This is easily the longest thing I have ever written. Fitting, no?

RWBY Watches Classic Movies

Chapter XX

Serenity left a faint trail in her wake as she floated through the void, further helping sell their disguise as they approached the gap of Reaver Space before Miranda. And it was a good thing too, since there were hundreds if not thousands of ships floating in the void, more vessels of this type than any member of the crew had ever seen in a single place before. The radio was turned on, but it was filled with a horrific white noise of screams and cries for help. Roman quickly asked him to turn it off.

"Welp, into the breach." Roman said, gulping down on some brandy he had ordered earlier.

"Here's hoping your plan works out, boss." Neo signed.

The entire crew stood on the bridge as Mercury calmly flew into the horde, Cardin betraying his scowling face by holding Veera close to his person, almost as if it were his safety blanket. The only time they found trouble was when they passed by a massive ship. A light came on next to them, flooding the bridge with the blinding light, and it followed them for as long as they were near. Nobody had any idea what it was doing, maybe scanning them in some way or perhaps it was just a scare tactic, but Mercury held steady, keeping course directly for Miranda.

The light faded when they passed by the ship and made their way out of the horde, everybody exhaling in relief for the moment.

"Well, that's step one done." Roman exhaled.

"Now for 2 through 10." Mercury commented.

On the bridge of her own ship, Winter stood over her console, hands gripping the edges after receiving the latest reports on Serenity.

"Define 'disappeared.'" She told an obviously distressed Ciel.

"I'm guessing she never expected Ruby to figure out what she gleaned, nor did she expect we would actually go there ourselves." Cinder said.

"How could I?" Winter asked, "I may be a logician, but I'm not omniscient."

Cinder gave her the point. She never expected a Silver-Eyed Warrior to appear at the Fall of Beacon during all of her planning. Hell, Ruby had never even been on her radar.

Meanwhile, Serenity had broken atmo and was cruising toward a beacon Mercury had picked up. Cardin and Roman were busy preparing spacesuits and weapons for themselves and Emerald, when said mint-haired lady spoke up.

"Every reading I'm getting says normal." She reported, "Oceans, land masses, no tectonic instability."

"Yeah, but no power either." Mercury added.

"Nothing at all?" Roman asked.

"Just this beacon, weak as it is."

"So, if there's no power, how is there a beacon, which I'm assuming requires power." Emerald asked.

"Maybe someplace with an independent power source?" Mercury guessed, "One that generates a lot of power, but the beacon only requires the tiniest fraction of that power to run?"

"In the realms of sci-fi, it's not impossible." Blake admitted.

A few minutes later, Serenity landed near the beacon and the landing party disembarked. Cardin took watch while Roman and Emerald took readings.

"Gravity's Remnant normal." Roman observed.

"O2 levels check out." Emerald reported. "Everything we found out up above does too. If anything's wrong, scanner's not picking it up."

Roman slung the automatic rifle he was carrying and took off his helmet. He took a whiff of perfectly clean, good air and exhaled.

"Well, something sure the hell isn't right here."

"This ain't exactly a small settlement." Cardin said.

"We flew over at least a dozen cities this size on our way over." Emerald added. "Why didn't we ever hear about this?"

Roman took out a scanner of his own and tuned it to the beacon's frequency.

"Beacon's up ahead."

"None of this matches up with what we heard from Roman earlier." Weiss said. "He said Miranda was uninhabitable, yet they and their ship are parked on a stable landing platform, in the middle of an Atlas-style metropolis."

"Which means the information that was available to them was either false or doctored." Blake added.

"How much deeper does the rabbit hole go?" Mercury wondered aloud.

The rest of the crew disembarked, party divested themselves of their space suits, and together they made the mile and a half trek to the source of the beacon. The strange thing was how quiet and empty the walk was the entire way. The first sign of life they found was a skeleton laying on the side of the road. Emerald and Roman went to investigate.

'No entry wounds, fractures." Emerald said.

"Poison?" Roman guessed.

Cardin found the next one sitting in a derelict land speeder.

"They're just sitting here." He said, face wrinkling in confusion. "They didn't crash."

Suddenly, a digital banner came to life above them, and a man began speaking in Mistralian. Ruby heard a growling and then a roar behind her. She turned in fear, only to find nothing there but the empty street. Neo herself was growing increasingly unnerved by the whole situation and backed into a glass window. Behind her, lights came on in the building, and Yang's eyes widened at what she saw.

