Beta-ed by xenosaiyan

"That lady is… very scary."

"Seeing as she killed us the last time we fought, that is a fair assertion."

Oscar gulped, not the least bit reassured. His part in the plan had gone off perfectly. Since Salem's forces had no idea he existed, he would, with help from Nora's invisibility and the Shield of Memory's ability to contain near anything including his scent, he would be able to act as a surprise element to throw off End's plans at a crucial moment. When Wendy's tracking enchantment had warned them that Cinder was camped out atop the tower overlooking the main hall, and Happy was quite conspicuously orbiting the other side, it hadn't been difficult for either Ruby or Ozpin to figure out their enemies were planning a pincer attack.

Happy was dangerous, but Cinder was both the Fall Maiden and a Gate. Plus, if Pyrrha was given a reason to pay even the slightest attention to her… suffice to say, Oscar knew where he needed to be. And he was right. His use of the Shield of Memory and the Arc of Time had kept the enemy's arrows from leveling Ruby and the others' left flank. He'd done his job and prevented End's trap from closing on the others.

Unfortunately, that meant the black-haired vixen with eyes made of golden hellfire was now entirely focused on him.

Oscar gulped, unable to keep his knees from trembling as Cinder's palpable killing intent washed over him and froze his soul. She hadn't even really attacked him yet, and he was already breaking down. How the heck was he supposed to actually fight her?!

"Calm yourself, Oscar," Ozpin soothed him. "You can handle this."

"Didn't you just say that she killed you? And she was just a maiden then?!"

"My former body had a far smaller origin. Even with The Long Memory, I simply couldn't keep up with her raw power. You can! And must, right now!"

Oscar had barely blinked before the reason for Ozpin's urgency made itself known. Cinder had already sent another hail of fifteen arrows hurtling downrange, this time all directed straight at him. With the sheer amount of magic packed into each of them, he'd be amazed if the explosions they caused were smaller than houses.

To think she could do this as many times as she wanted for as long as she wanted? Oscar and Pyrrha had learned how to pace themselves and ration the initial horde of ethernano their origins held before a battle, since the density of the particle around them was so thin and the recharge rate so slow. But just like Raven, Cinder was absolutely overflowing with magic power, spilling mountains of excess into the surrounding atmosphere. She'd never have to worry about running out of fuel in a fight. She was an endless well of weaponry!

Fortunately, an unlimited storm of weapons meant little against a shield that could not be pierced.

Oscar gripped The Long Memory tight and thrust the cane into the ground once more. The dome of emerald energy flared to life around him, the hexagons of magic crackling in the midst of the night air.

Ten of Cinder's glass arrows slammed into the barrier, each one erupting in a titanic explosion, the ground around the dome shuddering from the impacts, the smoke clouding Oscar's vision.

However, that still left five arrows unaccounted for. Oscar flared his magic and used Flashforward to clear the smoke away near immediately (Pyrrha had made clear how crucial it was to keep your opponent in your sight during battle). When he regained his visible capabilities, he quickly spotted the molten projectiles embedded in the stone surrounding his energy shield.

The farm boy cocked an eyebrow. After all the terrifying things he'd heard about Cinder Fall, she didn't seem the type to miss with a full third of her barrage. Something was up.

"Oscar! Get in the air!"

Not knowing why the wizard in his head was so worried, but knowing that the old man had fought their enemy before, Oscar did just that, lowering the Shield of Memory so he could leap back He reformed it as soon as his feet left the ground, just in time to deflect a pair of arrows Cinder had fired at him in that brief opening.

In those same few seconds, her real plan made itself known, the five arrows she'd embedded in the pavement glowing orange and implanting blazing sigils across the stone.

Oscar's eyes widened, his hand shooting forward. "Flashfor—"

He wasn't fast enough. The very ground exploded and slammed the young farm boy with a torrent of raging fire, leaving him with only enough time to understand his opponent's move.

The Shield of Memory was impenetrable, but when formed while Oscar was standing on the ground, it took form as a dome that stopped at his feet instead of the completely encompassing orb it shaped itself as when airborne. Cinder, likely having noticed the difference during her duel with Ozpin in the Beacon Vault, had disregarded trying to break through with brute force, instead ignited the ground to bypass the barrier entirely.

Ozpin's attentiveness allowed him to escape into the air, but that didn't stop the explosion. And since he was no longer grounded, the force of the blast sent him flying back.

