• 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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The Vault of the Fall Maiden

The Vault of the Fall Maiden

Ozpin stared up at the stump of the tower that the grimm had left, even as he stood amidst the debris that had fallen from the impact. The stones lay all around him, crushing dents and holes in the courtyard just as the explosion lockers had done not that long before, when the battle had raged here.

He was glad that none of the students had been here when the tower fell; he wouldn’t have wanted them to get caught in the fall, or in the rampage that the dragon might have embarked had there been more pickings here.

He was all alone now, the last to leave Beacon; he had sent Qrow to Mistral, he had sent Glynda to the front line with any student who would follow her, he had sent any student who would not fight to safety in the city. However safe the city might be with grimm loose within the walls.

He had sent Sunset Shimmer to join her friends at the defences, rather than keeping her with him. That was…possibly not the wisest decision – although he could not say not what would have happened if he had tried to keep her here – but it was the only decision that he could have made in the moment; she would not have stayed even had he begged her to. And he would not beg her to stay. This was his school, his charge, his to stand last sentinel over.

Until she came.

How could she not come? How could Amber not come now, with all the defences drawn away from Beacon, to take the Crown from the Vault of the Fall Maiden? That was the bargain that she had made with Salem, if Cinder Fall could be believed: the crown for her freedom. And this was her best chance of claiming the crown with the least resistance to it.

If Cinder Fall was to be believed. If she was not to be believed then why had Amber fled, why had Miss Shadow come to rescue her from Ironwood’s ship? And yet…yet Ozpin found that his hopes hung upon the thread that Miss Fall was lying to him, and to all of them, and that maybe against all hope Amber would not come.

If she did…he did not know what he would do.

The moment has been prepared for. And yet…how can I condemn another to act as my vessel because I was too weak to do what must be done?

He did not want to fight Amber and yet equally he found that he…he did not want to die. He did not want to abandon his young students to fight this battle alone, bereft of any guidance he might have given them, he did not want them to have to make their way without him, even for a while; not because he was so arrogant as to consider himself indispensable to them – they were so brave, and so virtuous, that he considered that they would probably find their way decently well without him, and he had prepared letters to that effect to each of them, assuming that they could be found amidst the ruins of the tower – but because it felt like cowardice or even desertion to absent himself from this battle, even for a span of months, simply to spare himself a little heartache. And that was even without the question of forcing the presence of his soul upon another.

He did not want to leave Pyrrha the burden of facing Amber alone…and yet he did not want to face Amber himself either.

He wished…he smiled with a kind of wry amusement, he wished that he could have spoken to Princess Celestia about this, to discover how she had managed to face down her former students who had turned from the path of righteousness. How she had managed to steel her heart to oppose those whom she had loved as her own children.

But then…I have no doubt that these would be very painful memories for her. It would be very ungallant of me to cause a gentle lady heartache.

And in any case, he could not speak to her now. There was no time, and he could not even be sure that Sunset’s marvellous book had survived the grimm attack.

He would have to decide for himself what to do if Amber came. Would he fight, or…

Strange, to think that his life as Professor Ozpin might soon be over. He felt…dissatisfied, moreso than he had felt at the impending end of some of his prior incarnations. In earlier times, in lives past, he had gone to his reincarnation with a sense of completeness, a sense of ending; a sense that he had lived a good life well, accomplished something that he could leave behind him, die content. As the King, he had departed knowing that he had left behind a system that would stabilised a fractured and disordered world, leaving the four kingdoms in the care of men and women he had hand-picked and chosen for their wisdom and integrity. So it had been with the best of his lives: they had ended upon a good note, with a legacy that would endure during his absence and until his next incarnation found his feet.

But now? What did Professor Ozpin leave behind? He felt incomplete, as though in his death he left nothing but so much work undone, so much left to do, nothing meaningful accomplished.

I leave nothing behind…except four brave young huntsmen to continue this battle.

I should have done far more to prepare them for this moment.

An alert on his scroll made him look at it; he had been notified by one of the cameras scattered throughout Vale which he had access to; some of them had been taken out by the grimm loosed on the city by the dragon, but some of them were still functional and one of those, one located quite close to the school, showed Amber making her way to Beacon.

Ozpin closed his eyes. So. That was that. Miss Fall had been right about everything, and Amber had betrayed them without a doubt. Betrayed him. And now she was on her way to claim the Relic of Choice.

She might not find it as easy as she thought…or she might find that the last defence of the Relic of Choice posed no difficulty at all for her; she was not…despite all of Ozpin’s failings with her she still had at least a trace of all the qualities that had convinced him that she would make an excellent Fall Maiden, and those qualities might help her to win through the final trial.

If she was not stopped first.

And if he did not stop her then…then it would fall to Pyrrha to do so. It was a hard thing to ask even of so promising a young woman as herself; perhaps it was an impossible thing…and yet he had no one else to whom he could turn now. She was his guardian of the vault; she was the only one who could defend it from Amber and all her allies.

All her allies. Of course she had not come alone. Miss Fall’s last henchman remaining at large, Lightning Dust, was by her side, and so was Tempest Shadow and so, more surprisingly, were Team BLBL. Amber had been close to them briefly but he had not thought them traitors. Was he so poor at judging people?

I refused to listen to James when he pressed the virtues of his favourites upon me, but for all his faults he never considered Miss Shadow as his agent or a Maiden candidate though she is, by all accounts, much stronger than Miss Dash could ever hope for. I preferred to trust in my own judgement over his but he has never made such a mistake as I made with Amber.

And yet my own judgement also led me to Team SAPR, so that must count for something?

I already knew that I can make mistakes, but I hope that I have demonstrated that I can still make the right judgement, from time to time at least.

His aged hands shook a little as he tapped out a message to Pyrrha. It was a tough position that he was putting her in, and yet what other choice did he have?

Miss Nikos,

You must come at once. Amber has returned to Beacon and will surely try and seize the Relic of Choice. I will try and stop her but I may not be able to do so. As only you can enter the Vault without her leave, you must do so and stop her from taking the relic.

I am sorry that it must be this way, but you are my last and only hope.

Please hurry.

Professor Ozpin

He sent the message and then threw his scroll aside. He would have no more need of it now. He gripped his cane tightly in both hands and picked his way through the rubble surrounding the fallen tower, before he began to make his way with greater confidence towards the edge of the campus at the direction from which Amber and her allies were approaching.

He was waiting for them when they came, Amber surrounded by her allies like bodyguards…or like subjects surrounding a queen.

They entered Beacon to find Ozpin waiting for them, leaning upon his cane with both hands. His head was bowed, but he was aware of them regardless. He did not look up until they had already spread out, Lightning Dust and Tempest Shadow upon the flanks, with Team BLBL in the centre, all with their weapons drawn, all in some semblance of a fighting stance. They were wary of him. It gave him a degree of pleasure to know that he could still inspire wariness.

Amber was the only one who did not look prepared to fight. “Uncle Ozpin,” she murmured, her voice trembling. “What are you still doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” Ozpin said softly, his voice barely carrying above the breeze. “I must confess that I am…disappointed in you, Amber.”

“I’m only doing what I must,” Amber said. “If I don’t do this then they’ll kill me.”

“I would have protected you, if you had let me,” Ozpin said.

“You can’t protect anyone!” Amber cried. “Look around, Uncle Ozpin! You can’t protect Beacon, you can’t protect Vale, you can’t protect anything! You threw Sunset away into jail the moment it became a bother for you, where was your protection for her when she needed it.”

“Sunset made her choice, and a gallant one,” Ozpin said softly. “It was not for me to deny her that choice.”

“All you do is take people’s choices away!” Amber shrieked. “You took all my choices away. I didn’t choose to be a part of all this. When I begged you to take me away from home and show me the beautiful city I dreamed of this wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to sing in front of hundreds of people, I wanted…I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any part of this but I had no choice because you saw to that. This was the only choice that I had left, the only way that I could escape from all of this, everything that you forced upon me.”

Ozpin closed his eyes for a moment. “I…I am sorry that you feel that way. I am so sorry for everything I put you through. I genuinely believed that you would be the best Fall Maiden that Remnant could have at this time…that it was not so is more my fault than yours. All of your faults have been my faults as your teacher and for that…you have all of my regrets but please, Amber, do not let your justified wrath towards me condemn the whole of Remnant. If Salem takes the crown then so many innocents will suffer because of it. Because of you. I know that you don’t want that. I know that you’re not a cruel girl.”

“No,” Amber said, shaking her head furiously from side to side. “I…I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I asked…I asked them to spare Team Sapphire. They were kind to me and…and it isn’t their fault that you decided to put them all in danger.”

“No,” Ozpin said. “No, that is not their fault at all. And what was the response to your generous request?”

“That your four fools wouldn’t walk away even if they were offered the chance to do so,” Tempest said. “You’ve gotten too far into their heads for that.”

It was Ozpin’s turn to shake his head. “If you believe that, Miss Shadow, then I fear that you reveal only your own ignorance. It is the virtue of those young people, and not any machinations or manipulations of mine, that holds them to this colour. You are correct only in that they would not abandon the struggle even if they had the chance. That fact owes little to me and yet…I am very proud of them for it. Just as I am disappointed in the four of you: Mister Bronzewing, Mister Lark; Miss Heartstrings and Miss Bonaventure; do you have any idea of what side you have chosen? Of what is at stake here?”

“What we know is that you tortured an innocent girl in body, mind and soul,” Mister Bronzewing said. “We don’t need any lectures on right and wrong from you, Professor.”

“We won’t let you hurt Amber any more,” Miss Heartstrings declared.

“They love me,” Amber said. “The way that I thought you loved me. The way that my mother loved me before you got her killed. They…they’re going to keep me safe, and I’m going to keep them safe after.”

“An admirable exchange,” Ozpin murmured. “You may be the only safe ones left in the world once Salem possesses the Relic.”

“Enough,” Tempest snapped. “I don’t know what you’re stalling for, old man, but it ends now. Like you said, we’re taking the Relic, so either get out of our way-“

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Ozpin said.

Tempest smirked. “So we’re doing this the hard way, huh? I was hoping you’d say that.”

She sprang at him. Ozpin leapt for her in turn. He lunged with his cane, she parried with her metal staff. She really was astonishingly fast, Ozpin thought as she blocked all of his swift lunges; it was almost incredible that James hadn’t thought to recruit her.

If you though she was that unreliable, James, one might ask why you let her attend your school.

He pressed his attack against her. He had to keep up his momentum or she would strike against him in turn. He kept her on the defensive, although judging by the way her smile seemed fused in place throughout his barrage of assaults she wasn’t finding it any great hardship to withstand him.

A roar from behind alerted Ozpin to an incoming attack from Lightning Dust who had leapt up, poised above him, face twisted into an angry snarl, her whole body wreathed in lightning as she cocked back a fist to strike at him.

Ozpin shimmered out of the way, moving swifter than the eye could follow as Lightning Dust’s attack carried her past the point where Ozpin would have been, stumbling forward and almost into Tempest Shadow. Miss Shadow herself swerved to avoid her ally but in the process she left her guard open. Ozpin exploited the opening, hammering his cane into her point first, clanging against her black armour as his weapon struck as swiftly as the lightning, one strike following another without respite as he drove her back.

There was the bang of a gun as Mister Bronzewing fired his gunblade at his old headmaster. Ozpin whipped round, deflecting the blow with a simple swing of his cane, but in the process Miss Shadow leapt away with a backflip. Lightning erupted from Miss Dust’s hands, but Ozpin simply shimmered out of the way of it, leaving echoes of himself behind as he moved faster than the eye could see, only his reflections being struck by the lightning the snapped and snarled harmlessly through the air as it hunted for him in vain.

He rushed at Miss Dust, but Miss Shadow got in his way, throwing herself between her comrade and her enemy, still with that smile fused to her face in spite of everything, still parrying his blows, still almost matching him for speed.

Just what did Watts do to her?

