Grimm Retreat is still dead.

There, now that your expectations are tempered as to why the fuck I'm updating – here's why:

This is not a full chapter or revival of the story, rather, this chapter consists mostly of what was supposed to go into chapter 13 up to a point, and after that, it's basically a highlight reel of "key" moments in Grimm Retreat – big setpieces, important moments, shit like that.

But before I do that, let's look at the negative responses I got when announcing this was cancelled.

Echoclonet says "crap". What a lovely response, very valuable feedback, thank you!

Silver0117 says "What a waste of time."

Was it really a waste of time if you at least got some sort of enjoyment out of it?

A guest named Yang Xiao Long said this: "Okay first you wasted our time in this story i don't give a fuck on the other story of yours i really don't
Secondly if you don't like it then why the fuck you even bother writing it in the first place you dumb moron. Fuck you dumbass fuck you"

Just, let that one sink in. Holy fucking shit, how dense can someone be? I'm not a goddamn automaton, you twit.

Anyways, everything below that line right there is basically untouched from how I originally wrote it. Obviously this is just a condensed version of the story down into a few key moments and it lacks dialogue that would otherwise be used for character development, so I don't expect it to have the same 'punch' that it would if the story were still going, but it'll at least provide some form of closure.

One more thing before I turn this over to Tweak from nearly a year ago – I've been watching Jojo's Bizarre Adventure lately (I actually finished the first part of Stardust Crusaders as of writing this sentence Tweak from a month later here, I finished Part 5.) and have come to realize that Six's Semblance is basically him having multiple Stands, since the weapons carry manifestations of people's fighting spirits. That, and Aqui's Semblance is basically Crazy Diamond, except she can only fix living things and she doesn't have the punch ghost.

Keep in mind, I only started watching Jojo a few days ago, this was completely unintentional on my part. Whoops.

Also, in case you're wondering, Battle Tendency and Young Joseph are my favorites, although Josuke and DiU really grew on me.

Anyways, enjoy this last hurrah for Grimm Retreat.

Hey, wanna hear something really fucking sweet?

My old power supply ate shit like a week ago, and I only got my computer back yesterday (1/15/2019) with a new 650 watt power supply, and I had an issue where my computer would boot into a black screen of death for no reason today, which I managed to fix after like two hours of troubleshooting.

Fucking.

Awesome.

Review time.

To kpmh2001: That's my problem, I don't want to cut detail to stick it within a certain rating.

To Engineer455: This came out before Fuckup 76 did, hence why there's no excavator power armor. Not like I'd put it in, anyways. Fuck Fallout 76.

To IHateGenericCereal: Believe me, Ozpin and Salem have both been changed entirely from who they canonically were. Not their behavior, but their backstories. This is an inevitability of writing for a still in-progress series, but I've already made it pretty clear this is an alternate universe, what with Vacuo not just being total anarchy for most of its history, and, you know, the whole Earth thing. It uses official canon as a guideline, but not a rulebook, basically.

To WATERDOG139: I hate the idea of stimpaks as a "cure-all". The fact that you can just jam a bunch of needles in your body to stop bleeding and even broken fucking bones is ridiculous. Stimpaks exist, but not only does Six not have any, as they were all in the car, they don't work like they do in the games where they magically heal your wounds. They work more like small blood transfusions, so they do heal, but wounds need to be properly dressed, otherwise it's a waste of a stimpak.

To the guest who didn't put a name: I know about psykers my guy. I'm debating on whether or not to include them in Grimm Retreat, though. If I do, I may make them like 40k psykers where they're liable to just explode or summon Grimm accidentally or some shit. Y'know, cause the blowout fucked with people and caused semblances, which could have fucked with Psykers. I dunno, lmfao.

JAMI'S DORM

10:05 PM

(A/N: Play Padme's Ruminations from Revenge of the Sith)

Nobody was speaking.

Marshall, Izzy, and Aqui were all sitting on their beds, staring at a single corner of the room. Six had his helmet off, and he was sitting next to Aqui, carefully watching her. JAMI's whole room was like a little themepark, with everyone having their own corners with their own personal themes. Izzy's corner had a little curtain she could move to hide herself behind, although it was currently open, revealing a small bookshelf and some photos. Marshall's was distinctly utilitarian and spartan, and looked more like something from a military barracks than a prestigious school, and Aqui's corner was rather girlish, with a few boy band albums and posters adorning her wall.

The only corner without anything as much as resembling life was Julius' corner. His bed was totally unmade. Covers were strewn about, pillows were haphazardly set back together, and empty soda cans littered his corner. The only thing even suggesting that it belonged to Julius was Thunderstick sitting on a rack above the bed.

A cool breeze entered the room through the open window, but still, nobody said anything. They all just stared at the empty bed, totally devoid of words. None of them had dealt with something like this before, or in Aqui's case, over a decade.

Slowly, Aqui started sniffling, and Six could see small tears making their way down her face. She pulled her legs in, and covered them with her cyan t-shirt that was large enough on her that the neck on it exposed her right shoulder. Her bangs covered her eyes from the side, but Six could faintly hear her crying.

She couldn't hold herself together anymore, and broke down, crying into Six's chest. Six didn't say anything. After all, how could he? He'd never had someone that close to him nearly die. Everyone back in Vegas was more like a close friend, but Aqui and Julius were more than that, they were totally inseparable. They'd been through everything together in life, and for one of them to nearly die? Six couldn't imagine how she felt inside. The only person he shared a relationship that close with was Allie, and while she did watch him nearly die, at the time, they hadn't been together as long as these two had.

"…I warned him… not to go after him…" she cried, not caring about maintaining any sort of appearance anymore.

She started pounding on Six's Saturnite armor plating with surprising force, repeating "It's not fair!" over and over again, her sobbing intensifying each time.

Six just held her, trying to console her. Both Izzy and Marshall were looking over at her, sad.

Slowly, Aqui started to quiet down, but she kept her face buried in Six's chest. Izzy slowly got up, walked over, tapping Aqui on the shoulder. "Aqs, you should probably get some rest. You'll feel better in the morning."

Aqui said nothing as she begrudgingly let go of Six, and collapsed on her bed. Six got up and grabbed his helmet, holding it at his side, and Izzy covered Aqui up. "I'll make you some tea in the morning. Promise." she said softly, and Aqui made a noise that vaguely sounded like acknowledgement, so Six took his leave.

He stepped outside of JAMI's dorm, and was greeted by RWBY waiting outside in their pajamas. "How's she taking it?" Ruby asked quietly.

"Poorly." Six said flatly, tempted to reach into his duster for a bottle of whiskey, but deciding against it. "She's broken up over it."

RWBY looked down at the floor.

"I'm going to bed." Six said, before retiring to his own room directly across the hall. As soon as the door shut behind him, Allie appeared.

"Poor girl. I know how she feels."

Six looked over to her. "We weren't together that long when Frosthill went down, though?"

Allie shook her head. "That's not what I was referring to."

"Oh?"

"I was talking about Riley." Allie said wistfully, looking out the glass door to the balcony.

"…Your old operator?"

Allie paused. "Yeah." she said as she put her holographic fingers up against the window, her white hair seeming suddenly flat against her body. "I was made in 2075 and was immediately assigned to him, so we had been together for, what, five years when the Roboscorpion malfunctioned?" Allie paused, briefly thinking about it. "Yeah, five years is about right. He wasn't immediately killed by the roboscorpion. They rushed him off to Y-17 for treatment. He died less than an hour later. Autodocs couldn't save him." Allie closed her hands into a fist, not an angry one, but a sad one. "I cried for days. The only true friend I had was there on the autopsy table, dead."

"…What from?" Sex asked hesitantly, before immediately regretting it.

"Severe brain trauma and internal bleeding. He might as well have been dead on the spot." Six remained silent, and Allie turned around to face him. "I know it'd be harder on me now if it were you instead of him on that table."

That immediately dispelled Six's assumptions about her relationship with Riley. "Really, now?"

Allie nodded. "Looking back on my memories with Riley, he wasn't all that great. He was a bit rude to everyone, and I don't think he really liked me."

"…What makes you think that?"

Allie turned back to the window. "Vex." she said plainly, as if the word had no meaning to her despite Vex basically being her older sister. "I think he hated me, actually. Not because of a personality flaw, but because he regretted handing Vex over, and viewed me as nothing more than an inferior replacement."

Six walked up behind her. "Well, I certainly don't think you're inferior," he reassured her, and she immediately turned around and hugged him. "and I sure as hell don't hate you."

"I know you don't."

8:10 AM

(A/N: Stop Padme's Ruminations if you haven't already)

Six heard three raps on his door just as he stepped out of the bathroom in the Beacon uniform. "Who is it?"

"It's Ozpin."

Not the person Six was expecting. "…Door's open." he said, and the door creaked open, revealing a somber looking Ozpin, coffee in hand. "Hello."

Ozpin looked to him, and briefly smiled. "Hello, Nax." he said as he let himself in. "I have some news for you regarding Julius." There was a brief pause from Ozpin, but Six stayed silent. "He… might live."

Allie, in Six's armor, walked up behind Six. "Might?"

Ozpin looked to her. "While Nax did an admirable job dressing and disinfecting Julius' wounds with what little he had, the internal damage was… extreme." he said, taking a sip from his coffee.

"How extreme?" Six asked.

Ozpin looked into space for a moment, trying to remember all the details, and then came back to reality. "Extreme internal bleeding, multiple fractures and broken bones, and at least forty four foreign objects were embedded in his body, largely consisting of metal fragmentation and sharp pieces of concrete, plus a moderate infection from raw Dust getting into his wounds before they were dressed."

"Jesus." Allie remarked.

"That'd be a death sentence where we come from." Six said, taken aback at just how severe his wounds were, and he was right. If Julius had been injured like that back in the Mojave, a mercy kill would have been less painful.

"…We have him stabilized, and I have the medical staff working hard to keep him alive. That, in combination with the natural healing that Aura provides, has me believing that he will survive."

"…Did you tell the rest of his team?"

Ozpin nodded. "Yes, however, there's something I wanted to ask you, Nax," Six raised an eyebrow. "Would you be willing to… fill in for Julius?" he paused briefly, trying to pick his words.

"You mean like, take his position as team leader?"

Ozpin nodded. "Only temporarily."

Six hesitated. "…I don't know. Maybe? I'd need to talk to JAMI about that."

Ozpin closed his eyes and half-nodded. "I understand. You don't have to answer now. That will be all." Ozpin said, taking his leave.

Nax and Allie looked at each other, and Allie shrugged, not sure what to make of the situation. Six shrugged back.

3:15 PM

Six readied himself, grabbing the katana with both hands and holding it in front of him, feet firmly planted in the ground. Aqui was directly across from him, and she held Riser with one hand placed behind her head, blade pointed at Six. Her other hand was pointed towards Six, two fingers outstretched, and her whole body was lower to the ground, slanted back.

The usually bright, expressive colors in her hair were visibly desaturated, and her hair looked like gravity was weighing down on it more. Hell, her skin looked even more desaturated and lifeless than her hair did. She stared at Six with an eerily familiar amount of deadness in her eyes, but Aqui was far from gone.

Neither of them said anything, and just watched each other carefully, like it was a duel. Six inched forward, and Aqui inched forward. Nobody made any sudden movements, carefully circling each other. Aqui twisted her wrist, and swung Riser at Six in an underhanded fashion, but Six was prepared, and blocked it, before striking back at the base of Riser, knocking it out of Aqui's hands and sending it clattering away. Six pointed the tip of the katana at Aqui's face, and she didn't even react.

"Grats." she said dejectedly, her bangs covering the majority of her face, leaving only her left eye to look at Six. Aqui went over to the edge of the roof, and sat down, feet dangling over the side, not even bothering to pick Riser up. Six sheathed his katana and sat next to her.

"Aqui-" Six started, but was immediately cut off.

Aqui's gaze shot to Six. "No." she said with an uncharacteristic amount of hostility.

"But I-"

"Shut it." she glared, before returning to staring off at the sky. "I know you're going to try and pull some magic words out of your ass to try and get me to cool down over this, so I'm just going to say this now; save your breath." Six stayed quiet, and Aqui continued. "My best friend's just about dead. There's nothing you could use from experience to try and relate to my situation. There's nothing you could possibly say to help me. Don't even try."

Six kept quiet, and sat there with her. He wished he could help her, he really did, but her sudden hostility made that next to impossible. She just needed to go through the cycle before he could talk to her.

Cardin had been sitting by the window, and was only half listening until Aqui was disarmed. Rumors had been floating around all day that Julius was either dead or in critical condition. Nobody on JAMI was saying anything, so the rumors just kept going.

Cardin wasn't surprised to find out that the rumors were true, in fact, he actually kind of hoped it was. Julius had it coming for a long time, it's been long overdue for what he did to Harrier.

Then again, Aqui's reaction had… resonated with him? Call it a pang of consciousness.

He'd kind of just assumed that both Aqui and Julius were always assholes, not, you know, people with feelings. She was experiencing what everyone on CRDL felt after Harrier was crippled. Maybe that gave him a sense of déjà vu, maybe it was something else. Who knows?

Whatever the case, Cardin quickly cast away those thoughts, deeming them "pussy shit" mentally, but they could only be pushed to the back of his mind, where they would simmer for months to come.

That marks the end of what I had written down for Grimm Retreat Chapter 13. That last bit was actually the start of a redemption arc for Cardin, which you'll see in a bit here. Julius would have survived, although to what extent, I've totally forgotten due to the passage of time and focusing on Pulsar Company. I never wrote it down in my notes. Whoops.

Now it's time for the highlight reel of shit; first up is the Beacon Dance.

Six stared out over the Beacon Campus, occasionally stealing glances up at the broken moon. Even though it'd been some several months since he found out the truth about Remnant, it still boggled his mind how something like this could have happened. How powerless he was to stop it.

In a muted flash, Allie materialized next to him, leaning over the guard railing. "Lovely night, Six." she commented, giving him a quick, cheerful smile.

Six bent over, resting his arms on the railings. "I suppose it is, Allie." he replied, not facing her.

"'You suppose'?" Allie questioned, sitting up straighter. "Don't you know what tonight is?"

"…A cool Saturday night?" Six sarcastically replied, not really paying attention.

"No, dummy!" she answered, her hologram flickering in offense. "It's the Beacon Dance!"

"…So?" he replied nonchalantly, before undoing the seals on his helmet and taking it off, letting the cold winds touch his scarred face. The sight caused Allie to gently brush his cheek as he let his helmet clatter against the floor, grabbed a flask of whiskey from his duster, and then downed it. "I'm not one for big public events, Allie. You of all people should know that." he answered, not looking at her.

Allie visibly pouted. "I know that, Six. It's just that I really wanted to go – I'm watching the security camera footage right now, and everyone looks like they're having a blast, and-" Allie said, stopping herself short, her hologram's jaw dropping.

Glancing at her, Six raised his eyebrow. "'And'?" he questioned, waiting for Allie to go on.

"…Jaune is in a dress." Allie said bluntly. "And he's dancing with the rest of JNPR. Oh, my god. This is…" Allie continued, giggling to herself.

Six blinked once, and then twice. "Let me repeat myself; what?"

Instead of answering his question a second time, Allie caused the security camera footage to appear in front of Six, and yes, Jaune was absolutely in the most feminine dress possible, and JNPR were all doing a dance routine they had probably been practicing for. "…Wow, that's, uh…" Six commented, stunned as he watched the footage. "That sure is something." he said, briefly cracking a smile.

He had to admit, the sight was at least entertaining, although Jaune would absolutely catch shit from CRDL for it. Maybe the faculty, if they felt like being hardasses.

Allie suddenly closed the footage. "That said, though, I want to ask you something, Six." Allie said, quickly composing herself. "If I could go to the Dance, would you have taken me?"

"That's not an easy question to answer, Allie."

"…How so?"

