Chapter Text
"And the winner of this round is Sayaka Miki" the announcer's voice boomed.
Sayaka stared over at her fallen opponent, the Mystral student Mercury Black. All of a sudden, she saw him leap up and lunge at her. She reflexively raised her sword to shield herself and closed her eyes. But when she opened them again, he was still lying on the floor, just staring at her. Very intently. Sayaka did not like this. She shifted away.
"Congratulations!" announced Penny's voice. Sayaka turned to see her partner running up behind her. Ciel Soleil, Penny's handler and another member of the team they were on, was following her. Sayaka and Penny embraced each other in the area.
"We should do something fun" Sayaka said.
"What do you mean?" Penny asked.
"Well, you know, where I'm from, I used to play a sport called baseball. When we won a game, we would go out and have fun! Like at an arcade or a restaurant."
"I'm not sure how one has fun. Maybe you could teach me" Penny pondered.
"Well, it's not really like that" Sayaka responded. "Fun is something you don't need to think about. If you're doing an activity you enjoy, and it's with friends, the fun happens without you needing to think about it. If you had to think about fun, it wouldn't be very fun at all, you know?"
"That seems paradoxical" Penny stated.
Sayaka pulled on her partner's arm. "Come on, let's go do something. I bet if we go down to the ground there will be plenty to do at the festival. And if there isn't, we can look at the city"
"Is that permitted?" Penny asked Ciel.
"I don't think there's a problem with it. I still have to be with Penny anytime she's not on the airship, though" she answered.
So the three of them did travel down to the festival, where Sayaka treated Penny to some carnival games, a competition to see who could run from one end of a parking lot to the another (Sayaka won), and even food. Sayaka and Ciel both ordered some grilled fish, which led to an awkward moment where Sayaka tried to offer some to Penny, only for it to belatedly occur to her that Penny couldn't eat it. She froze for a few seconds, and then said "more for me!" which actually made Penny laugh. This was followed Penny intently watching Sayaka eat. She was trying very hard to imagine what taste felt like.
As Penny watched Sayaka eat, Ciel, who was distracted watching one of the tournament matches today on her scroll, abruptly gasped. Then she turned to both of her teammates.
"I think you'll want to come look at this" she told them.
Sayaka and Penny both gazed at her scroll, the replay showing the conclusion of the match between team RWBY's Yang Xiaolong and JNPR's Pyrrha Nikos, both from Beacon. Pyrrha had bested her opponent, who lay sprawled on the ground in front of her. The red-haired student looked nearly as exhausted as her opponent: evidently Yang had put up quite a struggle. While catching her breath, Pyrrha suddenly moved back into a fighting stance, her spear raised. Then she brought it down on Yang's arm. Her aura already completely depleted, she screamed as blood erupted from the stab point. Sayaka gasped in horror. She looked away.
"Why would she do that?" she said aloud. "Isn't she some kind of celebrity?"
"No clue. But she's been disqualified. And her opponent has withdrawn from the tournament. Apparently her injury was really bad, actually" Ciel said.
"Hey, you're not going to have to fight her" Penny pointed out.
"It's not the time, Penny" Ciel said carefully. But Sayaka didn't even disagree.
"I mean, if Nikos was going to act like this to her competitors, I don't regret her being disqualified before I have to fight her. It won't help Xiaolong though..."
Just like that, the number of finalists had been reduced from four to two. Tomorrow, Sayaka would have to fight Sun Wukong, a Haven student.
Sayaka was not anxious to stand around thinking about this, about whether the legitimacy of the tournament had already been damaged so much that winning that fight would be a hollow crown. She marched around the festival grounds in a certain air of agitation, then finding her way into the city, dragging her teammates with her, and eventually finding what seemed to pass for qn arcade in Vale city. Unfortunately, (and this was something Sayaka had not thought to plan for) she knew none of the games and consequently kept losing. Penny thought her frustration was highly silly, and Sayaka found that very endearing. The whole experience loosened the knot in her heart. She would much rather banter about something short-term and fun than the dread of the tournament scandal.
It was very fortunate that Sayaka was hanging out with Penny and Ciel, because otherwise she would have reported back to the airship, well, Goddess knows how late. And it became clear after arriving that that would have been a very bad idea, since no sooner had Sayaka opened the door to her room, than she recieved a message from Ironwood. A summons. A very important event ensued.
