In Honor of Monty Oum

"Girls?"

Vale was supposed to be secure. The Vytal festival was supposed to be safe. One might've thought that the swift mop-up of all the Grimm that made it through the breach that the White Fang had caused would have been proof enough of that, but apparently not. The Grimm had tasted blood in the water that day, it would seem, and as more and more people migrated to the city for the festivities, even the substantial Atlesian forces occupying the city were not enough to deter the monster that came calling on the day of the tournament.

"Yeah…"

For the girls of Team RWBY, the decision was obvious.

The Screaming citizens of Vale streamed from the stadium in droves as the AK-200s opened fire upon the towering nightmare perched upon the edge of the structure, it's long neck poised back to strike its prey as though a serpent over a basin of mice. It was nearly as tall as the arena itself, a hateful colossus of black – but then, they all were, weren't they? Its scales did not shine, but rather, they seemed to call the already dim light of the overcast day down into the malicious abyss portended by its wrathful red eyes. Not that it mattered much; its leathery black wings would have blotted out the sun in any event. A jagged crown of gnarled horns tore at the sky as it roared, the spines all over its body clamoring together in response to its bellows in anticipation of the bloodletting.

Some Prize…

As the monster's behemoth talons closed around the uppermost tier of the stadium and the stone and steel of the structure crumbled, there was just one thing for the girl in the little red hood to say, "Go!"

With a flick of the wrist at her leader's command, Weiss Schnee conjured a glyph at the feet of all of her teammates, taking a deep breath. When next the mighty Fafnir bellowed, she let her breath out, and Team RWBY was launched into action. Heavy air foretelling a thunderstorm surged past as red, white, black, and yellow hurtled up from the ground and into the stands, and once alighted, they wasted no time in initiating their uphill battle. Blake and Yang bolted up the aisles to the Heiress's left and right, one dodging the debris crashing down from above, the other powering through it As for Weiss and Ruby… They went straight up the middle.

As Blake and Yang made their way to the stairs up to the top level, Weiss gathered another glyph to launch herself and Ruby to the beast's level directly. The Grimm drake used its gargantuan wing to swipe them from the sky, but Ruby was faster, taking Weiss by the hand and summersaulting to plant her feet on the underside of the titanic Grimm's wing as it narrowly missed them both. Seizing upon that one heartbeat of footing, Ruby Rose sprang toward the bottommost stretch of the top level, rapidly spinning and concentrating her Aura to slow their fall. Weiss squeezed her eyes shut to avoid becoming dizzy, as even when they struck ground, the hurricane of rose petals didn't cease, but then, where would be the sense in that?

Weis took another deep breath, and then let go. With the meteoric force, Weiss rocketed upward, Myrtenaster at the ready as she pulled the trigger on the weapon's Dust chamber, just in time to slam the blade home into the colossus's sternum. The creature shrieked as it was stricken, and an explosive gout of flame erupted, causing it to stumble back, its left talons tearing clean through the walls of the stadium on which it had been perched and loosing footing. As she performed a backflip to repel herself away from the thrashing demon, Weiss smiled; Gambol shroud had just been embedded in the Grimm's floundering foot.

Blake didn't hesitate; when Gambol Shroud's blade had struck home, she dove through the broken window overlooking the streets of Vale and let momentum carry her the rest of the way. She swung, and as the Fafnir's foot clawed for purchase, she was able to guide herself to land on the creature's back just above the base of its flailing tail. Instantly she reconstituted her weapon, discharging her entire magazine into its back as she ran up its towering hulk, weaving skillfully between the countless protruding spines until at last her magazine was exhausted. Converting her weapon back into blade mode, she took both it and her razor-sharp sheath to inflict a torrent of blows as she crested its shoulders and ran down its neck. Only when she saw the surge of yellow charging in from the right did she dismount her foe, landing in a roll before rising once more in time to watch Yang's fist careen into the base of the dragon-Grimm's trunk-like neck.

