Destiny in the air. "For Mistral!"

"For Mistral!" the shout that came in reply was ragged and not enthusiastic from all corners but at least she got a shout in answer.

"Form...form a line," Pyrrha said, hoping that was the right order. "Start shooting...fire at will."

She leapt off the cataphract, landing nimbly in front of Jaune. "I...I wish that I had time to say everything that I feel," she said.

"You don't have to," Jaune said. "I already know, and so do you."

And then the shooting broke out, and there was no time to say any more.


Applejack was firing, working the lever on her gun after every sharp report. Lasers flew from the tips of Penny's swords. The sound of Ciel's rifle was deafening with every shot.

But Rainbow Dash wasn't fighting, yet. Rainbow was unbuckling her wings as she said to Twilight, "Here, Twi, put these on."

Twilight looked as though she didn't understand. "Why?"

Rainbow sighed. For a genius Twilight could be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. "So you can fly over the wall," she said, restraining herself from adding 'obviously'.

Now she got it, and from the look on her face she didn't like it much. Her eyes flashed behind her cute glasses. "What, no! I'm not just going to-"

"Yeah, you are," Rainbow said. "Atlas is still going to need you when this is over, maybe more than ever. Eggheads like you are worth too much to go down with the ship."

"No!" Twilight repeated. "I made this armour so that I could fight alongside you, so that I could-"

"Twilight, I promised Pinkie that I would keep you safe-" Rainbow snapped.

"I didn't ask you to do that and I didn't ask Pinkie either!" Twilight shouted. There were tears welling up behind her glasses. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be the one who gets coddled all the time? To be the one who needs protecting from everything? Nobody asked me to promise to keep you safe because everyone trusts you! Everyone believes that you can handle yourself. Do you have any idea what it's like to always be the one who needs to be looked after by everyone else?"

"No," Rainbow admitted, because any other answer - any lie - would have made things worse. "Nobody ever cared enough to try."

Twilight ignored that. "All I wanted was to be able to fight alongside you. To be able to...I know it's stupid but-"

"Twi, stop," Rainbow said. She stepped forward and leaned in, touching Twilight’s forehead with her own. "You didn't need to put on a suit of armour to save my life. You already did that. Before I met you I was...I was nothing. I was going to be nothing. Everything that I am, all the friends I've made, that's all down to you. You gave me wings, Twilight, and I'm not talking about the jetpack. I don't regret a single minute of it and neither should you." Rainbow grinned. "Now put these on or I'll have Applejack toss you over the wall like Pyrrha did to Ruby."

"I'll do it, too," Applejack yelled, as she reloaded.

Twilight sniffed. "Okay," she conceded. She took the wings that Rainbow pulled off her shoulders, and began to buckle them across her chest. "But I don't know how to use these."

"You built them!"

"But you're the only one who could ever use it properly, that's why it's a failed prototype and not in mass production," Twilight said.

Rainbow snorted. "Just squeeze your hand for ignition and lift off."

Twilight nodded. "And then."

Rainbow grinned. "Hope you've got enough aura for the fall."

Twilight glared, but briefly. "I-"

"No goodbyes," Rainbow said. "Just go."

Twilight nodded. She wiped at her eyes with one hand, then straightened up as Rainbow took a step back.

She flew. She didn't fly very well but she flew, up and over the wall and out of danger.

"Goodbye," Rainbow murmured. She pumped her shotgun, and joined her team-mates on the firing line.


Ruby landed on the road that ran behind the wall with a bump that knocked a little bit more of her aura. She wasn't wholly sure how much she had left and she was kind of afraid to check in case it turned out that she had even less than she thought, but anyway she probably had more left than Pyrrha! Or...okay, Jaune probably had more than she did because he had so much more than she did but more than Pyrrha certainly, and maybe more than Yang too. She could still fight, if they could.

And there was no sign of any of the others coming over the wall.

Nor did Ruby expect they would. They couldn't throw guys without aura over, after all, and they wouldn't leave them to their fate.

No, they would just leave Ruby to live on without her sister or her team as though that was something that she ought to thank them for. They would just leave her like...like Mom had left her. A surge of bitterness and anger mixed with disappointment rippled through Ruby's spirit. Didn't they realise that she'd rather face whatever came next beside them? Wasn't that what being a team was all about? Wasn't that what being a family was all about?