The Shield of Memory kept him from being injured, but he still crashed through the side of Haven's great hall like a wrecking ball. He flickered off his mystical barrier and let Pyrrha and Scarlet's training kick in, rolling with the rain of wooden splinters and managing to use the momentum to come up on his knees. Even then though, the young wizard panted hard, keenly aware that all eyes in the room were on him.

"Who the hell is that?" a girl with green hair and dark skin, Emerald Sustrai if he had to guess, asked.

"Oscar!" Ruby shouted. "Are you okay?!"

"Oscar?" a man with pink hair and devil horns muttered, his hellish eyes narrowing at the farm boy and the cane in his grip. "Well, well. I didn't expect you to reincarnate that quickly, old man."

The time wizard paid him no heed, his frantic hazel eyes locked on the massive hole his arrival had left in the wall of the building, and more importantly, who could be seen through it.

Cinder's move was simple, but brutally effective. Either Oscar could have kept his position on the ground and tried to dissipate the arrows with his magic before they exploded, in which case she could forgo the now known to be ineffective smokescreen to devote her entire volley to superheating the pavement, or he could do what he did and fall back, in which case he could be forced into the hall with the rest of his allies. Either way, the archer cleared the way to launch a true bombardment against the hall, since there was no way End was going to just let Oscar resume his previous position. She was a cunning opponent.

Which made the farm boy all the more terrified when Pyrrha stared through the new hole at her, the champion's emerald eyes widening, and her fists clenching at her sides.

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Cinder smirked as Ozpin went flying back into the great hall. The old man's new body may have been able to stockpile far more magic than his old one, but its reflexes were slower. It may have been much younger than his headmaster form, but it was too young, the boy not having reached anywhere close to his prime yet. The ancient warrior's skills would only mean so much if he had limited means with which to execute them.

Of course, even if he had his old body's skill and his new body's origin, he still wouldn't have been able to defeat her. She'd killed him as a maiden. She could slaughter him as a Gate.

But, through the gaping hole she'd knocked him through, she now had a far better view of what exactly was going on inside. How Emerald was no longer masquerading as Yang, and Mercury was nowhere to be seen. The real Fire Devil Slayer's power, obviously no longer nullified by her seal stone, was raging through the school towards the sparring arena, their real hostage lost and their illusionary one revealed. Meanwhile, Lord End's attention was on Ozpin and not on Raven Branwen.

The Spring Maiden didn't have a dust blade, but she was not unarmed as the Ophiuchus had expected. And if she was not unarmed, she would only need the slightest distraction to form a portal and escape. Her power would escape!

Oh, and the Relic of Knowledge would slip through their fingers. That too.

Cinder would not stand by and provide 'cover fire' while the maiden powers slipped through Lord End's fingers. She took a running start and leapt off the tower, throwing out her hands behind her and unleashing jets of flame from her palms and the soles of her feet. The was propelled through the air, jetting through the hole she'd made with Ozpin and streaking straight for Branwen.

At least, until a redhead encased in golden light slammed into her side.

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On one hand, their situation had improved from what they'd thought it was. Yang might have been isolated and fighting for her life against Mercury, but she wasn't a hostage anymore. And thanks to her dynamic entrance, they now knew that Ozpin's initial suspicions had been correct, and that Headmaster Lionheart really was a traitor. Granted, that wasn't good news in and of itself, but it meant their enemies didn't have any more leverage over them.

On the other hand, Ruby was very much aware that they were still in big trouble. When End had fired off his blue flame bullet, dozens of masked White Fang goons had charged through the courtyard, all of them making for the wide-open doors of the hall. The fact that the left wall remained standing indicated that Oscar successfully protected them from Cinder's explosive bombardment, but the group were still kept from taking up any defensive formation as Happy's electric sniper rounds cracked through the right side of the building.

Raven's eyes flared with the maiden's power, black storm clouds gathering overhead. The former bandit queen thrust out her arm, a volley of lightning bolts crashing down from the heavens to smite the oncoming faunus. The horde wasn't completely destroyed, but their charge was shattered, their momentum broken as they descended into more of an unruly mob than disciplined warriors. That bought them time, especially if some tempestuous hazard was hindering Happy as well.