The sheer force of the blow cause the beast to stagger, and finally unable to sustain the enormous weight, the section of the stadium completely gave out and the monster toppled, crashing down to terra-firma in a mountainous heap of rubble and debris. As the roaring Wyvern struggled to right itself below, Atlesian mechanized forces were proving no match for it, even in its reduced state. Its spiked tail reduced AK-200s to scrap by the dozens, and once more upon it's clawed feet, it struck forward with its gaping jaws to tear the pilot's compartment from a Paladin mecha and hurl it aside like discarded refuse. This one wasn't going to go down easy…

"Blake! Let's go!" Ruby shouted, breaking her Faunus teammate from her transfixed state as she gaped down at the unmatched destruction wreaked by the Grimm drake, "Fire! Fire!" From the ruins of the Vytal tournament stadium, Team Ruby let fly with a barrage the likes of which any lesser Grime would have withered beneath. Round after round screamed out of Crescent Rose, smoldering shells hailed down from Ember Celica, Blake loosed clip after clip from Gambol Shroud, and Weiss rained down frozen lances by the dozen, yet none of it seemed to penetrate the titan's armored scales, and when the Atlas forces below were exhausted, the monster upturned it's head to face Team RWBY once more, roaring it's blood-rage and defiance of their arms and valor, and it raised its wings.

The sound was utterly thunderous as the creatures wings buffeted the ground on which it stood, scattering the sizable pieces of rubble like so many dead leaves before a tempest. With the second beat, the beast lifted from the ground, and by the third, it stared back at its determined foes, eyes alight with hate and hellfire. With another beat of its mighty wings, the Fafnir rose still higher, its flail-like tail swinging back-

"Scatter!" Ruby Shouted as the monsters tail surged forward again, and all of her teammates obeyed, diving to the left and right just in time to dodge the beast's tail as it shattered yet more of the building on contact, demolishing the structure in a storm of concrete an rebar. Slightly dazed as she got back to her feet, Ruby saw the huge ebony wings beat again, and realized that their opportunity to defeat it and end the beast's rampage was slipping away, "Blake! Hurry! Ladybug!" Shooting Ruby a brief look across the chasm rent into the upper floors of the stadium, Blake nodded, arming Gambol Shroud's grappling hook function once again as Ruby then turned to her sister and then partner, "Yang, Weiss, keep the pressure on!"

Without waiting for acknowledgement, Ruby now fully deployed Crescent Rose, aiming backward and firing so as to propel herself at the airborne terror steadily rising above the streets of Vale. Roaring in frenzied rage as only a Grimm could the Fafnir drew it's wings together so as to swat the oncoming Huntress from the sky, or failing that, buffet her with a tremendous gust, but Ruby was faster. She swung her scythe forward in an overhead arc, catching the talons on the creature's huge leathery wings with the blade, and using that to pull her forward, she lunged straight for its head, only to have its jaws open wide.

"Ruby!" At the last moment, the Crimsonette was spared such an ignominious fate when Blake called out to her and fired off Gambol Shroud at the end of its ribbon, and Ruby took hold just in time to be pulled off course for the dragon-Grimm's gaping maw.

Directing her weapon behind her, Team RWBY's leader fired, propelling herself at the end of her tether to arc above the flying leviathan, Blake anchored on its back, her sheath wedged between the bony armored plates of its back. When her trajectory had carried her above and behind the confused beast, having cheated it of its prey, she released her hold and whipped herself and her weapon into a whirlwind of scythe and Rose Petals, striking at the great brute's shoulder with the force of a lightning bolt and staggering the beast midair.

"We can do this-,"

But Ruby's triumphal cheer was interrupted as her tenuous footing shook beneath her, the great flying behemoth on which she stood having decided that it had suffered enough under both the blows with which Ruby and Blake hammered it and the rain of shotgun fire and Dust with which it was barraged by Weiss and Yang from the ruins of the arena. The great Fafnir thrashed in aid of dislodging it's puny attackers, but they would not be shaken off, even as it thrust skyward and into an aerial corkscrew. Ruby clung on to one of its spines for dear life as the beast repelled from the stadium in a tumultuous barrel roll, wind screaming past her, and it was all she could do to hold on and close her eyes, lest she become dazed as the world spun from below to above, and back once more to below.