"Neo, don't- "

Too late. Neo turned and saw the body of a human man laying against the glass pane, and screamed. She quickly backed away as Roman, Yang, Cinder and Cardin inspected the interior, seeing even more bodies within.

"How come these ones are preserved?" Cardin wondered aloud.

"Place must have gone hermetic when the power blew." Roman guessed. "Sealed 'em in."

"What are they doing?" Neo asked. "What's everyone doing?"

Yang was stumped, which was saying something considering her medical training. "There's no unusual discoloration. Nobody's doubled over, or showing signs of pain."

"Well, there's gases that kill painlessly, right?" Roman asked.

"They didn't fall." Cinder said, "None of them. They just laid down."

"Laid down and sleep." Ruby muttered, pieces coming together in her head. "My dreams, they were trying to show me what happened."

"I don't think so." Winter said. "If this is the secret you found, then why would the galactic government send an assassin after you? No, my gut tells me this goes deeper."

Ruby began muttering behind them in Mistralian, spinning around in place, her face twisted in agony.

"Make them stop." She pleaded, "They're everywhere. Every city, every house, every room, they're all in my head. I can hear them all and they're saying nothing!" she nearly began to weep. "Get up! Please get up." Yang quickly wrapped her in a hug as she sank to her knees, crying into her sister's shoulder. "Please, Brothers, make me a stone."

"She starting to damage my calm." Cardin growled.

"Cardin." Emerald warned him.

"She's right!" he shot back. "Everybody's dead. This whole world is dead for no reason."

"Let's get to the beacon." Mercury said, wanting to be anywhere that wasn't here.

It turned out the beacon was coming from a government building that had an Alliance ship of some kind rammed into it. Roman and Emerald took point, with Cardin on rear guard as they entered the ship.

"Looks like you were right, kid." Roman said.

Cinder nodded agreement. "That ship undoubtedly had it's own power supply, and if the beacon is the only thing consuming power, it probably wouldn't run out for decades."

"This the source?" Roman asked Mercury as they reached the bridge of the ship.

"This thing's banged up all to hell." Cardin commented as he secured the room.

Ruby walked up to a record disk left sitting on a player. She felt it calling to her in a small way, so she set it into the player properly and waited for the recording to play. In the middle of the room, a holographic image of Ozpin in an Alliance military uniform flickered into being. He was leaning on his cane, and his head was bowed.

"These are just a few of the images we've recorded." He said, as holographic images of what the crew had seen outside appeared in front of him. "And you can see, it isn't what we thought. There's been no war here, and no terraforming event. The environment is stable." He sighed. "It's the Pax."

"The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting, and then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work. They stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die."

A loud banging and growling was heard over the recording. Ozpin looked back where it came from and refocused on the recorder. "I don't have much time. About a tenth of a percent of the population had the opposite reaction to the Pax. Their aggressor response increased beyond madness. They've become… well, they've killed most of us. And not just killed. They've done things."

"Reavers." Mercury said in horror. "They made them."

"I won't live to report this. But people have to know, we meant it for the best. To make people safer." The growling grew louder as the Reavers broke through. Ozpin raised a gun and fired off a few shots before turning the gun on himself. Unfortunately, the Reavers got to him before he could pull the trigger and drove him to the floor.

"Turn it off." Cardin said, trying to keep himself from vomiting at what he was witnessing.

Mercury happily complied, turning the recording so it was out of position, thus shutting off the playback. The silence was filled with quiet sobs and shuddering gasps. Ruby actually fell to her knees and vomited on the floor. Yang came to her side and rubbed her back.

"Ruby…"

"I'm alright." The younger girl said. Her panting suddenly stopped and she slowly turned to her sister, a small life in her silver eyes. "I'm alright."

"Oh my gods…" was the collective mood in the theater. No one could quite describe the cocktail of feelings roiling within them at what they had learned, nor could they quite put it into words.

A few hours later, Roman called everyone to the dining room for a talk.

"This report is maybe twelve years old." He told them. "Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried until Ruby dug it up. This is what they feared she knew, and they were right to. Because there's a whole universe of people who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people."