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"So let me get this straight, General." Glynda said. "You're asking us to empower this girl, whose origin is unknown, whom we trust only because you recruited her months ago, as the Fall Maiden?
"Her courage and compassion, and her drive to do the right thing, are peerless. She is simply perfect for the task."
"Look, James." Qrow said. "We all get it, the only thing that would make you more comfortable than having one maiden is having two. But you can't just go around nominating 14 year olds to inherit the most dangerous magical power in Remnant. Who are you trying to kid?"
"Do you have a better idea?" he responded. "Like it or not, Miss Nikos simply is not a suitable candidate any more."
"I'm afraid it's hard for me to disagree with that" Ozpin said. "We need to deal with this crisis sooner rather than later. And right now, James's probably is our best candidate."
Ironwood nodded. "I will send for her"
Ten minutes later, Sayaka found herself in the lowermost vaults of Beacon Academy, cautiously accompanying a group of very important-seeming adults through the halls. Qrow was explaining the nature of the Maidens. Apparently, in this world there was a common fairy tale that thousands of years ago, an old man had empowered four maidens to protect humanity. In fact, this was no mere myth, but a genuine memory of the workings of the world. Headmaster Ozpin, General Ironwood, Professor Goodwitch, and Qrow Branwen were all members of a secret group dedicated to keeping and managing the secret, ensuring the Maiden powers passed down through the generations to responsible successors. The reason Sayaka was here with them today was what awaited them at the end of their walk, where she saw a woman lying comatose inside an enclosed life-support machine. Sayaka knelt to look at her, seeing the awful detail of her terrible scars.
“What happened to her?” Sayaka asked.
“She was attacked. Amber's assailant had had devised some way to steal the Fall Maiden's power. But they only made away with half. The other half is still with her. That's very fortunate, the only good thing about this situation in fact, because there are certain... people who want to acquire these powers, people who were undoubtedly responsible for this attack, and it would be catastrophic if they did." Glynda Goodwitch answered. "You are probably wondering why you are here. That is because General Ironwood now has at our disposal a certain... method"
"Essentially, we can't give you her powers directly. But we can take her aura and attach it into yours. The idea is that the Maiden power will follow suit. That's what the idea is, taking her aura and putting it into a new vessel" Ironwood said.
Sayaka thought about this for a moment.
"Wait, if you're taking her aura, wouldn't that..."
"Any concerns you have about this are wisely founded, Miss Sayaka" Ozpin said. Sayaka could see Professor Goodwitch giving Ironwood a look of fierce distaste.
"It would kill her, yep." Qrow said. "And you'll have to take the risk of finding out what happens when someone merges with someone else's aura"
Sayaka thought about this.
"You have an important decision before you, Miss Miki." Ozpin said. "There's no guarantee this transfer will work. And there's no telling if you will be the same person if it does. I advise you to take your-"
"I'll do it!" Sayaka said firmly. "If it means saving the world, I can't give a second of thought not to saying yes."
"Are you absolutely sure?" Professor Goodwitch asked.
"I am!"
There was a collective sigh of finality.
Ironwood instructed her to climb into a matching pod nearby. He then began interacting with the holographic control panel. He took a deep breath, and pulled a lever. Sayaka closed her eyes, and felt a sensation akin to an electrical current. She saw her own blue aura glow visibly, and start mixing with the now also-luminous orange aura of Amber, which felt like it was flowing out of her own body into Sayaka's.
Concurrently, Sayaka felt an influx of... memories. She collected fragments amounting to Amber's whole life story, her childhood, her time at Beacon, her decision to accept the Maiden power at a young age, and then, her finale. Sayaka saw through Amber's eyes a young girl on a bridge, crying out for help. Then all of a sudden, she noticed a sound that did not go with the sight she was seeing. Amber blinked and the child vanished, replaced by a trio of attackers. It was illusion! Sayaka could see the remainder of the moment play out, where one of Amber's attackers used some sort of insect Grimm to suck her life energy out, until Amber blacked out. The part Sayaka was dreading the most, a meeting with Amber's live, thinking mind, did not come. She got only pieces of a consciousness. Perhaps Amber was too far gone already. Something in particular stood out to Sayaka, though. The illusion... hadn't she experienced something similar herself earlier today? In fact...