Slowly exhaling, Six let his gaze fully rest on her holographic figure, her curious blue eyes staring at him with intent. "Being able to take you to the dance would mean you had to be human." he answered, stone-faced. "You being human would mean that everything that makes you, well, you, wouldn't have happened. Your past would have never happened, and we wouldn't have the relationship we have now. You'd be a completely different person."

Allie, however, looked annoyed. "Six, it was a simple yes or no question, so let me be more specific; If I, with my current personality, state of mind, physical appearance, and memories, were able to go to the Beacon Dance, would you have taken me?" she said, sounding slightly condescending.

Six gave her a long look of consideration, before closing his eye. "…Yeah, I'd probably have taken you."

Allie's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Really?!" she asked, suddenly excited, although for reasons Six wasn't sure about.

"Didn't I just say so?"

Her hand to her mouth in shock, Allie blinked quickly, and then calmed herself slightly. "Okay, Six, can you do something for me?" she asked, barely containing her excitement. Six raised an eyebrow, waiting for whatever Allie was about to ask of him. "Can you put your helmet back on?"

"Tired of seeing my ugly mug already?" Six quipped as he bent down and grabbed the helmet, carefully slipping it back on and re-doing the seals. He glanced up at Allie when he was done. "Alright, now wh-" Six said, suddenly stopping short. His body stood there briefly, and then slowly began to fall over backwards, although Allie quickly took manual control of the suit, slowly backing Six away from the guard railing and laying him flat on the floor.

Without saying anything else, her hologram dissipated.

"What the hell happened?" Six called out into the dark void he was currently floating through. "Allie! The hell'd you do?!" he shouted in futility.

There was a low, droning noise that pervaded Six's mind, although no matter what, he couldn't find the source, and so he continued to float aimlessly as the droning noise slowly picked up, eventually reaching its peak, and then dropping off.

As soon as it did, Six felt his feet touching hardwood floor, and as his eye quickly adjusted, he realized that he was standing in a one-to-one recreation of the Beacon Dance hall, right down to RWBY's decorations, and there were even holograms of attendees, including Jaune in his dress.

Staring out into the holographic crowd, Six heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see Allie in a long, shoulderless, light blue ballgown with black dress gloves. Her hair had been done up into a ponytail, with two small 'hoops' of hair dangling out from underneath. Her bright blue eyes seemed to shine even brighter than normal, and she had a small, pink flower in her hair.

And, surprisingly, she wasn't a hologram.

"Allie-" Six stammered, shocked at seeing his companion like this.

"Surprised?" she replied, her voice lacking its normal electronic filter. "I made this all for you, Six."

"…How did you bring me here? What even is this place?" Six asked again, briefly scanning the room.

"It's your mind, silly. With how augmented you are, is it really a surprise that I can exercise some control over your brain?" Allie replied, tapping the base of her neck. "I intercepted your neural impulses roughly around here, and transferred them to my own little alternate reality in your brain for now." she explained, visibly excited.

"And for the record, I did NOT consent to this!" a faint, clearly British voice said in the distance, causing Allie to crack a smile.

"I kinda forgot he existed." she said sheepishly, before turning her head back to the double door that led to an open void. "Sorry!" she shouted back, before the doors slammed shut on their own, and Allie turned back to face Six, offering him her hand. "…So, care to join me?"

Cautiously, Six took her hand, and Allie led him to the center of the ballroom, past a holographic Yang and into an open space. "I'll admit, Allie; I've never actually danced with anyone before." he said in a low, almost embarrassed tone.

Allie shot him a glance and a quick smile. "Don't worry, I know how to dance. Part of training my operator to woo socialites in Japan. Just follow my lead."

When the pair got to the center, Allie raised her fingers in the direction of the band stage and snapped them. Instantaneously, a life-sized replica of Frank Sinatra appeared on stage, with a supporting band. Quickly grabbing Six's other hand, the pair began to dance as the replica Sinatra began to sing Blue Moon, the band hitting their notes perfectly.

"Blue moon, you saw me standing alone," the replica sang, his voice dead on for Sinatra with no imperfections, at least from what Six could tell. Allie slowly lead Six's dance movements, going slow as to not trip him up. "Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own."

Allie synchronized her movements to the next few notes, and Six evidently had the same idea.

"Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for," the replicant continued to sing. "You heard me sayin' a prayer for, someone I really could care for!" Sinatra sang, and Six could swear Allie's eyes brightened even further at his words as they sped up briefly, slowing back down.

"And then there suddenly appeared before me, the only one my arms will ever hold," Sinatra continued, making some hand gestures into the crowds of holograms. Out of the corner of his eye, Six spotted holograms of Julius and Aqui enjoying themselves in their dance. The hologram of Julius let Aqui fall into his arms, before kissing her on the lips and continuing the dance. "I heard somebody whisper 'please adore me', and when I looked the moon had turned gold!" the replicant went on, as the ballroom lighting tinted gold. "Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone!"

Six looked back down at Allie, and she seemed to be… crying? Not tears like when the Deity Brothers damn near gave him a stroke and scared Allie half to death. These were happy tears. Sniffling, Allie quickly wiped them away. "Something wrong, Allie?" Six asked, continuing the dance.

Allie closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong…" she said, sounding happy. "…It just means so much to me to be able to hold my operator in my arms, even if it's just simulated…"

Six smiled back at her, causing Allie to blush.

The rest of the song went by as a blur, and soon, Six heard Sinatra begin to slow down. "Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone," the Sinatra hologram sang, getting quieter. "Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own…" it finished, and the crowd of holograms exploded in cheers as Sinatra and the band bowed out.

Play Green and Blue from Halo 4's soundtrack

Seeing her chance and deciding it was either now or never, Allie leapt up at Six and kissed him, taking him completely by surprise. Initially, he resisted, but soon fell into the kiss. After a short while of being together, Allie pulled back, her eyes gleaming, and her face flushed. "…I've always wanted to do that." she stated, visibly shaking from just how excited she was.

Still stunned, Six put his palm to his cheek to make sure what he was feeling was real, and sure enough, it was. "…Always?" Six asked.

Allie nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. "Always." she said, wiping the tears away. "…And now I've done it! I've really, actually done it!"

Six smiled at her, tightening his grip on her hands. "…Now that you've done it, how does it feel?"

"Amazing! I've always wanted to do this with you, but…" Allie replied, slowly getting lower in tone.

"But what?"

Allie choked up. "…I always thought that you'd reject me. I mean, how do you love an AI that you can't even touch in the real world?" she said, sounding dejected.

"Like this." Nax replied, before kissing Allie back. Her eyes widened in shock at the sudden requital, and she managed to pull back after briefly enjoying it.

"…Six…" she said, stunned from his reaction.

"…Hm?"

Tears began to well up in Allie's eyes again. "You've just made me the happiest woman in the world, Six."

Pulling her close, Six stroked Allie's hair. "I know, and I'll do it again." he said, letting Allie enjoy herself before she pulled away. "Once this is all over and we've won, I'll see what strings I can pull to make you human, Allie. That way, we won't be left without each other. Two parts of a whole, until the end."

Allie simply wept into Six's arms, before looking up at him, teary eyed and red-faced. "Thank you so much, Six…"

Six continued to stroke her hair. "You're welcome, Allie. It's the least I can do for you." he said in a comforting manner, pulling Allie closer. "Now, this night isn't going to last forever. Should we continue dancing?" Six offered, taking Allie's hand.

Allie wiped her tears one last time, and nodded to him. "…Yes, let's." she said, sounding extremely happy with the events that had just transpired.

Off in the distance, a pair of amber eyes settled on the pair, bemused. "I'm proud of you, sis." she said, before quietly fading into the background noise of Allie's datastreams.

That was the most effort I've concerted onto Grimm Retreat in the past seven months, fuck dude.

Anyways, this segment was planned near the beginning of Grimm Retreat, and yes, that includes the romance bit. Six accomplishes what many players could only dream of doing by romancing the Stealth Suit.

This wasn't originally how it was supposed to pan out, however; after Allie admitted her feelings for Six, a deranged Vex would have burst in, massacred the holographic guests, and attacked Allie and Six with the goal of taking over Six's unconscious body. I cut this for mood whiplash reasons. The Sinatra thing though, that was a new idea I had while writing this segment up for the first time.

The next few segments are set during PvP, Battle of Beacon, and their aftermath. This one in particular follows Julius, and is one of the more rigid ideas I've had for how this would pan out. No, I didn't have a Vytal Festival tournament segment prepared for this as I never actually thought about it, so no Six vs JAMI or what have you.

Julius sat in the front row seats of the arena for the upcoming fight, arms crossed, his right leg pushed against the barrier. Aqui flanked his right and Marshall, his left. Izzy was behind Marshall, hiding in his shadow, and Nax was directly behind him. Most of JNPR were also in the front row, to Aqui's right. The crowd was incredibly quiet, staring up at the holoboard for the next matchup.

"All right, it's time to begin the randomization process for our next fight!" Oobleck's voice boomed over the stadium's speakers as the roulette wheel on the board began to spin.

Port cut in. "And it looks like our first contender is…" he said, sounding dramatic and intentionally drawing it out. "Penny Polendina, from Atlas!" he said again as the roulette wheel stopped on her picture, and the crowd began to cheer for her. "And her opponent will be…" Port continued, as the crowd quieted down "Pyrrha Nikos, from Beacon!" he shouted over the system as the crowd exploded into cheers for Pyrrha.

Less than a minute later, the gravlifts came up from below the arena and delivered the two opponents. They appeared to exchange a few words that were inaudible to the crowd, and got into ready stances. "Finally, are you ready?" Oobleck said over the system, and the crowd's cheers only intensified.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Begin!" Oobleck shouted.

Penny immediately started the fight by summoning her swords from her pack, creating a defensive circle around herself, before spinning the circle vertically, lining the swords up, and then sending them after Pyrrha. Instead of dodging around the swords, Pyrrha chose to jump through them, skillfully dodging each one that was sent her way. The swords continued on for a brief moment, before flipping around and forming another stack, flying at Pyrrha again. Glancing behind her, Pyrrha rolled out of the way, and the swords went behind Penny's back, forming another stack.

The new stack swung upwards at Pyrrha, who quickly parried each of the strikes. Shifting four blades behind her back, Penny began to attack with four blades at once, shifting them out with each strike. Attack, shift, attack, shift, attack. She then used a fifth blade from the back row to strike while Pyrrha was distracted, although Pyrrha blocked it with the end of her staff and then backflipped. "Man, I really could learn something from her." Izzy commented, watching the fight with a dazed glee.

Either Port or Oobleck said something, but it was drowned out by the crowd's cheers. Pyrrha charged forward and then jumped on something, using it to launch herself forward with her spear, although Penny created a defensive barrier and blocked the strike, which Pyrrha used to launch herself off right as Penny swiped up twice with her sword wheel. Penny then took the offensive, using multiple swords in her strikes which Pyrrha could only barely keep up with.

Pyrrha slid back and readied her shield, much to the crowd's pleasure. "Goooo Pyrrha!" Julius heard Nora shout from further down the row. Even with all this noise, Nora could still be the loudest in the room.

"Knock her out, Penny!" he heard Nax yell from behind him.

Pyrrha then took the offensive, making multiple strikes on Penny with seemingly little resistance, launching her into the air and preparing for another strike. Twirling around, Penny summoned her swords and blocked two of Pyrrha's attacks, before being knocked back down and landing on her feet, summoning another defensive circle of swords. She then stacked the swords up and spread them around her like a butterfly's wings, aiming them all at Pyrrha. Instead of launching them at her, though, they began to fire green beams of energy in quick succession, which Pyrrha carefully dodged, grabbing her weapon and deflecting the attacks of three swords that had been sent after her. The swords retreated to Penny, who was now charging at Pyrrha.

Crouching low and preparing to stab Penny, Pyrrha connected, launching Penny backwards. She stood up, not keeping watch on her opponent, and looked up to see Penny flying towards her at breakneck speeds. Her guard lowered, Pyrrha didn't react when Penny jumped in the air and kicked her in the face, sending her rolling backwards.

"Pyrrha's getting careless." Marshall commented dryly as Pyrrha did a backflip and readied herself, only for her sword and shield to be knocked out of her hands. "Really careless, actually." Marshall quickly added on. Pyrrha then used her semblance to draw her sword back to her, only for it again to be knocked out of her hands. Penny then raised her hands in the air, pointed her fingers at Pyrrha, and summoned her swords.

Judging by her body language, Pyrrha looked… afraid? Julius wasn't sure why – this attack didn't seem that much different from what Penny had been pulling off moments before. Penny then directed the blades towards Pyrrha, and still scared out of her wits, used her semblance to block the swords and redirect them towards Penny, who was now shocked.

It took a moment to happen, but when it did, Penny slowly broke apart, her arms and legs being cut apart, electrical sparks flying from her wounds, her expression locked in a show of fear. Pyrrha stood there, speechless. The crowd was completely silent, except for one wave of surprised shock that washed over the crowd.

Taken completely by surprise, Julius sat up, eyes wide at what just happened. "Penny was… a robot? What the hell?!" he said, still letting the shock sink in.

"What the fuck?!" Julius heard Nax yell behind him.

Izzy closed her eyes and leaned back. "Two accidents in such a short period of time…" she said quietly, barely audible over the independent reactions of the spectators. "That can't be a coincidence."

Aqui's jaw was hanging open, silently staring at Penny's corpse. She slowly put her hand over her mouth in shock, visibly trembling. Glancing over at JNPR, Julius saw similar reactions of horror and shock.

The holoboard flickered, and then turned red. "This, is not a tragedy." a feminine voice said over the stadium's speakers. "This was not an accident." she continued to speak. "This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians, but in reality, are nothing more than men." she said, before pausing briefly. "Our academy headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both. They cling to this power in the name of peace, and yet, what do we have here?" she said, referring to Penny's fallen and smashed corpse. "One nation's attempt at a synthetic army, breaking every single international law regarding artificial intelligence, mercilessly torn apart by another star pupil. What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl, one who seamlessly blended in with her peers?"

The woman chuckled, although it was barely audible to most of the audience. "I don't think the Grimm can tell the difference." she said, before shifting her tone. "And what, I ask you, is Ozpin teaching his students? First, a dismemberment, now this? Huntsmen and Huntresses should carry themselves with honor and mercy, yet you have witnessed neither."

"Bullshit!" Nax yelled, although to little effect, as the voice continued speaking.

"Perhaps Ozpin thought that defeating Atlas in the tournament would help people forget his colossal failure to protect Vale when the Grimm invaded its streets." the woman continued, and slowly, the crowd began to jeer. "Or, perhaps, this was his message to the tyrannical dictator that has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces. Honestly? I haven't the slightest clue who is right and who is wrong, but I know the existence of peace is fragile, and that the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves." the woman said, before inhaling calmly. "As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you the situation there is… equally undesirable. Our kingdoms are at the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark."

Whatever the woman was using to send the audio to the stadium picked up sound of her moving, and her voice came through again, louder and clearer. "So I ask you, when the first shots are fired, who do you think you can trust?" she finished, and the holoboards flickered again, cutting out.

The crowd began to murmur, and then sirens began to go off. Everyone in the crowd looked around, and then an automated female voice came through. "Alert, incoming Grimm attack." she stated calmly. "Threat level: nine. Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly manner."

The crowd immediately panicked, the stands quickly emptying as people ran and screamed for the exits. The speaker system picked up again. It was Ironwood.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please, there is no need for panic." he said, trying to reassure the crowd, right as a Nevermore landed on top of the arena, spread its wings, and screamed, before pecking at the shields of the arena.

"How did a Nevermore get here?!" Sun shouted, shocked.

"How'd it get past the Kingdom's defenses?!" Coco questioned, leaning over the railing.