The Beacons kids all wore determined faces and nodded slightly at the man's words. This was definitely more than they had thought they would see in a sci-fi movie, but it resonated with them.

This was the kind of information that brought governments to their knees, that incited revolution and civil war, but it needed to be heard. The Alliance had tried to help people, and when they failed so spectacularly, they simply swept it under the rug, modifying the truth to suit their needs. Out of sight, and out of mind.

Cruel. Heartless. Corrupt. No different from the monsters they trained to fight. And fight they would, even if the hero of the story was a crook like Roman.

He looked over the table at his crew: Ruby sitting on a crate before him, looking up at him expectantly; Neo and Yang sitting next to each other at the end, holding hands without knowing it; Cinder standing with her arms folded across her stomach, looking regal as ever; Cardin sitting next to her, drinking whiskey from the bottle; Emerald at rapt attention, with Mercury leaning against a wall behind her.

"You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe everything. Because if I know anything right now, I know this: they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe this very one swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back around to the idea that they can make people… better." He looked at Ruby pointedly. "And I do not believe in that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave."

"I am so saving that one." Jaune muttered to himself.

"Hell of a speech, boss. Hell of a speech." Neo signed.

"I can be poetical if I want to be." Roman paraphrased himself.

His words hung in the air for a time before it was broken, by Cardin of all people.

"Shepherd Salem used to tell me," he said as he took one last swig from the bottle, "If you can't do something smart, do something right." Uncharacteristically, he slid the bottle Yang's way, who caught it and took a swig herself.

"Do we have a plan?" she asked.

"Mr. Universe." Roman said, holding up the recording. "We don't have the equipment to broadwave this code, but he can put it on every screen for 30 worlds. He's pretty damn close, too."

"Still got the Reavers and the Alliance between us and him." Mercury reminded him.

"That's two armies against our one bitty cannon." Cardin said.

"It's also likely the Alliance knows about Mr. Universe." Emerald added. "They're gonna see this coming."

Roman grinned. "Nah. They're not gonna see this coming."

Ruby's eyes widened as she placed her middle finger-tips on her temples. "Oooh my gods. Ooooh my gods! Jaune, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Jaune was laughing madly, holding his head. "Ruby, I- I think I am specifically thinking that right now."

"It's insane!"

"Insane enough that it just might work."

"Torchwick, you mad fucking genius!"

Serenity lifted off engines blazing, everyone more than happy to leave the planet of the dead behind them. Once they broke atmo, Mercury immediately contacted Junior and told him what they needed.

"No problem." He said eagerly, "Bring it on, bring it on, bring it on. From here to the eyes and the ears of the 'verse, that's my motto. Or it will be when I start, having a motto."

"We won't be long." Mercury assured him.

"You're gonna get caught in the ion cloud on your way in." he warned them, "It'll play havoc with your radar, but pretty lights and a few miles later, you'll be in my orbit."

"You let us know if anyone else comes at you." Emerald told him.

He smiled. "You'll be the first." The feed cut out and his room was shown to be filled with Alliance soldiers and officers. He turned in his chair to face Winter, now clad in a skin-tight unitard under a bullet-proof vest, as she loomed over him. "There. Toss me my 30 coin, but I got a news wave for you- " he grunted and groaned as Winter stabbed him through the chest with her saber. She closed her eyes in a grimace and withdrew the sword from the man.

"Call in ever ship in the quadrant. We'll meet them in the air." She ordered. She turned back and took one last look at the impressive set-up. "Destroy it all."

"Oh! OH! I'm thinking that too!" Nora said as it clicked to her.

"Right?!" Ruby and Jaune asked her together.

"Hot damn! Now that is my kind of crazy!"

Over Miranda, Serenity was beginning to approach the Reaver horde again. Mercury began to sweat as he calmly brought the ship into the mass of ships and debris, maneuvering carefully so as not to hit anything. However, a ship came to life behind them right after they passed it. As they neared the edge, the Reaver ship extended a pair of massive claw-like, bladed appendages and drifted closer to the ship.

"Now!" Roman said over the radio. He quickly turned the back-mounted cannon to face the Reaver ship and unloaded shell after shell into it. The explosions told Roman that each shell impacted though only a dull thud could be heard. "GO! GO!"

As the rest of the ships became aware of what had just occurred, Serenity blasted forward, leading the entire force on a merry chase.