Sayaka opened her eyes. She felt something new, the buzz of new-found magical energy pulsing through her body. Pyrrha Nikos is innocent." she declared. "And I know exactly who did it.”
______________________
This afternoon Homura decided to take a break from wandering the city, and do some looking around Beacon instead. In the past few nights, she had been spying in the lower district, and had caught on to something concerning. The activity of the White Fang had increased. Since the finale of the Festival was due tomorrow, this would seem to indicate the worst interpretation of their intentions, that they planned to "close it out" with some sort of terrorist attack.
Currently she was wandering the school grounds. The afternoon sun cast a shadow on the academy's tower from the airship hovering beside it. Homura noticed a certain red-haired student at its base, walking along the wall. Homura recognised her as Pyrrha, the contestant who just today had been removed from the finals for... well, Homura didn't actually know. She hadn't been paying that much attention.
"Hello there! What's your name? I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure"
Homura stopped spacing out and paid attention to the redhead, whom she had ended up walking right in front of and who was now talking to her.
"I am Homura Akemi."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Pyrrha Nikos. Where are you from?"
Homura thought about this for a second. "Haven"
"Oh, I'm actually from Argus myself. After graduating from Sanctum, I decided to attend Beacon instead. I thought it would be nice to meet new people. You know like, sometimes moving to a new place is a blessing. Although since so many people recognise me as the Pumpkin Pete's brand ambassador, even in Vale, it didn't entirely feel like I thought it would. Sometimes I wish I could find somewhere where nobody knows me at all." Pyrrha sounded fairly agitated. "I'm sorry, I'm sort of traumadumping on you right now aren't I" she said abashedly. "I know that..." she stopped mid sentence. Then,
"Pyrrha!"
The addressed person whirled around to see the source of the voice, an orange-haired student, dragging someone with red-tipped black hair. Homura recognised the latter person, she was one of the four people who had fought off the initial wave of the Grimm attack that she had initially been involved in.
"I'm so sorry..." Pyrrha began in an anguished tone of voice.
"It's okay, it's okay, I swear she understands it was an accident!" the orange-haired student said frantically.
There was an awkward pause. Homura noticed the black-haired student was seemingly holding back tears. Then she spoke.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for yelling at you. I know you wouldn't do something like that. But Yang is really, really hurt. I... I just don't understand how this could happen!"
"On my honour, I swear it looked to me like she was going to attack me. I don't really know what happened though. I'm not saying your sister really did that. I just can't explain it"
"Ironwood said that you were under a lot of stress" Ruby said. "But I know you're a good person. You would never do something like that on purpose."
"By the way, are you a friend of Pyrrha's?" Nora asked. "Visiting from Mystral?"
"As a matter of fact I am" said Homura, who had a pretty good idea of what had gotten Pyrrha disqualified, which was probably why she sounded so depressed. "My name is Akemi Homura. Pleased to make your acquaintance"
She realised, slightly too late, that the black-haired student would almost certainly remember her. But there was nothing to be done about it, since she had already told Pyrrha she was from Mystral.
"By the way, have you seen this person? I've been looking for her, it's very important to me" Homura said, presenting her picture of Madoka.
"I don't recall ever having seen her. But, I recognise you! You were that awesome girl who took out a death stalker all by yourself! I’d love for you to show me how your weapon works sometime. Anyways, I’m Ruby Rose, sorry we never got to share names. This is Nora Valkyrie, and I suppose you already know Pyrrha. Hmm, I guess you were in Vale at the time for some extracurricular activity?"
"...yes." Homura was slightly distracted by a group of Atlesian android soldiers in the distance, across the plaza walking along stately. This did not make her comfortable.
"That's ironic, me and my team were doing the same thing at the time. I guess we just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, you know? And uh, how did you and Pyrrha get to know each other? Were you classmates?". The androids were now looking in their direction.
"Oh, it's not like that by the way, Homura and I actually just met. We're both from Mystral by coincidence." Pyrrha explained. The androids were now walking towards them.
"Yeah..." Ruby's brief jolt of high energy crescendoed back down again.
"Fugitive spotted!" one of the androids cried. Suddenly everyone realised that they were being rapidly advanced upon.