Unfortunately, that time was taken up when Oscar came crashing through the left side of the hall, the Shield of Memory keeping him from injury even as he tumbled across the floor.

End… was not pleased to see him, instantly identifying him as Ozpin's reincarnation from The Long Memory. Ruby and her friends circled up, Emerald ducking to the side as the Ophiuchus curled his arm behind his back, a sapphire inferno blazing over his flesh. Apparently, Salem's nemesis was not a target he was willing to go easy on, and not even the Shield of Memory could stop his flames.

However, they were spared grievous injury to violent death by, ironically enough, Cinder.

The Fall Maiden soared through the hole, flying straight for Raven. But her flight path was interrupted when Pyrrha set herself ablaze with golden light and rocketed into her with Meteor, catching the black-haired woman in her underside and bashing her down to the floor just in front of Oscar.

"Cinder! What are you doing?!" End roared, forced to hold back his flames or risk hitting his ally. He bent his legs and started marching towards them. "Get out of the way—"

Ruby's eyes widened, realizing the opening for what it was, praying that her fellow team leader recognized it as well. Fortunately, if there was one thing Jaune had gotten quite good at, it was scrambling for his life.

The blonde huntsman thrust out his hands and as soon as End brought down his foot, he found he'd stepped on an ankh shield rather than the floor. The flame demon cocked an eyebrow at the unusual occurrence but had no more time to react further before another golden barrier slammed into his side. The two mystical layers streaked through the air and hefted the Ophiuchus through the left wall, chucking him out of the hall and into the courtyard.

Ruby grinned at her first friend. "Nice!"

"Thanks!" Jaune gulped. "Any chance that hurt him… at all?"

"Nope."

"Figured." He whirled around. "Pyrrha! I need you to back me up until Wendy—"

"AAAHHHHH!"

Ruby flinched at the Mistral champion's guttural roar. She was rather sure the redhead didn't hear Jaune in the slightest.

Pyrrha surrounded her Styx armor with the black aura of her semblance and fell to the ground like a golden comet, her left foot falling in an axe kick that would have crushed Cinder's head like a grape if the Gate hadn't dodged to the side. Even still, a crater broke out across the floor from the point of impact.

Cinder rolled through her dodge to flip onto her feet. As she did, she swung her arms around, long, sharp bone tendrils breaking out from her hands, tendrils that she quickly set on fire. The Fall Maiden spun around and whipped her flaming lashes through the air, smacking Pyrrha to the ground and forcing the rest of the party to leap back.

White light flashed over Ruby and she requiped her Reaper's Rose. She fired back her sniper rifle and blasted towards the Gate, Uncle Qrow covering her and deflecting Emerald's attempt to shoot her flank. The Fairy Tail wizard pulled back her scythe, ready to deliver a brutal slash to The Fall Maiden.

Unfortunately, before she could dissipate into rose petals, bracing shock slammed into her back. Ruby crashed to the floor, electricity coursing over her aura. It seemed whatever hazards Raven had thrown at Happy had not prevented the Exceed from sniping his guildmate through the wall, likely with the same device that had let him aim through the smoke at Oniyuri. The silver-eyed girl staggered back to her knees, unable to engage Cinder before the Gate made her move.

The golden-eyed woman seized the opportunity, unleashing jets of fire from her feet and ramming straight into Raven, slicing through the meager wall of ice the Spring Maiden attempted to shield herself with. Cinder trapped the former bandit's sword arm in her left hand while she lifted her into the air by her throat with her right.

"You have something of mine," Cinder growled, stomping over to the entrance to the Vault of the Spring Maiden. "I'll be taking it. And the relic."

"Meteor!"

Whatever other evil gloating Cinder had in store was summarily cut off when Pyrrha shot back to her feet, rocketed through the same path the demon woman had, and tackled her in a flash of black and gold. Both wizards, plus Raven, tumbled into the elevator under the staircase, the platform melting under their combined power as they plummeted into the Vault of the Spring Maiden.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune shouted, his hand outstretched towards his disappeared girlfriend.

Unfortunately, they were far from out of danger. Emerald kicked Qrow away and lunged for the distracted huntsman, twirling as her sickles swung for his unguarded throat. Ren unleashed a spray of dust rounds while Nora came in with Magnhild from the side, both desperate to defend their leader.