Miss Dust placed her hands upon the ground, the complicated and convoluted contraption that was poisoning her with pure liquid dust bubbling and gurgling away; a moment later the ground beneath Ozpin’s feet and all around him as far as the tower ruins erupted as particles of what looked like black sand burst out of the earth in great swarms, humming with electricity so that they seemed like bees or wasps, moving like animals with thought and direction, all of them converging upon him.

Ozpin slammed the tip of his cane into what little ground remained beneath his feet, conjuring a spherical shield of verdant green around him, a shield against which the iron particles beat harmlessly.

Tempest’s smirk widened as she leapt up into the air, producing from one of the pouches at her belt a black canister with a sickly green light glowing within it.

With a flourish, she kicked the canister towards him. It flew through the midst of the black iron particles and struck Ozpin’s shield. It didn’t burst; instead it strained against the barrier, pushing against it, sparking off it.

Ozpin’s eyebrows rose as his shield began to crack.

The canister burst through the barrier, striking the ground at Ozpin’s feet before he could move; a green misty haze surrounded him, and Ozpin felt his legs and feet grow heavy, fixed, immobile as jagged stone as black as obsidian encased them, crawling up his body as far as his knees, past his knees, almost as high as his thighs.

He had never seen earth dust behave quite like this; he would have been impressed if he had not been a victim of it.

Miss Shadow landed on her feet. “An alchemical blending of ice and earth dust, combining the best properties of both,” she explained. “Clever, no?”

Ozpin might have replied if Miss Dust hadn’t chosen that moment to slam both hands into his back while he was immobile and discharge what felt like all the lightning at her command into him. His cane dropped from his hands. Within the confines of the stone that held him captive his body contorted backwards, his back arching; Ozpin cried out in pain as his aura was torn to shreds.

“Stop it!” Amber cried. “Stop it, stop hurting him, please,” she sobbed. Tears fell down her face, running down her scars like rivulets. She started forward, moving past Mister Bronzewing and ignoring the hand he placed gently on her arm to hold her back. She walked towards Ozpin, tears still falling as she got closer and closer, until she was close enough that she could have reached out and touched him, had she wished to do so.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t…this isn’t what I wanted, but it’s the only way.” She raised her hands, and stroked his face. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Amber,” Ozpin said, with equal gentleness. “You still have a choice.”

“No,” Amber whispered, as she placed her hands upon the side of his head. “I don’t.”

He felt the fire come then, the fire of the Maidens springing from her hands, burning through what remained of his aura.

The moment has been prepared for.

Pyrrha…I am sorry to leave all this to you.


Ozpin turned to ash before their eyes, all of him save for his pince-nez, fell to the ground beside his cane, the lenses shattering upon the ground.

Lightning Dust gasped for breath as she released the iron particles, letting the black sand fall to the ground all around them in lumps and clumps.

Amber fell to, falling to her knees as the stone-ice that had held Ozpin captive crumbled into dust, sobbing as she bowed her head, rocking back and forth.

Dove was the first to reach her, putting his arms around her while the other members of Team BLBL gathered round, each laying a supportive hand on Amber’s neck and shoulders.

“It’s okay,” he whispered into her ear. “He can’t hurt you any more.”

“I…I loved him once,” Amber said.

“I know,” Dove said. “But he betrayed you. Remember that. He did this. You only did what you had to do to survive, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Amber said. “I…I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to. You know that, don’t you? You believe that?”

“Of course,” Dove said. “Of course I believe that, we all believe that, because we believe you. Because we care about you, all of us.”

“He treated you with inhuman cruelty,” Bon Bon said. “And he paid the price for that. You shouldn’t have had to do that to him but…he shouldn’t have done what he did to you, either.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Lyra said. “But one you’ll live through. With Dove, and all of our help. We’ll help you through it.”

“Later,” Tempest said. “For now, you need to keep your eye on the prize. Freedom is within your grasp, you just need to reach out and take it. Are you ready?”

Amber hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”

“Good,” Tempest said. “Then lead the way.”


If only the circumstances were different enough to allow me to really enjoy this, Pyrrha thought.

She was sitting behind Jaune as they rode together on a white horse, its hooves beating against the concrete as it bore them both swiftly through the streets of Vale. She had one arm around his waist. They were riding a white horse together, while she had her arms around him as he carried her away. It sounded…incredibly romantic, if she was being honest. And yet she could hardly enjoy it because of the reason they were together on this horse: because Amber had returned to Beacon and Ozpin had summoned her back urgently to defend the Vault.

What might they find when they arrived there? Might they arrive too late, to find Ozpin dead and the Relic taken? Or just too late to save the professor and then what? What would Pyrrha do then? Descend into the Vault all alone, confront Amber and all those she would doubtless have with her: Tempest Shadow, Lightning Dust, maybe the being that Sunset had called a Siren too.

Confront them alone, fight them alone…Pyrrha closed her eyes.

I should have taken the power of the Fall Maiden when it was offered to me. I should have embraced my destiny when I had the chance. If I had not hesitated, if I hadn’t let my fears get the better of me then none of this would be happening.

Or would it? It was easy to blame herself for this – Pyrrha was one of those people who found it easy to blame herself for all sorts of things – but no one could say what would have happened if Pyrrha had gotten into that infernal machine. Perhaps Amber would have taken over Pyrrha’s body, with all the flaws and troubles that had driven her to betray their cause in the first place.

Or perhaps our souls would have merged into one, and my virtues would have balanced out her flaws. That sounded very arrogant, when thought so baldly thus, but Pyrrha didn’t mean it like that; didn’t mean it entirely like that anyway. She meant…she supposed she was wondering if a merge of their two souls would have healed Amber’s wounds, or whether the joining would have produced a being who was without such wounds. A whole person better than either of them.

Or maybe that was equally implausible, but…if she couldn’t say the outcome would have been better then she couldn’t say it would have been worse, either.

Whatever the outcome of her choosing to take up the burden that had been laid upon her it was hard to imagine things could have gone much worse than this.

I should have made the choice myself, instead of letting Sunset choose for me.

“Pyrrha?” Jaune said, turning his head a little as he let the horse find its way back to Beacon. “Are you okay?”

No. I’m frightened. “I’m just thinking,” Pyrrha murmured.

“This isn’t your fault,” Jaune said.

Pyrrha smiled a little, although he couldn’t see it. “How did you know that was what I was thinking?”

“This isn’t your fault,” Jaune repeated. “And it isn’t Sunset’s fault, or the fault of anyone who helped to bring Amber back. It was the right thing to do, if only…if only because we would have lost you, otherwise.”

Pyrrha looked at the back of his head. “You…you always know the sweetest thing to say, don’t you?”

“I try my best,” Jaune said lightly. “I have to make myself worth keeping around somehow, right?”

“Don’t talk like that, Jaune,” Pyrrha said softly. “You know I don’t like it when I do yourself down.”

“Right. I’m sorry. I was just…trying to lighten the mood a little, you know?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said. “I know. What…what do you think we’ll find up there?”

“Professor Ozpin, holding them off,” Jaune said confidently. “I mean, you saw him earlier, right? I never realised he was such a great fighter.”

“I don’t think a lot of people realised that,” Pyrrha murmured. Yet all the same, she wished that she could share Jaune’s confidence that they would arrive at Beacon in plenty of time and all will be well.

“Although…” Jaune began.

“Yes?” Pyrrha asked.

“I kinda wish…I wish the others were here.”

“Blake needs them,” Pyrrha reminded him.

“And you don’t?”

“If Professor Ozpin is okay then he will be assistance enough,” Pyrrha said. “And if not…I’ve already explained that I’m the only one who can do this.”

“I know, and I get it,” Jaune said. “I just don’t like it very much, that’s all.”

Pyrrha was silent for a moment, as their dashing white horse continued to bear them along, bear them to Beacon, bear them to…destiny, perhaps. Whatever that was, whatever that meant for Pyrrha Nikos.

She understood what Jaune meant. She wished that Sunset and Ruby were here too. She wished that they could all descend into the Vault of the Fall Maiden together. She wished that her team could stand with her in this battle. But it was not to be, and since the only thing they could accomplish at Beacon was to stand around outside the Vault and wait then it made sense to send Sunset and Ruby to help Blake along with the Rosepetals.

It would have made as much sense to have sent Jaune with them as well; there were only two reasons she had not, and neither of them had to do with his ability to ride a horse and get her to Beacon faster. If that was the only consideration in play she would have rather run back to the school. Equally even if Jaune were no rider at all she would have let him come with her because she had made a promise to him, that day when they had all learned the truth from Professor Ozpin: a promise to never leave him behind; a promise she would not break because, as she had told Kendal, the day that she failed to have faith in Jaune would be the day she lost his heart. He loved her – she thought very likely – for her beauty and – she hoped – for her virtues but she was not ignorant of the fact that he loved her also because she had been the first person in the world to believe in him. Even now nobody else believed in him quite the way that she did. If she compromised on that it would shatter him, and shatter their relationship too.

She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to win this battle and emerge from the Vault only to live without him.

And yet…

And yet…Pyrrha had told Sunset that she did not intend to die, at their parting; and she would fight with every ounce of strength at her command to win this fight, but if she could not…there was her dream to consider, after all. Sunset hadn’t been around to hear that, and everyone else had either forgotten or simply brought it up, but with Amber’s return then…this was what she had dreamed of, when she would enter an ancient sacred space and lay all of her triumphs upon the altar in sacrifice to the Fall Maiden. When all of her victories would pass out of her hands and to another. When the Invincible Girl would be defeated. If her dream was more than a result of a piece of cheese going down the wrong way – and there was a tradition of dreaming amonst the great heroes of Mistral, some of them her ancestors – then she had to face the possibility that all of her strength and skill and will to win might not be enough. That this might be her last battle. And if that was the case then Jaune would be waiting outside the Vault only to face Amber and all of her confederates. And if that happened…

“Jaune,” Pyrrha murmured.

“Yeah?”

Pyrrha hesitated. I think that once we’ve arrived at Beacon then you should go. I think that you should leave in case I die.

The words stuck in her throat. She could already see, as though she had been blessed with the gift of waking foresight, how this would go: how he would argue with her, refuse to do as she asked, and what would she do then?

She could not force him to leave. Not even for his own good. She had made a promise never to send him away, and she knew that he would never voluntarily do so.

It was a great risk, but…she could not ask it. Not when she knew that he would only refuse, and knowing that…she had made a promise. She had given him her word. There was nothing she could do.

Except win.

“Nothing,” Pyrrha said, as she turned her head and laid it on Jaune’s back. She closed her eyes as she felt his soft hair stroking her cheek. “I…I know that this is wildly inappropriate to our circumstances, but…can I stay like this, for a little while at least? Until we’re almost there.” She placed her other hand around his waist, and after a moment she felt his hand there too, on top of hers, squeezing it gently.

“Sure you can,” Jaune said, so softly and so tenderly. “Stay that way for as long as you want.”


Amber and her companions stood in the Vault of the Fall Maiden, with the statues of the dead old men – Tempest didn’t care who they were – looking down upon them with grave, almost disapproving expressions.

Well might they disapprove, considering what Tempest and the others were here to do.

It felt…strange, to be here. What Amber had done to let them see this place had felt odd, unnatural almost. It was weird in every respect. Amber had been right, they really had needed her. Without her help they would never have gotten anywhere near this place and Sonata and her sisters would have been doomed to remain prisoners of Salem.

She deserved their gratitude. It was almost a pity that they were going to betray her eventually.

But that was the way of these things; it wasn’t as though she had any loyalty to them. This was a girl who had sold out her father figure and her protectors for nothing more than an easy life; she would betray Sonata and Tempest just as easily the moment it became convenient for her; or rather the moment she judged that it was more dangerous for her to stay on their side than to switch back to her old allies and hope that they would take her back.

And she scared Sonata; or at least the powers that she wielded did. That was reason to turn on her. But not yet.