"Oh my gosh, Pyrrha, look out!" Nora yelled. She grabbed Pyrrha's hand to drag her along. All at once, they turned and ran in the opposite direction, towards the dormitories, the androids in hot pursuit. They got behind one of the buildings, and kept running, only to find that the androids had spread out to intercept them. The group turned 90 degrees to the left and they ran for cover behind another building. As they did so, Ruby pointed in the direction of a nearby large, but short building.
"The dance hall!" she said.
They rushed to the nearest entrance, and found, by good fortune, that it was unlocked. They entered in a very large, dark room, the aforementioned hall.
"Pyrrha, Ironwood is after you! What do we do?" Ruby worried.
"I don't know." Pyrrha said. "Honestly, I almost feel like turning myself in"
"Pyrrha, you can't do that! That would be wrong. You're innocent, you... you had to have been tricked! Nothing else makes sense." Nora protested.
"They're coming toward us" said Homura, who was looking out the window.
"Quick!" Nora said. "Maybe we can sneak out the back"
They ran over to the other side of the building, and after checking that the coast was clear, they tiptoed out and carefully, circuitously made their way to the first-year dorm building.
"What's Pyrrha going to do?" Ruby asked.
"I'm sure if we have you there, Ruby, we can explain that Pyrrha is innocent" she said.
Homura carefully tried to separate from them while they were saying this, but Ruby grabbed her arm before she could escape.
"Hey, do you have anything to do this evening?"
"Uhm... not really"
"We should hang out! Here, you can come to our room."
Homura found herself being tugged relentlessly up fights of stairs, until they finally arrived at a room that Ruby entered. Walking in, she saw two of the other members of the team, minus Yang Xiaolong. Homura assumed she was probably at a hospital.
"Hey, I found a new friend. She's the same girl we saw after the train attack. Remember her?" Ruby said. "She's actually from Mystral. Her name is Homura. And these are my team members, Weiss and Blake.
The remaining team members seemed fairly down. The white-haired student, Weiss, was not doing anything in particular. The black-haired one, Blake, was reading something.
"Ruby, I'm not sure if..." Weiss began.
"I talked to Pyrrha!" Ruby said loudly. "And she said didn't do it on purpose. I just know she's telling the truth."
"If you say so" Weiss said.
"I really care about my sister" Ruby said. "If someone broke her arm because they meant to, I would never forgive them."
Ruby was now sobbing again. She climbed into her bed, which Homura noted was awkwardly and dangerously suspended above Weiss's with rope. Homura was awkwardly standing around next to the doorway. She was trying not to look at anyone. Weiss and Blake both said "Hi" to her. Homura replied "Hello." Then they both went back to what they were doing. Homura cautiously walked over to a chair, which had a book on it. It was titled "The Demoness and the Angel".
"May I read this?" she asked quietly.
"Yes" Blake said.
Homura picked it up and began reading it. It was actually pretty interesting, and she quickly got wrapped up in the story. Eventually, when everyone else seemed asleep, Blake spoke to her quietly.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes. I particularly like the theme of the protagonist not feeling like their love interest has any reason to appreciate them, even when the mutuality of their relationship is obvious."
"Yeah, I actually was interested more in the other character's perspective, where they're struggling to understand if they people they rely on are really making good choices, if they should stay with them."
"That reminds me of another story I've read..."
They actually talked for quite a while in this vein. At first, Homura felt like she was doing it out of politeness, but eventually she realised that she genuinely liked talking about literary analysis with Blake, and they ended up sitting next to each other on the floor having their conversation. It was a nice distraction, at least, from her present troubles. It was so nice that, eventually, she fell asleep before realising it.
__________________
She was still relatively pleased about the progress of the plan. The only major hiccup had been yesterday, when Mercury and Emerald had somehow failed to make Sayaka Miki break Mercury’s artificial leg and get her disqualified (and stir up more tension). Thankfully, after just a hint of discipline, they had managed to make it work with Yang vs. Pyrrha. All of the other components of the plan were in place. That just left setting each of the pieces into motion. That was what they were ready to do. The final match of the Vytal Festival was about to begin.
From the safety of her dorm, Cinder could watch it play out. Sayaka Miki and Sun Wukong walked into opposite positions on the field.