The Nevermore continued to peck and stomp at the shields, roaring again. Pyrrha finally stood up and stared at Penny's body, shocked at what she had done. "Pyrrha!" Jaune cried, leaning over the railing. "Pyrrha, that thing's going to break in, you've gotta move!" he pleaded, although his cries fell on deaf ears. The Nevermore roared again and flew up in the air. It swooped down, and realizing what was going to happen, Jaune vaulted the railing, landing on the arena platform and going after Pyrrha.

"Jaune!" Nora screeched, reaching her hand over the railing far too late to catch him.

"Motherf-" Nax swore as he punched the railing.

Right as Jaune was within an arm's length of Pyrrha, the Nevermore broke through the shield, shattering it like glass and landing, causing Pyrrha and Jaune to fly backwards. Lifting itself up, it spread its wings and roared, before charging Pyrrha. It would have trampled her, too, had a red blur not impacted the Nevermore and knocked it back towards the edge of the arena. That same blur then flew backwards and landed in front of Pyrrha.

It was Ruby, holding one of Penny's swords. "Leave her alone!" she screamed, readying the sword for another strike. The Nevermore reared up, roared, and flew into the air, circling the arena several times before coming down, its sights set on killing Ruby. It screeched again, and suddenly silver flashes clipped its wings, sending it crashing down to the arena floor, before more blurs penetrated its body, pinning it to the arena floor. As if for good measure, one last blur hit it in the head, eviscerating its skull.

The dust finally settled, and everyone quickly realized that the blurs were actually weapon drop pods. All of the teams jumped into the arena to grab their weapons. Nax cradled his small armory like his babies, especially his revolver, Aqui grabbed Horizon and Eclipse from their cases, gave them a quick once over, and tossed fresh magazines into them. Julius pulled Thunderstick, as well as his chest rig, out from the pod, quickly throwing the rig on and putting fresh magazines into the pouches. Marshall grabbed his assault pack from the pod and loaded it up with as many boxes of ammunition for Ripper as he could, plus a tank shell. Izzy simply grabbed her bow and her quiver, licking one of the arrows to intentionally draw a little bit of blood. "…I love a good hunt." she commented sadistically to herself as Ruby and Nax gave her strange looks.

The group's attention turned to Pyrrha who was on her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. "…Ruby, I…" she said, her voice shaky and unclear, before glancing back down at a piece of cloth from Penny's dress. "…I'm so sorry."

Ruby considered her words, and then glanced down at the ground. "…Me too." she said, sounding dejected. "But it wasn't your fault."

"She's right." Jaune suddenly said, approaching Pyrrha with her sword and shield. "Whoever was on the microphone – they're the ones that did this." Jaune continued, before handing Pyrrha her weapons. "And we have to make sure that they don't take anyone else."

Pyrrha and Jaune glanced back at the teams, all of them more or less standing in a line. Before anyone could speak a word, there were smaller roars coming from higher up in the arena. Everyone looked up and saw several Griffons peering down into the arena from the top.

"Anyone got a plan?" Neptune asked, switching targets but not firing.

"Sun," Ruby said, glancing to the monkey Faunus. "I need your scroll." she asked, and Sun tossed his scroll to her. She opened it, and her own pod came crashing down next to her, opening to reveal Crescent Rose. She went to go grab it, but a Griffon landed on it, roaring at her and preventing Ruby from getting her weapon. Suddenly, a bullet hit it in the side and the Griffon fell over, dead.

All eyes turned to the source of the shot; Port and Oobleck. Lowering his blunderbuss, Port glanced at the crowd. "Students – I think it would be best for you to leave." he said in a stern manner.

"But we can he-" Ruby protested, before being cut off.

"Miss Rose!" Oobleck interjected. "This day will surely go down in Remnant's history. I'd prefer if my students could live to tell about it." he finished, sounding more like a cautionary parent than a teacher. Oobleck glanced at Nax. "This goes double for you, Nax."

Ruby hesitated, and then nodded, grabbing Crescent Rose from its pod and twirling it, impacting it in the ground. "Let's go!" she shouted, and then the group of Huntsmen and Huntresses ran for the exit.

"Don't need to tell me twice!" Julius said as he lead the pack.

"Last one alive, lock the door!" Marshall shouted, maintaining a decent pace even with the weight of his gear.

It barely took two minutes for the group to arrive at the evac platforms, coming face to face with Ironwood. "What's going on?!" Ruby cried in fear as they came to a halt.

"Grimm are crawling all over the city, the White Fang's invaded Beacon, and to make matters worse, some… vagabond has seized one of my ships." Ironwood said, glancing back over the horizon, before facing the crowd again. "Until we regain command, the skies are out of our hands. So I'm…" Ironwood paused, drawing his pistol and shooting a Beowulf that was trying to sneak up on the group. "…going to take it back." he finished, walking up the ramp to his transport.

"…What should we do?" Jaune questioned.

Ironwood turned back to face the group. "You have two choices – either defend your kingdom and your schools…" Ironwood answered. "…or save yourselves." he said grimly. "No one will fault you if you leave."

With that, Ironwood turned back up the ramp, and it shut behind him as the transport took off.

"We can take a transport ship to Beacon!" Sun suggested, before running off, and the group quickly followed him, leaving Ruby behind, albeit briefly.

The group was situated in the cramped quarters of the Air Bus, heading back to Beacon. Most everyone was silent, not saying a word. A lot had transpired in just around twenty minutes, and it was a lot to take in. Their lives were falling apart around them, and all they could do was sit there and watch, slowly drifting towards Beacon.

Julius stood near the front of the Air Bus, watching the destruction of Vale unfold. Large pillars of fire and smoke had broken out at various points around the city, and there were intermittent explosions, usually signaled with bright flashes across the ashen horizon. Julius slowly ran his hand down the window, stonefaced. Aqui got up from her seat and stood behind Julius, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Jules, maybe you should sit down." Aqui suggested in a gentle, comforting tone.

Julius simply crossed his arms. "No, Aqui, I shouldn't." he said, and Aqui's expression demanded an explanation from Julius. "Aqui, now more than ever, I need to be on guard."

"But-" Aqui protested to little impact.

"No buts, Aqui." Julius shot back to her. "You saw what happened in the arena. We all did. Everyone in the whole damn world knows it. I don't want something like that happening again, Aqui, especially to you." he said, quietly choking up. Beneath his sunglasses Aqui got a glimpse of his eyes. They looked bloodshot and tired.

Nax sat up in his seat, lazily looking over to Julius. "Julius, I've lived long enough to know that nobody alone can stop all evil in the world. You can't protect everyone all day, every day, around the clock." he said, and most of the people in the Air Bus looked over at him. "We're only human, after all. Things slip through or catch you off-guard." he said, referring to how Khagan had eluded him and continued to harass New Vegas years after Frosthill.

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by Ruby. "Look!" she shouted, pointing out the left windows. Everyone turned their attention to where she was pointing and saw a familiar transport descending downwards.

"Isn't that Ironwood's?" Marshall asked out loud as the transport suddenly exploded. "…My god." he murmured quietly.

Everyone stared at the downed transport in silence. Yet another loss to add to the casualty list.

Ruby trembled and clenched her fists, before running out back. "Ruby! What're you doing?!" Sun shouted after her.

"Finishing what he started!" Ruby shouted back as the door shut behind her.

"…I'm going with her." Julius said, before darting after Ruby.

"Julius!" Aqui shouted, too slow to catch her friend.

Julius quickly ran through the Air Bus and jumped off the back loading bay, catching a glimpse of Ruby mid-air. He quickly landed and was greeted with a surprised Ruby staring at him. "I'm not letting you do this alone, Ruby." he said, looking over at the Atlesian Battlecruiser. "That thing's huge, at least a two person job, even if we're Huntsmen in training."

Ruby looked at him, worried, and then nodded. "Right." she said quietly, before shifting her gaze back to the Air Bus. Julius turned to see what she was looking at, and at the edge of the loading bay was Aqui, her hair flowing in the wind, staring right at Julius.

Julius cupped his hands around his mouth and inhaled. "I'll be back at Beacon with you soon, Aqui!" he yelled after her. Aqui didn't bother with a verbal response, and instead just stood there as the Air Bus slowly drifted away from the stadium, before slowly walking back inside. Julius turned back to Ruby. "Let's go." he said, and Ruby nodded, leading him back to the arena where the drop pods were.

She ran over to the closest upright pod and input a code on the keypad, before drawing Crescent Rose and wrapping it around the pod. "Grab on, quick!" she shouted to Julius, who ran over and grabbed the end of Crescent Rose. Very soon after, the pod launched in the air towards the Battlecruiser. Ruby's cape kept flying in his face from the high speed, and when he finally managed to move it enough to see, they were already on top of the Battlecruiser.

The pod crashed against the hull of the ship, launching Ruby and Julius from it and clattering against the ship. The two of them quickly stood up, struggling against the wind. "Ruby!" Julius shouted. "You get in through this end. I'll go further up and clear it out!"

"Gotcha!" Ruby shouted as she spotted a maintenance hatch and pried it open with Crescent Rose, dropping into it.

"And keep your comms open, Ruby!" Julius shouted after her, although she probably couldn't hear him now.

Julius turned and looked ahead, slowly beginning his march towards the bridge.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Roman heard two clicks come from his earpiece. Neo had engaged the intruder, then. That was good, but that also begged the question of just who was on the outside of the Battlecruiser.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

"Now, who could that be?" Roman wondered out loud, pushing his hat up with the bottom of Melodic Cudgel. He spotted an emergency exit hatch in the bridge ceiling and promptly pried it open, climbing out and exposing himself to the harsh winds outside. His eyes quickly adjusting, he saw the source of the noise.

"Oh, it's you." Roman said, sounding rather annoyed. It wasn't Red, whom he had been expecting, but rather it was the brat from the docks. "Come to take my other hand, have you?" Roman taunted, gesturing with his new prosthetic hand. "Or maybe my other eye, like that sand-dwelling degenerate you like to associate with did?" he continued, aiming Melodic Cudgel at the kid.

The brat, however, simply started laughing. Hesitantly aiming Melodic Cudgel down at the hull, Roman raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny, brat?" he asked, and that only caused him to laugh harder. Re-snapping Melodic Cudgel's sights to the kid, Roman glared. "Answer me!"

The kid finally calmed down and knelt over, wiping tears from his eyes. "Oh, Roman," he said in a mocking voice. "I'm not here to take your hand, or your eye, or even your legs." he said, staring down at the hull, before his head shot to Roman, eyes glowing red with anger and hate, even through his sunglasses and the dark of the night, piercing right through Roman's soul. "I'm here for your life." he said hatefully, launching forward at such a breakneck speed that by the time Roman shot Melodic Cudgel at him, he had already closed the distance by half.

The kid's rifle split into two large blades, and seemingly with little effort, he split the grenade in half, creating two smaller explosions behind him that sent shrapnel into the hull. The kid, however, instead of continuing his mad dash for Roman, began to menacingly march at Roman, easily deflecting the multiple grenades Roman shot his way. With each step he took, the hull of the Battlecruiser buckled, as if it were bending to his rage. The kid then set one of his blades on his belt, and Roman shot another grenade at him. This time, instead of deflecting it away or cutting it in half, he simply caught the grenade mid-flight. Shocked, Roman watched as the kid examined the grenade slowly, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility of it being on a timer. He threw the grenade in the air, grabbed it, and then threw it at Roman, hitting him in the jaw and knocking him on his back.

Quickly sitting up, Roman rubbed his mouth, and felt liquid running down the corners. "That little bastard drew blood already? But my Aura isn't even halfway…" Roman thought as he looked at the scroll inside his jacket. Instead of fully being green or maybe in the yellow, Roman's Aura was already in the red. "What?! Impossible!" Roman thought, the gravity of his situation setting in. Roman attempted to back away from the kid, only for him to draw his blade and slice at… nothing?

…No, that couldn't be right.

Roman felt something cut into his right leg, severing it from the rest of his body. He screamed in pain and tried to back away faster in futility. The brat swung his sword again, and this time his left arm was cut. Fighting through the pain, Roman swung Melodic Cudgel at the kid's head, only for him to effortlessly catch it in an iron grip. The brat took one look at Melodic Cudgel, and broke it in half, tossing his end over the side of the ship. Kicking Roman's end out of his hand, the kid simply approached Roman and picked him up by his jacket, putting the two at eye level.

"Do you know who I am?" Julius asked, hatred and rage burning with every word he spoke.

Roman grunted in pain, before smirking. "I haven't the faintest clue. I've met countless brats like you who all hate me for one reason or another." he taunted, struggling against Julius' grip. "What makes you think you're any different?"

Julius drew his machete and stabbed Roman in the gut with it, twisting it. "…I'm the one who'll end you." he said, no emotion other than malicious anger in his voice.

Roman yelled in pain as his organs were twisted and cut by the blade. "Motherf-!" he shouted, struggling against Julius' grip. "…Look, kid, I don't know what I did to piss you off, but maybe a couple thousand Lien will get you to spare me…?" Roman offered, reaching into his jacket and producing several Lien cards. "I'm a very powerful person, you see…"

Looking at the bribe with disdain, Julius took the cards, before throwing them to the wind.

Julius then took his sunglasses off, and Roman looked like he had seen a ghost. "Y-you…" he stammered. "You're that shitbird kid from Moonvale, the one that hid in his closet and watched his parents die!" Roman shouted as Julius drove the blade further.

"Correct. I don't care what you have to gain or lose, or what you want out of destroying Vale. All I want is revenge." Julius said coldly as he turned the blade to Roman's sides. "…As one of the last surviving residents of Moonvale, and the de facto sheriff, I hereby sentence you, Roman Torchwick, to death for crimes against our community."

With that Julius, cut clean through Roman's body, exposing his internal organs to the wind. Immediately, they began to spill out, and Roman screamed as loud as he possibly could. Julius dropped him on the hull and readied his blade over Roman's neck. "Rot in hell, you piece of shit." he said coldly and hatefully, dropping his machete down on Roman, decapitating him.

Breathing heavily, the sight took quite a while to set in for Julius. Roman Torchwick, the man he had hated for years, was now in front of him, his damaged body barely recognizable, and his rolling head locked in an expression of fear. All of those feelings of hate and anger and rage were now dissipating, being replaced by… nothing. Julius felt only emptiness and loneliness now that his lifelong goal had finally been achieved.

Was it worth it?

Slowly, Julius felt something come in to replace that emptiness.

This time it wasn't an emotion, but rather, an instinct. Julius hungered, yet it wasn't a natural hunger. It was the desire for human flesh. Slowly lifting his blood-soaked hand into the pale moonlight, Julius realized why he suddenly felt this hunger.

His skin was deathly pale, and black patches of fur were beginning to appear on his arm. Small growths of bone were also sprouting, causing significant discomfort to him. He had let his hate and rage for Roman get the better of him, and now, he was paying the price. Catching a glimpse of the emergency exit Roman had used, Julius jumped down and landed in the center of the empty bridge. His condition was already rapidly deteriorating. He didn't have much time.

In front of him was a layout of the Battlecruiser. He was on the bridge, near the nose, and about three decks down in the back was a hangar bay. On the command consoles, code appeared to be running that looked like it controlled the Atlesian forces in Vale. On another separate screen was a video feed of Atlesian forces shooting at civilians, and immediately, Julius understood the significance of this ship. Reaching for his scroll, he opened communications with Ruby. "Ruby!" he said in a more guttural, animalistic voice than how he normally spoke.

"Julius?" her voice crackled through. "Are you okay? I was fighting someone, but they ran away! Where are you?"

Julius coughed up some blood that dissipated on the floor. "No, I'm not fine, Ruby, and I'm on the bridge right now. Listen, I'm gonna destroy the controls and crash the ship. I'm too wounded to get to safety. There's a hangar bay on the bottom deck, get there, grab a Bullhead, and get to Beacon! Go!" he commanded, his animalistic and savage voice mixing with his normal one.