But they did nothing. Both the low caliber ammunition and the enormous warhammer slipped off Emerald's spinning form, seemingly bouncing off a thin layer of mucus setting over the thief's skin without even scratching her. The green-haired girl blew past them, her blade streaking for Jaune—

-Only to be repulsed as Oscar dashed in front and sprouted the Shield of the Memory in her path. Emerald bounded over the glowing energy dome, crossing her weapons in front of the entrance of the Vault of the Spring Maiden.

"No one's getting in here," the Gate proclaimed.

"Says you!" Nora yelled.

Jaune stalked forward with his sword and shield raised. "You're not going to keep us from Pyrrha—"

"Jaune!" Ruby shouted, her friends glancing towards her. "The plan!"

"What?!" Nora exclaimed. "But Ruby, Pyrrha and Raven are stuck with Cinder—"

"And we'll all be dead if End gets back in here!" Ruby reminded them. "Jaune, we need to keep him isolated—"

"I know!" Jaune snapped back. The blond huntsman's hands clenched around his weapons' grip. He glanced at Oscar. "Help her."

The farm boy nodded, his face turned to steel as he readied The Long Memory to clear the way to his teacher. "On it."

Jaune gave him a friendly smack on the back and then dashed out the hole he'd thrown End through, and towards the fight of his life.

Ruby frowned. She didn't like sending Jaune to face the Ophiuchus alone, especially with Pyrrha and Raven in need of help, but she didn't have a choice. If they let him reunite with the rest of his team, he would be able to work with them to defeat the young huntsmen and huntresses without risk of killing them. By keeping him separate, they bought themselves time to handle the rest of their enemies. That's why the plan had been for Jaune and Wendy, the two whose magics were best suited to counter a fire wizard, to stall him. But without the Maiden of the Sky's power to back him up… was she sending her first friend to his death?

No. She couldn't think like that. She was their group's leader. She didn't know why exactly, Jaune, Ozpin, and Qrow were all perfectly viable choices, but everyone seemed to defer to her, counting on her to at least guide them towards their next move. And sometimes, being a leader meant sending a friend into a fight you didn't know if they were ready for. But, one of the many things she'd learned about leadership from Erza was that if you always had faith in your friends, they would do their jobs and then some.

Jaune would keep End off the rest of them. Wendy and Carla would arrive in time to back them up, with either Erza or Scarlet. Meanwhile, she had to help the rest of their friends the best she could.

"Ren!" she called. "Go after Yang! If Mercury's a Gate, she's gonna need backup!"

Both he and Nora cocked an eyebrow at her command, but they trusted her enough that they nodded right after. Which was good, because she didn't have time to explain the situation to them or the danger of their present opponent.

While it was certain that Yang would need backup against Mercury, the primary purpose was to get Ren away from Emerald. When the green-haired thief had masquerade as Ruby's sister, she'd been a perfect copy. Her looks, her movements, even her magical signature were just like the Fire Devil Slayer. There was only one being the red hooded huntress knew who could copy someone's power like that.

And if Emerald really did have a similar ability to Gemini, then they could not let her touch and copy Ren. Crash Magic plus the magical reservoir of a Gate? Ruby had never met Gildarts Clive herself, but she had no desire to fight someone with the Ace of Fairy Tail's powers.

Ren shot a loving look towards Nora and dashed for the stairwell. Emerald whipped her sickle towards him, the chain connecting the blade to the hilt actually being lit up by familiar pink fire, but Oscar managed to put himself between the thief and the huntsman, the Shield of Memory flaring to life to halt her assault. Not even copying Yang's Devil Slayer flames would break through that.

Though, as long as Oscar was within it, he couldn't move to protect Ren from another angle.

A trio of cracks split the air and a trio of lightning dust rounds burst through the roof and crashed into the green-robed huntsman's back. Ren screamed in pain as he fell to his knees, electricity surging over his crackling aura.

Fortunately, the sound of Ren suffering was the surest way to summon his angry girlfriend. Nora bolted across the floor and stood over her partner like an immovable giant. Half a dozen more lightning dust shots cracked against her, the orange-haired huntress's grin only growing as sparks glinted across her bulging muscles.

"Would you stop shooting her with lightning?!" Emerald shouted to the ceiling.