First she was going to open the Vault and retrieve the Crown of Choice for them.

Well, technically they were already in the Vault, but they hadn’t gotten to the door that only a Maiden could open yet. That door still lay before them, a portal of green glass, glowing slightly as the group stood before it.

“Go ahead,” Tempest said. “Open it.”

Amber looked nervous, but then Amber always looked nervous. She was a nervous person. Or having half her soul ripped away by Cinder had made her one, at least. She was a nervous person now, how was that for putting it? She was a nervous person and she looked nervous as she stepped away from her boyfriend – what did she in him in particular? Was it just the fact that he was loyal to her? – and walked slowly towards the door. The sounds of her boots upon the stone echoed in the cavern, except when it was muffled by her stepping on a patch of moss.

One eye glowed with the flaming golden anima of the Fall Maiden as she stretched out her hand and placed it upon the verdant door.

Golden patterns like lines of maple leaves began to appear upon the door, tracing up it from the floor to the ceiling. And then the door to the inner sanctum simply disappeared, fading into fragments that vanished from view.

Tempest guessed they would reconstitute themselves later, but she didn’t particularly care. They would be long gone by then.

On the other side of the door there was a room, surprisingly enough; a well appointed room in an antique style, with red drapes hanging from the walls side by side with tapestries of ancient kings, and marble columns lining the walls.

In the centre of the room, raised upon three pillars of amber, sat three large caskets: one of gold, glittering in the light that seemed to have no source and yet be everywhere in the chamber; one of cold iron, dull and dark and with edges sharp enough that you could probably brain somebody with it; and one of wood, plain and unvarnished wood, devoid of decoration.

Of the Relic of Choice there was no sign.

“Where is it?” Tempest asked, as she stepped inside. “Where is the Crown?”

“It…I think it’s in one of those caskets,” Amber murmured.

The rest of the group followed Tempest inside, crowding through the entrance and then spreading out a little around the caskets.

“Okay,” Lightning said. “But which one?”

“I…I don’t know,” Amber said.

“You’re supposed to be the Fall Maiden!”

“I am the Fall Maiden,” Amber cried. “But…Ozpin never showed this to me and he never told me what to do once I passed through the door.”

“Are there any instructions?” asked Sky.

Tempest rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a video game, it doesn’t come with a manual.”

“No, but there is this written on the wall near the door,” Lyra said, having turned away from the rest of the group; she now stood with her back to them, reading a piece of verse written upon the wall of the vault.

“If you would gain the power to choose,

Then first with final choice must claim your prize,

In one casket lies the crown you seek,

In others, the final glory,

Which all men obtain, seek they or no.

Only the maid may choose, and if she chooses poorly,

So shall she pass, and so the caskets pass,

Until another maid shall come,

To choose upon the hazards.

Who seeks my crown must give or hazard all they hath,

Choose wisely.”

Silence greeted this. “What does it mean?” Dove asked.

Lyra’s face was grave. “I think it means that if Amber chooses the wrong box she’ll die.”

Amber whimpered.

“Why does this have to be so complicated?” Lightning groaned.

“There’s…a degree of appropriateness to it, I suppose,” Lyra said. “You have to choose to get the power of Choice, like it says on the wall.”

“It’s too risky,” Dove said. “You can’t choose-“

“You have to,” Tempest insisted. “Sonata is screwed if we don’t get this crown and so are you. We just…we have to think carefully about this, that’s all. Does anybody have any ideas to start with?”

No one replied.

“Ugh,” Tempest groaned. “This might take a while.”


Pyrrha and Jaune arrived at Beacon to find that a part of the courtyard had been torn up, more comprehensively and more recently than the initial battle that they had fought immediately after leaving the Amity Colisseum. This was more than just lockers embedded amidst the stone; this was something else, as though the ground had been torn apart by something bursting out of it; iron sand, judging by the quantity of it littering the ground.

As she and Jaune dismounted from the horse, Pyrrha saw that amidst the debris and the iron sand Professor Ozpin’s cane was lying abandoned amidst the detritus. As she rushed over, kneeling amidst the shattered stones, she saw his glasses lying beside them.

“Pyrrha?” Jaune asked, as he followed behind her, standing over her and looking down. “What does it mean?”

Pyrrha stood up. “It means that…that we were too late for Professor Ozpin.”

“Too…you mean that…Professor Ozpin?” Jaune asked, his voice trembling with fear. “But he…that means…”

“I know,” Pyrrha said.

Jaune hesitated. “Are we…do they already have the relic?”

“I don’t know,” Pyrrha admitted. “The only way to find out is…” she trailed off, because as much as she wanted to rush to the vault at once, if she did that…if Amber and her allies had already defeated Ozpin then what choice did she have?

There was another choice that she could make, a choice that she did not want to make and yet…this was no time for her pride; with the Relic of Choice at stake she could not afford to hesitate or shrink from doing what was necessary. Professor Ozpin had entrusted her with this grave responsibility; she couldn’t put her feelings ahead of the mission.

She began to run, not towards the Vault of the Fall Maiden but towards the tower.

“Pyrrha!” Jaune called. “Pyrrha, wait, where are you going?”

She didn’t answer him. She trusted that he would follow her and he did, shouting questions at her all the while, asking what she was doing as she leapt over the rubble and debris from the tower’s destruction. One of the pair of doors had been smashed open, by a beowolf that she slew swiftly before making her way through the darkened interior of the tower. At least there were no bodies, everyone having been either evacuated or redeployed to a sector with greater priority, but there was no life either. All the lights had gone out in the tower, as they had gone out all across Remnant.

“Pyrrha,” Jaune said, as made it into the tower. “Where are you going?”

Pyrrha held out her hands, using her semblance open all of the elevator doors, hoping that there was one that was – yes! There was one on the ground floor. She took a step towards it.

“Pyrrha!” Jaune squawked, grabbing her by the arm. “Stop for just one moment and talk to me!”

“I don’t know if I can do this by myself,” Pyrrha said, looking into his eyes. “I know that there are times when I try and do things by myself but this is too big for that, it’s too important.”

“So you…” Jaune’s eyes widened with comprehension. “No.”

“She’s the only one who can help me right now,” Pyrrha said. “I don’t like this any more than you do but…I don’t have a choice. Or rather…I do, but I think this is the best choice that I can make right now.”

Jaune was silent for a moment. “Do you…do you think you can trust her?”

“I don’t trust her,” Pyrrha said. “Whether I can or not is something else, and I don’t have the answer to that.”

“But you’re going to let her out anyway?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said. “Because Professor Ozpin gave his life for this, and I owe it to him not to throw away his sacrifice by fighting a battle I can’t possibly win.”

Jaune stared at her. “Okay then. Let’s do it.”

“That’s it?”

“You might not trust Cinder,” Jaune said. “But I trust you. So if you want to do this then I’m right behind you.”

She kissed him. She couldn’t not, however bad the timing was, because who knew if she was going to get another chance to taste those lips of his again. “What we have,” Pyrrha said. “Has meant more to me than all of my victories. Whatever happens tonight I want you to know that.”

Jaune smiled. “I…I kind of wish that I had some big accomplishment of my own so that I could say something back right now. But I don’t have to because nothing is going to happen tonight. You’re going to be fine and we’re going to have…you’re going to be fine, you have to be fine. And when tonight is over I’ll give you a thousand more kisses just like that.”

Pyrrha chuckled. “That’s something worth winning for,” she said. “Come on, we…we need to move.”

They stepped into the elevator. The power was out, but Pyrrha was able to use her semblance to drag the lift down to the vault beneath the tower and open the doors on the other side once they got there. The whole vault was dark, no lights apart from the blue light of Cinder’s cryo-pod at the very far end of the immense room. As they ran across the vault Pyrrha felt glad that Cinder’s pod was on a separate battery to the tower’s main power supply.

She was still asleep. All hell was breaking loose across Vale and yet she who had done as much as anybody else to bring about this chaos and destruction was sleeping through it. It was enough to make Pyrrha’s hackles rise with distaste; this situation filled her with distaste. And yet…this…at the same time it felt like the right thing to do.

She wasn’t much of a computer expert by any means – she could just about use her scroll to make calls – but Pyrrha was able to just about work out which button to press on the touch screen to wake Cinder up. She pressed it, and she and Jaune stepped back as the case on the cryo-chamber began to open.

Jaune put one hand on the hilt of his sword. Pyrrha noticed, but didn’t comment on it.

Steam erupted from the cracks in the cryogenic pod as the lid of metal and glass rose, exposing Cinder, shackled and with tubes connected to her veins to tranquilise her, slumbering within.

She looked anything but serene. In fact, it looked more as though she was scared, as though she were having a terrifying nightmare.

Her fiery eyes snapped open.

“What…what is this?” she shook her head, and focussed upon Pyrrha. “What do you want? I was having such a nice dream before I was so rudely interrupted.”

“I need your help,” Pyrrha said.

Cinder stared at her. “What?”

“There isn’t time for me to explain everything, but suffice to say that Vale is under attack, Beacon is abandoned and Amber is attempting to retrieve the Relic of Choice, if she hasn’t done so already,” Pyrrha said. “I need you to help me stop her.”

Cinder breathed in and out. “So,” she said. “The hour has come.” She laughed. “You’ve hated me as I have hated you. You’ve coveted my death as I have devoured yours. Yet now, at the hour of the wolf with the world on fire, you come to me for help.”

“You’re not my first choice,” Pyrrha growled. “But you’re the only one I can turn to.”

Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Where’s Sunset?”

“Fighting in the city.”

“Why isn’t she here with you?”

“Only I have been granted access to enter the Vault of the Fall Maiden,” Pyrrha said.

“But I don’t need to be granted access because I am the Fall Maiden,” Cinder concluded.

“Half of one,” Jaune said.

“I am the Fall Maiden,” Cinder insisted. “As Amber is going to find out when I rip her heart out of her chest.”

Pyrrha frowned. “Then…you’ll help me.”

Cinder grinned. “When the Princess of Mistral asks for my help, and offers me a chance to take what is mine in the process, how can I refuse?” Her hands began to burn with fire, a fire that melted through the shackles suppressing her aura. Cinder began to glow visibly as the broken shackles clattered to the floor and she leapt down from the pod. “Shall we go?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said. “I don’t know if we’re still in time.” She turned to head back to the elevator.

“You’re braver than I thought,” Cinder said. “To turn your back on me.”

Pyrrha halted. She did not turn around. “Is that something that I need to worry about?”

Cinder said nothing, and after a moment it became clear to Pyrrha that she wasn’t going to. She began to walk briskly back to the lift.

“If you hurt her-“ Jaune began.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’ll dedicate the rest of your life to hunting me down and exacting your vengeance,” Cinder said. “It’s very cute that you think you’d actually stand a chance against me.”

“Cinder!” Pyrrha snapped. How does Sunset stand her?

And how does she seem to manage her so easily?

“I’m not a dog, Invincible Girl,” Cinder said. “You don’t get to bark my name and I’ll come running.” She did follow, but at a slower pace. “And besides, surely you don’t want me to be nice? That would be very boring.”

They got into the elevator – Jaune continued to glare at Cinder, while she smirked at him, clearly enjoying his discomfort – and Pyrrha brought it back up to the ground floor of the tower.

“Why is it so dark?” Cinder asked. “Why are all the lights out?”

Nobody answered her, Pyrrha simply led the way out of the tower, to where she could see for herself the wreckage that surrounded the stump of what had been Beacon Tower and the CCT.

Cinder understood at once, but Pyrrha underestimated how shocked she would be at the sight. As she emerged into the midst of the debris, as she looked up and saw that the top of the tower was missing, Pyrrha could see the comprehension dawning in Cinder’s fiery eyes. Cinder looked up at the tower stump, her mouth moving but no audible sounds emerging.

“So,” she whispered. “The tower is down. Communications all across the world are down.”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said. “A problem for the morning.”