Tears began to well in Ruby's eyes as she heard the gunshots start to break out on the other side of the wall. Yang...Pyrrha...Jaune...Penny. They were all going to...

She was temporarily distracted by the sound of a panicked cry from up above, a cry that she recognised as coming from Twilight. Ruby looked up in time to see Twilight, wearing what looked very much like Rainbow Dash's wings, plummeted out of the sky to hit the ground right in front of her, barely kissing Ruby herself.

She lay face down upon the concrete, groaning to herself.

"Twilight?" Ruby asked.

Twilight groaned. "Hey, Ruby," she said morosely.

"What are you doing here?" Ruby asked, and immediately regretted it both for the way that Twilight's face crumpled at the question and the way that a moment's thought supplied the answer.

"They sent me away," Twilight said. "They always send me away. I tried to get stronger so that they wouldn't have to do that any more, but...it didn't work. Rainbow sent me away anyway."

"Like Pyrrha sent me away," Ruby said bitterly.

Twilight picked herself up off the ground. "I guess it isn't always just about strength. So, what do we do now?"

"We-" Ruby stopped, distracted by the sound of raised voices coming from not far away. They had both landed not too far from the gate that was barred against their friends and the Mistral host, the gate beyond which their comrades were audibly fighting, and it was towards the gate that the two of them were drawn by the sound of shouting, to find Professor Goodwitch locked in argument with a police officer wearing a peaked cap with braid upon both hat and uniform.

"Listen to that!" Professor Goodwitch cried, gesturing with her riding crop. "They'll die unless we do something."

"And more people may die if the grimm get through this gate."

"They came here to protect our city," Professor Goodwitch said. "Is this how we repay them? Is this Vale's gratitude?"

"This is Vale's security," the police officer said. "I'm sorry, but my orders come straight from the council: all gates are to remain sealed until further notice."

"No matter the cost?"

"Whatever the cost, it will be worth it."

"How can you say that?" Twilight cried, drawing the attention of both Professor Goodwitch and the cop. "How can you condemn all of those people? How can you condemn-"

"Because he's right," Ruby said softly. "There are so many people living in Vale...we can't risk their lives, not for the people out there."

Twilight's eyes flashed with betrayal. "Ruby, you can’t be serious!" She demanded. "That's your sister out there, your friends-"

"I know!" Ruby shrieked. "But that doesn't mean that we can just...as huntresses we have to put humanity first. Yang understands that and so does my team. And so does yours."

Twilight shook her head. Tears streamed down her face. "No," she said, and an energy blade emerged from one of her gauntlets. It trembled as she turned towards the police officer. "Now you...you are going to open this gate or I am going to cut it open, do you hear me?"

Ruby unfurled Crescent Rose with a series of audible clicks and hisses. "No, you won't."

"Ruby?" Twilight murmured, looking back at her in disbelief.

There were tears in Ruby's eyes too. "Pyrrha or Penny could break through that gate if they wanted to," she said. "But they're not, because they understand. They understand what...what really matters. We have to...I won't let you...I can't let you make the same choice Sunset did. So I...I'll stop you, if I have to."

Twilight stared at her for a moment, before she sank to her knees on the ground. "You're either the best of us or the most cold hearted," Twilight said. "I'm not sure which it is right now."

"Neither am I," Ruby admitted. "Now, I'm going to-"

"No," Professor Goodwitch said. "You're not." She flicked her crop towards Ruby, pulling her towards the teacher until the professor could grab hold of Ruby's hood. "If Twilight has to honour their wish not to be rescued, then you have to honour their wish that you should not join them in this battle."

"But..." Ruby murmured, because that hadn't been the plan at all. She'd intended to rush back over the wall and join the battle, not to live on. Was this her punishment? For saving her friends Sunset faced death, for not saving them Ruby faced life alone burdened by what she had done. Sunset had it easier of the two of them.

"Please, Professor," Ruby said. "Please let me go."

"I'm sorry, Ruby," Professor Goodwitch said. "I know this won't be easy."

Someone screamed in agony on the other side of the wall. Ruby didn't recognise the voice but still...

It was Ruby's turn to sink to the ground in tears. "Yang...Pyrrha...Jaune...Penny...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I only did what I thought...what I thought..."