"Hey, why no pew-pew sounds?" Nora asked as Roman's clicked with the rest of the Beacon kids.

"Because there is no air in space, Ms. Valkyrie. Sound is essentially just vibrating air, and with no air to vibrate, there is no sound. Part of the reason this series is so well-liked is because it is physically realistic, unlike Star Wars and other such franchises."

"Makes sense." Ren shrugged.

Back above Junior's planet, the alliance forces had done just as Winter ordered and created a small armada of warships and fighter craft just below the ion cloud that encompassed the planet, with her personal ship being one of the smaller vessels in the fleet.

"We're reading activity in the cloud." One of the officers reported.

"Lock and fire at my command." She ordered confidently. "You should have let me see her, Captain." She mused to herself, "She should have settled this with words, not fire."

A moment later, Serenity burst forth from the cloud at break-neck speed. Winter frowned, noticing that the ship looked very much different from the standard design of a Firefly, but wrote it off as customization. Outside, the weapons on all the ships activated and trained on the incoming target.

"The fool's not even changing course." She joked to her lieutenant.

Her grin died the second the Reaver ships burst through the cloud on a direct course after Serenity.

"Ma'am?" the gunnery officer asked in alarm.

"Target the Reavers." Winter said, caught completely off guard. "Target the Reavers! Target everyone. Somebody fire!"

"May I?" Sun asked dramatically.

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't." Blake grinned.

Sun coughed slightly. "IT'S TIME FOR A MASSIVE SPACE SHIP DEATH BATTLE!"

Missile fired from both sides, and it took all of Mercury's skill as a pilot to maneuver in time while staying calm. In the common area by the kitchen, Ruby, Yang and Cinder gripped the arms of their chairs and tried to not fly out of their seats.

On the bridge, Mercury felt a sudden calm within him and he whispered, "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

Just as he said, he deftly piloted through tight spaces, dodged missile fire and exploding ships like a leaf caught on a summer breeze. Until everyone felt the ship rock from an impact.

"The hell!?" Roman said.

"It's okay!" Mercury said, "I'm a leaf on the wind."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means I got this, so shut the fuck up." Mercury grinned.

They had almost made it through when a Reaver vessel came in front of them and Mercury pulled the stick into his gut. Serenity pulled out of her dive into a loop and back into the battle, looking for another exit. Mercury saw one, and so did Roman. However, Roman didn't like it one bit.

"No, no- "

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

Meanwhile, Winter's ship had taken severe damage. Klaxons blared as she returned to the bridge from fetching her saber, which was slung across her back, and men lay dead on the floor. Seeing the situation as untenable, she took the service weapon from one of the dead bodies and jumped into an escape pod. It was launched from the ship just as it was cracked in half by a larger Reaver vessel.

"Getting out by the skin of your teeth there, Ice Queen." Qrow huff-laughed.

Serenity had managed to escape the battle, but not without a tagalong. Said pursuer made their presence known by firing a laser cannon across their nose. It hit on the rear of the ship, sending sparks flying.

"EMP." Mercury said, when he felt no response from the controls.

"Dammit. Not one of these again." Mercury muttered angrily.

"Makes sense for a raiding ship to have one." Sienna shrugged.

"Everybody strap yourselves in." Roman ordered over the intercom. "Cardin!"

"On it!" the burly man said as he hurried back to the kitchen area. Yang quickly ran to the engine and pulled Neo out as the sparks intensified.

"We're fried. I got no control." Mercury said as Roman and Emerald strapped themselves in.

"Where's the back-up?" Roman asked. "Where's the back-up?!"

"Man, now I realize how lucky me and Dad were in Pacific Rim." Yang said. "We were only trapped in a giant mech suit. You guys are probably gonna be falling out of the sky."

"Don't fucking remind me." Mercury growled.

Cardin stumbled as he entered the kitchen but recovered and tossed aside the small table in front of everyone. He quickly ran through each crew member to confirm they were properly secured, calling out checks for each one. He yelled as another jostle threw him across the room.

Serenity went into a flat spin as it fell from the sky, turning the entire ship into a g-force ride of death. Roman and Emerald struggled to stay conscious from the G-forces, while Mercury slowly reached for a small switch at the front of his console. He barely managed to flip it, then hit the necessary button and threw another switch, which restored power and control in the ship. They were just coming up on Junior's complex.