Cinder laughed bitterly. “For you, perhaps. You have no idea. I wanted…I was…but it doesn’t matter now. None of it matters now.” She sank to her knees, looking up at the Amity Coliseum which still floated in the air over Vale; she gazed at it longingly, with such impossible yearning that the airborne arena might have been a star, and she a moth which could not fly so high no matter how much it wished to reach the celestial light.

“All my plans and dreams…all turned to cinders,” she said, snorting at her own appalling pun. She knelt there, amidst the ruins, for a moment or too, head bowed, hair falling down across her face. Then she got up, slowly but with the impression of great power. She held out her arms, and after a moment her glass bow flew into her hands; Pyrrha remember that Sunset had put it in her locker, and her locker must be out here somewhere, in the courtyard. Cinder closed her fist around the glass, and smiled. “At least I can still take my revenge on the girl who…do you think Sunset will think well of me for this?”

Pyrrha blinked, honestly not knowing what to say. “It’s…possible. Even likely.”

Cinder nodded. “Then I suppose she hasn’t ruined absolutely everything,” she said. “Lead the way.”


The group stared at the three caskets. The three infernal boxes that were standing between them and their objective, between Sonata and freedom, between Tempest and all that she desired.

It was absolutely infuriating.

She was grinding her teeth as she tried to work out which box was the correct one to open.

Gold. Iron. Wood. And if she chose the wrong casket then Amber would die? How were you supposed to make a decision like that? There weren’t even clues.

And they had been down here for far too long already. At this rate the school would be re-occupied and they’d still be down here trying to figure out this puzzle. Ozpin hadn’t even needed to try and stall for time, his defences had delayed them far more than the man himself had managed.

“Do we actually know that Amber will die if she opens the wrong box?” Lightning said. “That might just be whoever wrote the instructions trying to freak us out.”

“We can’t take the risk,” Dove said, wrapping one arm around Amber protectively.

“I agree,” Tempest murmured. “We have to assume that the warning is genuine because if we act as if it isn’t we may lose our only shot at this.”

“I can see that,” Lightning said. “Okay then, you should open the iron casket.”

Tempest glanced at her out of the side of her eyes. “Care to explain your workings before we, what does it say, hazard all we have?”

“Duh,” Lightning said. “This is a relic of power, we’re talking about. The power of choice, whatever that is. Iron is power, that’s all it is. When you strip away the fancy frou-frou stuff that people with power surround themselves with iron is what you get. Well, that and money, but anyway, the point is that gold is just the covering, it’s what they stick over the iron to make it look more impressive and fool you into thinking that this world is anything but the strong sitting on the weak. Wood is all that the weak are left with because the strong have taken everything better so you’ve just got sticks to try and build a house with. But iron is how the strong keep what they’ve got. Iron is…iron is what the crown rests on.”

Tempest folded her arms. “I didn’t take you for a philosopher.”

“I’m not,” Lightning Dust muttered. “I can just see the way the world works. Open the iron casket.”

“Wait,” Tempest said. “Are there any counterarguments. Remember, we only have one shot, we have to get this right.”

“We have to get this right because Amber’s life is on the line if we don’t,” Dove said.

Bon Bon shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

“About what?”

“No king would ever place his crown in a chest of iron for precisely the reasons you say,” she said. “The crown isn’t gold because it’s shiny, or because it’s meant to distract you from anything. The crown is gold because it’s heavy, the heavy metal on the king’s head symbolising the heavy but precious weight of justice and judgement. Iron isn’t precious, or heavy. Only hard and dangerous.”

“And powerful,” Lightning insisted.

“Power without justice or majesty is an affront to everything the crown stands for.”

“A crown doesn’t stand for anything,” Lightning snapped. “No more than a general’s uniform. Who has ever had power and wielded it with justice? Does Ironwood care about justice, law or judgement? Of course not, because he has an iron fleet and so he can do what he likes without fear of consequence. The Atlesian military, the White Fang, bandits, they all rule by iron; the only difference is that some of them pretend otherwise. But there’s no point in pretending, nobody’s really fooled by it. Iron is the only thing that matters.”

Lyra lifted her hand an inch off her head to scratch her white and green hair. “I think it’s the golden casket. Not because of what Bon Bon said, but because…this is Beacon. This is one of the Huntsman Academies. We all came here to write our stories, to achieve great glory as huntsmen and huntresses while protecting the world from evil like…like Professor Ozpin and all the horrible things he did to Amber. Gold is glory, gold is greatness, gold is the thing that we all came here to strive for. Gold is everything that we desire, everything we yearn for. Gold is our songs being sung from Vacuo to Mistral. Gold is…gold is the right choice.”

“Hmm…” Tempest mused. “So on the one hand we have power and on the other hand we have glory. Either one of those could hold the crown but I feel as though we’re getting somewhere if we look at it like this. This isn’t a random choice, after all, these boxes mean something. If we can understand the meanings behind them then we can solve the riddle. Gold or iron. Power or glory.”

“Power,” Lightning Dust said. “Every time.”

“That might be your choice but it doesn’t follow that it’s the right choice,” Tempest said. “This test was set by…someone else. Someone a long time ago. Someone who didn’t think like we do. If we knew who they were then we could get inside their heads.”

Amber rested her head upon Dove’s chest, and hugged him a little tighter. He put his arms around her in turn.

“You don’t have to choose until you’re ready,” Dove said.

“Although a little haste would be appreciated,” Tempest muttered. “We do want to get out of here at some point.”

Amber made a sound that might have been a whimper. “I don’t want to risk my life for power or for glory. I never did. I only want…I only want…” Her eyes widened. “That’s it!”

“You’ve figured it out?” Tempest said.

“I think so,” Amber said. “It’s the wooden casket.”

“What?” Lightning yelled. “Are you serious? Come on!”

“It doesn’t sound very plausible,” Tempest muttered. “Who would place a crown inside a wooden box?”

“Someone who understood that it isn’t power or glory that we ought to choose,” Amber said. “Wood is plain and simple yes, and it isn’t powerful and it isn’t glorious and it doesn’t mean anything but…but that’s the point, don’t you see. The things that we ought to choose, above power and glory and all the rest, are simple…” she gazed lovingly into Dove’s eyes. “Things like love, and friendship, and a little cottage in the woods with a garden and a stream flowing nearby, songs and good cheer and…and hot cocoa by the fire.”

Tempest frowned. “You’re going to risk your life based on greeting card nonsense?”

Amber nodded. “Yes, I am, because…because I know I’m right.” Nevertheless, her hands trembled as she reached for the wooden casket in the centre of the trio, and gently lifted up the plain unvarnished lid.

There was a bright light of brilliant white, temporarily blinding all present, and then the light faded just a little as a rich five pointed crown, gold and adorned with turquoises, rose out of the casket.

“Yes!” Tempest cried triumphantly, raising her fists in the air because they had done it! They had the relic! Sonata’s freedom was close enough to taste now!

“No!” Pyrrha yelled from the other end of the vault.


Pyrrha rushed down the winding steps, with Cinder a step behind her. They had left Jaune in the empty courtyard, facing the statue beyond which he could not pass. She hoped that he didn’t worry too much. With Cinder with her…she was almost more worried about Cinder than she was about Amber and her confederates.

They rushed down the stairs, arriving in the Vault of the Fall Maiden in time to see the crown, the Relic of Choice, rising into the air in front of Amber, accompanied as she was by Tempest Shadow, Lightning Dust and…Team BLBL? Were they really so enamoured of her that they would betray everything that huntsmen and huntresses were supposed to represent for Amber’s sake?

“No!” the word was torn out of her throat as she saw the crown, the relic that she had been tasked to guard by Ozpin, the relic that Salem’s forces could not obtain.

We were nearly too late. I was nearly too late.

Of course, her piercing cry attracted the attention of all their enemies, who turned to face them with weapons drawn, Team BLBL spilling out of the inner sanctum and into the wider vault, with Dove, Sky and Bon Bon forming a line while Lyra hung back a little. Strangely, she did not draw her sword but rather got out her harp as her fingers hovered above the strings.

Team BLBL looked concerned, Tempest and Lightning Dust less so; Amber, on the other hand, looked absolutely horrified.

“You,” she gasped, as her eyes widened and her bosom heaved with fear.

Cinder’s smirk was something truly wicked to behold, like the smile of a cat before it pounces on the mouse. “That’s right. You’ve got something that belongs to me and I’m here to take what’s mine.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Dove snarled.

Cinder chuckled. “This isn’t going to be like the dance,” she said. “Sunset isn’t here to save you this time, and Pyrrha’s on my team now. So why don’t you just freeze up like you did that night, and by the time you stop choking on your own fear all of this will be over.”

Dove charged with an angry yell, and a moment later Sky and Bon Bon followed him, running down the vault towards Pyrrha and Cinder. Pyrrha had just enough time to note Tempest plucking the crown out of the air and stuffing it into a satchel that Amber was wearing at her hip before she, too, began to run, running to meet her opponents in the centre of the vault, under the gaze of Ozpin’s predecessors.

She had failed Professor Ozpin, she would not fail the eyes of all those who had gone before him.

Pyrrha lost sight of Cinder, who fell behind her; her attention was wholly focussed on the three members of Team BLBL who were running towards her, weapons drawn. She was not overly concerned; three against one was tricky, but she knew these three, their strengths and weaknesses from sparring against them often enough. And she didn’t have to worry about holding back with her semblance any more. Within the limitations of her aura level, she could go all out.

A trio of glass arrows soared over Pyrrha’s head and shoulder to strike Bon Bon and the ground directly at her feet, exploding on her shining armour and staggering her backwards with a cry of pain. Pyrrha leapt forwards, kicking off her back foot as she thrust her Milo – in spear form – forward at Sky’s chest. He parried clumsily, backing away from her thrust. Dove slashed at her with his sword but Pyrrha took the blow upon her shield, turning it aside and leaving Dove open for a slashing stroke of her own with Milo that jarred him across the side of the head. Bon Bon, recovered from Cinder’s arrows, whirled her Morningstar around her head before launching the spiked ball straight at Pyrrha, who used her semblance to turn it aside and send the weapon flying into Sky’s face instead, knocking him to the ground.

Sky yelped in pain, Bon Bon grunted in irritation, but before she could retract the chain Cinder was on her, her glass bow having turned to twin curved scimitars with which she slashed at Bon Bon, and though the glass blades skittered off her armour that didn’t mean that they weren’t damaging her opponent’s aura too.

Dove launched himself at Pyrrha a second time. He was without a doubt the strongest of Team BLBL, and in terms of raw strength he was stronger than either Ren or Jaune, although Ren had more finesse and Jaune now had a lot more versatility and (Pyrrha flattered herself a little to think so, since it was in no small part due to her tuition) technical skill. Dove’s one handed slashing strokes were telegraphed, obvious, but they were delivered with speed and with a strength behind his arm that many opponents would have struggled against.

Pyrrha Nikos was not many opponents. She switched Milo into sword form as he rushed her, parrying his strokes, and though she felt the jarring sensation down her arm from his strength her aura was not seriously impaired by it. She let him spend the initial energy of his charge, taking his blows and blocking them whether they came from above or below; then, while she had his sword in parry, she lashed out with Akuou to strike him in the face. He leapt backwards before she could follow up with a strike from Milo. She would have switched to rifle and shot him except that Sky chose that moment to try and sweep her legs out from under her with his halberd while he was still on the ground. Pyrrha leapt over the sweeping stroke and descended on top of Sky, using her shield as a weapon once again to hammer his head into the surface beneath them.

Pyrrha stepped over him, and would have advanced on Amber – and Tempest and Lightning who still guarded her – but a shot from Dove’s gunblade that she barely managed to block with her shield reminded her of the folly of leaving enemies behind her, even in a situation like this one.

There is no way out except through me. Amber isn’t going to escape while my back is turned.

But she – or more likely one of the others – might attack me while my back is turned.