"Dammit! Where the Hell's it going!?" Yang shouted as she emptied the last of her magazine into the spiraling winged monstrosity as it pulled away with her baby sis and her partner still hanging on, "Come back here!"

"Yang! Look out!" She heard Weiss's voice call out, and it didn't take much close scrutiny to see why. as the colossal dragon-Grimm righted itself, its mace-like tail swept across the ground, hurling up a geyser of dust and debris before striking the now enfeebled edifice on which they stood, directly beneath Yang. Not needing to be told twice, Yang bolted left and away from the yawning gap between herself and Weiss, staggering and fighting to keep on her feet as the tail impacted, demolishing the structure in its wake and causing the ground to give way beneath Yang's feet , but still she ran.

Just a few more yards…

She had just a stone's throw to go, then she was in the clear, but until she got over that crag that had opened up ahead of her, everything hinged on how fast she could run. The ground beneath her feet crumbled and cracked, every step threatening to give way beneath her. With just a few steps to the ground on which she stood broke away from the rest of the roof, and with an incoherent yell, Yang bounded forward to cross the gap, catching and heaving herself up back onto solid ground.

Bracing on one knee with her fist to the concrete, Yang seized a few heavy, gasping breaths before calling back to Weiss, not looking up, "Hey Princess! Where… Where's it headed!?"

"The CCT," the Heiress called back gravely, slotting fresh vials of Dust into the chambers of her weapon, "We have to pursue-,"

"Damn right we do!" Yang was back on her feet in an instant, "Come on!"

Moments later, the peals of thunder from the clouds above were challenged by the thunderous roaring of Bumblebee's engine as Yang kicked it into full throttle, tearing up the chaos that the enormous flying Grimm had left in its wake. She weaved around rubble, sped past and between abandoned cars, and raced up the off ramp onto the freeway towards the CCT. It didn't matter that she was in the wrong lane – nobody was on the freeway anyway, and besides, lives were at stake – Ruby's life.

"Give him Hell Princess!"

"Right!"

As Yang stomped the gas to keep up with the winged nightmare she could just barely hear the sound of one of Weiss's glyphs flickering to life over the roaring of the engine, and saw the faint blue glow emanating from over her shoulder as Weiss extended her sword and depressed the trigger. The velocity of her projectiles augmented by the shimmering glyph, focused gouts of fire and lightning screamed forth to strike the beast in its underbelly as white and yellow drew parallel to their quarry, causing it to bellow with pain even as the tiny figures of Blake and Ruby managed to regain enough footing on the creature's back to harrow it from above with a flurry of blades and gunfire. As they drew closer to the CCT though, the freeway veered off – the last bend came tantalizingly close, but ultimately the path ahead of them was about to swerve away.

"Dammit! Where's the-,"

"Straight on," Weiss shouted over the howling wind, her hair swept back by the gale without the aid of a helmet.

"What!? There's no-!"

"Trust me!"

Steeling herself, Yang nodded, plowing straight ahead, directly for the CCT and the edge of the freeway. Weiss, meanwhile, had ceased firing on the shadowy drake that they had managed to just barely draw ahead of and was instead clasping her hands together, weapon still in hand, as though in prayer. It didn't take long for Yang to figure it out; the red-orange clockwork glyph that appeared beneath Bumblebee was evidence enough, and she couldn't keep the ear-to-ear grin from her face as she saw the large white rune flicker into being directly ahead, at a slant, "I like the way you thing Princess~"

It was almost – almost – like the whole world slowed down as Weiss activated the glyph to cast haste upon them, because even as they tore forward as though fired from a cannon and were launched from Weiss's improvised ramp, Yang saw everything. Maybe it was just her adrenaline kicking into overdrive, but she didn't miss a thing as she watched Blake swing down from the monsters back, tethered to one of its spines, and strike its underside by storm of quick slashes, scoring its ebony flesh and dislodging several bone plates, or Ruby as she fired again and again and again into the back of its armored skull. The awe and the thrill were silenced though as the Blonde brawler's rapture was pierced by her passengers' sharp voice, shouting as she let off one last volley into the beast's underside after Blake recovered her footing.