"Back-up reads 20%." Emerald told her husband. "Can you get us down?"

"I'm gonna have to glide her in." he said.

"Will that work?"

Mercury didn't respond. They could only watch as the ship shakily made a hot approach on the facility. It hovered over the landing strip as it glided. Mercury tried to set her down, but the landing gear broke off in the attempt, and the ship bounced, landing on it's belly and skidding forward into the hangar. One of the side engines hit a pillar, sending them spinning to one side, only for the rear of the ship to hit another pillar, countering their spin. The next pillar that met the side engine simply knocked it off the ship entirely. The ship spun 180 degrees, fell backwards into a relatively shallow pit and came to a stop.

The kids let out a collective sigh of relief, Mercury most of all.

"A leaf on the wind indeed, Mercury. Well done." Cinder complimented him, earning a small glare from Emerald.

The back-up power shut off, and the bridge was bathed in red light as the emergency power came on. Everybody panted from the excitement as they came down from the adrenaline high. Mercury grinned.

"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how- "

Mercury was cut off as a massive metal tube pierced the windshield and embedded itself in his chest.

"God fucking- Come on! Really?" Mercury yelled.

"Merc!" Emerald cried, scrambling to get her restraints off. "Baby? Baby, no. baby, come on, you gotta go. Come on! We gotta move. Baby, please!"

Emerald found herself somewhat agreeing with her counterpart. Yeah, her Mercury was a prick, but this one seemed like a genuinely good person, and his jokes were actually funny. She liked him better than her Mercury.

She continued to wail over her husband, unaware that they had been followed by the Reaver that had hit them.

"EM!" Roman yelled and pulled her bodily to the ground as another spear broke through the windshield, barely missing them both. "Move out! Now!"

Cardin led the way out, multiple assault rifles slung across his back and a sort of portable gatling gun in hand.

"Go! Go!" he ordered, and the group moved for the nearest exit. They made their way through a tunnel leading to a small room with a heavy-duty door in back. Emerald opened it, cleared it, and took a look around the room. The heavy doors opened up to a shorter hallway that ended at an elevator.

"Cardin, rear guard." Roman ordered as he ran up to the elevator and made sure it was operational. "Emerald, what do we have?"

"Sir." She said as Roman came back up to her. "This is a good hold point."

"We all stay together."

"No. They have to come through here." She pointed at the door with her rifle. "They'll bottleneck and we can thin them out. We get pushed back, there's the blast doors."

"That's a good plan." Jaune commented.

"She won't go through with it." Cinder remarked, "Not entirely."

"Sadly, I must agree." Ozcar said. He knew that look in Emerald's eyes.

"I can rig 'em so they won't reopen once they close." Neo said.

"Then you shut them and hide until I get back." Roman said.

"That's an even better plan." Jaune said.

"She won't do it." Cinder insisted. "She wants revenge for her husband."

"We need to draw them until it's done." Emerald argued, looking him dead in the eye. He recognized the look in her; it was the same one he'd had since Serenity Valley, that of someone who had just lost everything they held dear and felt they had nothing left to lose. "This is the place. We'll buy you the time." Roman nodded and handed her his AR.

Cardin nodded. "Alright, let's get these crates back there for cover. Make sure they ain't filled with nothing that goes boom."

"Wait!" Neo said, "Wait, where's Mercury?"

"He's not coming." Emerald said as she angrily loaded her rifle. Everyone immediately understood what she meant and were speechless.

Except for Cardin. "Move the damned crates." He growled, shaking them back to the moment. In no time, they had managed to create a rudimentary fortification with the metal boxes. It wasn't holding up to any sieges any time soon, but it would hold for their purposes for a while. As they finished, they heard a banging followed by all too familiar snarling.

Roman and Cardin ran to the door.

"Tell me you brought them this time." Roman said to Cardin, who grinned and produced a pair of grenades. They simultaneously twisted the tops, pulled the halves apart and tossed them into the hallway. Quickly, Roman closed the door and locked it, with the detonation coming soon after. He and Cardin then moved the final, heaviest box into place in front of the door.

"That's one way to thin the herd." Taiyang chuckled.