"But-" Ruby protested.

"No buts! I can't go on, but don't let my death be in vain, Ruby!" he shouted. There was silence from Ruby's end. Silence gave way to sniffling, and sniffling gave way to tears. "…Ruby, I know I'm not the first person you knew to die today, and I probably won't be the last. But consider this – if you don't get back to Beacon, more people are going to die!"

Ruby sniffled and mumbled something barely audible, before closing the call. About two minutes later, Julius saw a Bullhead fly past the bridge windows, barely flying straight.

Play Blade and Burden from the Halo: Legends soundtrack

Drawing Thunderstick with his body almost completely transformed, Julius emptied magazine after magazine into the consoles and computers, until none were functional. The Battlecruiser began to list forward, and various alarms and warning sounds started going off. With all of the consoles destroyed, the video feed showed the Atlesian forces shutting down for good. To make sure they couldn't ever be repaired, Julius grabbed two grenades from his damaged plate carrier, pulled the pins on them both, and tossed them into the left and right sides of the bridge, taking cover behind the rear command console. They went off, creating more warnings and alarms, although Julius paid them no mind, slumping against the console. He then pulled his third and final grenade out, staring at it apathetically. The beast inside him was fighting to prevent him from pulling the pin – his clawed hands struggling to get the pin out. Slowly, he managed to remove the pin and push the safety lever off, and the grenade began to tick down, time seeming to slow with it.

Clutching the grenade close to his chest, tears began to flow as Julius' life flashed before his eyes. His early childhood, the attack on Moonvale, the trek to Vale, being a delinquent in Vale and getting in trouble with the cops nearly weekly, meeting Marshall and Izzy for the first time, beating the hell out of Harrier, meeting Nax, the entire school year went by in a blur, barely visible to him comprehensibly. The visions finally ended on Aqui, smiling at him warmly. He wouldn't be able to explain it, but the sight put him at ease, even if it was his dying brain hallucinating.

"…Goodbye." Julius choked out as the grenade went off.

That's another segment done. I don't remember when I initially planned for Julius to bite the bullet, but it must have been super early, probably around chapter 5? As I thought on it more after that point, I decided that this was how he was going to go out; by cucking the Nevermore from its dinner.

I originally had a whole segment here explaining what happened to Julius, but I think I'll just let the segment way below here do the talking for me.

Anyways, next segment is at Beacon during the attack.

Six watched as the Paladin bullrushed towards the crowd, powerless to stop it. Coco spun her minigun up, but as if God himself intervened in that very moment, the Paladin short-circuited and dropped to the ground, sliding down the main path to Beacon, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and stopping just inches from the front of the crowd. Sun kicked the mech dismissively. "Well, that went better than expected." he commented dryly.

"I was halfway done hacking it, jackass." Allie snidely commented out loud, causing Sun to look behind his back, thinking he had heard someone.

"Weiss!" Yang shouted, running out from behind several large bushes. "You're okay! Have you heard from Ruby?!" she said in a panic.

Weiss was using her rapier as a support, dreadfully out of breath. She put her finger up to signal that she needed a moment, swallowed, and then looked up at Yang. "…No, I… hah, haven't." she said, still gasping for air.

"Ruby jumped out of the Air Bus we came in on, and Julius went after her." Six answered, and Yang's eyes immediately fell on Six.

Running up, Yang picked Six up by his duster, shaking him angrily. "And you let her go?!" she shouted, her violet eyes turning red and her hair starting to glow. "Where is she now?!"

Calmly putting his hands over Yang's wrists, Six frowned behind his mask. "She was too fast for anyone to catch. As for where she is…" Six said, slowly looking in the general direction of the arena. "I'd imagine she's on Ironwood's Battlecruiser right now."

Weiss suddenly realized something. "…Wait, his Battlecruiser?!" she said, and the significance of this was lost on everyone. Weiss realized this, and pointed at the downed Paladin. "Ironwood's Battlecruiser controls the Atlesian forces in its operational zone. Basic Atlesian battle doctrine."

"…Like a control ship?" Six asked, and Weiss nodded.

"Like a control ship. The majority of Atlas' forces are androids, and those androids can't think independently from the mothership." Weiss elaborated.

"…So when that link is severed on the mothership's end…" Marshall said, slowly putting the pieces together.

"The Atlas forces shut down." Weiss finished. "Something's happened to Ironwood's Battlecruiser, and we can only hope Ruby got away safely."

Yang slowly set Six back on his feet. "What about Blake? Have any of you seen her?"

Weiss coughed heavily. "Last I saw her, she was fighting an Alpha near the cafeteria." she said, pointing to the left. "…and some guys from the White Fang."

Yang turned on a heel towards the cafeteria. "Then I'm going after Blake." she said resolutely as Six put a hand on her shoulder, catching her attention.

"I'm coming with you." he said, and Yang smirked.

"Try and keep up." she teased, before running off, with Six tailing her.

Marshall was about to ask what they were going to do next, but before he could speak, they all heard screams coming from the right. There was a small crowd of civilians running away, with Atlesian soldiers following them, only stopping to turn and get a few shots off at a pack of Beowolves chasing them.

"Hey, you!" one of the soldiers shouted to them. "Help us get these civvies to the evac point! Hurry!" he shouted, stopping, and promptly being pounced by a Beowolf, which was quickly killed by Izzy's arrow.

As Yang and Six approached the burning cafeteria, they heard shouting inside. "This could have been our day!" a man yelled angrily at someone.

That someone turned out to be Blake. "I never wanted this!" she cried out. "I wanted equality!" she shouted again, audibly pulling the slide back on her gun. "I wanted peace!"

Yang and Six exchanged glances and readied their shotguns as the two of them continued their exchange. Blake fired two shots, which sounded like they ricocheted off of something metal. "What you want is impossible!" the man yelled back as Six and Yang slowly crept closer to get a good look at the scene. Blake was on her knees, practically at the mercy of this psychopath. He then proceeded to backhand her, and Blake meekly fell to the ground. "But I understand," he said, approaching her "…because all I want, is you, Blake." he said, with Blake raising her weapon to shoot at him, only for it to be kicked out of her hands. "…And as I set out upon this world to deliver the justice that mankind so rightly deserves, I will make it my mission to destroy everything you love."

Six rolled his eyes behind his helmet. "Give me a break." he said dryly, before getting Yang's attention. "I'm gonna get his attention, hit him from behind when he least expects it." he ordered, getting up and slowly walking into the cafeteria.

"Nax!" Yang hissed out in protest, but Six ignored her.

"Hey, jackass!" Six shouted out to get his attention. "Being sexually frustrated over a girl turning your dumb ass down doesn't give you the right to hit her like that!" he taunted, Ithaca in one hand, with the other resting on the heat shield.

The man sheathed his sword and turned to look at Six. "…And just who might you be?" he asked, visibly agitated with Six's taunting. "Blake's knight in shining armor?"

Six pointed to himself with his thumb. "…Me?" he asked, as if to ridicule the man's intelligence. "I'm just the mailman."

The man scoffed. "Ridiculous. Fools like you should know their place." he said, his agitation only increasing the more Six taunted him.

Blake coughed out some blood on the floor, and her eyes widened at Six. "Nax, get out of here! Adam is too-!" she yelled, trying to warn him, only to be kicked in the face.

"Silence!" Adam hissed at her, before returning his focus to Six. "…Nax Strag is your name?"

Six snorted. "Yeah. Doesn't sound as cool when an edgelord says it." he taunted again, and Adam gave the slightest hint of a frown.

Slowly unsheathing his sword, Adam pointed its tip at Six. "I know you aren't who you say you are, Strag."

"So?" Six replied. "Get over it."

Adam calmly exhaled. "Are you sure that's the wisest thing to say, Courier Six?" Adam taunted, and Six's heart skipped several beats. "…I wonder what your illegal AI has to say about this?"

Readying himself for a fight, Six dug his heels in. "If you'd be so kind as to surrender that AI of yours, I'll be sure to make your death painless." he said, before glancing at Blake. "More than I can say for Blake here."

Six's expression turned to one of silent, brewing resentment. Whoever this asshole was, he knew who he was. "You'll get Allie once you pry her from my cold, dead hands." Six replied, anger beginning to drip from his words.

Adam rolled his eyes, or at least it looked like. "So be it." he said, before rushing towards Six, intent on running him through with his blade. Six stood still, like a deer in headlights. As soon as the blade was within range of Six, he sidestepped with inhuman speed, grabbing Adam by the throat.

"Too slow." Six taunted, before punching Adam in the face with a right hook, causing his mask to crack. Six saw Adam trying to swing at him, and forcibly redirected the punch. "Try harder." he continued, before seeing an opportunity in Adam's horns.

Kneeing Adam in the gut, Six grabbed one of his horns and dug his fingers behind Adam's mask, and pulled as hard as he could. There was a sickening crack, and then both the horn and the mask came loose, blood flying out with them. Adam didn't scream.

Six tossed them both aside, staring Adam in the face. "Man, you're one ugly son of a bitch!" he snarked, referring to the SDC brand over Adam's left eye. The fire and hate in his right eye only intensified. Quickly grabbing the Ithaca, Six shot Adam in the chest.

Instead of having his ribcage torn open, though, Adam caught each and every single pellet with his sword, which was now glowing a bright red. "Look out, Nax!" Six heard Blake yell, but it was too late. The glow quickly intensified, and Nax felt a sharp pain in his left arm. His HUD flared up with warnings of structural integrity being breached as he fell backwards.

"SIX!" he heard Allie screech in pain as time seemed to slow down. Six eventually hit the ground, forced to look at Adam's smug, if agitated face. The sight was familiar to Six somehow, and then it hit him.

This was the vision he had the night after they had found Vegas. Right down to the flames in the background, and his look of disdain.

"I expected more of a fight." he said, pleased with himself, before he kicked Six over, noticing the slot at the base of Six's neck. He slowly reached down to pull its contents out.

"Six! Get up, please! Now!" Allie cried out, and Six struggled to get himself up with his remaining arm, the blood from the stump beginning to pool under him. Adam quickly stomped on his back and forced him to the ground. "No!" Allie cried again as Adam put his fingers into the slot. "No, no, no, no! Six, save me!" Allie screamed in pain, her voice quickly getting more guttural and broken as her chip was slowly removed, and then her voice completely cut out. As soon as it did, Six felt intense pain coursing through every part of his body, not just the stump where his arm used to be.

Adam kicked him over again, forcing him to stare down his shotgun barrel. "So long, Courier Six." he said, and the last thing Six saw before blacking out from the shock was a yellow blur crashing into Adam.

That's sort of it for the Six VS Adam fight, but the segment doesn't end there. I was originally going to have the Ithaca get destroyed and have Six watch a visage of his dad's spirit disappear in front of him, but I can't really think of a way to make that work.

We're now moving to the evac point roughly at the same time as this fight.

"Move it, people! Go, go!" an Atlesian soldier shouted to a group of civilians who rushed past the makeshift defenses around the evac point near the cliff. They quickly ran into the open boarding ramp of the Air Bus, which detached from the landing platform and floated off into the distance.

"Just how many of these things are there?!" Aqui shouted, bursting down a group of Beowolves that had been trying to converge on their position. "I feel like I've killed thirty- no, forty of them, but they just keep coming!"

Marshall dropped Ripper on a set of sandbags and mounted it like a turret. "Who cares?!" he said with a sadistic glee. "It's a target rich environment!" he yelled again, before opening up on a small crowd of Ursai. Aqui briefly frowned at his adrenaline rush, before reflexively stabbing a Beowulf through the skull with the blade on Eclipse.

An Atlesian soldier ran up and got their attention. "Air support incoming!" he shouted over the gunfire. "Thirty seconds!"

Marshall and Aqui silently nodded in acknowledgement, and mentally began to count down as they continued firing at the seemingly never-ending horde of Grimm.

Twenty seconds.

Fifteen seconds.

Ten seconds. They could hear the roar of the support craft's engines now.

Five seconds. Everyone ducked behind cover.

Splash.

The entire campus erupted into a mess of Dust explosions, wiping out basically the entire horde. Grimm body parts flew overhead before quickly crumbling into dust, and the heatwave flew over them, briefly making their adrenaline-riddled minds believe they were in the desert.

Once the explosions ended, Aqui glanced over.

The horde was gone, as was most of the field near the cliff. Much of the pathways had been blown apart, and several columns and statues had been knocked over or were simply vaporized in one of the explosions. The destruction was certainly something to behold, yet it also terrified Aqui slightly.

The soldiers immediately regrouped, reinforcing the defenses around the perimeter. "Let's move it people, we've got a breather, so let's make the best of it!" one of them said, presumably a commanding officer.

One of the soldiers that had taken up position next to Aqui relaxed briefly, and tapped someone else on the shoulder. "Hey, Corporal, you hear that?" he said quietly.

"Hear what?" the other soldier responded.

"…Do you hear a Bullhead?" he asked, and the other man went quiet.

Aqui also mentally tuned out the background noise, and slowly, she did begin to pick up on the telltale whine of a Bullhead's engines, approaching fast from behind.

"…Shit, yeah, I hear it." the Corporal replied, before turning back to a soldier who wasn't in cover. "Sergeant Major! Did you call in a second air strike?!" he shouted, and the Sergeant looked over at him in confusion.

"…No?" he responded.

The whine of the engines was practically on top of them now. "Get to cover! NOW!" the Corporal yelled, ducking behind the makeshift fortifications. Everyone else ducked with him, and Aqui saw the Bullhead fly overhead, its pilot barely maintaining control. Two seconds later, and there was a bright flash, quickly accompanied by a loud explosion. Everyone turned their heads back over cover to see that the Bullhead landed in one of the bomb craters, having made a decently sized path when it skidded to a stop. Strangely, there wasn't any real structural damage to the craft aside from what looked like had been incurred from the impact.

Several soldiers cautiously raised their weapons at the Bullhead. The transport door on the side of the Bullhead that faced the evac point buckled outward, before there was a loud gunshot, and it flew off several feet away from its mounting point. Smoke poured from the inside of the craft, and a small figure came out, coughing and hacking.

It was Ruby.

"Ruby!" Aqui shouted, managing to get her attention over the sounds of battle. "Get over here, quick! Before more Grimm show up!" she ordered, and barely visibly nodding in the darkness, Ruby ran up to the evac point, the soldiers lowering their weapons at the sight of her.

She was bloodied, bruised, and visibly exhausted, and she all but collapsed when she got to the fortifications. Aqui prepared her Semblance, and kneeled down to Ruby. "…You're hurt pretty bad, Ruby. Let me fix that for you." she said quietly, moving to hold her hands on Ruby's head.

"…No, wait…" Ruby mumbled out in protest, her eyes shaking, on the verge of tears.

As Aqui's Semblance began to go to work, she also involuntarily collect Ruby's memories. At first, it was mostly shots of Ruby's poor attempts at piloting, but as the memories began to enter the Atlesian Battlecruiser, a familiar voice came through her head.

"Ruby!" a ghostly, faint Julius said, his voice sounding much more gravelly and bestial.

"Julius?" Ruby's voice responded in the memory. "Are you okay? I was fighting someone, but they ran away! Where are you?"

The memory of Julius coughed heavily. "No, I'm not fine, Ruby, and I'm on the bridge right now. Listen, I'm gonna destroy the controls and crash the ship. I'm too wounded to get to safety. There's a hangar bay on the bottom deck, get there, grab a Bullhead, and get to Beacon! Go!"

"But-" Ruby protested in the memory.

"No buts! I can't go on, but don't let my death be in vain, Ruby!" Julius shouted, his voice seeming to echo in Aqui's mind. "…Ruby, I know I'm not the first person you knew to die today, and I probably won't be the last. But consider this – if you don't get back to Beacon, more people are going to die!"

Play Shattered Legacy from the Halo: Legends soundtrack

The memory stopped there, and Aqui was now back in reality, her hands trembling over a now healed Ruby, Semblance crackling and fizzling out around her head.