Ruby shifted Crescent Rose into sniper rifle mode and raised it towards the holes on the right side of the hall. Tracking the angle of the barrage raining down on Nora back to its origin, she fired off a quick burst of rounds into the sky. She doubted any of them actually hit Happy, she didn't have whatever tool or skill he was using to aim through walls, but the cluster of shots must have gotten close enough to startle him, since he paused his attack.

By the time her gaze flickered back to the action, Oscar and Nora had engaged Emerald in a frantic struggle, while Ren was nowhere to be seen, probably hidden by his girlfriend's invisibility magic and on his way to Yang.

Qrow came up beside her and glared at the ceiling. "They seem to have things well in hand here. What do you say you and I go skin a cat?"

"I'll handle Happy," Ruby argued. She hefted a finger towards the main doors. "I need you to handle that."

Raven's lightning blasts had battered the White Fang force, but they were hardly broken. Outside, the swarm of terrorists were slowly regrouping, rallying around two fox faunus back into a cohesive fighting force.

Her uncle frowned. Each of the faunus warriors might not have been as powerful as a wizard or demon, but there were a lot of them, and it would only take a single lucky strike to kill Ruby and her friends. They couldn't deal with the terrorist horde when they were fighting for their lives against the Gates.

Qrow sighed. "I can go airborne. You can't. You sure you don't want to switch?"

"Positive. My armor will give me mobility, Crescent Rose can easily match his range, and this time he doesn't have any smoke cover to hide behind," Ruby replied. However, a frown soon crossed her face as she eyed the approaching White Fang. "What about you? There's an army of them."

"One army," Qrow shrugged. "I'll make do."

Ruby gulped but nodded. "Happy hunting, Uncle Qrow."

"Heh. You too, squirt."

The two scythe wielders split up, the older shapeshifting into a crow and flying towards the main entrance while the younger bounded off the pillars bordering the room. Ruby transformed into rose petals and soared through one of the gaping holes in the wall and up to the roof of the Haven main hall.

From there, on the edge of on high, she caught glimpses of End bearing down Jaune in the left courtyard and her uncle diving into scores of White Fang. She wished she could be down there with both of them, in two places at once, fighting by their sides. Instead, she had to send them into battle alone, trust that they would be able to handle the tasks she handed them.

Meanwhile, she had to shoot down a friend.

Happy shot her a forlorn smile from above, his rifle hanging at his large form's hip. "I really wish we didn't have to do this."

"Yeah," Ruby responded. "Me too."

She cocked Crescent Rose just as the Exceed aimed his Buster Sword. The sniper launched their opening shots at the exact same time.

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'I need you to handle that.' Ha! Since when had he started taking orders from his pipsqueak of a niece?

Qrow couldn't help but grin (well, he would be grinning in his human form. His bird form didn't have lips to grin with) at how far Ruby had come since she'd first came to him all those years ago begging to be taught how to properly wield a scythe. No hint of that nervous little girl who'd pulled down her hood at the first hint of screwing up now. No, now she was stalwart, determined, and ready for battle, sorting out which of them was needed where the same way she picked which of her weapons was best suited for the challenge at hand. She was shaping up to be as fine a leader as Summer ever was. If only her mother could have lived to see it.

Well, no time for wistful what-ifs. He had work to do.

Part of which wished he'd been assigned Happy. He'd been dealing the furball for years and knew his fighting style well. But while he was eager to settle the score, his chief concern was that Ruby's feelings for who the demon cat once was would keep her from going all out against him. And that could cost her dearly.

But then another, treacherous, part of his mind protested that Ruby was a wizard. A real wizard, who could summon weapons from another dimension and fire silver laser beams from her eyes and mouth. Not a washed up drunk with a cheap parlor trick like him. She was more than capable of taking care of herself.

Meanwhile, he was left to use his parlor trick to handle what he could.

He flew into the mess of White Fang grunts, most of the masked terrorists still yammering about how a dozen of their number had just been struck by lightning. Qrow didn't know if these bastards were any more religious than the rest of the world, but if they hadn't been filled in on the whole 'magic' situation beforehand, suddenly getting blasted from the heavens would rattle anyone. The only reason the nutjobs hadn't already broken and ran was a pair of fox faunus who'd wadded into the middle of the pack, shouting and rallying the rest of the troop while waving their daggers in the air.

"Brothers! Brothers! Calm yourselves!" the one with long ears clamored. "Our enemy is still ahead! There is justice still to be done!"