"Brace yourself!"

And like that, Yang's attention snapped forward again, just in time for the mounted pair to careen through the glass windows of the CCT, twenty levels up. Weiss and Yang dove from the seats as Yang's motorcycle crashed through the office space, scattering a blizzard of papers and an avalanche of furniture. Fortunately the place had been running on a skeleton crew for the occasion, and no one seemed to be on this floor at all, but at the immediate moment that was small comfort as the two huntresses crashed to the floor. Pain could wait though, and even as Yang rose to her feet, she ejected all of her spent shells and reloaded, "Let's move!"

Blake fought to keep herself in place on the Fafnir's back, clinging to Gambol Shroud's ribbon with all of her strength as the beast flailed and writhed in agony, struck time and again by the Dust barrage from below. Even so, With her free hand she continually fired round after round into the beast from her precarious position, putting dozens of little holes in its leathery wing. Awed, she watched as Ruby rushed forward, heedless of the instability of her footing, with Scythe at the ready. As they closed on the upper levels of the CCT, Ruby reached her destination just below the beast's jagged crest and swung her weapon to wrap the blade about its throat, fire off Crescent Rose and… nothing. Its scales were too thick, and all Ruby's attempt had done was rouse it to greater fury, thrashing again with unparalleled force, and suddenly Blake found herself to be falling.

Her ribbon had slipped from the protruding spines on the monsters back, and so she had begun to tumble through the open air, nearly too fast for the first sprinkling raindrops from the ashen sky to catch her. Mind racing, Blake swung her weapon overhead and fired its grappling hook function, and the blade soared up to embed itself into the creature's black wing as it beat down, and using this hold, she swung toward the CCT as the floors rapidly fell away, the Fafnir rising ever higher, until the blade to which she was anchored finally tore an angry gash through the black leather of the Grimm's wings and she went flying towards the windows of the topmost floor of the CCT, crashing through as she struck. Blake tucked and rolled into a rough landing amidst a shower of glass shards as the beast outside bellowed in pain and its flight pattern floundered, struggling to remain airborne. Bruised and battered, Blake staggered to her feet and took a few potshots at the beast until once more her magazine went dry, just before she was thrown once more to the ground as the tower shook, stricken by the wounded drake. As she recovered her footing, the Faunus' eyes went wide – the black monster's tail was swinging forward towards her – and she only just managed to concentrate her aura to diffuse the impact before the column of black tore through the building like a mere stack of twigs and smashed into her full force, sending her flying across the room.

Dammit! No!

Instead of careening out the window on the opposite side of the tower though, Blake found herself caught by-, "Y-Yang!?"

"No slacking off," the brawler winked, "We got a job to finish!"

"Right,"

"Where's Ruby?" Weiss interjected, coming up behind Yang now.

"Still on its-," Blake's words were interrupted as the whole structure shifted, punctuated by the sound of metal screaming in protest of an enormous weight, "She's still on top of it! And it's heading for the top of the tower!"

"I can get us up there,' Weiss asserted, "But we have to hurry! Everyone, out the window!"

"Are you nuts?"

"Do you have a hundred-story ladder handy?"

"No-,"

"Then jump!"

Without a further word, the Heiress leapt from one of the many broken windows, shortly to be followed by her teammates, acting on a leap of faith. When all were airborne and beginning to feel the force of gravity dragging them back to earth, Weiss summoned a single glyph large enough for the three, and after but a moment's pause, all of them were rocketing skyward again, and over the edge of the CCT's roof.

Weiss looked up from her three-point landing in time to see the dragon-like behemoth crest the top of the building, clinging on with the claws on its mangled wings, with Ruby still holding on, her body and weapon acting as the two parts of a crimson vice, "Ruby!" She called out, prompting her leader to look their way and finally release hold, speeding over to her teammates as the raging monstrosity bellowed all the more furiously for its diminished state, "Do you have a plan?"

In answer to her partner's question, Ruby looked to the CCT's main antennae – that great spire of tempered metal – and then to the gaping wounds on the beast where armor plates had been dislodged, "Yeah…" She nodded, as though to reassure herself, "Everybody! Hit it with everything you've got! Bumblebee! Ice Flowers!"