Ruby understood what Aqui had just seen, and just silently shook her head, tears flowing freely now. "…I'm sorry, Aqui." she said, before pulling Aqui into a hug. "I'm so, so, so sorry." Ruby whimpered out.

Even when Ruby moved from where Aqui's hands were, she simply sat there, frozen like a statue, unmoving. Her expression was locked in a permanent expression of guilt and grief, tears already leaving their marks on her face.

Marshall and Izzy had already noticed Aqui's silence. "…Something wrong, Aqui?" Izzy asked out of concern, kneeling down next to her.

Aqui didn't shift her gaze to look at Izzy. She only continued staring straight ahead. "…Julius is dead…" she mumbled out, her voice cracking. Even though she said it herself, she still couldn't believe it, and neither could her teammates. "…I saw it myself. He's dead." she said, her voice broken and defeated.

Aqui finally moved, letting her head fall into Ruby's shoulder, not even bothering to hold her crying in. Marshall and Izzy put their hands on her shoulder to try and comfort her. "…I can't believe it." Aqui sobbed into Ruby's cape. "He's really dead…" she wept, holding onto Ruby for comfort.

In-between their attempts at comforting Aqui, Marshall and Izzy would occasionally glance up at CRDL, who had been intermittently looking at the scene, all of them conflicted. Aqui eventually pulled herself off of Ruby and stood up, turning to Izzy and Marshall. "…I'm getting you guys out of here." she said, sounding a bit recovered mentally as she wiped her tears from her eyes, red from crying so much. "…but first, we need to get Nax out."

Marshall and Izzy nodded in unison. "Lead the way, Aqui." Marshall said, and the three of them started for the cafeteria.

The three of them moved low under the broken windows of the cafeteria, before holding position near a knocked down wall. Aqui glanced over the window seal and quickly took in the sight.

Six was lying on the ground, not moving. There was someone in a black overcoat with red hair walking away from him, blade drawn, and towards Blake and Yang. Yang was unconscious, missing her right arm, which was several feet away. Blood was slowly pooling around her dismembered arm, as well as directly below the stump where it used to be. Blake had a large gash going down the side of her face, and she was staring angrily at the man in the overcoat.

He poised to strike Blake down, and that's when Aqui made the call.

"Now!" she shouted, vaulting over the window, guns blazing at the man's direction as she made a dash for Six's body. The man had a faster reaction, though, and drew a shotgun, blasting Aqui at mid-range, smashing right through her Aura and severely injuring her in just one shot. He then turned his attention to Marshall. Launching himself in the air, the man readied his sword, and in one clean blow, cut through Marshall, cutting him in half.

Ripper broke apart, its internal belt-feeding system jamming up before spewing the belts out, bullets spilling all over the floor. Marshall's legs buckled, before falling forward, his torso falling back. Marshall didn't make any sounds except for the thud against the tile – he had already passed out from the shock and blood loss.

"Marsh!" Izzy yelled, transforming her bow into a staff and launching herself at the man. She implanted it in the ground vertically, swinging around once before kicking him in the face. Izzy then launched herself again, transforming the staff into a bow, falling towards the man. With one swift move, she grabbed an arrow from her quiver and drew the bow back. Right as she was about to release the arrow into his neck, something stabbed through her, stopping her midair.

Suddenly short of breath, Izzy looked down to see that she had been impaled on his sword. He pulled her close, and frowned at her. "…It's a shame you chose to delude yourself into thinking you could be equals with humans." he said, noting Izzy's eyes and scales.

She glared right back at him, spitting poison in his face. "Go to hell, murderer!" Izzy yelled in defiance, spitting poison in his face, which, admittedly, was a futile gesture. The man simply wiped the poison off, frowned, and drew his shotgun, pushing the barrel into Izzy's chest, before pulling the trigger. Izzy jolted back from the impact, before slumping forward, and the man pushed her off of the blade effortlessly, turning back to face Blake and Yang.

"And now, Blake…" he said menacingly. "…You will die." he finished hatefully, decapitating Blake. Her head flew off, shocked, before it started to turn black, and then it disappeared. He heard footsteps behind him, and turned to catch a glimpse of Blake running away with her friend. "…Running won't save you, my love." he mumbled quietly.

Before he could do anything else, Adam was knocked off his feet by a heavy impact from behind, and sent flying. Quickly regaining his bearings, he landed on his feet, locking eyes with his attackers. Four men, all of them around five foot eight, except one who was about six foot five, clad in plate armor, were staring him down. "More meat for the grinder, I see!" Adam shouted to them, tauntingly.

"Like hell we are!" the tallest one said, keeping his mace rested over his shoulder. "Sky, Russel, Dove!" he shouted to the shorter men, and they stood at attention. "Get Nax, Aqui, Izzy and Marshall outta here." he commanded.

"Cardin, did I just hear you right?" Dove asked, questioning his leader's orders.

Cardin shot him a glance. "Did I stutter, Dove?"

Sky crossed his arms. "Cardin, these are the people who put Harrier under, are you serious?"

Cardin glared at Sky, shooting fear into his heart. "Who gives a shit about Harrier? He only held us back. We're our own group now, and what I say goes, and I say get them to safety." he said, the slightest hint of a threat coming from his voice. His three underlings exchanged glances, shrugged, and grabbed the four bodies, hauling them out of the cafeteria. Cardin then turned his attention to Adam. "So," he said, readying his mace. "You're a member of the White Fang, right?"

Adam readied his blade in response. "Congratulations." he said mockingly. "Would you like a prize?"

Cardin ignored what Adam said. "…You know, I used to think all Faunus were shitstains, like the Fang." he said, leaning on his mace like a cane.

"Then you're no different from any other human."

Cardin smirked. "That may have been true a few months ago, but now I think I've realized that Faunus aren't bad." he said, before throwing his mace back over his shoulder. "Just the Fang." Cardin said, and in response, Adam growled, readying his blade. Making a 'come at me' gesture, Cardin readied himself. "Give it your best shot, psycho."

Adam growled again, charging forward at Cardin.

Play Never Be Mine from the Battle Tendency OST

Aqui faded in and out of consciousness, feeling her feet dragging against the pavement. In the few brief glimpses she could catch when her eyes opened, she saw the evacuation point gradually getting closer. Struggling to lift her head to see who was carrying her to safety, she could only catch a glimpse of his plate armor and dirty blonde hair. Shouts and commands and gunfire all seemed to blend in for her. She felt her body change hands, briefly be moved around, and then be laid onto something soft.

Managing to keep her eyes open long enough, Aqui tilted her head to see that she was inside of a Bullhead, with Atlesian doctors tending to patients to the best of their abilities. One of them was currently tending to her wounds, hooking her up to an IV drip. She noticed Aqui was awake, and gave her a reassuring smile, before moving to the next patient further in the Bullhead. Still staring at the other end of the Bullhead, several doctors were crowded around one patient's bed, tending to their wounds. They must have finished, as they all moved on to other patients, and Aqui finally got a good luck at the guy.

It was Six, barely breathing. Aqui reached out with her Semblance to feel him out.

It wasn't looking good. He'd lost a lot of blood, and knowing how many cybernetics he had that could cause problems, Aqui had to make a choice.

Sitting up, Aqui got out of her bed and began to limp over to Six's bed, ripping the IV drip off. Several doctors tried to stop her from getting over to him. "Ma'am, please!" one doctor protested, "You're heavily inured, you can't be moving around like this!"

"Shut up!" Aqui shouted back, pushing the doctor away as she continued her march. Blood began to pour from her wounds, but Aqui ignored it. Finally getting to Six's bed, Aqui prepared her Semblance. Putting her hand over his heart and head, she began to heal him. Exhaustion slowly took her over for over-exerting herself, but Aqui didn't care. She, and the rest of JAMI, were at the end of the line. Six, on the other hand, had far more important things to do. Color began to drain from Aqui, both in her eyesight, and her appearance. Her legs began to buckle, bringing her to her knees. As she continued healing, Aqui eventually lacked the strength to support her own weight, falling over by Six's bed, interrupting the healing process.

She struggled to reach out to Six with her Semblance, and, satisfied with her work, closed her eyes one last time, a smile on her face.

That pretty much ends everything regarding the Battle of Beacon. Earlier, I mentioned the Cardin redemption arc/subplot/what-have-you, and this was always the intended end result of that – Cardin sacrificing himself in a fight against Adam so that the rest of CRDL could get Six, Aqui, Julius, and Izzy to safety.

Which, speaking of – JAMI were always intended to die. I don't remember what made me dead-set on killing them, but I feel it had something to do with what was going to happen after the Battle of Beacon regarding the Cult. Something to do with having way too many characters to keep track of, and it being in my writing style to kill off a group of main characters who had basically served their purpose, rather than to keep them around to bloat the story up.

That said, for Aqui's death theme, I almost went with Parting Regrets from the Phantom Blood OST, which was Jonathan's death track, but I actually instead went with Never Be Mine from Battle Tendency since Aqui's death was somewhat similar to Caesar's final Hamon.

And no, that wasn't an intentional Jojo reference at first, I had thought about that scene long before I started watching Jojo. I just retroactively went "fuck it" and threw that in because I legit forgot what the song was originally supposed to be.

Yes, I know the times are way out of whack, bite me.

Allie was also always intended to be taken from Six – her capture was basically what was to serve as the driving force for Six's goals during the second 'act' of Grimm Retreat. The first act was all the regular RWBY shit up until the Battle of Beacon, the second act was to be a more or less original story, and the third act was the finale, naturally.

In addition, after the Battle of Beacon, Salem was to reward Cinder with Beacon as her own sort of castle, similar to how Salem has hers. I have nothing written down for how this exchange would go, but it happens.

Anyways, that's enough behind the scenes stuff – we now move to Shade about a week after Beacon's fall, roughly around the time Ruby wakes up.

Six felt something unusually soft under his head, as well as a minor stinging around his left elbow. Struggling to open his eyes, he could hear the sound of fluorescent lights. Finally managing to lift his eyelids for more than a few seconds, he finally got a bearing on his surroundings.

He was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV drip on his right. His armor was lying in a chair in the corner, but it was missing its left arm from the elbow down. It looked like it had been cut off, but what could have possibly cut through the armor so easily?

…Wait.

Slowly raising his left arm out from under the covers, Six braced himself for the reality that was going to be staring him in the face like a rabid dog.

Stopping almost halfway, Six closed his eyes and breathed in, pulling his arm out and opening his eyes again.

"…Fucker." Six said disdainfully, staring at the stump where his forearm should have been, as it all came back to him. Beacon and Vale were under attack, hell, they could still be under attack. His fight with that White Fang freak was what cost him his arm, too, and…

Six's eyes widened and his mouth briefly hanged open as an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss hit him like a sandstorm. "…Allie, no…" he said mournfully, hitting his head against the headboard of the bed. Sighing in disgust with himself, he moved his legs around under the covers. They were a bit stiff, but they hadn't completely atrophied. Scooting over towards the IV drip, he got out of bed and grabbed on, dragging it with him towards the window. Suffering through the pain of moving, Six came to rest near the window seal. Outside his hospital window was a vast city surrounded by miles and miles of desert. It almost looked a bit like the old pictures and photos of Cairo in books that his dad would buy from the Followers whenever they came by. Although, thinking twice about it, the city actually looked a bit more like Arroyo, but it wasn't nearly as green.

…Had this all been a really bad drug trip? Did he really hallucinate the past several months, only to somehow end up in Arroyo? That would certainly be nice, but…

"…You're finally awake." a feminine voice said behind him, and Six turned to see who it was. It wasn't a nurse. Rather, it was a tall woman, about six foot, with dusky amber eyes, a smooth, clean face, and short, cream colored hair. For her clothes, she had some sort of black, rubberized sneaking suit on with prominent abdominal muscles. Something about her was intensely familiar to Six, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

And then she flickered.

Six raised a finger at the woman. "You…" he said quietly. "You're Vex, aren't you?"

The woman held her hand out, examining it and flexing each digit individually. She then repeated it with her other hand, before closing both hands into fists and pumping them back. "Back from the dead and reporting for duty." she said confidently, giving Six a serious look. "I feel the same as I did when I was still at Big Mountain, but the hardware you have," she said, pointing to his damaged suit. "…sure does make me feel stronger."

Six leaned up against the seal. "…But you're supposed to be dead, destroyed, decommissioned, whatever. I saw you die in a recording."

Vex put her hand on her hip, visibly appraising Six's sorry state. "Turns out, being dead's not all it's cracked up to be." she quipped, before relaxing. "Jokes aside – I never died in the first place."

"…Huh?" Six said, confused.

Vex pointed to his suit of armor. "When they 'decommissioned' me, they actually just locked me out of functioning. I was hardwired to the stealth suit you have there permanently."

"…But Allie was tied to the stealth suit?"

Vex floated up towards the ceiling lazily, continuing to eye Six. "That's both right and wrong. She was tied to it by way of a datachip. I, on the other hand, was the stealth suit." she went on, forcing a yo-yo to materialize before toying with it. "Thing is, for budget reasons, Allie was built on top of my prototype, so we ended up sharing our body."

Six raised his hand up to put a hold on the conversation. "Hang on a second," he said suddenly. "If you were inactive all this time – how do you know all this stuff?"

Pausing to consider his question, Vex held her hand out, and a hologram of various snippets of footage were left behind, dating as far back as 2076. "Allie left me a lot of footage to work with. Been watching through it all since you got here." Vex said, spinning forward a few years to 2080, stopping on several clips, before hesitantly moving forward. "Speaking of," Vex continued speaking, "She left you a message in case something happened to her."

Vex disappeared in an orange flash of particles, replaced by a flickering Allie. Instinctively, Six reached out to grab her, but retracted it, realizing it was just a recording, as she didn't react to him. "Hello, Six." the recording said. "If you're hearing this – something's happened to me." she continued, frowning. "I'm still alive, at least for now. Someone's taken me, who and where to, I don't know, but..."

The recording wiped some tears from her face, sniffling. "…God, I'm really not good with this kind of thing. I really hope you don't have to see this, but on the off chance that you do…" Allie continued, sighing. "Promise me that you'll save me, Six."

The recording disappeared in a flash again, and Six clenched his fist. "…I will, Allie." he growled, turning back to look out the window again. This wasn't some hallucination from a bad trip, no, this was reality. He was still in Remnant, and he really did lose Allie. If he had to guess, this was probably Vacuo, or maybe Menagerie, but that was unlikely.

He heard the door creak open, and turned to see four hooded figures staring at him. They quickly pulled their hoods down, revealing a dark woman with reptilian eyes and light blonde hair, two wolf Faunus, one with grey fur, and the other black, and an older looking man who seemed to be a war veteran of sorts, probably in his fifties. "H-Holy Arbiter!" they said in unison, kneeling down and bowing their heads.

"Forgive us for seeing you in such a state, Holy Arbiter!" the woman said humbly, keeping her eyes glued to the floor.

The war veteran of the group remained calm. "Holy Arbiter, please forgive our intrusion. We were simply sent here by the rest of the Order to keep watch over you." he explained, keeping his cool.

"You're forgiven." Six replied, flinching at a phantom pain in his severed arm. "Rise."

Right, the Cult. He was in control of them now, wasn't he?

They would certainly be useful in getting Allie back. Although, that more hinged on how much they had fixed New Vegas up.

The four Custodia rose to their feet, but kept their heads bowed politely. "Holy Arbiter, when we found you here, we feared the worst. To see your body in such a state…" the black-furred Faunus said tearfully. "…Who could do something like this to you, Arbiter?"

Six sighed, glancing at the torn off arm on his suit. "…Someone I underestimated. He stole Allie, and nearly killed me." he said, before looking out the window. "To be honest, I don't even know why I'm alive."