"We cannot falter!" the one with a bushy tail yelled. "Together, we shall bring the screaming hammer of vengeance down on Haven—"

Oh, for crying out loud. Do people really buy this crap?

Still, when killing a King Taijitu, you had to start with one of the heads. And Qrow was pretty sure he'd found them.

He fluttered behind them as a crow and transformed into a human between them. The fox twins didn't have time to wonder why the faunus around them had suddenly gasped before he unfurled Harbinger into its scythe form and smacked the both of them to the ground, only their auras saving them from being sliced in half.

Qrow smirked at the swarm of masked terrorists. "Hello there."

"Human!" One of the grunts shouted.

"Blast him!" Another roared, raising his rifle.

Qrow activated his magic and morphed back into a bird just in time for a dozen faunus to fire a volley into where he had been, their bullets spraying into their fellow terrorists. Some were killed, some were injured, and all were disoriented by the sudden onset of friendly fire. Whatever order the fox twins had managed to restore was instantly shattered, returning their forces to a disorderly, terrified mob. A situation that was helped by the fact that some of these faunus had night vision and caught a hint of his avian form's sheen against the pitch-black sky.

"A bird!"

"Where did he go?!"

"A bird! He turned into a bird!"

"What?! That's impossible! No semblance can do that!"

"There he is! He's back!"

"A bird! He can turn into a bird!"

Qrow grinned. Okay, his parlor trick was still pretty cool. Helped that he had a few decades learning how to wield it. Not use it but wield it. Wield the shock and fear it instilled, appearing and disappearing within the White Fang's ranks at will, slaughtering a group, increasing the rest's terror, and vanishing again before anyone could truly get their bearings.

Grimm didn't have fear. They didn't panic or falter. They were pure killing machines. But people? Qrow had been killing people since he was a kid. He had it down to a science. He'd once been ashamed of that. He still was, in some ways. But working for Ozpin, fighting to destroy Salem, that let him use his skills for a good cause, use what he was good at to help others. And he was very good at it.

Like he told Ruby, it was only one army. He'd be fine.

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As much as Mercury hated to admit it, Yang was pretty much a one-woman army.

After he'd landed his opening shot and blasted her through the wall, the red-eyed wizard had been on him like a mad dog. Her twin flames claws tore through everything in sight, ravaging a trail of ash and melted steel behind her as she stampeded after him throughout the school. Her movements were off-balance, obviously still adjusting to the loss of weight due to her newly absent left hand, but there was so much raw power behind each blow that it was still a gamble to get close for a strike.

The black tattoo riving down her side wasn't just for aesthetics. It was her Full Demon Form, a Devil Slayer's equivalent to the Dragonforce that Wendy had used to clean Cinder's clock at Beacon. Already, he could see the signs of his prosthetic legs straining under the sheer, hellish heat that she was putting out. Her fire arms were difficult to predict as well, lacking the typical anatomy that would enable an experienced fighter to narrow down what angle they might attack from. She'd be a force to be reckoned with for any hand-to-hand fighter, enough that Mercury was fairly certain that he couldn't take her in his base state.

Of course, he was hardly restricted to his base form. Or blundering against her like a raging bull. An assassin wasn't restricted to killing just those he was stronger than. He just needed to be smart about it.

And Mercury had been taught to be very smart. He'd spent his time at Haven familiarizing himself with the academy's layout and picking out the perfect area for his curse to take effect. During the entirety of his retreat, smirking at Yang and dancing around half her attacks to inflame her already blazing fury, he led her by a string exactly where he wanted to go.

Until at last, he leapt across the stands and landed with a crouch in the middle of Haven's sparring arena, which was littered with craters and one small hill.

A smart fighter would have kept the high ground of the stands and battered him with ranged attacks, which he knew his opponent had from their fight in the Vytal Festival, but Yang was far too enraged to think of something like strategy. The flaming she-devil launched herself over the railing and hurled herself at her silver-haired foe, an inferno of pink flare building in her maw.

"Fire Devil's Rage!"

The same rush of hellish flames that had blown Mercury away on Amity Coliseum blazed towards him once again, even larger and hotter than before. But this time, his reflexes were a dozen times sharper and he easily cartwheeled to the side of the blast. Simultaneously, he flicked out his hand, a series of small droplets of black water pooling across his skin and shooting through the air like a bullet.