Pyrrha turned warily, keeping one eye on Tempest and Lightning. Fortunately they seemed content to let Team BLBL make the running at first. Perhaps they hoped that they would drain Cinder and Pyrrha’s aura before they could finish them off when they were weakened. If that was their strategy then Pyrrha for one hoped to disappoint them.

Lyra began to pluck the strings on her harp. She began slowly, but with every moment that passed her fingers picked up speed and so did the music that she was playing, moving swiftly from what seemed like the beginning of a soft air to a fast paced reel. Pyrrha thought that she recognised the tune, like a memory from long ago: it was a Mantle folk ballad, she thought, the song of a hero of the northland; she had heard it played in Argus once, during a festival. She did not recall the name or details.

Nor did she have time to. As Lyra played, her swift and nimble fingers driving the music on, a brilliant white light began to glow around Dove like aura…no, it was his aura, his aura being stimulated by Lyra’s music.

It looks as if I’m not the only one who’s been concealing my semblance. Pyrrha had seen Lyra only as a mediocre swordswoman, never considering that the harp she carried everywhere might be for more than just amusement.

Dove looked not confident but certain; it wasn’t that he thought he would win it was that, in his own mind, he could not afford to lose.

Cinder screamed, distracting Pyrrha as her eyes darted towards her reluctant ally, on her knees at the base of one of the statues of Ozpin’s predecessors that lined the walls of the vault. Bon Bon was glowing too – her aura was a beige colour glowing so brightly that it obscured her armour – and at first Pyrrha was at a loss as to what she was doing to Cinder that was making the latter shriek in such agony. Bon Bon was holding up one hand, and from that hand a light was glowing and it was almost as if that light was the source of Cinder’s pain, as if she were no man but some creature of darkness out of folklore or fairytale that could not bear the holy light upon her.

Cinder screamed, and while Pyrrha was distracted by her scream Dove attacked, wielding his sword in two hands now as he closed the distance with her so fast that she was almost caught off guard and had to retreat, parrying more hastily and with a little less finesse than was normal for her. He was no more skilled than he had been before Lyra started to play, but he was faster and stronger, and as she stood her guard Pyrrha was hard pressed to keep turning his weapon away from her. Once Sky – wreathed in a bright blue glow – joined the struggle it became even harder; he too was not improved in skill but so greatly in speed and strength that his clumsiness with his halberd mattered very little as the two huntsmen circled around her, forcing her to try and match their movements as they tried always to have one in front of her and one behind while Pyrrha, in turn, tried to keep them on her flanks where she could use Milo to parry the one and Akuou to take the blows of the other and see them both and use her semblance upon them both to turn their blows aside. Fighting two was difficult when they were two this fast, and Cinder was still screaming.

Pyrrha missed a step in the dance and Sky struck her, his halberd hitting her from behind across her knees, which buckled under his strong blow, pitching Pyrrha forwards onto her greaves as she felt her aura sliced away. Dove followed up with a blow to her head, his blade slicing across her temple in a stroke that would have cut the top of her head off it weren’t for aura; as it was it clanged against her circlet and knocked Pyrrha sideways with a cry of pain as she landed on her shoulder.

Pyrrha lashed out with her semblance, throwing out her polarity in a wave which burned precious aura – not that she had a lot of choice, she was going to lose it to less good effect if she continued to let the two of them assail her thus - but which did manage to throw Dove and Sky across the chamber in opposite directions, Sky cratering the wall and Dove shattering one of the statues of the wise old men who watched over the vault.

She didn’t have much time. Bon Bon had also been knocked sideways by Pyrrha’s polarity wave, though to a lesser extent because of the greater distance. Cinder didn’t look in much position to take advantage of that – her left eye was bleeding – but Pyrrha seized her with her polarity, teaching her the downside of wearing so much metal armour as she picked up the other huntress and threw her down the vault; she slammed into Lyra as she flew and the songstress’ ballad was abruptly cut short as she was borne backwards by Bon Bon and slammed into the back wall, caught between her partner and the stone as the two of them collapsed in a heap by the side of Amber, who let out a little whimper as they did so.

The glow faded from around Sky and Dove now that the song was ended, and as Sky fell to the ground Pyrrha leapt at him, kicking off from her prone position to catch him before he hit the ground, putting one around his throat to spin him around before driving him head first into the floor of the vault. He did not get up.

Pyrrha switched Milo into rifle mode as she snapped off two shots at Dove as he clambered slowly to his feet, following up by throwing Akuou at him to knock him onto his back in turn. He didn’t rise again either.

Pyrrha switched Milo into spear mode as she stalked into the centre, width-wise, of the vault. After a moment, and grunting with effort, Cinder rose to her feet.

“Are you alright?” Pyrrha murmured.

“I’ll be fine,” Cinder muttered dismissively, sounding insulted that Pyrrha had asked as she wiped the blood from beneath her eye with one scarlet sleeve.

Tempest Shadow and Lightning Dust stepped forward; the latter was wreathed with yellow lightning rippling up and down her body.

“Do you have a preference?” Cinder whispered out of one corner of her mouth.

“Tempest,” Pyrrha whispered back. Armoured as she was she would be vulnerable to Pyrrha’s semblance; Lightning Dust’s gear looked to be a little less metallic.

“Fine,” Cinder said, and she combined her swords into a bow and took aim at Lightning Dust.

Their two opponents began to charge, and it became clear by the way that they switched places so that Tempest was rushing towards Cinder and Lightning towards Pyrrha that their thoughts on the best match-up accorded in reverse with that of their opponents.

Nevertheless, Tempest Shadow was still wearing her armour.

Pyrrha grabbed her with her semblance – she had to be bold now; facing two opponents with their auras intact boldness was perhaps the best option available to her – and threw her into Lightning Dust whose lightning, wreathing her entire body, swiftly enveloped Tempest too, pulsating up and down her black armour and make the pony faunus jerk and twitch and burble with shock even as Lightning Dust was hurt by the impact of Tempest into her which bore her into the wall on the other side.

They recovered more swiftly than any member of Team BLBL, it had to be said. Lightning ceased her lightning discharge long enough for Tempest to roll away, with the flick of some kind of button on her collar all of Tempest black metal armour fell away from her body with much clattering and clanging as it hit the floor in a heap around her, leaving her clad only in skin tight bodysuit of some kind of plastic or polymer, flexible aside from a solid plate over her chest. She even through her weapon – a metal pole that would have been equally vulnerable to Pyrrha’s polarity – aside before she resumed her charge, leaving Lightning Dust, wreathed in lightning once again, to follow on behind her.

Pyrrha fired the remaining three shots in her magazine at Tempest; Cinder loosed arrow after glass arrow. They all exploded harmlessly against Tempest’s shield of crimson, which she held before her with her hands outstretched as she rushed towards them.

This is just what she did to Team RSPT during her attack on the Valiant. Pyrrha realised, recognising Rainbow Dash’s description of the battle in which Tempest had overwhelmed Penny and her entire team. “Get back,” she snapped to Cinder, even as Pyrrha jumped backwards herself. “She’s going to exploder her shield!”

Tempest exploded her shield. Cinder was caught in the burst of energy that swept forwards down the vault and, like a leaf caught in a sudden burst of wind, was blasted backwards towards the stairs, tumbling head over her heels before she managed to steady herself with some of the magic of the Fall Maiden, coming to a stop floating in the air about a foot above the ground, waiting as Tempest ran towards her, weaponless but with fists cocked. Pyrrha was less effected by the blast but was still caught it in, caught in mid leap, but she was already so high that the blast directed her towards the vault ceiling. Pyrrha tucked her legs in and rolled in mid-air, rising in the direction she wanted to go in, so that her high-heeled boots touched the roof of the underground chamber.

She kicked off, Milo in sword mode swept back, Akuou held before her, plunging downwards like a javelin or a thunderbolt from the heavens to join Cinder – who was flying towards her enemy even as Tempest came to her – in the battle.

There was a flash of yellow as Lightning Dust emerged between her and Tempest, lightning rippling across her whole body, hands outstretched.

She collided with Pyrrha in mid-air, knocking her off course as the two of them tumbled over one another as they fell. Pyrrha landed on the bottom but the pain of the impact – and the impact’s impact on her aura – was as nothing when compared to the lightning which sprang from every inch of Lightning’s body to rippled up and down Pyrrha’s own, tearing at her aura like a pack of hunting hounds who, directed by the calls of the huntsman and the sounding of the trumpets, surrounds the noble lion and sink their fangs into the greater beast till they have brought him down. Pyrrha cried out in pain as she felt her aura draining away under the onslaught. Lightning Dust’s face was an angry snarl as she placed her hands around Pyrrha’s neck, squeezing her gorget as lightning leapt off her arms to strike at Pyrrha’s face.

They were too close together for Pyrrha to effectively wield her weapons, so she took a leaf out of Penny’s book and headbutted her opponent in a very uncivilised but undeniably effective manner before temporarily discarding Milo and Akuou and punching Lightning Dust in the face with both hands, enough to get her to loosen her grip on Pyrrha enough that Pyrrha could throw her off and back down the vault towards Amber.

Pyrrha got to her feet, but didn’t recover her weapons. There was no point at this point; if she engaged Lightning Dust in close combat then she would simply be vulnerable to more shocks every time she struck home. That was what Lightning Dust was counting on.

Nevertheless Pyrrha was forced to grab her shield, using her semblance to pull it towards her arm, as Lightning unleashed a stream of lightning form her hands, snapping and snarling as it travelled through the air towards her. Pyrrha took the blast upon her shield, even as she seized Milo with her polarity rather than her arm and threw it straight at Lightning Dust, hitting her in the shoulder and staggering her sideways.

Then she grabbed every single weapon that she could find with her semblance: not only Milo but Dove’s sword, Bon Bon’s morningstar, Sky’s halberd, even Tempest’s pole and all of the various pieces of her armour too. She lifted them all up into the air, all of them grasped by the black outline of her semblance, and then she threw them all from various directions straight at Lightning Dust.

She caught her opponent by surprise at first, as spear and sword and everything else slammed into her. Milo hit her from behind and knocked her forwards. Sky’s halberd cut her legs out from under her before Dove’s sword bashed her up into the air; Bon Bon’s flail fell down upon her stomach to thrust her back down into the ground again. All the pieces of Tempest’s armour – cuirass, cuisses, paudrons, greaves, vambraces, all of it – surrounded her before closing in on her like a swarm of angry wasps, slamming into her from all sides, crushing her beneath and between them all.

Lightning sparked at the centre of the mass of armour, yellow lightning holding the metal in place, lightning fighting back against her polarity, the yellow warring against the black.

Of course. She can use her lightning to achieve a degree of magnetic control. Rainbow Dash had told her that too.

Pyrrha scowled, and pushed harder with her semblance. Lightning closed her eyes, furrowing her brow with concentration as that device that was poisoning her in exchange for power bubbled and burbled as it pumped more dust into her bloodstream.

Pyrrha pushed. Lightning pushed back, growling and grimacing all the while. Lightning Dust roared in anger as her lightning overpowered Pyrrha’s polarity and threw Tempest’s armour pieces out in all directions; none of them travelled far enough to hit Pyrrha, who leapt out of the way of them, but some of them struck both Tempest and Cinder where they were engaged in their struggle, as Tempest countered Cinder’s magic with her shields and continually shattered Cinder’s glass weapons with her fists only for them to reform in Cinder’s hands at her command.

“Switch with me,” Cinder said, as she used the power of the Maiden to soar backwards away from Tempest Shadow, flying a foot above the ground, with blowing her hands before she turned as nimbly as an eel in the water to fly towards Lightning Dust.

Milo and Akuou flew into Pyrrha’s hands as she intercepted Tempest in her attempted pursuit of Cinder. Pyrrha took Tempest’s blow of jarring strength upon her shield before thrusting with Milo in spear mode. Tempest caught the blow, her hand closing around the tip of the spear before she yanked it – and Pyrrha too – forwards, pulling her off balance preparatory to grabbing her arm too and throwing her across the vault.