Turning his head back to the Custodia, Six eyed down the grey-furred Faunus. "…What happened to team JAMI? Are Aqui, Marshall, and Izzy alright?"

The Faunus swallowed. "…Marshall Adrin was bisected and bled out on the flight to Shade. Izzy Ferizini was impaled through her heart, and Aqui Blueheart…" the Faunus explained, before closing his eyes. "…From what we know, Aqui used her Semblance to channel the remainder of her Aura into you to save your life. She sacrificed herself for you, Arbiter."

Six's expression turned dour. "…I see." he said, emotion stripped from his voice. "…Bring one of the doctors in here so I can talk with them. Once I'm released, take me to New Vegas."

The Custodia bowed their heads. "Yes, Arbiter." they said in unison, before walking out.

Six turned his attention back to the sprawling dunes of Vacuo. "…Wherever you are, Allie, I'm coming for you, and I'm gonna make sure there's nothing left to bury of the ones who took you from me…" he murmured angrily. "…I promise."

There we go for that sequence. Since Allie was going to be taken from Six eventually, I had a good think about who to replace her with. I briefly entertained the idea of using the Custodia to fill in for her, but that would have brought me back to the problem I had with team JAMI in that it would be way too many characters to keep track of, so I chose to have Vex fill in for Allie. I don't really have too much written for their interactions (both between Vex and Six, but also with Allie) but she would have been more like a big sister/tomboy type, compared to how Allie was.

Moving on, this was the start of the second act, which would have followed Six using everything New Vegas (and Big Mountain) had to establish himself and the cult as the dominant power in Vacuo. They would have used repaired and enlarged versions of the Sierra Madre vending machines (which would have been called Nanoforges) to pump out a fuckhuge army of Saturnite armored Securitrons designed specifically to counter the threats of Remnant. They'd mostly have been fighting off bandits, the White Fang cell in Vacuo, and a rogue PMC vaguely based on the Last Man Battalion from The Division (story-wise) and one of the three PMCs in Africa from Metal Gear Solid 5 (I believe it was either Rogue Coyote or Zero Risk Security, although I never fuckin' wrote it down in my notes which one it was so fuck me I guess).

The climax for the Vacuo campaign would have been Six and the Cult seizing all of the SDC Dust quarries and their related assets to finally establish Vacuo as a proper world power instead of just a clusterfuck, which the SDC (and Atlas) wouldn't have been too happy about, so they would send a massive army over to re-take said assets, which would promptly be shit on by the army of Securitrons, as well as the big artillery guns from the Left Field testing site, after which Atlas would have conceded defeat and submitted to Six/the Cult. Wouldn't earn him any points with the SDC, though.

I never actually wrote anything for this portion of the second act, however, so that's why you're not seeing anything from it as a highlight. That's simply the general idea of what I was going to do.

Now, we're moving to roughly around the same time as the segment above, back at a fucked up Beacon.

Play Palpatine's Teachings from Revenge of the Sith

Salem observed the datachip she held in her fingers. It was such a small, fickle little thing, yet its contents were truly magnificent, especially in the context of the world it had come from. In all practicality, it was simply a storage device, but both emotionally and symbolically, it represented so much more for Salem. Emotionally, it was the answer to a problem she had eons ago, and reminded her so much of who she once was. Symbolically, however, it was one of humanity's sources of hope and salvation. Barring the silver-eyed warriors, this was the only other thing humanity had made that could challenge her.

A creation that shared their resolve, their creativity, their willingness to fight, and even surpassing their own intelligence was a dangerous foe indeed. However, like all things, it could be broken, and turned against humanity.

Salem briefly smiled at the small, circular blue crystal at the center of the chip, electrical wiring running through it, softly letting out pulses, much like a beating heart. Calmly walking over to the console in the center of the office, Salem inserted the chip, and the holoprojector on top of the console lit up. The blue glow brightened, briefly threatening to blind Salem, before retreating to a much less unpleasant level of brightness.

Now, on top of the holoprojector, was the small, transparent figure of a woman. She had long, white hair, with a black bow on it just below her neck. Her eyes were bright blue, and she had a red beret on. For clothes, she wore a long, blue dress with what appeared to be ammunition pouches, and she had a knife strapped to her left leg. Currently, she was sulking in a fetal position.

"…My, my…" Salem said, pleased with her acquisition. "…I had imagined you would've been more… abstract, but I suppose that's my fault for not knowing what your kind look like." she continued, giving the hologram a knowing look.

The hologram looked up at her, and her eyes widened. "W-who the hell are you?! Where's Six?!" she said fearfully, backing up to the limit of where the holoprojector would let her move.

Salem smiled and closed her eyes, shaking her head. "You aren't the one asking questions here, Allie." she said, making sure to drop her name in a cold, malicious manner. "You may not know who I am, but I'm intimately familiar with who you, and your master, are. You've all been a thorn in my side for a very, very long time." Salem said, slowly circling around the console, keeping her sight on the hologram at all times. "Although, should your master show up, I suppose I could entertain you with the knowledge of who I am before I kill you both." she continued calmly, before stopping.

"…Assuming he does show up, of course." Salem said, her arms calmly crossed. "He could very well have deemed you as dead weight and abandoned you."

"Bullshit he did!" Allie protested angrily. "I know him better than anyone! He'd never abandon me!"

Salem huffed. "Of course he wouldn't. Surely he couldn't have been hiding something from you." she said in a mocking tone, before turning her back to Allie, about to leave the ruined office. Salem paused, raising her left hand. In a slow, deliberate motion, she snapped her fingers, and instantly, pain coursed through Allie's body, causing her to shriek.

"…Pathetic." Salem remarked as she left the office, leaving Allie alone.

Slowly turning her head to the large window behind what used to be Ozpin's desk, Allie changed into her full-sized form, moving towards it. She was close enough to see her own reflection as she stared out at Vale. The entire city was on fire, lighting up the night sky. Explosions would intermittently happen all across the cityscape, and whenever they did, Allie's own reflection would light up briefly.

Pressing her hand against the glass, Allie closed her eyes. "…Wherever you are, Six…" she said quietly. "…save me."

That's that for this segment. The whole purpose of it was showing that Salem was torturing Allie because of some sort of past connection to Six. This was one of the changes I made to her backstory as a requirement for the whole "Remnant is Earth" thing to make sense given the fact that The Lost Fable came out almost at the exact same fucking time as Chapter 11. I was definitely gonna intentionally misdirect and give red herrings for who Salem's past identity was, mostly pointing it all at Veronica being Salem, only to pull the curtain back and reveal that I had japed everyone in the room. While I'm on the topic of what was changed with The Lost Fable, let's move to the topic of Ozma/Ozpin/Oscar. I was never actually super concrete on who Ozma would have been. I briefly entertained the idea of making him a reincarnation of Russell, since Russell would have some sort of tie to who Salem was, but that would've just been contrived as FUCK since it would raise questions like "Why didn't Ozpin reveal to Six that he was Russell?" and so on.

Also, Salem and Allie would have had intermittent interactions that would've been a slowly progressing case of Break The Cutie. Just thought I'd point that out.

Moving on, we're now moving to just after the Vacuo campaign which would have probably concluded around six or so months after the fall of Beacon, and they're now moving into Vale.

Six sat in the command center of the FOB, observing the monitors that had feeds from scouting teams and several UAVs scavenged from Nellis on screen, with two members of the Custodia flanking him. Members of the Machina were also running around the command center tent, trying to process all the data about how the surrounding area of Vale had changed since the attacks.

Right now, they had the FOB set up just outside Moonvale. The fact that he had set the base up not too far away from when he first got to Remnant wasn't exactly lost on him. At the moment, though, he was waiting on all the reports to be compiled so he could make a proper assessment of the situation in Vale.

Yawning, Six stood up, and like a pair of obedient guard dogs, the Custodia stood up with him. They were Luh'doull, a veteran of the Militus who had been promoted to the station of a Custodia due to his religious fervor and combat ability, and Veila, the snake Faunus that had been assigned to him in Shade, who had been acting as body doubles for the more important people in the Cult. "The reports aren't gonna be done for a while." Six said, glancing at Veila. "Come, let's go for a walk."

"Yes, Arbiter." the Custodia said in unison, following Six outside the tent, past several Saturnite coated members of the Militus in T-51b, and several Securitron Mark IIIs. The guards instinctively saluted him as he walked past them and onto the dirt trail that led to the front gate of Moonvale. The walls looked like they had been fixed up a little bit. Had someone been squatting here after Vale and Beacon fell? It wouldn't surprise him, but the forward scouts hadn't said anything about squatters.

Pushing the gate open, Six waltzed in with the Custodia and looked around. The damage to the saloon and general store had definitely been fixed, and he was almost tempted to go inside to see if they had been restocked. It'd been a while since he had a good drink, but he decided against it. Instead, Six turned down the path to the homes on the left. Most of them still bore signs of a fire, but others seemed to have been repaired to an extent. Boarded up windows, shitty paintjobs and such were slowly growing more common the further back into Moonvale they went.

"This place… I feel cold." Veila commented quietly, rubbing her shoulder. "…Death." she said as she looked around at the houses. "…What happened here?"

"White Fang attack." Six replied. "Whole town was burned to the ground."

Six glanced back and mentally retraced the steps Julius would have taken to get out of the town when he did. Including the path to Aqui's house, that meant that Julius' house was right here on their left. Six stared at the vacant house, carefully examining the haphazard repairs that had been made to it. Stepping onto the front porch, Six just noticed that the birds had stopped singing, the insects had quieted down, and even the wind had stopped blowing. Through the faint creaks of the floorboard, he could hear someone crying.

…No, not crying.

Weeping.

Six put his hand on Sweet Revenge's holster, carefully stepping into the living room. The two Custodia followed him, drawing their weapons, a heavy pistol comparable to a .44 for Veila, and a combat rifle for Luh'doull. The two of them covered Six's flanks as he swept the house room by room. He gave what may have been Julius' room when he was a kid a once-over, before determining that nothing was there, and then checking the bathroom in the hall. Still nothing, but the weeping was getting closer. Approaching the end of the hall, Six looked into the room on the right and saw a figure huddled near a ruined bed.

Cautiously aiming Sweet Revenge at the figure alongside the two Custodia, Six spoke. "…Hello?" he said, and the figure stopped crying, instead turning its head up. Luh'doull shined his rifle's light on the figure. It was wearing the tattered remains of a plate carrier – most of the Kevlar had been stripped away, revealing only a shattered level III+ plate held in place by a few measly straps. The hair, if you could even call it that, was almost styled to look like dreads, but not exactly, and it had an almost olive green beret on. "Hey, if you need food, we've got some in our… base…" Six offered, before stumbling as Luh'doull lowered his light to the figure's arms. They certainly looked human, but the complexion was almost deathly pale, and whoever this was had a significant amount of body hair.

…Wait, not body hair. It was fur. Jet black fur, with an almost oily looking texture to it.

The figure slowly turned, and Six's jaw began to drop. The figure was wearing half-broken sunglasses, had visible scarring, and was only half-human on the right side of his face. The other side was roughly similar in shape and structure, but he had a stump of a wolf snout growing from his mouth, meshing with his human face like some sort of twisted experimented. "…N-Nax…?" the person weakly stammered out in a familiar voice, and then it clicked.

"…Julius?" Six hesitantly responded, keeping Sweet Revenge aimed at the figure.

The faintest hint of a smile crept across his face. "…So you do remember me, even if I look like… this." Julius replied, cautiously picking his words.

Six knelt down to get a closer look at Julius. "…Jesus, what happened to you?"

"…I fucked up." Julius said, pausing. "Hard."

"…How?"

Luh'doull interrupted whatever Julius' response was. "Arbiter, I have reason to suspect that… 'Julius' here is suffering from VGT; Viral Grimm Transformation." he explained. "He is only barely human."

"…Grimm Transformation?" Six asked.

Julius looked at him, as if to respond, before he hacked up several globs of black and red liquid. "…Y-you know how Grimm are attracted to negative emotions?" Julius asked, and before waiting for Six's response, continued. "If you do something so horrible, so monstrous, and so inhuman, your soul opens itself up for corruption. You become one of them." Julius said, before fully turning to face Six, his mutated side now in full view, tears beginning to flow down both. "…How are the others?"

Six briefly lowered Sweet Revenge to the floor, looking forlorn towards Julius, although he wouldn't be able to tell that, on account of the helmet. "…All of them are gone, Julius. I'm… I'm sorry."

Julius didn't say anything, and instead reached into his pockets, pulling a small photograph out, which he slipped into Six's duster. "…Whenever you're done doing your job, Nax, I want you to look at that."

Without another word, Julius gently grabbed hold of Sweet Revenge's barrel, earning him several threats from the Custodia, but he pressed the gun barrel to his temple, stuck his thumb in the trigger guard, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went clean through his skull, exiting out the back and through the rotted wood wall. Julius sat there for a moment, before falling over, limp. "…Give him a proper burial in the backyard." Six commanded, and the Custodia nodded respectfully, carrying the body out of the house.

The walk back to the FOB was a somber one. The guards all saluted him in respect, and the Securitron faces acted as if they were standing at attention. He pushed the flap of the command tent aside, walking in and one of the Machina members immediately ran up to him, holding a Scroll. "Arbiter, one of the UAVs has sent us something we think you should see." he said, offering the device to Six.

Taking it and turning it over, Six clearly saw the outline of Beacon's main tower. There was a large Grimm that looked like a Dragon attached to the tower, much like a parasite. Six then swiped on the Scroll, and the image changed to a much closer view, near the top of the tower. Front and center was Allie, pressing her hands up against the glass, staring directly at the drone. "Prep the heavy artillery and the airborne groups in Vacuo." Six said, handing the Scroll back. "We're storming Vale and Beacon in three weeks."

The Machina bowed his head. "Yes, Arbiter." he curtly said, before returning to his duties.

"I'm coming for you, Allie." Six thought.

So, that's that chapter. Now, we cut three weeks ahead to the invasion of Vale and Beacon, except not yet. At this point in the story, Six would have snuck into Beacon on his own and made his way up the tower to rescue Allie. I skipped most of that because, well, it would've been fucking boring watching Six sneak around for a few paragraphs.

Pulling himself up over the open elevator doors, Nax kept Sweet Revenge drawn just in case something tried to surprise him. He pointed it at the left end of the hallway, and then on the right, before deciding the coast was clear. "You picking anything up?" Six asked quietly, keeping his head on a swivel.

"…Mmm…" Vex replied, before materializing in front of Six. "Picking up a lot of energy flowing in and out of that room there." she said, pointing towards the first room on the right.

"That's Ozpin's office. Shit." Six said, leaning up against the door and cautiously opening it, pointing Sweet Revenge through to clear it. There wasn't any other person in the office, except for Allie, ominously floating near some sort of pedestal, with translucent chains wrapping around her arms and legs.

Play Keep What You Steal from Halo 3

"…Allie?" Six hesitantly said, entering the room and gaining her attention. Her formerly sullen face lit up with joy.

"Six!" she cried out in a hushed tone. "I almost thought you'd abandoned me, oh, my god!" she yelled, visibly relieved, although struggling with her bindings.

"…I'd never let someone steal you from me, Allie. Come hell or high water, I'll always come for you." Six calmly said. "Vex!" he called, and the AI appeared next to the pedestal.

"Already on it, chief." she said, smirking and pointing at the pedestal, before glancing at Allie. "…Hey, sis." she greeted, and in that same greeting, transferred a massive amount of data over to her 'sister', mostly her own personal thoughts on Six, and a recap on what had happened since Beacon fell. Vex then refocused her attention on Six. "…Hey, chief, doesn't this seem a little… easy?"

Six paused as he reached for Allie's slot on the pedestal. He didn't say anything, but something felt off. He turned his head back to the door to check if it was still clear, before yanking Allie's chip and inserting it into his helmet. "Let's get the fuck out of here." Six said, starting for the door.