Expertly angled along the edge of the Fire Devil's Rage, the aqua bullet smacked into Yang's forehead. The shot crashed against her aura and knocked her even further off-balance, the rampaging wizard tumbling across the crater, though she managed to stagger to her feet nonetheless. The blonde wizard winced, clutching at her cauterized left stump.

Mercury chuckled. "So, out of curiosity, how would you rate the pain of losing your hands? Cause me losing my legs was probably, I don't know, a seven? Seven and a half? Used to be higher but going through the Ascension Chamber really puts one's idea of pain into perspective."

"Shut up," Yang growled, breathing hard as she clutched her missing hand. Anger would only carry her so far. Eventually, the pain of her wounds would catch up with her, sap her strength instead of pushing her higher. "I'm going to pound you into paste."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Mercury replied. "This isn't like last time, blondie. I may not be allowed to kill you, but I'm not under any orders to let you win."

"Brave words from a coward," the Devil Slayer mocked. "Hard to do much fighting when you're too busy running away!"

Mercury's eyes narrowed, for once filled not with playful, calculated taunting, but cold, piercing contempt.

This was the girl that Salem had sent the book to? The one she had deemed worthy of being given magic? The one she was so set on making a Gate when she'd never even met her? Someone whose stupidity had taken both her arms from her and yet adamantly refused to learn anything? At the risk of sounding like Cinder, why?

"You really have learned nothing since Beacon," he noted with a scowl. "You're so concerned with bulldozing your way into a battle, you completely miss any shred of common sense of how to win a war."

"Win a war?" Yang scoffed, gathering herself back into a ready stance. "Please. You're a terrorist. You don't know the first thing about fighting a war, protecting others!"

"I've been fighting a war my entire life! For me! Because no one else cared to help!" Mercury shouted, a livid wrath surging within him that he hadn't felt since he put his father in the ground, flooding his senses, the demonic hunter tied to his being baying for blood. "But that's fine. I don't need anyone in my corner. I don't want it. I've had to struggle and fight and suffer for every scrap of power I have and it's made me strong. Stronger than you could ever hope to be, even if you do take the Queen's offer."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Yeah. I'll keep in mind how great being Salem's attack dog is when I'm kicking your ass."

She plunged her claws into the rock of the crater floor and flung herself forward, her twin purple flame arms ready to tear him apart.

They'd never reach him. She'd lost the moment she entered the sparring arena, fallen right into his trap.

"Eclipse Etherious Form."

Demonic and celestial power exploded throughout his veins, the aquatic hunter freed from his chains at last. Mercury gritted his teeth, even as their flat surfaces sharpened until they were finer than the most exquisite knives, enduring the pain as his flesh warped and mutated into a form capable of wielding his full strength.

Every inch of his skin darkened to a mix of silver and purple, scales tougher than most metals sprouting over his chest along with a set of holes in his flesh. His arms, already toned from years of brutal training, bulged with muscle and definition, a pair of razor-sharp triangular fins protruding out of his first set forearms. His second set of arms, one gray and the other navy blue, tore out of his body just beneath the pits of his upper limbs, spindly, flexible webbing threaded between their fingers. The final touch was a trio of dorsal fins that burst out from his upper back.

Yang's crimson eyes barely had time to widen before Mercury threw his head to the sky, all his agony poured into a single roar and the curse it wrought.

"Dark Deluge!"

A flood of pitch-black water erupted from the Gate of the Twin Fish and slammed into Yang, drowning the Devil Slayer and instantly quenching her flame arms. The blonde wizard spasmed against the rushing waves, but the liquid hell near-instantly rose all the way to the top of the stands, pinning the young woman to the bottom of the stadium's crater.

Mercury closed his eyes and… basked, taking a moment to simply revel in the complete freedom of being in his domain in his Eclipse Etherious Form. He hovered within the depths of his dark sea, without weight or worry, even the constant reminder of his prosthetic legs pushed to the back of his mind. It was like he had his semblance again, whole and soaring above the clouds, his scars forgotten… just for a moment.

But he knew it was a fantasy. And he knew reality still had work for him to do.

He opened his gaze back up and smirked down at Yang, chuckling as the armless wizard desperately struggled for air while being crushed by thousands of gallons of water.

It was her own fault. She should have learned by now. In this world, a person was either a shark… or chum.