Pyrrha rolled to a halt – she almost didn’t dare see how much aura she had left – and threw Akuou at Tempest as she ran to aid Lightning Dust, who was suffering under a barrage of fire from Cinder’s hands. The shield cut Tempest’s legs out from under her, knocking her down in turn long enough for Pyrrha to regain her feet and close the distance between them once again. She was more cautious this time, leading with her shield not only to take Tempest’s blows but to try and open up her guard as well, making short sharp jabs with Milo aimed for Tempest’s feet and knees. Tempest looked worried, and angry too, and she launched a ferocious assault aimed at breaking Pyrrha’s guard, beating her fists on Pyrrha’s shield, driving her backwards as the impact of each hit jarred her whole arm down to the shoulder.

Tempest grabbed her shield – taking a slash across the chest from Milo (in sword form) as she did so, pulling Pyrrha’s shield away and driving her fist into Pyrrha’s gut, making her double over as she was pushed aside.

It was too late. Lightning Dust cried out as her aura broke and Cinder drove a glass sword into her side. Lightning Dust, blood dripping from her mouth – whether that was the wound or the poisoning effect of the dust she was injecting into herself was not entirely clear – staggered sideways, leaving a bloody trail on the ground as she half-collapsed against one of the statues of the wise old men who had gone before in protecting the maidens and the relics from the designs of evil.

Cinder’s eye burned with the anima of magic as she raised her other sword to finish her defeated opponent off.

Tempest left Pyrrha behind and went to the aid of the injured Lightning Dust, a move which Pyrrha could only attribute to the fact that Tempest would rather it were Pyrrha, and not Cinder, who had a clear route to Amber. Because that was the result: while Lightning Dust, given a brief reprieve, crouched against a statue and bled, and while Tempest and Cinder resumed their struggle (Tempest now seemed to feel freer to use weapons again, for she had snatched up both Dove’s sword and Sky’s halberd on the way and was now wielding them one in each hand as she twirled to make wide, slashing strikes aimed at Cinder), there was no one left standing between Pyrrha and Amber.

A fact of which the frightened looking Amber seemed very aware.

Pyrrha took a deep breath. There was no doubt what she had to do. Cinder seemed to be holding her own at least, and the relic was right in front of her.

She began to charge straight down the vault towards Amber.

Amber whimpered in fear.

Bon Bon and Lyra seemed to stir to wakefulness at the sound, or perhaps it was a mere coincidence, or perhaps they were so attuned to Amber that her being in danger was enough to wake them both, either way they untangled themselves and staggered to their feet. Lyra drew her sword and planted herself squarely in the path of Pyrrha’s onslaught. Bon Bon, unable to find her morningstar after Pyrrha had borrowed it, charged at Pyrrha with only her armoured fists, building up quite a turn of speed as she seemed to be planning to bulldoze into Pyrrha and use her weight in armour to overpower and bear down the other girl.

Pyrrha sidestepped her charge and used her semblance on the other girl in all the armour she could not remove so easily as Tempest Shadow, hurling her down the vault towards the stairs, not a straight throw but rather a bouncing progress that slammed her into the ground again and again before she reached the stairs down which Pyrrha and Cinder had descended to reach the fight. She didn’t get up.

Pyrrha’s sense of her own limits told her that that was the last time she could afford to use her semblance – certainly like that – in this battle; hopefully it was the last time that she would need to.

Pyrrha resumed her attack, rolling over Lyra with contemptuous ease, beating her to the ground with a series of swift strokes that overwhelmed her defences, swept her sword out of her hands, and left her motionless upon the ground.

There was no one left to protect Amber but Amber herself.

You know what they say about cornered animals.

Amber seemed to realise that she was alone. Pyrrha could see the realisation dawning upon Amber’s face as Pyrrha charged towards her: she had no resources left but her own.

And as Pyrrha saw that realisation fall across the Fall Maiden so she also saw the anima of magic burn in Amber’s left eye.

Amber rose, as Cinder had risen, floating a foot off the ground which was about as high up as the underground vault would allow while still giving a little room to manoeuvre in extremity. Amber rose, and her hand rose too, her palm pointing at Pyrrha as shards of ice erupted from her hand, shards as sharp as knives in a barrage like missiles from an Atlesian cruiser shooting towards her. Pyrrha dived out of the way, rolling across the floor and coming up in a crouch. She threw Milo – in spear form, obviously – as Amber turned to follow her movements, the flurry of ice shards moving too. Pyrrha raised her shield, feeling the ice hammer into Akuou, pounding on it like a gong, making the shield reverberate and the sounds echo in the vault. Amber flinched out of the way and let Pyrrha’s spear fly past her and into the inner sanctum, disappearing through the open doorway.

Pyrrha felt the ice continue to strike upon her shield, pushing her backwards as her boots scraped along the stone surface; one shard of ice nicked her face, weakening her aura yet further.

Pyrrha’s free hand was surrounded by the black outline of polarity; she had run out of times she could use it for anything particularly flashy or overpowered, but she had enough aura left for something like this.

Milo flew back into her hand by way of Amber, striking her in the small of the back and knocking her forwards and back to the ground. She staggered on the stone, her barrage of ice died, and when it died Pyrrha surged to her feet and charged at her, Milo flying into her hand where Pyrrha changed it fluidly from spear to sword as she closed the distance between her and her foe and quarry.

She struck first with Akuou, striking Amber hard across the face and making her stagger back and sideways. She slashed then with Milo once, twice, three times across Amber’s chest, pushing her back as she cut through her aura. She could see the crown in Amber’s satchel, gold and turquoise glimmering in the low light of the candles on the walls, and the sight of the prize and object of their struggle so close at hand drove Pyrrha on and seemed to rejuvenate her strength and even her aura as she fought.

Professor Ozpin had placed his faith in her and she could not fail him, not now.

She slashed. Amber caught Milo in its downward swing and, with her free hand, struck Pyrrha with a gust of air that blew her upwards, lifting her so that Amber could throw her over her shoulder and across the vault. That was the plan at least, as she was swung over Amber’s head by the sword Pyrrha grabbed Amber’s arm in turn so that her foe was pulled off balance by her own toss and the two of them were half-thrown, half-fell across the chamber together. They grappled, Amber squirming in Pyrrha’s grip as she tried to put the Fall Maiden in a lock. Amber threw herself backwards, using air to propel herself in an attempt to crush Pyrrha against the vault wall. Pyrrha jumped before she struck, bracing her legs against the wall and kicking off it as she threw Amber over her shoulder in turn to land face down upon the ground. The Relic of Choice tumbled out of Amber’s satchel as was tossed so ungainly, the golden crown bouncing away; the sight of it drew Pyrrha’s eye, but she forced herself to ignore it for now; it would profit her nothing to go after the crown and leave herself exposed to Amber, just as it would profit Amber nothing to go for the crown when Pyrrha was right there.

Amber tried to go for the crown, her body twisting in that direction even before she had gotten to her feet as though she meant to crawl towards it. Pyrrha didn’t give her the opportunity, she was on Amber before she could rise, literally on top of her, pinning her to the ground and putting Milo to her throat to chip away at her aura by its presence.

“Get off me!” Amber shrieked, struggling beneath Pyrrha. “Get off me, get off me, get off me, GET OFF ME!” Fire exploded from Amber’s whole body, a rippling wall of flame that burned Pyrrha’s aura away as it tossed her upwards, slamming her into the ceiling before it let her fall to the floor again. Pyrrha landed on her feet, somewhat unsteadily, and summoned her weapons back to her as Amber scrambled for the relic, running hunched down towards it, fingers outstretched.

Pyrrha threw Akuou at her, hitting her in the side and knocking her off balance as she charged towards Amber with Milo, now a spear once more, held in both hands.

“No!”

Pyrrha turned at the shout from behind her. It was Dove, armed with Lyra’s sword in the absence of his own, running towards her, hands drawn back for a slashing stroke. Pyrrha parried his blow with Milo, twirling her spear in her arms before thrusting it forward into his belly.

It broke his aura, pierced his armour and penetrated into his flesh.

Pyrrha’s eyes widened a little as she saw the blood from the wound, blood staining Milo, blood on the ground, blood…Dove’s blood.

Dove’s eyes were completely open now. He had very blue eyes, Pyrrha noticed; they were just like Jaune’s eyes. It was a stupid thing to think but…but in that moment it was all she could think of.

“Am…ber…” Dove murmured, blood dripping from his mouth as, almost reflexively, Pyrrha pulled her spear out of his wound. “Run.” The light had left his eyes almost before his lifeless body struck the ground.

He had been a traitor, he had betrayed everything that Beacon and the huntsmen of the world were supposed to stand for, but Pyrrha had not wished to kill him; and in that moment she could only hope that he found whatever peace he hoped for in the embrace of death.

I’ve just killed someone.

I-

The shriek of pain that rose from Amber’s throat was something terrible to hear; it was like the screaming of the dragon that had ruled the skies over Vale, it was like the screaming of a bird which returns to the nest from a hunting expedition to find that all the chicks have perished in her absence; it was like the shriek of the widow who buries her husband and returns later to find that his grave has been desecrated and despoiled. It was a shriek of horror, it was a shriek of sorrow, it was a shriek of rage and that rage was wholly directed at Pyrrha.

Pyrrha turned, and she caught a glimpse of that rage in Amber’s face – enflaming her scars – and the murderous desire in her amber eyes before she was caught in the grip of a hurricane that lifted her up and threw her backwards while the shards of ice struck at her, stabbed at her, tore at her aura before she was slammed into one of the statues of the wise old men hard enough to shatter it beneath the impact. Pyrrha landed on all fours on the ground and scrambled out of the way before the statue fell upon her. It hit the ground beside her, breaking into fragments.

Amber’s face was a mask of hatred as she rose up into the air, rising towards the ceiling, and as she rose the storm clouds gathered overhead, dark and angry, darker even than this vault. She did not even look at the fallen crown, although it seemed that Tempest and Cinder might be looking at her because Pyrrha could no longer hear them fighting.

She didn’t look. She didn’t take her eyes off Amber. She didn’t dare. She felt almost as if the moment she looked away would be the moment that she…died.

Why did I think that I could fight this power?

Was I just an arrogant fool in the end?

Lightning roared down from the clouds over Amber’s hands, slamming into the floor of the vault all around Pyrrha as the thunder rolled and roared in the wake of the blinding strikes that landed all around. Pyrrha screamed as her aura was torn apart, the red light rippling over her body as the shield of her soul, battered and much abused this night, finally gave in to all the punishment that it had received in spite of all that Jaune had done to recharge and to strengthen it. Her aura broke and Pyrrha screamed in pain as the lightning rippled up and down her body, striking her vambrace and her greaves, tearing at her pale and unprotected flesh, scarring her shoulders, making her jerk like a badly-controlled puppet as the shocks ripped through her and rippled up and down her.

The lightning died. Pyrrha swayed unsteadily on her feet, her brain clouded, only for her mind to clear as she was hurled back against the cavern wall by another gust of wind from Amber’s hand. Pyrrha cried out as her back struck the stone with a painful crunch. She could still feel her legs, but she could also feel her back crying out for relief, and as she slid down to the floor she felt too weak to do anything with her legs even though she could feel them, and her arms either.

More shards of ice, narrower this time, but still as sharp as blades or arrowheads, rained down upon her, and this time there was no aura to stop them as they fell upon her legs, most of them rattling against her greaves but one of them piercing her boot beneath the bronze strip to jam into her ankle.

Pyrrha moaned in pain. So much pain. How could anyone survive without aura?

Not that she was likely to survive without it for much longer.

Tears were in Pyrrha’s eyes, not only tears of pain – although that was a part of it – but tears of remorse also. Vain had been Professor Ozpin’s trust in her. He had put his faith in her and she had failed, proven herself unworthy. For all her lofty ambitions and her dream of destiny she was nothing but a tournament champion after all, a paper tiger, a creation of the crowds and the media which meant nothing in the fiery crucible of the real world.