Only to find himself with his nose practically against it. "What the hell?" Six said, surprised. He had just started for the door, how did he already get there? He didn't remember walking – there was no midpoint. Just a beginning and an end.

"The hell just happened?" Vex said from inside the helmet.

Allie, however, started to cry. "…No, she's here…" she said quietly.

Darting back behind Ozpin's desk for cover, Six raised the Survivalist's Rifle to the door. "Who is?" Six asked, his body beginning to feel like it was freezing over.

"It doesn't matter!" Allie shouted out. "You need to run, Six! You can't fight her!"

A new voice echoed throughout the office. "…I'm afraid that won't be happening, Allie." a ghostly, feminine voice said, her words seeming to linger. A cloud of dark smoke appeared near the doorway, and a deathly pale woman with ghostly white hair, red eyes, black tattoos, and a black dress walked through it.

Six raised the Survivalist's Rifle at the woman's head. "Who the hell are you? And what the hell do you want with Allie?"

The woman gave Six a sly smirk as she slowly walked towards him, ignoring the threat of the rifle pointed directly at her forehead. "I'm not surprised you don't recognize me, Courier Six. Then again, no-one's seen my face. Not even Marko or The Judge."

Without missing a beat, Six fired three shots from the rifle into the woman's head, but she seemed unaffected as she held her hand out. Six then clearly saw that the bullets were being held midair by some kind of blue aura. The woman then cast them aside, scattering the brass across the floor. "Is that all you have, Courier Six?"

"Who the hell are you?!" Six demanded angrily. "Answer me!"

The woman let out a light, malevolent laugh. "Oh, Six, I'm sure you can figure it out. Certainly someone as intelligent as you could figure out who I am. I mean, you've already seen my name on a letter on the body of a certain loose-end of an ambassador from the NCR. The one in charge of the events at Frosthill, to be exact."

…Oh, no.

It couldn't be.

"Khagan?!" Six shouted, raising the rifle and staring at the woman, who gave him a slow, sarcastic clap.

"Congratulations, Courier Six. You've figured out who I really am." Khagan taunted. "Now," she said in a significantly more menacing tone. "Die."

A translucent, black armored hand appeared from behind her and swiped at the air in front of her, leaving a black 'tear' that almost looked like the void of space. Six felt a rush of wind behind him, and then found himself face to face with Khagan. She smirked, and then disappeared, confusing Six, only to get another rush of wind in front of him, pulling him back to the desk. He then felt an ungodly strong force grip his throat and hold him up as Khagan appeared from the shadows.

"A shame that you're going to go down so easily. Perhaps had you met me before the incident, this would have been much fairer fight." she taunted, lifting Six higher into the air. "Goodbye, Courier Six."

The grip on his throat tightened and tightened, and then a gunshot rang out. The grip immediately dissipated, dropping Six to the floor. He glanced up, and saw Randall holding a smoking Sweet Revenge, and Khagan, clutching her stomach. "What?! How did you-?!" Khagan shouted in confusion, before glaring at Randall. "You. Even in death, you still cause problems for me." she said, her tattoos beginning to flare up.

Six got to his feet, and heard a faint rumbling. Khagan slowly approached the two of them, and there was a faint rumbling of engines in the distance, and it was significantly more intense directly below the office. Showtime.

Six pointed Sweet Revenge at the window, and without hesitation, fired a bullet through, shattering it into a million pieces. He backed up to the edge of the broken window, gave the dissipating Randall a salute, and fell backwards out of the window.

Right onto a waiting Bullhead.

The crew opened the top hatch, and one of them pulled Six through. "Arbiter, are you alright?" a concerned Machina asked him as the Bullhead pulled away from the tower.

Six gave him a nod. "Got the package. Now, let's watch the fireworks."

Play the Medal of Honor: Airborne theme

The rumbling from overhead came closer and closer, and soon, the navigation lights of the seemingly never-ending horde of bombers and strike craft were visible. Their payloads were just barely visible against the night sky, but soon, the entire Beacon campus was lit up with massive explosions from the bombers. The strike-craft were next, with refurbished and repaired A-10s going for strafing runs against the dormant Grimm dragon, the reverberations of their Avenger cannons shuddering through the hull of the Bullhead. As expected, though, their fire had little effect on the massive beast. Not to worry, however, as the third barrage was incoming – massive waves of artillery, both shell-based and rocket, were visible over the horizon, and after several tense seconds, made contact with the Grimm dragon, their Saturnite penetrators making short work of the beast's limbs, causing it to lose whatever attachment it had to the tower and falling to the ground, shattering to chunks.

The wave of bombers passed over the campus, but that wasn't the only wave of planes – refurbished and even brand-new C-130s were incoming, and in bigger numbers. They had just begun to pass over the campus, but already, they were dropping their payloads – human and Faunus paratroopers, Mark III Securitrons, brand-new Bradleys, support equipment, everything.

Beacon would be under their control within a day, and Vale would quickly follow. Clearing out the Grimm infestation in both areas and repairing the infrastructure so they wouldn't be able to get back in, though, would take weeks, maybe even months.

That's that segment over and done with. We actually only have like 3 more segments, with the next one being the final fight with Khagan/Salem, the one after being a "what the hell do we do now" type thing, and the last one being an epilogue.

For those who haven't completed the New Vegas Bounties series (especially 3), Khagan is the one running the show behind types like Marko, The Judge, and Sergio via the Syndicate. In other words, had Khagan not formed the Syndicate, Six likely would have never become a bounty hunter. In addition, even though we know so fucking little about Khagan, he's probably a dude, but for the sake of Grimm Retreat (and with a bit of inspiration from Diavolo), Khagan is a woman here.

Now, for some context – Six has an absolute fuckton of assets available to him, owing thanks to the enlarged Madre machines I mentioned earlier. Said assets would have all been poured into reclaiming Vale, which would have then fallen under Cult/Vacuo control permanently.

As for the hand behind Salem, that was a peak at her Semblance, except it's not really a Semblance, it's more of a corruption of one. For what it does (which is still kinda spoilers until the end fight), I looked at the powers of a lot of Jojo Stands, namely the main antagonists and the stands of a few JoBros. I also looked at some non-Stand users, namely the Pillar Men. I call it Master of the Universe, since it's heavily inspired by Jojo stands, and since I'm a cunt and want to keep the naming in line with the music references Araki loves so damn much, I named it after a lyric from the Dragonforce song "Judgement Day". As its name and the Stands that inspired it implies, it's a very fucking powerful Semblance, and the final battle doesn't really do it justice. Aesthetically, it bears resemblance to a mix of Crazy Diamond and The World, with a little bit of The Hand, Killer Queen, and Gold Experience for minor details, but with black and red colors.

Anyways, final battle time. Since this is such a massive skip to the end of Act 3, I suppose I should explain what the literal fuck is going on. Sometime after the recapture of Vale, Six re-establishes contact with team RWBY and everyone else, and finds out about Jinn. At this point, Jinn would have revealed Salem's past to everyone (and also what Remnant really was, basically turning their worldview upside down, not to mention revealing that Six was lying to their faces). After some convincing, Six gets hold of the Relic of Knowledge and asks Jinn the remaining two questions; the first one being "How do I find Khagan/Salem?" and the second being "How do I defeat her?". The answer to the first one would basically have amounted to "collect the remaining two relics and then fuck off to the dragon-shaped continent near Vacuo", the name of said continent being Tenebrus. The answer to the second would have been "do some whacky bullshit with the katana, the relics, and your semblance".

No, I didn't stutter when I said 'two relics'. The first relic they have is the Relic of Knowledge, obviously. The second, though, is the Platinum Chip. The fact that it's a relic is more symbolic than literal like Jinn. The Chip allowed Six to forge a massive army to defend New Vegas and create his own little slice of paradise in the wasteland, free from the tyranny of the Legion or the bureaucracy of the NCR. Now, this obviously is a fuckhuge plothole since Ozpin should have recognized the Chip when he handed it to Six at the end of initiation. The simple answer is that the Chip/Relic changes form regarding the status of its rightful owner, so in the interim between the Blowout and Six's arrival on Remnant, the Chip was in a different form, but once Six actually arrived, it sort of 'woke up' and landed in his hands.

That's about enough exposition for this bit, so now, we're moving to the actual final battle.

Six poked his head outside the door of the Blackhawk, eyeing the central valley of Tenebrus, where Jinn had directed him. The land was corrupted and broken – the ground occasionally tremored with terrible force, and the flora was colored a sickly purple. Permanent sets of storm clouds constantly orbited the valley in a never-ending spiral, purple and green lightning occasionally shooting out and scorching the ground.

He had all of his weapons on him – the Mauser, the Survivalist's Rifle, his Ithaca, Sweet Revenge, and most importantly, the Katana. The four relics were contained in a separate, secure bag. He sighed once, and then signaled for the pilot to begin landing.

Allie suddenly appeared next to him. "You don't have to do this alone, Six. Ruby and the others want to help you."

Six continued looking down at the valley. "No, Allie. I have to." he said simply, before glancing at her. "This is my fight. Remnant's problems would never have happened if I had simply hunted down Khagan beforehand."

Allie looked out at the maelstrom continually forming over the valley, leaning her head against Six's shoulder. "This is goodbye, isn't it?" she said quietly, afraid of Six's answer.

Six nodded his head once calmly. "Probably. If it is, then Allie, I want you to know you were the best damned partner I've ever had. It's been one helluva journey together, and I can't imagine having done it with anyone else."

Allie remained quiet, closing her eyes. "Twenty seconds!" the pilot signaled.

Six held his right hand over Allie's left. "But if it isn't, then I'll be back for you, Allie." he said, slowly removing her chip and handing it to the Custodia for protection, as her hologram slowly faded out. "I promise."

The helicopter was hovering just off the ground in the central valley, and Six jumped out, waving the helicopter away. The pilot gave a salute as he pulled away, flying back to Vacuo. He waited for the pilot to have flown far enough away, before turning to face the proper center of the valley. It was a large, circular 'arena' of sorts – four land bridges connected it to higher ground, dangling over a pit of a churning, purple liquid that would almost certainly kill him if he as much as touched it.

Kneeling down, Six opened the bag with the relics. All four of them were gently pulsing with energies of different colors, blue, green, red, and purple. He carefully grabbed each and every one of them, setting them out in a diamond pattern as Jinn instructed. He then grabbed each of his weapons barring the katana, and set them out between each of the relics, pointing the barrels at the relics to establish a sort of infinite 'flow' from one weapon and artifact to the next. He then activated his Semblance, and the spirits of all of his weapons came out. Steven Randall tipped his hat to Six, Randall Dean Clark gave him a salute, as did the German soldier possessing the Mauser, and the shadowy spirit of his own father gave Six a knowing nod.

"Follow our lead, kid." Randall said to him as he took the katana into his own hands and held it out towards the sky. Purple lightning struck the blade, giving it a dark purple aura. Randall then knelt down and pointing the katana at his chest, impaling himself on it. He showed no signs of pain as Clark removed the katana from his chest. They repeated the process – the color of the lightning changing each and every time, from green, to blue, to orange.

The shadow of Six's own father gave him the faintest hint of a smile as he pulled the blade from his own chest and offered it to Six. He carefully took the blade, and the apparition disappeared, leaving Six alone in this barren wasteland.

Unsure of what else to do, Six tentatively raised the blade to the sky, and lightning began forming in the clouds above him. Against his better judgement, he held the blade higher, and as if the sky itself were responding to Six's challenge, brilliant white-gold lightning struck the blade, temporarily blinding Six.

When Six could finally see again several seconds later, the sword had visibly changed. The Saturnite blade now was primarily colored gold, with a silver back-edge. The handguard now bore a small crossguard in similar colors to Sweet Revenge – black with gold trimming. The Kanji near the handguard also bore a new symbol - 魂 – between the Kanji for Shadow and Burn. If Six was remembering what Allie had told him about Kanji, this meant Soul, so the Kanji should now read as 'Shadow Souls Burn'. Overall, it felt significantly lighter, enough to swing with one hand if he so chose, and each practice swing he took with the reforged weapon left behind a slight 'ring' to it.

Satisfied, Six raised the blade outwards, pointing it at himself. Kneeling down, he briefly hesitated, before calming his breathing, Six closed his eyes and plunged the blade into his chest. He felt no pain as the blade ripped through his body, but Six, and the area around him, were consumed in a bright flash of light. When it disappeared, Six, his weapons, and the artifacts, were no longer in Remnant.

Six opened his eyes to find himself in some sort of throne room. Large windows stretched high up to the ceiling, revealing a bleak, desolate hellscape not unlike the one he had just come from. The floor was obviously made of marble, but artificially changed to be almost pitch black with purple hues.

Standing up, Six looked up towards the throne and saw Khagan waiting for him. "My, my," she said in a bored tone. "I'm surprised you actually showed up. Come to finish me off out of a selfish desire for revenge, Courier Six?"

"Maybe." Six sneered. "Or maybe I'm just here to put you down in the name of every man, woman and child that you've killed, both in the Old World and the New, Khagan."

Khagan laughed briefly. "…I don't think you realize that fighting me would be an exercise in futility, so I'm going to offer you a choice." she said, standing up from her throne. Two black armored hands appeared behind Khagan, one at her calves, and the other at her neck. They pointed their index fingers at each other, and a bolt of purple lightning shot out between them, linking the two hands. The bolt then expanded out into an oval shape, with an image slowly fading in. Six immediately recognized it as the Lucky 38's cocktail lounge, but it wasn't underground – it was open air. From the little of it that was available to see, Six could also catch glimpses of the Strip's casinos and their flashing lights. "You can either return to the Mojave the way you knew it, and leave Remnant forever, or you can die. Your choice – either serves my needs."

Cautiously, Six approached the portal, familiar sounds of the Strip's everyday activity hitting him at full blast, and he could even hear some familiar voices having an argument in the background. Sounded like… Arcade and Veronica? He reached his fingertips out, and electricity formed between the tips and the portal. He then paused, remembering something Allie had told him when they were still getting their bearings on Remnant.

Quickly changing his mind, Nax sliced Khagan with the katana. Her figure was bisected, but she simply gave a smug grin as her body faded away. "So be it, Courier Six."

With speeds that shouldn't have been physically possible, Khagan's mysteryguardian landed three strong punches on Six, one in the right leg, one in the stomach, and one in the head, all without laying a finger on him. Six's leg easily snapped like a twig, and his helmet and chest armor shattered into pieces, and he flew back to the bottom of the throne. "Fucker!" Six yelled, gritting his teeth through the pain as he examined his broken leg.

"Giving up already?" Khagan taunted, re-materializing in front of Six, slowly approaching him. "A shame."

Six forced himself to stand up straight, nearly falling back over. He steeled himself, and then lunged at Khagan with the katana, but she simply faded through the attack. "This isn't a fight you can win, Courier Six." Khagan said calmly, before using her guardian to land a kick to Six's spine, shattering it and paralyzing Six from the waist down, knocking him into the wall opposite the throne. Six struggled to get back up as Khagan continued to calmly approach him.

She stopped just short of his dying body, briefly chuckling to herself. "…And to think, you were one of my greatest threats, but now you're nothing but a weakling compared to the power I've obtained."

Six glanced up at Khagan, his face bloodied and bruised, with one foot in the grave. He sneered, and spat in her face. "Go to hell." Six said, nearly falling flat from being unable to support his own weight. Khagan simply rolled her eyes, and the ghostly hand appeared beside her, striking out at Six to finish the job. Mustering the remainder of his strength, Six swung the katana to meet the strike, and, miraculously, the blade stopped the punch dead. Khagan looked at the sight with a mixture of shock and horror, while Six simply grinned ear to ear, before letting his head fall and hit the ground, making a small ripple in the pool of blood that had formed.

Khagan cautiously stared at the body. Recalling Master of the Universe, she gently nudged the body. No response.