She almost didn't hear the sound of a motorcycle approaching, and pulling up nearby.

"Don't worry, Ruby," said a voice both familiar and wholly unexpected. "None of our friends are going to die tonight."


Yang burned.

Her aura was...well, she'd taken a few hits, let's put it like that. Enough hits that she was burning like a roaring inferno, flames leaping off of her as she punched harder, moved faster, got stronger than she had ever felt before.

She was all alone. She'd gotten separated from Ren and Nora and all the rest. The battle had driven them apart, a press of grimm had gotten in the way and, while Yang had sought to reach them at first, now she couldn't even hear Nora's battle cries. They might be dead for all she knew. They might all be dead. Only Ruby was certain to still be alive, Ruby was the only one she could be sure of. Ruby and herself.

The land was burning too, fires consuming the grass all around her. She might even have set some of those fires herself as she fought. Whatever. The grass burned just as Yang burned, and the fires illuminated the grimm as they came for her.

And Yang fought them, and as she fought them she laughed, because a fey mood was on her, driven from how hyped up she was by her own semblance, affecting her more and more every time the mass of grimm that gathered around her got lucky.

She laughed as she punched an ursa's head clean off, yelling, "Come on, you want some of this? Anyone else?"

If this was her last fight, as it looked as though it might well be, then she was going to make sure that she haunted their nightmares for many years to come: the burning huntress that just would not stop.

An ancient alpha beowolf, tall and broad and battle scarred across its armour advanced upon her.

Yang squared off against it, raising both her fists. "Come on. You think I'm tired? I could do this all day."

The alpha looked down at her. It bared its teeth in a snarl. It roared, and two lesser beowolves of its pack leapt at her, one from each side.

Yang grinned like a fiend as she turned on the beowolf coming from her left, destroying its head with a single punch. That left her open to the one coming from the right, which got on her back and began to claw at her, scrabbling for purchase with claws and fangs before Yang grabbed it by the neck, threw it over her shoulder, and killed it with another single punch.

A swipe of the alpha’s massive paw both hurled her backwards and destroyed what little had been left of her aura. The fire died, and with the flames went Yang's exuberance as she hit the ground like a bucket of ice cold water which both discomfited and cleared the head. She breathed in smoke and coughed in between groans of pain from all over her body and it made its grievances felt.

The beowolf seemed to smile, and let out a low guttural chuckle, as it advanced across the burning field towards her, the shadows cast by the flames flickering upon its bony skull.

The beowolf stopped, grunting in surprise. It looked down, and Yang followed it's gaze to see a red sword sticking out of the grimm's chest. The alpha continued to stare as it turned to ash, revealing Raven standing behind it, and behind her a swirling, black vortex of energy pulsing with a red outline.

Yang stared, eyes widening. "You?"

"You sound so surprised to see me," Raven said, her voice amused.

"Well...that's because I kinda am," Yang admitted.

"What kind of mother would I be if I didn't save my own daughter?" Raven asked, as she strode forward.

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

Raven seemed more amused than affronted. "I know that I've had my faults as a parent, but I can do better. Who knows, in time you might end up looking at my choices with more understanding."

"What are you talking about?"

Raven was standing over Yang now. "Like I said, I'm here to save you."

Yang saw the boot coming, and then everything went black.


Raven knelt down beside her now unconscious daughter. "Don't worry, Yang," she said. "You're free of Ozpin now, and all the rest of them." She lifted the unmoving Yang up and hoisted her over her shoulder. Raven rose, and turned back towards her portal.

Vernal appeared in said portal, weapons drawn and pointed at Raven.

Or at the beowolf behind Raven which she shot dead with a trio of well placed bullets.

"Thank you, Vernal," Raven said.

Her good right arm nodded. "So, that's her?"

"Yes," Raven said. "This is my daughter."

"She doesn't look like much."

"This life has made her a little soft," Raven admitted. "But she'll be a great asset to our tribe."

"If she's willing to be," Vernal said.

"She'll come around," Raven replied. "It might take a while, but she'll become one of us."

"And if she doesn't?" Vernal pressed.

Raven paused a moment. "Then I'll deal with it," she said.

Vernal made way as Raven stepped into the portal, which closed behind her, leaving no trace whatsoever of Yang Xiao-Long.