With a nod of ascent all around, the whole of Team RWBY commenced bombardment. Volley after volley of Dust enhanced slugs from Crescent rose smote the great Fafnir in its every attempt to cement its footing, leaving it wide open and off balance for Yang's fist to strike it like a hammer at the end of Gambol Shroud. Yet the beast would not give in – indeed could not and continue to exist as a Grimm – and despite the accumulating clusters of ice beginning to encase parts of its body, Yang's second pass at the end of Blake's line was not so fortunate; it swatted her from the air with the back of its mangled wing and, striking like a serpent, snatched Yang from midair in its snarling maw before hurling her back down onto the roof with the force of a landslide. It wouldn't be enough to spare the demon though – indeed, that had been exactly the plan, and all four of the Huntresses had known it .

"Now Yang! Hit him!"

Transitioning straight from her knees to a roaring lunge, Yang charged the beast, hair aglow and eyes of crimson. The creature tried to swallow her whole this time, but she rebuffed its snarling jaws with a mighty blow to its snout, knocking the titan's head aside like a ragdoll and, firing off an unrelenting spray of shotgun shells into its ribs as she closed the distance, she skidded to a halt directly beneath the great Grimm's flagging mass. Putting everything she had into one last punch, Yang slammed her fist upwards, shouting a battle cry as the monumental blow propelled the now near-limp body of even a Grimm so massive as this surging skyward.

Now it's your turn Weiss…

With a decisive gesture, the Heiress formed a glyph at the feet of her leader, who stood at the ready, and discharged it, launching Ruby up to meet, and then surpass their foe, working herself and her weapon into a sideways pinwheel as she reached the apex of height. Now it would be up to the Heiress to complete the dénouement. Taking one last deep breath as she took a knee, Weiss conjured two glyphs; one, of ordinary size above Ruby, whose spinning overhead was evocative at once of a buzz-saw and a guillotine – and a second, massive glyph whose center point was the main antennae spire of the CCT. As she let out her breath, the glyphs engaged, carrying out their purpose, and in response to the newly added forces, the Fafnir's thrashing mass was wrenched down by the force of Weiss's gravity glyph to impale itself upon the great spire, and Ruby was launched down with more force than gravity would have seen fit to deem possible, finally severing the Fafnir's armored head as she struck, ending it.

After a long, almost disbelieving silence, Blake breathed, "It's… It's over…"

Weiss nodded soberly, not bothering to rise to her feet, "So it is…"

Naturally, it was the two sisters who managed to utterly shatter the solemnity of the moment.

"Oh. My. God! THAT WAS SO AWESOME!" Ruby emphatically cheered upon collapsing her weapon, "We actually slayed a real life DRAGON!"

"Yeah…" Yang nodded, just the slightest bit more restrained, "Well ladies, I don't know about you, but I've certainly done my good deed for the day~ Time for some grub!"

"Yang…" Blake deadpanned, "You do realize that we're over a thousand feet off the ground with no way down, right?"

"Pfft!" The blonde dismissed out of hand, "The Princess hear can just magic-,"

"The Princess…" Weiss interrupted somewhat bitterly, "Is too exhausted to stand… So get comfortable. Unless you can persuade that mane of yours to form a very long rope, we're going to be here a while…"

"Crap…"

Author's Note: In honor of Monty Oum's recent passing, and upon some discussion with ElfCollaborator among others, I decided that the best tribute to Mr. Oum's memory would be to send him off in the spirit of his work – which is to say, with one hell of a bang. Hopefully this serves, but just in case, I would also like to dedicatee all my other action scenes to the man's memory as well, and take this opportunity to say that I'm not going anywhere; Like ElfCollaborator said: now we have to keep this fandom going despite Monty Oum's tragic passing, and I think it only right that, rather than moping, we should all give it our damnedest to contribute to the legacy of a great man of imagination. Each fic, each touching character moment, and perhaps most of all each badass action scene written for this fandom is a testament not only to our own, but to his creativity, and it simply wouldn't do to diminish that legacy now, would it?