"Hmm, now there's a thought." Jaune muttered. "Maybe we should invest in some explosives training before leaving for Atlas."

"I- " Nora said before Jaune shut her down.

"I said explosives, Nora, not demolitions. You have that more than covered as it is."

"Em," Roman said, snapping the woman from her dark thoughts temporarily, "Are you here?"

"Do the job, sir." She said simply.

"Then you hold." He ordered. "You hold till I get back."

"Captain's right." Cardin said as Roman started down the hallway. "Can't be focusing on revenge if we're gonna get through this."

"You really think any of us are gonna live through this?" she asked dryly.

They looked at the scared civilians behind them. Yang was readying an SMG for Neo and Cinder was unwrapping an ornate bow-like weapon she had kept on her shuttle, while Ruby was standing back, looking around nervously with a pistol in her hands.

"Well, I might."

"Accurate." Neo signed.

As the chain link doors of the elevator opened, Roman ran into Junior's operation center to see the man himself curled up on the couch, his head resting in Glynda's lap, the love bot cradling her dead master, and a trail of blood leading to his now destroyed set-up.

Roman walked up to check the man's pulse, but Glynda's head shot up and she spoke.

"Roman. The chick killed me, Roman. She killed me with a sword. How weird is that?" she chuckled.

"That crazy bastard," Roman chuckled, "Went and left me a message before kicking it."

"He's always been a good guy." Neo signed. She had a liking for Junior, and the Malachites as well. She would protect them in any way she could, so long as they kept the ice cream and booze flowing.

"Got… a short span here. They destroyed my equipment, but I have a back-up unit. Bottom of the complex. Right over the generator. Hard to get to. I know they missed it." Roman sighed with a small grin and patted his friend's shoulder in one final farewell. "They can't stop the signal, Roman. They can never stop… the signal…" the message died out and Roman went back to the elevator and hit the bottom-most button he could find.

At the hold point, the Reavers had arrived, and were growling and banging against the door and the tight metal mesh windows. Within, the group kept their guns trained on the door, with Emerald assuming command.

"Reavers." Ruby said, clutching her head and dropping her weapon. "They're all made up of rage."

"It's okay." Yang said, trying to calm her.

"I can't shut them up!"

"She sure picked a hell of a time to go helpless on us." Cardin growled as he picked up her gun and tucked it into the back of his pants.

"Cardin and I take the first wave." Emerald ordered. "Nobody shoots unless they get past our fire."

Shakily, Neo crouched next to Yang as the blonde wrapped the sling of her weapon over her shoulder, Neo's own weapon looking oversized in her terrified hands.

"I didn't plan on going out like this." She said, holding her weapon by the trigger and the magazine. "I think we did right, but…"

Yang looked at her and smiled weakly. "I never planned anything. I just wanted to keep Ruby safe. Spent so much time on Serenity ignoring anything that I wanted for myself." Neo looked at her. "My one regret in all of this, is never being with you."

"With me?" she whispered. "You mean to say as… sex?" she asked hopefully.

Yang chuckled and gave her a fond smile and a nod. "I mean to say."

"You know, if we hadn't met under the freeway and fought on the train," Yang said, "I probably would have hit that."

"Yang, that's gross." Ruby whined. "I don't care what you do with your sex life, just don't let me hear about it."

Yang was about to retort when her scroll vibrated. On it was a picture of a girl in a Lolita dress with green eyes and black twin tails, a picture of Neo and an equals sign between them.

"Wait a minute, that was you?!" Yang yelled whirling on the ice cream themed girl a few rows back.

The Reavers banged and roared again, snapping them back to reality. They looked back to each other, and Neo's face hardened.

"The hell with this." She cocked her gun and held it more confidently. "I'm gonna live."

"What, just like that, she's gonna fight for her life for the possible promise of sex?" Weiss asked.

"You kidding me?" Roman said, "Neo would kill just about anyone for the promise of ice cream afterwards."

"The higher the risk, the more it costs." She signed with a smug smile.

Minutes after Roman had left, a foot came out of the ceiling in Junior's operations room. Winter dropped onto the couch with practiced ease, taking in her surroundings in a moment. Seeing the room was clear, she hurried past the dead man and his robot.

"Roman." Glynda said, causing Winter to pause and look behind her. "The chick killed me, Roman. She killed me with a sword."