A soldier cried out in pain as a beowolf raked him across the face with its claws. The young man was spun around, his face a red ruin, before falling, dead to the ground.
Pyrrha cursed herself internally as she slew the beowolf too late to make a difference to the young soldier, another son of Mistral who would never to the city upon the slopes.

She fought with Milo in one hand and Green Destiny in the other - dual-wielding was not one of her specialties, but it was an art she had trained in, albeit briefly, because it was such a showy, crowd-pleasing style that her mother had thought it would add to her reputation; Pyrrha had eventually put her foot down for something more practical - forsaking Akuou in favour of showing the symbol of the authority that Commander Yeoh had tricked her into accepting.

They needed to see it, just as they needed to see her fighting.

She was trying. She really was. Everyone was fighting so desperately, all the students of Haven, all the sons and daughters of Mistral who had set their sights on Beacon or Atlas, they were all fighting desperately to protect the Mistralian forces: SAPR, SSSN, CFVY, JAMM, Arslan and Bolin, Ren and Nora, their friends of RSPT, they were all trying so hard. Jaune was using his greatsword to cleave about him, Neptune delivering shocks with his trident, Coco smacking grimm around with her handbag, Medea conjuring her skeletons, they were all fighting with everything they had.

And it was not enough. There were not enough huntsmen, and when the grimm met the conscript soldiers it was nearly massacre. They were doing everything they could and it was not enough.

The army of Mistral, the great expedition sent so far from home to restore the pride of a kingdom and show that they were yet a force to be reckoned with upon the world stage, was dying before Pyrrha's eyes and before the walks of Vale while the defenders of those same walls watched, the masks that his their faces making them seem emotionless, devoid of compassion for the Mistralians dying before their eyes, crying out for mercy as they fell.

Pyrrha saved one man from a rampaging boarbatusk, cutting off its head, but immediately she saw another man fall to an ursa. Not enough. Never enough.

And all the while the gates were shut, and deaf to honour and compassion both alike.

A heavy thump alerted Pyrrha to the approach of a larger than usual grimm, and out of the flames that consumed the grassland it strode: a cyclops, a giant with a single eye set in the middle of its misshapen head, it's body humanoid and yet grotesque at the same time, ripped and corded with muscle. Jaune, closer to the creature than she was, slashed at its immense hand as it reached for him to no avail as it picked him up, and as he struggled and squirmed in its monstrous grip it lifted him up until he was no more than a few feet from its face and roared at him, spraying spittle everywhere as it bared its fangs.

No! No, they would not have Jaune, not before Pyrrha had fallen, she would not watch him die nor pass a moment longer in the world without him in it. She charged, urgency lending winged speed to her feet as made a leap, a flying leap that carried her through the air to drive both her blades into the cyclops' eye. The grimm roared in pain, and Pyrrha roared in anger as she stabbed the foul, impudent creature again and again until it was dead and she and Jaune both plummeted to the ground as the beast turned to ashes.

Pyrrha knelt on the ground, feeling exhausted. Perhaps her aura had broken and she hadn't noticed, but she felt as though she could hardly move.

And an alpha beowolf was coming towards her, claws drawn back. Jaune was shouting something, but he seemed to be struggling to move himself. Everything was happening so slowly. The beowolf was almost upon her.

The field was illuminated by a bright blinding flash of green light. The beowolf cried out in alarm as lines of green energy shot out from that central point of light, spreading all across the battlefield, striking down grimm wherever they touched them and they touched all the grimm, seeking them out and turning them to ashes where they stood.

Across the battlefield the green lightning rippled, tearing through the fires, slipping around huntsmen and soldiers, snuffing out grimm and slaying them with ease, leaving every man alive and every grimm eliminated, and at the same time a shield descended between the Mistralians and the rest of the grimm horde, preventing them from simply surging forward to replace those that had fallen as they had before.

"Sorry I'm late."

Pyrrha gasped. Standing in front of her when the light faded, having emerged between Pyrrha and the beowolf that had sought to bring her down, was a familiar figure in a black leather jacket, the collar around her neck almost completely obscured by her long hair of scarlet and gold which seemed to burn like fire.

"Sunset?"

"That's right," Sunset said, as she turned to look at Pyrrha, a cocky smirk upon her face. "I'm back. Did you miss me?"

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