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT

Ren ran through Haven's halls, or rather their charred and burnt out remains, as fast as he could, keeping his breath steady as he chased after Yang and Mercury's duel.

His thoughts flickered back to Nora, Jaune, Pyrrha, and the others against his will, painting vivid images of his friends being mauled and slaughtered by the Gates. Salem may have ordered Team RWBY to be brought to her alive, but she'd nothing to protect Team JNPR. If any of her minions wished it, the team he had just gotten back would be torn apart before he knew it.

But he knew he couldn't let those thoughts control him. He knew the odds were against them, but if he focused on that titanic weight pressing down on their heads, he wouldn't have a chance in hell of bearing his share. His talk with Nora after their battle with the Nuckelavee rang in his head, as well as his encounter with End in Higanbana. He trusted Ruby to send him where he was needed, and his friends to make it through the tasks she'd assigned them.

Though, that was little comfort when he recalled how brazenly Pyrrha had charged after Cinder. Just as he had when he confronted the Nuckelavee.

He could only pray she'd make it out alright. Right now, he needed to help Yang.

But when he arrived at Haven's sparring arena, the same place Pyrrha and Ruby had playfully tested out their magic against each other. It was unrecognizable now, a reservoir of pitch-black filled right up to the tip of the stadium, tiny chunks of rubbles floating amidst the ebony liquid.

Ren didn't know how the black sea had come to be in the middle of a huntsman academy, but he could sense Yang's flickering magical signature at its bottom. As well as the staggering bastion of power bearing down on her. Knowing that his friend's magic was fire and she was currently being drowned, it didn't take him long to realize the danger.

He rushed to the edge of the stands and thrust his hands into the murky water. His palms glowed with bright white light, bright enough to give him a glimpse of some, grotesque, four-armed, shark faunus version of Mercury swimming towards Yang. The green-robed huntsman's heart hammered in his chest, his sharp mind ensuring that the mechanics of his spell were performed correctly even as he poured every ounce of ethernano he had into its execution.

"Crushing Evil: Seek the Truth!"

A shining white grid flashed over the surface of the black reservoir, shattering its liquid into cube and promptly disintegrating it… or at least, several yards of it. Given that there were hundreds of cubic feet of water in the arena, it wasn't nearly sufficient.

Ren growled, infuriated at his helplessness. He knew his Crash Magic was potent, and dangerous, but his origin just too puny! Even if he was one of the few people on Remnant capable of being a true wizard, even if there were two maidens nearby flooding the atmosphere with ethernano, he just didn't have enough capacity to protect his friends! He couldn't equal the stories Wendy and Carla had told him of Gildarts Clive!

But moaning about that wouldn't help Yang, so he'd save the pity party for when they had won, or he was dead.

He hopped several feet back and took a deep breath, ready to take a running dive into the black depths. Given Mercury had multiple times his strength under the best of circumstances and his newly aquatic form suggested that he had summoned this new environment, he likely wouldn't be much help, but he couldn't stand back and do nothing while his friend suffered.

However, just before Ren was about to plunge into the dark sea, a black blur bolted past him and beat him to the punch, diving headlong into the murky waters with nary a splash.

For a moment, all the pink-eyed huntsman could do was blink in shock. He ran back what little he caught of the new arrival in his mind.

Black flesh. Bone spines. Crimson leathery wings. Unless the Grimm had suddenly broken into the kingdom without them realizing it, the only being that could be was…

A wide grin blossomed over Ren's face. It seemed there were yet more hands to help carry their burden.

Why was this chapter so hard to write?!

Oh well. There is a lot of stuff in it that I love. Oscar holding out against Cinder, but Cinder outfoxing him. Cinder giving into her power lust and botching End's plan, while Pyrrha does a similar thing out of her own obsession. Jaune taking advantage of the brief distraction to separate End from the others and reluctantly leaving Pyrrha to fight Cinder so that he can keep End from overwhelming everyone, a battle he knows he is stalling for time at best in. As well as Ruby handling the Chains of Commanding once again.

Also, Qrow gets to be Batman and take on an army of White Fang!

But, I must say, my favorite part was the interplay of Mercury vs. Yang. I have been waiting to dive back into their dynamic since Beacon and now I finally get the chance to play off their foiling nature, showing both their strengths, their motives, and where each still has room to grow.

Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!

Go Forth and Conquer!