Invincible Girl, her insecurities mocked her within her head. Champion of Mistral. Look at you now. You have failed.

Amber descended to the floor. There were tears in her eyes, and when she looked down at Dove’s lifeless corpse she let out a sob. She knelt down before him, murmuring something that Pyrrha could not really catch, but which might have been ‘I’m sorry’ or something like it. She picked up Lyra’s sword, the sword that Dove had tried to wield, and once more glared at Pyrrha with that murderous intensity.

There was no doubt what she intended to do as Amber rose to her feet and began to walk towards Pyrrha.

For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.

But she didn’t want immortality, not now if that was ever what she had truly wanted. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live on, to live with Jaune, to have a life with him; she wanted to be there for Ruby as she worked through her grief; she wanted to find some way to free Sunset from captivity that didn’t make a fugitive of her; she wanted to go home, she wanted to walk down the streets of Mistral with her friends by her side, she wanted to grow old and sit her grandchildren upon her lap and tell them stories. She wanted to live her whole life to the fullest.

She did not want to die.

But now death was coming for her and there was nothing that Pyrrha Nikos could do except wait, injured and helpless and in pain, for death to come.

Amber stood over her, and the sword trembled in her hands as she raised it up to strike off Pyrrha’s head.

Cinder slammed into Amber from the side, bearing her back towards the inner sanctum of the vault.

Cinder’s hands were burning as she slammed Amber into the wall, thrusting one palm into Amber’s scarred face. Amber shrieked as she blocked Cinder’s palm with her own, punching her in the face before spinning in mid-air to kick Cinder in the side. Cinder recoiled, hovering just above the ground a few feet away.

Cinder’s smirk was predatory; the rage that had animated Amber’s expression when she looked at Pyrrha turned to fear.

Cinder and Amber raised their hands. Fire leapt from Cinder’s palm, while shards of ice flew through the air towards Cinder at Amber’s command. Fire and ice met in the centre of the vault, producing a great swell of steam that temporarily blinded Pyrrha’s view of the two combatants. She could hear Amber shouting, Cinder grunting with effort, she could see sparks of flame in the midst of the fog engulfing the vault, but she couldn’t see who was prevailing over who in this contest of gods nor could she do anything to assist Cinder in her battle.

Even if I had my aura and was uninjured is there anything that I could really do?

She glanced towards Tempest Shadow, the only other person still conscious in the vault; she too was staring into the fog, and perhaps it was Pyrrha’s imagination but she seemed to be feeling the same sense of awed inadequacy that was engulfing Pyrrha.

Tempest noted Pyrrha’s gaze, and in Tempest’s eyes Pyrrha could see the realisation that although she couldn’t influence the battle between the two halves of the Fall Maiden she could dispatch Pyrrha Nikos easily enough.

Tempest took a step towards her.

The fog cleared, blasted away by an enormous gust of wind from Amber that cleared away all the mist as well as sending Cinder flying backwards. Cinder struggled against the hurricane, using her own magic to fly into the oncoming storm. She threw fire into the wind, but the air that Amber was hurling her way simply blew the fire off course, sending it veering to the left or the right but never towards its target. But Cinder did not move, though the wind howled about her – thought threatened to blow Pyrrha away and only the remains of the fallen statue to brace herself against prevented it – she did not move. Though she was like a bird beating its wings with all its might just to stay still she did stay still, and though Amber’s wind howled it could not move her.

“Tempest!” Amber shouted. “Help me!”

Tempest hesitated for just a moment. Her eyes fell to the crown upon the floor, being pushed back by the lowest gusts of Amber’s storm. She scooped it up, and began to run towards the stairs.

“No!” Pyrrha cried, and she tried to get up and follow the other huntress forgetting for a moment the wounds Amber had dealt her. Her leg soon reminded her as it buckled beneath her weight and she fell to her knees on the ground with a cry of excruciating pain. “Cinder! The Relic!”

Cinder took no notice of her, perhaps she could not even if she’d wanted to. She hung in the air, straining against Amber’s wind as the latter sought to blow her away, for a little while it seemed as though she was doing nothing but holding her position in the face of the gale.

Her smile widened, and her eyes glanced upwards.

Pyrrha – and Amber – both noticed at the same time the clouds that had been gathering above Amber’s head.

Lightning lashed down from the ceiling to strike Amber, who screamed as she lost her balance in the air and fell to the ground. Cinder flew towards her straight and true as any arrow, her hands on fire. Amber shot fire from her own palms but Cinder ploughed through the flames as though they did not trouble her, her eyes seeming to burn with eagerness as well as magic as she came to grips with her other half. Amber punched her in the face, Cinder rolled with it and landed on the ground herself as the two engaged in a more physical battle.

The kind of battle in which I could have taken part if I had not been injured, Pyrrha thought, as she watched Amber – displaying a competence that she had never demonstrated up until this point, and rather proving Cinder’s point about how she was like a cornered animal that got more ferocious the more desperate it became – strike Cinder in the side with her knee before kicking her in the face to knock her backwards. Cinder charged again, her glass blades forming in her hands as she slashed at Amber with them. Amber’s hands glowed with fire as she blocked the swords barehanded, shattering both of them to fragments before kicking Cinder in the gut hard enough to toss her three feet back and this time she even moved to pursue her foe.

Cinder raised her hands and all the fragments of her shattered swords shot up from where they lay upon the ground to slam into Amber’s back, staggering her with a gasp of pain. Cinder grabbed her by the neck and slammed her into the ground hard enough to crater the floor of the vault.

Amber raised her hands, fire bursting from them, lifting Cinder up and hurling her into the ceiling in her turn, causing the stone to chip and fragments of it to fall on Amber’s head. Cinder retreated, flying briefly before landing once again, some distance between her and Amber as Cinder’s shards of glass reformed in her hands into her bow.

Amber rose above the ground, wind blowing around her.

Cinder shot. She loosed arrow after arrow but Amber simply waved her hands and winds blew the arrows off course, to the left or the right, they never went where Cinder wished them to go.

So why was Cinder still smirking?

“What are you smiling at?” Amber demanded.

Cinder cocked her head to one side. “You don’t remember this trick, do you?”

Pyrrha’s eyes widened. All the arrows that Cinder had loosed were buried by the tips in the walls of the vault on either side of the Amber, and now they all began to glow, pulsing with a fiery yellow energy that rippled as though they were turning the stone itself to fire. Amber looked around, her face beginning to show the panic that she must be feeling. The arrows exploded, consuming that part of the chamber with fire, a fire in which Amber was caught in the middle.

Amber screamed as her aura broke.

Cinder didn’t hesitate. A glass sword formed in her hand as she flew through the air, catching Amber as she fell, ramming into her just as she rammed the glass sword into her heart.

“I should have just done this last time,” Cinder murmured, as she twisted the blade. “I won’t make that mistake again. Except…well, it hasn’t all worked out terribly. So perhaps…I really ought to thank you.”

Amber stared at her, gasping, choking, bleeding, dying. Her hands twitched. She tried look away-

“No,” Cinder said, grabbing her by the hair and holding her head in place, leaning down so that there foreheads were touching. “Look at me. Look at me, think of me…and die.” She stabbed Amber again, and Amber jerked in her embrace, her whole body shuddering. Then she went still, and moved no more.

Cinder dumped Amber’s body even as a golden light arose from the lifeless form of the Fall Maiden to pass through and into Cinder Fall. That golden light surrounded her like a second aura, and both of Cinder’s eyes burned with the fiery light, brighter now and more intense than it had been before. Cinder rose higher above the floor, and she smiled with delight, a smile that had a kind of childish enthusiasm to it that Pyrrha had never thought to find on Cinder’s face. Fire whirled around her, and Cinder stared at it as though she had never seen the light before. She made it dance around her, her eyes following the patterns that it wielded, and it almost seemed to Pyrrha as though she were enjoying her magic, taking joy from the having it and from what she could do with it besides end the lives of all those she called enemies. She formed the streams of flame into dragons with broad-spanning wings and long snouts, dragons that were like floating serpents with moustaches trailing from their nostrils, dragons that moved swiftly and dragons that moved slowly, dragons that swooped and dove and circled around her as they performed tricks in the air for her amusement. She spun the fire in hoops around her arms, she seemed to try and see how fast she could make it go, she conjured fire in one hand and ice in the other, she threw out gusts of wind and hurled the fire through them for greater speed and power. It was as though she was in a hurry to find out all the things that her magic could do, though Pyrrha did not know why. She had all the time in the world to explore all its possibilities, did she not?

Cinder lowered herself to the ground, her glass heels clicking on the stone. She looked at Pyrrha, who could not quite restrain a shudder of unease. They had been allies against Amber, but now Amber was dead and Cinder’s power was even more monstrous than it had been before. What would Cinder Fall do now?

Cinder walked towards her. “How do you feel?”

“I’ve felt better,” Pyrrha admitted. “Tempest got away.”

“You’re welcome,” Cinder said. “If I’d turned my back on Amber to go after Tempest and the crown she’d either have killed you or the both of us.”

“That’s not why you did it,” Pyrrha said.

“Is it not? Who are you to say why I do the things I do,” Cinder said. She smirked. “Besides, you’re not in much of a position to take that high judgemental tone with me right now, are you?”

Pyrrha swallowed. She didn’t want to die, but just as with Amber she was helpless to prevent her own death. Her life was in Cinder’s hands. “Are you going to kill me?”

“I could,” Cinder said. “Here we are, alone in the dark, with no witnesses to see or hear. I could kill you, and tell darling Jaune out there that you fell by Amber’s hand, or Tempest’s, or…anyone really. Perhaps not the members of that Team…whatever, I’d want my story to be believable. But I could kill you, and none would know that I had done the deed.”

But will you? Pyrrha thought, as her chest rose and fell. She didn’t want to die. Not here, not in this place, not by Cinder’s hand. She wanted…she wanted life, and all its wonders.

Cinder’s bow formed in her hand. “It was very honourable of you to come down here like this, and to face such powers beyond your ability to match. As expected of the noble House of Nikos.” She aimed her bow at Pyrrha’s chest, and drew it back. She held the arrow knocked for a moment, her face inscrutable.

Then the bow collapsed into shards of glass. “But I can be as honourable as you, though I have no house or ancient name,” Cinder declared. “I have no need of your life.” She hesitated. “I hated you, from the moment I saw you. I hated you because…because you didn’t appreciate all the gifts that you’d been given…the gifts that I desired so badly. But now I see that…you appreciate the real gifts that you possess very well, don’t you?”

Pyrrha stared up at her. “I…I try to, yes.”

Cinder knelt down in front of her. “Don’t worry,” she said, as she pulled Pyrrha’s arm over her shoulder. “I’ve got you. I’ll get you back to-“

“Jaune!” Pyrhha exclaimed, fear sharpened by the sense of shame that she had not thought of him until now, even though Tempest had retreated out of the vault and to the courtyard, where Jaune was, and with the best will in the world he was no match for her. What if she had…what if it was already too late? “Leave me, you have to-“

“He’s fine, don’t worry,” Cinder said. She smirked. “I’m coming to the conclusion that he’s too stupid to die.”

Pyrrha didn’t laugh. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I can feel him worrying about you all the way down here.”


Cinder said nothing else to Pyrrha as she carried her up the stairs and out of the vault. She was too lost in her own thoughts to speak.

She had triumphed. Amber was dead at her hands, and all the power of the Fall Maiden had fallen into her lap like a ripe plum. That which she had desired for so long, that which she had worked towards, it was hers. She was the Fall Maiden, the one and only Fall Maiden; she had triumphed. Victory belonged to her.

So then why did she feel so empty?