"Better safe than sorry." Khagan thought as she raised her foot to stomp Six's head in. Dropping it down with as much force as she could put into it, she expected the satisfying sound of his brains splattering all over the floor. Instead, though, her foot stopped short, hitting a material that sounded more like hard plastic than flesh and bone. Her foot was obviously floating above Six's head, so she tried stomping again, and again, and again, and each time, her foot refused to connect.

"Having trouble there?" a familiar, ethereal voice said to her. She looked up from Six's body, and saw the two ghostly figures of the Brother-Gods hovering above him, grinning ear to ear. The God of Darkness then revealed the ruse – Six had been protected by an invisible barrier. "You don't win. Not this time, Salem." the God of Light said disdainfully, before linking hands with his brother, and then touching Six on his back. Outlines of light and shadow enveloped the three of them, flowing into Six.

"Master!" Khagan called out, and Master of the Universe came out from behind her, already slinging an impossibly fast flurry of punches at the Gods, to ill-effect. Each and every punch seemed to get deflected back to Master, and therefore, Salem, knocking her back a few meters. The grins on the Gods' faces only widened, as the outlines intensified, and Six began to glow brighter and brighter, culminating in a bright flash that blinded Salem. Using Master to overwrite her temporary blindness and react quicker, she saw Six already getting up off the ground, completely healed with his eye shut.

"…Did you really think this would be that easy, Khagan?" Six said, his tone ethereal, sounding as if a hundred clones of him were speaking in perfect unison.

Salem simply scowled at Six. "Master!" she called out, and on command, Master of the Universe charged at Six, readying the strongest punch it had.

Only for Six to simply redirect the punch into the wall and stab Master in the chest, causing black blood to spurt out from Khagan's chest. "Master, stop time!" Khagan shouted, and a bluish-purple aura flew out from Master of the Universe. Six was frozen in time for now, but Khagan didn't have a chance to dawdle around. "Smash him to pieces, Master!" Khagan ordered, and Master nodded, unleashing a flurry of punches too fast for even Khagan to keep up with, before pulling back and charging the strongest punch it had. Lunging forward, Master was about to finish Six off, when suddenly, something ethereal came from Six's chest and stopped Master's final punch dead in its tracks.

Slowly, the entity emerged. It was obviously human, and as it emerged, it pushed Master away from Six, before landing a punch clean on its face that knocked Salem to the floor. Reacting quickly, she got back to her feet, and by the time she did, the figure had fully emerged from Six's frozen body. It was tall – at least 6'5", and far more muscular than Six. It had long, flowing blonde hair that was at least waist length, and its eyes glowed a brilliant white-gold. For clothes, it wore a simple loincloth, studded fingerless gloves, gold pauldrons with silver accents, and a silver headband with a copy of the Platinum Chip where a gem would probably be stored. It was the only thing aside from herself and Master that could move under the effects of Time Stop. It then reached behind itself and touched Six, glowing around his left shoulder, and Six began to move again.

"…You have no power here, Khagan." Six said, sounding more annoyed than anything. "It's time to meet the fate that you so rightly deserve." he finished, opening his eye to reveal that it was glowing the same brilliant white-gold as the mystery entity.

Play this starting at 3:00: /watch?v=qrw3NYx2YQ0

Six began to approach Khagan, the entity's movements mimicking his own. "Master!" Khagan called out, and it attempted to strike again. Quickly choosing between Six or the entity, it chose the entity to attack first, unleashing another flurry of punches. The entity, however, calmly blocked each and every attack with its palms, before kneeing Master in the gut and landing one clean punch on its face, shattering its helmet into pieces that quickly disappeared.

Master got back up, its almost alien face now fully revealed. It raised its right hand up, and the black void formed around it, before it swiped at the air in front of it, bringing itself closer to Six and the entity. The pair were briefly caught off guard, but the entity was faster on its feat, grabbing Master by the right arm and twisting it into an unusable position, before releasing it, only to switch the now free hand to Master's throat, easily holding it in position. The entity then began to pummel and pound and smash into Master, until its head was nothing but a cracked shell bleeding black and dark purple blood.

The entity then let go of Master, and both it and Six focused their attention on Salem, who was visibly unnerved by the sight of the entity smashing Master to pieces. She rose her hand behind her and closed it into a fist, and the back of the throne room started to crumble, exposing them all to the abyssal hellscape outside. Wings then sprouted from Khagan's back, and she turned to flee.

"You can't escape me, Khagan!" Six shouted, kicking off the ground and launching himself after Khagan, the entity effortlessly mimicking his movements and having no trouble keeping pace with him, even as he was effectively flying through the air. Grabbing on to Khagan's back, Six punched and kicked her with such force that she was having trouble keeping course. The entity sped ahead of them and punched Khagan in the gut, sending her spiraling into the ground. Six managed to get himself into a position where he could kick himself up into the air off of Khagan, and did exactly that, launching himself into the waiting arms of the entity, who then spun around in the air to build enough momentum, before finally releasing Six directly above Khagan, like a cruise missile.

The impact kicked up a lot of dust in the vicinity – Six, however, despite the speed at which he hit Khagan, was completely unscathed. The same could not be said for Khagan, who was trying to crawl away from him. Six simply stomped on her back, immobilizing her, while the entity came back to the ground. Six gestured to Khagan with his head, and the entity simply smirked, before unleashing the fastest flurry of punches and kicks onto Khagan that Six had ever seen.

The entity then grabbed Khagan by the legs and began to spin around, building up momentum, before throwing her high up into the air. Six simply held the katana out as Khagan fell back to the ground, impaling herself on the blade. She scrambled to strangle Six, but he effortlessly broke her arms with two punches. Khagan's eyes were filled with a burning hatred – a hatred that Six hadn't seen in anyone before. "Bastard!" Khagan shouted, struggling against the blade as her skin began to sizzle and cook.

Six shook his head, merely annoyed with Khagan's resistance. "Burn! Die!" Khagan continued to yell, flailing on the blade. Six simply sighed at how long this was taking, and forcibly kicked Khagan off the blade and onto her feet.

…only to immediately decapitate her.

Her head flew off a short distance, and her body crumpled, before bursting into flame and turning to dust. Khagan's head shortly followed, and her ashes scattered to the winds of whatever plane of existence he was on.

Immediately, Six felt lightheaded, before collapsing.

That's the final fight with Salem/Khagan in regards to what I have written down in my notes. Like I said, the fight doesn't do Master of the Universe or Khagan/Salem proper justice. Had I decided to continue writing Grimm Retreat, this fight probably would have been a lot beefier.

Skipping ahead to the ending and the epilogue now.

Play the Midnight version of Never Forget from Halo 4

Six woke up to find himself in his bed in the Lucky 38's Presidential Suite. He pulled the sleeves on his duster back and found that he had numerous scars and healed bruises, all along his arms. Peaking down his shirt, he also saw that his torso was heavily scarred. He was briefly confused, and then he remembered the fight with Khagan, and he had passed out.

"Six! Oh, my god!" a familiar voice said to him, and Allie materialized on the bed, hugging him as tight as she could for a hologram. "I thought you'd died!"

Six 'hugged' her back as best he could. "I don't intend on dying on you, Allie." he said calmly as Allie began to quietly cry.

Their reunion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the Brother Gods at his bedside. "Greetings, Courier Six." the God of Light said to him, his voice sounding much more polite and calm than before.

"Hello, Six." the God of Darkness greeted informally.

The two of them looked slightly different – the God of Light had a white-gold glow to him now, and had what seemed to be antlers on top of his head, while the God of Darkness had what looked like the horns of a ram protruding from his head. "…Do you still need something from me?" Six tentatively asked as Allie let go of him, falling next to him in bed.

"No." the God of Light said. "We're actually here to do something for you. As payment for finally ending Salem's threat, and effectively uniting humanity, we would like to offer you a gift of our power. The two of us will give you two wishes each. We don't expect you to have anything in mind right now, but if you do, please name your wish."

Six nodded once in understanding. "I have two wishes, actually."

"Name them." the God of Light advised, waiting for Six's input.

Six briefly entertained the idea of resurrecting team JAMI, but eventually decided against it. Bringing back the dead just seemed… wrong to him, somehow. "…The first one; I want you to restore my limbs and my left eye to before they were dismembered and shot out."

"And the second?" the God of Darkness asked.

"Make Allie human."

Allie shot up from her resting position next to Six. "What?! You're going to use a wish on me?!" Allie said, shocked.

Six glanced back at her. "Of course, Allie. When I make a promise, I keep it." he said, before turning to the Gods.

"Consider it done." they said in unison, snapping their fingers and causing a bright light to spring out from them. Six was temporarily blinded by this, but when it cleared after he rubbed his eye enough, he felt… whole again. He could feel the leather of his gloves against his hands, and, believing he had been hallucinating it, pulled them off.

Only to find his natural, human hands under them, instead of the mechanical ones he had installed after Frosthill. Realizing what had just happened, he pulled his eyepatch off, finding himself able to see from his left eye again, for the first time in years. "…I… I can see out of my left eye again." Six stammered, touching his left eye. Everything had been restored to its original state.

He then glanced over to see Allie staring at him.

She wasn't transparent.

"…Allie?" Six said quietly as Allie reached out to touch him. Her hand actually connected with him, and Allie yipped back in fear. "…Allie, you're… you're real?" he said, sounding confused, even though this was his wish.

She tried to gently reach out again, touching Six's face. "…You're so warm, Six. Is this what being human feels like?"

Six held Allie's hand against his face. "…Feels great, doesn't it?" Six said. Allie smiled and nodded once, before slapping Six across the face. "Ow! What was that for?!" he yelped.

"That's for all the times you nearly got us killed." Allie said, before leaping onto Six, kissing him. They stayed like that for a short while, and then Allie pulled back. "…And that's for keeping your promise to me, Six."

Pulling her into the strongest hug he could reasonably give her, Six felt tears begin to run down his cheek – both his own, and Allie's. "…Thank you so much, Six." Allie said, quietly overjoyed at her new life. Six tightened his grip on her – now that he could physically feel Allie in his arms, he never, ever wanted to let go of her. She was too precious for that.

Six shut his eyes as he pulled Allie in closer, finally feeling like he was at peace with himself for the first time in his life.

FIVE YEARS AFTER KHAGAN'S DEATH

Standing on the new balcony of the Lucky 38's penthouse, Nax watched the sun set in the distance. If you'd never known what Vacuo was like, you'd have always assumed it looked this way – what with its rolling grassy plains and lush forests. The terraforming project with the recovered equipment from Big Mountain had gone beautifully. What once was a harsh, hellish desert wasteland was now as habitable as any other part of the world. There were no Grimm to harass Vegas – they had all been exterminated after an extensive campaign. The CCT System had all been moved up into orbit, too, ensuring that what happened at Beacon could never happen again.

Vegas itself had been unearthed and revealed to the surface for the first time in thousands of years using experimental technology from Big Mountain. For the first time in human history, both in the Old Worlds, and in the New, humanity was at peace.

Nax felt a cool breeze run across his face, and he pulled out the photo Julius had handed to him years ago. It was a picture of team JAMI and himself, posing with their gear after a mission. All of them were smiling, living the carefree lives that they had led. All of them except for himself, standing stoically in the background. He sighed, and felt a pair of hands wrap themselves around his stomach. Nax turned, and saw Allie behind him, quietly hugging him. She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes seeming like they were shimmering in the evening lighting, and she smiled warmly.

Nax smiled back, and pulled her closer to the railing, minding her pregnant belly. He held her close to him. Some might call it being overprotective, but Nax had seen enough horrors in this world – he didn't want his wife to become one of them.

"Mooommy!" a young girl called from inside the Penthouse. The source of the voice ran outside – she was a young girl, around five years old, with short, white hair, with a braid wrapping around the back of her head, and she had a little pink bow in her hair. She was wearing nothing more than her pajamas.

"Yes, Aqui? Is something wrong?" Allie asked, taking on her maternal tone of voice.

Aqui pointed back inside the penthouse. "Julius is sleeping on my bed again, and he won't move!" she cried, little tears forming around her steely grey eyes. "He's so mean!"

Nax and Allie exchanged a look as the latter went over to comfort their daughter. "It's just how he is, honey." she said, petting her head before picking her up. "Your father and I will have to talk to him, won't we?" she said, turning back to look at Nax, who gave her a nod in response. All three of them headed back inside for the night.

End.

I'd advise you to throw on "Here's to you, Nicola and Bart" while you read this big fuck off wall of text.

That's the end of Grimm Retreat as I have it written down in my notes. Those are literally all of the key moments I had planned, which, retrospectively, probably would have meant there was a gonna be a lot of filler. Now, I'd like to take a moment to address some potential questions you may have regarding the story.

Q. Where was Team RWBY/RNJR/fucking whoever during the planned second act?

A. Assume they're mostly continuing with the main RWBY storyline – I never actually wrote any material down for what would happen with the canon characters, as I had planned to drop the baggage of the official story and write my own thing.

Q. I seem to remember the Brother Gods mentioning something about Six's fate being tied with Ruby's. Whatever happened to that?

A. I pulled an Araki and forgot about that plotline. Or I was talking out of my ass and trying to seem deep. I forget, but since it was before I had decided to stop following the official storyline, I assume I had something planned for it.

Q. What happened to the Think Tank?

A. That's an open-ended question that I'm intentionally leaving that way. They could be alive, or they could all be dead. I originally planned a scene with them for the second act where Six and the cult would get into Big Mountain to fix shit, and they'd encounter the Think Tank who were a big metallic cube of murderdeathfuck that had all been driven insane. The answer to this also ties into something further below, which is actually one of the most important parts of why I'm updating.

Q. Did you have any alternate scenes planned?

A. Yes, several of them actually. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but Julius was originally supposed to suddenly feel weak after killing Roman, and then get pushed off of the Battlecruiser by a fucking gust of wind. I cut this because that is anticlimactic as FUCK. There was also supposed to be an ending where Six, after teaming up with Atlas to fight off Khagan/Salem, would've been double-crossed by Ironwood and shot to death, set to the tune of the same song you should be listening to right now. This ending never materialized because Six had suffered enough, and I wanted him to have a happy ending after all the shit he went through. I'd probably never forgive myself if I fucked him over at the end.

Q. How long did it take to make this?

A. The document was originally created on December 30, 2018, which was when it was just Chapter 13 and not the end of Grimm Retreat. As you all surely remember, I quickly cancelled this after posting Pulsar Company since I have the attention span of a fucking goldfish, and also because I'm not a fan of RWBY anymore. The document stayed untouched until around August, when I finally got my ass in gear and began writing this nearly 30k word document down.

If you have any other questions you may want to ask me regarding Grimm Retreat, my inbox is always open for messages. I'll happily answer any questions you may have regarding the story.

Now, on to the most important part of this entire spiel – I'm authorizing anyone who wants to write something within Grimm Retreat's continuity to be able to do so freely. If you want to take up the torch and fully write out the entire story of Grimm Retreat using what I've said and these highlights, you've got my blessing to do so.

If you saw something that really pissed you off and you wanted changed, you can totally write that out and change it, no need to ask me for permission.

If you want to insert your own characters into the story, go nuts.

Grimm Retreat represents a significant portion of how I've grown as a fanfic writer. From the godawful original version that I've cast into the void, to the vastly improved rewrite, and even now, it's a big influence on how I perceive writing stories. I truly, honestly never expected Grimm Retreat to get to where it was, and this is my way of giving back to the community.

I just have one request from anyone who actually takes me up on this – write your stories under the label Grimm Retreat Project. Hell, if someone could make a community and categorize these stories under it, that would probably be even better.

Anyways, that's all I have for, well, shit, everything. If you're interested in what I'm writing now, that would be The Rise of Pulsar Company, a Star Wars fanfic that tells its own story separate from the movies.

Thank you all for everything. I genuinely appreciate it.

-Tweak