“I’ll go easy on you!” Sayaka said.
“There’s no need to, ma’am” he replied cheerfully.
Then they began the exchange. Both combatants were skilled, but Sun’s advantage of speed was just as useful as Sayaka’s endless reserves of aura. She was nearly unable to get any hit in on him. The fight was a battle of attrition, with Sun wearing Sayaka down ever so slowly, but surely.
It took a long time, but Cinder had patience to spare. All of the hard work she had been putting in for the past two months was about to pay off.
Tap tap.
She froze.
The door rattled.
Then it was blasted open, revealing Glynda Goodwitch, Qrow Branwen, and Winter Schnee.
“That’s her!” Qrow yelled.
“You are under arrest” Winter declared.
Cinder blew out the window with a blast of fire, and then jumped out, down to the ground several stories below. Her three pursuers followed. She landed, and blew out another window to get back into the dorm building. She was able to slip into a new room inside undetected, but she knew her pursuers would find her soon. Cinder considered her options. She looked at the camera feed. The match was still nowhere near done.
Wait, she thought. I have an idea. In fact, why wasn’t she doing this already? After confirming that it would work, she sent an instruction to Emerald and Mercury to cut short their plan and rendezvous with her back at the White Fang base.
__________________
Sayaka was in the midst of her fight with Sun when, all of a sudden, alarms started blaring. The holograms displaying their respective aura levels shut off. She heard a low drone, fading lower and growing quiter, like a huge computer turning off. At the same time, she felt a sensation, coming on suddenly, but in a way that made it hard to percieve until after a few moments, of weightlessness.
She and Sun both stopped fighting to process the situation. Sun was exhausted and had to catch her breath, while Sayaka took a single deep sigh. The pause made her aware how not-silent the colosseum was. The anxious murmuring of a hundred thousand people filtered down to her as an ominous but quiet roar.
It was soon pierced by an announcement from from the casters.
“Unfortunately, the Amity Colosseum has currently had a power interruption. We ask you to remain calm and make your way in an orderly manner to the emergency exits. The emergency power system will turn on shortly.”
Even before the announcer finished speaking, people realised that they were now in free-fall, and screams rang out. Despite the intent of the message, a completely disorganised human tsunami rapidly erupted from the stands. Sayaka was horrified. She and Sun ran toward the emergency exits, but quickly became separated from each other in the tumult. As she ran, she heard the hum of the auxiliary power system activating. The lights turned on again. But as soon as it had come, it died again, and everything went dead once more. Even worse, as she approached the colosseum’s docking bay, she realised it was infested with Grimm, being offloaded by airships emblazoned with White Fang emblems.
She had been holding her Maiden powers in reserve the whole fight, as she had promised Ozpin and Ironwood she wouldn’t use them. They had in fact instructed her to absolutely not reveal it to anyone, but Sayaka made the acting decision that this qualified as a sufficient emergency to break the rules. She impelled the magical energy to be unleashed and rush through her veins. Flames erupted from her eyes. She lifted off the ground and flew over the crowd to join the fight against the Grimm, joining the front lines, where several groups of Ironwood’s soldiers and android knights, along with the General himself, were doing their best to clear away the Grimm.
Sayaka joined in the battle. With her newfound power, she could blast away Grimm one after another. Bolts of blue lightning flashed again and again. Some people from the crowd were so desparate that they charged ahead into the Grimm, to try to reach the Shuttles. Sayaka did everything she could to protect them.
But even through all of this chaos, the worst sight of all was the ground in the distance, beyond the ledge of the docking bay, rising up to meet them. They had just about finished destroying all of the Grimm. The crowd of students and spectators surged forward to reach the shuttles before it was too late.
“Sayaka!”. She heard General Ironwood’s voice call out to her from nearby. He was right on the edge of the dock, still engaged in combat against a huge fox-like Grimm. She rushed over in a hurry to join him. Ironwood grabbed hold of its fore-paws with the strength of his synthetic arm, and Sayaka took the opportunity to blast its head with blue flame. But as its remains evaporated, Sayaka realised they had just about run out of time. She saw all of the shuttles, each loaded with people, more trying to climb on, take off in forced synchronisation. She also saw Sun Wukong, her recent opponent, nearby. They shared an awful look. She noticed his teammate Neptune in the vicinity too, along with a blond-haired guy she recognised as one of Pyrrha's teammates. Sayaka had to make a split-second decision.