And she wasn’t just talking about the grimm essence within her, the part of her that she had willingly consented to be turned into a monster, the part of her soul that she had bargained away to the powers of darkness in the misguided belief that she was gaining a mother rather than a master; that she could have explained. She was used to the pain of it, she was – to an extent – inured to it. If the only fly in the unguent of her victory had been the fact that she was not – Fall Maiden or no – completely rid of the cold that gnawed at her, the desire in the back of her mind to tear out Pyrrha’s throat with her teeth, the way that she could fell the agony of Pyrrha’s injuries as though they were her own, the way that Jaune’s anxiety over the fate of Pyrrha was on the verge of giving her a headache that no amount of pills would be able to alleviate, if that had been all there was then she could have coped with it. If she had been feeling nothing but the usual hollow sensation that had accompanied her decision to descend a step from the level of the human to that of the beast then that she could have endured; it would have been countered by the sweet savour of what she had accomplished.

But it was the accomplishment itself that felt hollow. She had become the Fall Maiden but she could take no joy in it. She could find some joy in the exercise of the magic, in the way in which she could bend it to her will…but she had expected, hoped, that the mere having of the magic would give her some pleasure, some sweet satisfaction, would make her feel something, anything except this cold and hollow emptiness, this insatiable hunger that still consumed her.

This was power, this was power such as no one in Remnant possessed save only for the three other maidens; this was power such as Pyrrha Nikos could only dream of, power to put all the world in fear of her, power to bend Remnant to her will; this was one quarter of the world’s magic. Shouldn’t the fact that it was hers please her? Wasn’t this what she had always wanted?

Always, perhaps, but no more.

Everything that she had done had been about this; she had lied, plotted, schemed, betrayed, murdered all to achieve this power, all to become Fall Maiden. And now that she was powerful…it meant nothing to her.

I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to be feared.

But now…what do I want now?

They emerged from out of the illusory statue that guarded the vault and – truer to Cinder’s instincts than Pyrrha’s fears – they found Jaune waiting for them in the courtyard beyond. He wasn’t facing them, he was facing away, but not moving; he looked torn by indecision, unsure of what to do or where to go.

“Over here,” Cinder said sharply.

Jaune turned towards them, and his eyes widened with shock and horror as he saw Pyrrha, one arm thrown over Cinder’s shoulder, hanging rather limply as Cinder dragged her along. “Pyrrha!”

Cinder laid her down upon the stone without a word, and stepped back. Jaune didn’t pay any notice of her. He was wholly preoccupied with Pyrrha. Cinder envied her. Not for her fame or her reputation or any of the things for which she had previously been envious of the Champion of Mistral but…for the way he looked at her, she was envious of that.

Nobody looked at her that way, although…

Too late for that now.

Pyrrha groaned in pain. “Jaune…you’re…I was worried…Tempest.”

“She…she got past me,” Jaune said. “She came out of the statue like there was a deathstalker on her tail. I tried to stop her but…she’s stronger and faster than I am. I didn’t really stand a chance. She took off. I wasn’t sure whether to go after her, I didn’t want it meant that she’d come out but no one else had, I didn’t know what you’d want me to do and I didn’t want to leave you behind and I didn’t know what had happened to you down there and I…I’m so glad that I stayed.”

“You should go,” Pyrrha said. “You and Cinder…leave me and-“

“No way,” Jaune said fiercely. “I’m not leaving you like this. Just wait, okay? I’m going to make this better.” He held his hands over her, and the golden light of his semblance illuminated those hands before they covered Pyrrha in a glowing cocoon of their shared aura.

Cinder took no more notice of Pyrrha’s request than Jaune had. She wasn’t going to pursue Tempest Shadow. She cared not for the Relic of Choice one way or the other. That would be Sunset’s problem soon enough. Her problem…her problems would be over soon.

Cinder walked away, looking up at the Amity Coliseum where it floated in the air above the city. So far away. So far beyond her reach. Well, perhaps not. She could fly up there using the Maiden’s magic, or try to; but to what end? With the CCT down who would see her even if she did gain the arena?

No, that plan was a non-starter now, and had been so even before Pyrrha became too badly hurt to give her the great fight that she had envisaged. There would be no villain and no hero.

There would only be a sacrifice.

The Amity Coliseum was out of her reach and so was all the nonsense that she had spun out of air and vanity in the wake of Salem’s betrayal. She wasn’t going to become renowned the world over as the mastermind of this night’s madness. Children were not going to tremble in fear of her. She was not going to live in infamy so long as the race of men endured. She was Cinder Fall, and she was nothing.

And that…she found that did not trouble her as much as it might have done, here at the end.

It didn’t matter any more.

Cinder had taken Pyrrha’s scroll from one of her pouches, and while Jaune was distracted with healing Pyrrha and Pyrrha was distracted with her urgent need to be healed Cinder opened that scroll and ran through the numbers. She looked for Sunset’s, and almost called before she realised that, of course, Sunset wouldn’t have her scroll with her. She’d only just gotten out of prison after all.

“Is Ruby with Sunset?” she asked.

“Huh?” Jaune looked up, and he almost looked as though he’d forgotten that Cinder was there until she reminded him.

“Is Ruby with Sunset?” Cinder repeated impatiently.

“Uh, yeah,” Jaune said. “That was the plan, unless they got separated.”

Cinder rolled her eyes. “You’re very helpful,” she said. She turned away again, her attention fixed upon her scroll.

“Cinder.”

Cinder glanced over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” Jaune said. “For having her back; and bringing her back.”

Cinder stared at him. What did he want her to say? What was she supposed to say to a thing like that? In the end she said nothing, and looked down at her scroll as she sought out Ruby’s name in the address book and called the number.

She had to wait a few moments to get a response, before Ruby Rose’s face – something was different about her; Cinder couldn’t quite put her finger on it but something had definitely happened to Ruby that had or would leave its mark upon her; she could see it in her eyes; something there that wasn’t there before – appeared in the screen of the scroll. “Pyrrha!” Ruby cried. “Did you- Cinder?”

“Hello again,” Cinder said. “Is Sunset there?”

“What are you doing with that scroll?” Ruby demanded. “What did you do to Pyrrha?”

Any number of tasteless jokes sprang to mind, driven by the hunch that Ruby would believe almost any horrible thing that Cinder claimed to have done, but Cinder didn’t really want to waste time in exchange for the meagre amount of humour that she might get out of claiming that Pyrrha had died by her hand, and so she stepped aside for a moment to show the little girl Pyrrha on the ground having her aura stimulated by Jaune. “As you can see,” she said in a long-suffering tone. “Pyrrha is alive, Jaune is tending to her injuries now. So why-“

“I’m right here,” Sunset said, as she plucked the scroll out of Ruby’s hands. Cinder was treated to a shot of Vale’s cityscape at night before the camera came to rest on Sunset’s face. She had a prison collar around her neck, though it didn’t seem to be activated. “I’m surprised to see you up and about.”

Cinder smirked. “You think you’re the only one who can get let out of prison to take care of an emergency?”

“I did, clearly I was wrong,” Sunset said. “What happened?”

“Amber’s dead,” Cinder said bluntly.

Sunset stared at her, silently. “Congratulations…I suppose.”

“Thank you,” Cinder murmured.

“And Pyrrha?”

“Wounded in the fighting. As I told Ruby, Jaune’s taking care of it.”

“And you?”

“I saw to it that she didn’t get any worse than wounded,” Cinder said.

Sunset breathed in and out. “Thank you,” she said. “If we’d lost her…it means a lot to both of us.” She turned the scroll to show Ruby’s face; Ruby’s surprised face, as though she hadn’t believed that Cinder had it in her.

“Thank you,” Ruby whispered. “Sunset’s right…we’ve lost enough today, I couldn’t…we couldn’t have lost Pyrrha too.”

Cinder waited until the camera was back on Sunset before she replied. “There’s an old Mistralian saying: the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. I thought it was complete nonsense…until now.” She smiled, if only for a moment. “Professor Ozpin’s dead. He died before I was awoken.”

Sunset seemed to deflate a little. She closed her eyes, and her whole face scrunched up as though she was about to cry. She didn’t, but only because she was making the effort not to. Cinder recognised the look; forcing herself not to cry was something she’d had a lot of practice doing.

“That’s not all,” she said. “Amber opened the Vault before she died. Tempest Shadow has the relic somewhere in the city.”

Sunset cursed. “We’ll have to…can you stand guard over Jaune and Pyrrha? Ruby, Blake and I will try and find her.”

“I have a gift that will help you if you do,” Cinder said.

Sunset frowned. “A gift?”

“It’s all over, Sunset,” Cinder said. “There’s nothing left, and no roads open to me. But nevertheless, I want to say thank you, for everything.” She smiled. “You’ll be in my thoughts.”

“Cinder,” Sunset said warily. “What are you-“

“Goodbye, Sunset Shimmer,” Cinder said, as a glass sword formed in her hand. The instant it had she dropped her aura.

“Cinder, wait! Don’t-“

Cinder threw the scroll away, and gripped the hilt of the sword in both hands. Her hands trembled.

For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.

Let this be my gift to you.

She closed her eyes and filled her mind with the image of Sunset’s face as she prepared to drive the blade-

“No!”

Cinder’s eyes snapped open in time to see her sword blasted out of her hand by a bolt of green light, the glass shattering back into its component shards as they flew across the ravaged Beacon courtyard.

She looked up to see Sunset falling through the air towards her, one arm pointed towards her sword – or where her sword had been – the other spread out wide.

Sunset hit her, or landed on her, and the two of them went down in a heap on the ground. Without aura even a simple fall hurt Cinder’s back and arm. They would probably bruise.

Sunset’s eyes were wide, her body was trembling; she looked as though she were terrified of something.

Terrified of…losing me?

“You can’t do that,” Sunset said. “I won’t let you.”

Cinder stared at her. “Why not?” she demanded. “I’m offering you power such as you couldn’t dream of otherwise.”

“I don’t want power,” Sunset said. “I don’t want power or glory or any of it! I want to save lives! I want to save you.”

Cinder smiled. “That’s very kind of you, Sunset; but we both know there’s nothing left for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Then what am I supposed to do now?” Cinder said.

“I…I don’t know,” Sunset said. “But we’ll find out together, you and I, I promise.”

“I’m a monster,” Cinder said. “I sold my body and my soul to darkness. I have no place in the world of light.”

“A monster wouldn’t have saved Pyrrha,” Sunset insisted. “I know that there’s still good in you, and underneath all the despair you’re feeling right now I know that you know it too.”

“And what if there is?” Cinder said. “What does it matter if there’s good, when there’s so much bad too? This is my choice, Sunset, and as I am the Fall Maiden I can make whatever choices I desire.”

“Not this one,” Sunset declared. “Not while I’m here. You want to make a choice? Choose to be better. Choose to embrace the good and cast aside the bad. Choose to throw away the worst part of yourself and live the purer with the other half. Someone once told me that the real magic of choice is that we always choose to be better than we were the day before, and you have that choice as much as anyone.”

“We both know that it’s more than just sin in my soul,” Cinder said.

“I know,” Sunset conceded. “But I drove the darkness out of Amber in order to bring her back.”

“And that worked out well.”

Sunset cringed. “I couldn’t see the darkness that she carried within her, but the rest? The grimm? I removed that, using my semblance. I can do the same to you, if you’ll let me. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

Cinder said nothing, staring into Sunset’s eyes. She weighed up her choices. Did she really want to die like this, with only Sunset to remember her fondly?

I used to wonder what friendship could be, until you shared its magic with me.

And now…now I have become greedy for more.

“Do you really think it’s possible?” she said. “Do you really think that you can cast it out, and leave me with only my own darkness to oppose?”

Sunset nodded. “I do.”

Cinder took a deep breath. “Then do it.” She smiled. “Rescue me, my hero.”

Sunset grinned. “I’ll do my best,” she said. She pulled off her glove. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Cinder said, and closed her eyes.

She felt Sunset’s hand upon her brow, and then she felt as if she were being pulled backwards, back into a dark void, deep and endless and inescapable, pulling her in.

The darkness consumed all things, and all she felt was cold.

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