“Grab my arm!” she yelled at the General.
“How can I leave when there are still people here who need to be rescued?” he protested.
“There’s nothing else to- I don’t want you to die! Please hold on to me!” she screamed. She grabbed his arm, and lifted off with all her might. The docking bay quickly fell past her, the scene of human crisis descending, unstoppably, out of sight. It was quickly followed by the rest of Amity Colosseum. The last thing she saw clearly before it all disappeared was Sun’s face. It was not a look of anger, simply resignation. It would haunt Sayaka for the rest of her life.
Then, far, far louder than the crowd had been, she heard an enormous noise, like thunder. She watched in distress as the colosseum crashed into the city below, smashing the great buildings flat. It amazed her, in a certain horrible way, that a structure so magnificent and enormous, that gave the impression of solid land, could crumple so pathetically, like a stepped-on tin can. She looked away. All she could sense was the slightly chilly autumn air, and the heavy weight of General Ironwood clinging to her back.
“I need you to know” the General said, “that the people who did this, we’re going to make them pay. Mark my words”.
__________________
After Homura had woken up that morning, she had suddenly felt extremely embarassed when she realised she was out cold on someone else’s floor. Her sudden reaction after waking up earned a laugh from Blake and Ruby. Blake invited her and Weiss to enjoy the festival that day. After a few hours, it almost felt like they had succeeded in forgetting about the uncomfortable business about Yang. It was just in time for a new horror to swoop in, the announcement that Amity Colosseum had lost power.
Typically, one reads about great events seeming to last much longer to the experiencer than they really do. This was not like that. It felt like no sooner had the announcement come out and everyone had started worrying about what exactly what implications they were meant to take from it, than they were seeing it crash into the city right next to them. Worry quickly turned to panic, which turned to utter chaos when it became clear that the Grimm had breached the city’s defences at exactly the same time, likely due to the sheer amount of negative emotion in the air right now.
It was not too long after that two of the Atlesian airships fell to the earth as well, seemingly victims of a third. Had it been hijacked? This immediately provoked a panicked reaction from Blake and Weiss, which Homura took a few moments to understand.
“Oh my gosh! Yang!” Weiss yelled. She quickly drew her scroll and called her friend. Thankfully, she picked up.
“Where are you guys?” she asked nervously. She was lying in the hospital bed. They could hear alarms and commotion from her end.
“What airship are you on?” Blake asked?
“It’s currently parked at Beacon. I think it’s here to evacuate people. It looks like there are a lot of Grimm here”
“Hang on!” Weiss said. “We’re coming there!”
“Yang, I feel kind of uncomfortable about you being on the ship when it takes off” Blake said. “We saw two airships crash near the festival grounds.”
“I’m not sure if the academy is really safer than the airship” Weiss pointed out.
“Let’s just get there as soon as possible” Blake insisted.
They both pressed buttons on their scrolls to retrieve their weapons, which arrived in the forum of, uh, rocket-propelled lockers. Then they hurried on to Beacon with all haste. Homura originally had no intention of getting involved in a this. She didn’t really even consider Blake and Weiss her friends, but she was swept up in their drive to do the right thing. As they approached Beacon, they could see the airship parked there, with groups of students around it struggling to fight off the much greater hordes of Grimm.
When they arrived there, they found the situation was nowhere near under control. The buildings, including the Beacon tower itself, were all on fire, and panicked civilians were were fleeing in terror all over the place. And the Grimm were now joined by an even worse threat. The Atlesian androids and paladins had been reprogrammed to fight them. These new and fearsome enemies were also joined by multiple groups of White Fang.
They found Yang, who despite her injury had called her weapon to her and wanted to fight. She claimed that her arm had already mostly healed, and it didn't hurt any more, but she only had one of two gauntlets on, and she kept cradling her other arm. Nevertheless, the desperation of the situation meant that nobody was willing to call her bluff.
They wasted no more time in joining the battle. The paladins, enormous robots, were the most challenging opponents, and whole groups of students had to work together to bring down two of them. Even then, the final paladin was only taken out by fortune, that “fortune” appearing to be a third airship crashing to earth in the distance, which caused all of the remaining Atlesian robots to shut down. It was not a good day for peoples' faith in the Atlesian navy.
Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the academy grounds. A massive dragon-shaped Grimm had arrived and perched atop the burning ruins of Beacon tower. Along with dislodged bricks, liquid fell from its body onto the ground below, from which ever more Grimm emerged. The huge Grimm seemed satisfied to simply perch atop the tower, however. After this, Ruby Rose arrived as well, and explained that she had been responsible for the third airship crashing, after it was hijacked by the same people she recognised as having been responsible for the Grimm train attack. Professor Glynda, General Ironwood, and several Atlesian military officers also arrived to take charge of the chaotic scene. They hurried up the evacuation, and slowly, the people drained away from Beacon's campus.
At this time, Homura and Team RWBY were still engaged in battle against the Grimm and White Fang. Homura was fighting off Grimm in the dining hall. After killing a huge bear-like Grimm, she saw a pair of White Fang, armed with blades, walking up to take her on. They charged at her, and Homura retreated behind a table. She focused her fire on one of the attackers, who stumbled and fell. Then she backed away again from the blade of the other assailant as they advanced. They then jumped aggressively toward her, which she dodged by jumping clean up them and their swords. Then she unloaded an entire magazine into this person, reloaded, and continued under their aura broke. As for the other assailant, who had gotten up and was getting ready to move at her, she reloaded and gave them the same treatment. After both their auras broke, she shot each of them in the legs and arms, tore off their masks, and drew her picture of Madoka.
"Have you seen this person?" she interrogated.
Both prostrate White Fang looked intently at the picture.
"Isn't she that human girl we taught a lesson back on Menagerie?"
"I think so" the other said.
"What do you mean by that" Homura asked. She gripped that person's face and pulled them closer to her. "I need you to tell me exactly where she is right now"
"You know, you're real strong for a little girl. Your friend would have fared better if she could do this" he said.
Homura considered shooting him in the face for that. She really wanted to, but couldn't bring herself to do it. But she did let go of his face, and aim her gun at him.
"I don't know, she's probably in Sienna Khan's dungeon. I swear I didn't kill her!"
Suddenly, Homura heard Blake cry out nearby.
"Adam!" Then, a shriek of pain and the sound of breaking aura.
She turned around and peered through the smoke. On the other side of the dining hall, Blake had been cast to the floor, and before her was a tall Faunus, with red hair, wearing a black robe. He had a huge red sword, with a matching wound in Blake's side. Blake recognised him as one of the White Fang members she had seen at their meetings. Homura began running towards them.
"Blake, you torment me! Do you have ny idea how much I'm hurt by your unfaithfulness?" he said. He raised his sword again.
"Get away from her!" Homura heard Yang's cry precede her form, a yellow bolt from the smoky opaqueness. Homura got a very good look at the moment where she dove in on Adam, and, in one brief, lightning-fast motion, his sword sliced through her one good arm. Yang screamed horribly, tumbled in mid-air, and unceremoniously crashed into a pile of tables behind Blake, her left arm landing a few metres away.
Adam turned back to Blake, who was crying. "Your friends are pathetic!" He raised his sword yet again.
Homura was afraid of Adam as an opponent. Now that she finally knew where her destination was, she was tempted to simply melt away. But she felt obliged, somehow, to make an effort to help Blake. Homura produced a huge rifle from her shield, and while Adam had not yet noticed her through the smoke, she stopped time. Then she opened fire, and poured two magazines in Adam's direction. Then she reloaded her gun again and resumed time.
Adam was blown away and catapulted across the room. He groaned in pain, but his aura did not break, and he stood up shakily. "You bitch!" he yelled. "I'll kill you!"
Homura helped Blake and Yang to their feet. "Leave" she instructed. They lurched away as fast as they could, Yang half-leaning on, half-being carried by Blake. Homura opened fire on Adam. With immense effort, he withstood the hail of bullets, and pushed forward. Homura retreated as he advanced, in the opposite direction from where Blake and Yang had fled. She wanted to keep a generous distance between herself and that sword. Then, she produced a hand grenade, dropped it at her feet, and jumped backward. Adam saw what she was trying to do and skidded to a halt, and the explosion erupted between them. When the smoke cleared, Homura was nowhere to be seen.