"Gah, dammit, I should have known there would be a boss fight." Roman groaned.

"Guess it's time to Ass-Whooping 2: Electric Boogaloo." Mercury snarked.

"Nothing is ever easy." Neo signed.

As the Reavers managed to move the crate back just enough to present a decent target to Emerald, Roman reached the bottom of the complex. He could see the rig across the way, but no bridge to cross on. He looked down and saw the generator itself. It was a massive construct, easily as high as his ship was long with a series of turbines spinning to provide power to the facility.

"'Hard to get to?'" Roman repeated as he looked around to a way across. "That's a fact." There were plenty of chains he could work with, along with a long metal beam with plenty of handholds. He took off his coat and tossed it to the side before climbing up onto the top of the railing.

Up top, Emerald was laying in to the Reavers that poked their heads through the opening they made. She stood and slowly advanced on them, maintaining her fire. When her shotgun ran dry, she brought out her side arm and used that. One of them managed to close on her but she batted him aside, drove him to the ground and pulled a knife on him. She stabbed over and over, oblivious that the door had been pushed wider. Cardin cursed as he mowed them down behind her.

"She is letting her anger consume her." Ozcar sighed.

"Hm. I guess this is what they were talking about in Star Wars." Ruby said, "Like, the dark side doesn't just turn you evil, it destroys you in some way."

"That doesn't exactly make the emotionless, passive light side seem any better." Sun said with a grimace.

"Emerald, get your ass back on the line!" he yelled as he switched weapons.

The mint-colored girl looked up, realized her mistake and made to return, only for a Reaver to slash up her back, barely missing her spine.

Below, Roman was about to make his move, when Winter shot him with a burst of purple energy. He fell backward, landing on the small of his back and falling back onto the platform.

"You shot me in the back!" he exclaimed as he stood back up. Winter gave no apologies as she emerged from the shadows. "I haven't made you angry, have I?"

"There are a lot of innocent people in the air being killed right now." She said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

"You have no idea how true that is. I know the secret, the truth that burned up Ruby Rose's brain? Rest of the universe is gonna know it too. Cuz they need to."

"Do you really believe that?" she asked calmly.

"I do."

"And are you willing to die for that belief?"

"I am."

She nodded and made to raise her gun, but Roman was faster. He shot the weapon out of her hand and pushed her back behind a metal crate with continued fire.

"'Course that isn't exactly Plan A." Roman quipped.

"Nice." Roman nodded.

"It's high noon." Taiyang said in his best Matt Mercer impression.

He holstered his revolver, jumped onto the top railing and leapt onto the nearest metal beam. Underneath, it was essentially a set of hardcore monkey bars, and he used it as such, up until Winter swung up behind him on a chain and kicked him off it. He fell briefly before catching a chain of his own with his chest.

Up above, Cinder, Neo and Yang had joined in on the fight, Cinder using her bow-like weapon, Neo her SMG and Yang an assault rifle, to drive the Reavers back behind the door. Cardin took the moment of respite to pull Emerald back to the line, before resuming fire. With Cinder's help, Yang took a quick look at Emerald's wound.

"Spine's intact." He commented.

"She's lucky with that kind of wound." Summer said.

"Seriously." Ilia agreed. She was reminded of the time she had almost been seriously inured during a spar with Sienna, whom Ilia had learned to fight from.

"Just get me bandaged." Emerald grunted. Nodding, Yang took out a canister and sprayed a white foam along her injury.

One of the Reavers managed to break through the metal mesh windows, but Cardin caught it.

"Up high, left!"

Neo saw it and fired into the opening, the Reaver in question falling through it, dead.

"Fuck, now they have a new way in." Jaune growled.

"Better one, too." Coco scowled.

Cardin took a pair of bullets to the shoulder and fell backwards, while Neo yelped as a trio of yellow darts found homes in her neck. Yang moved to help her, but was forced to deal with a Reaver that jumped Cinder. The situation devolved quickly, Reavers breaking through at every point, the defenders becoming overwhelmed and being forced to use secondary weapons

"Fall back!" Emerald ordered. "Everybody, fall back! Fall back now!"

Those who could move pulled those who couldn't back from the line as the doors began to close. They thought themselves safe until they heard the doors groan and stop moving, leaving a 2-foot square opening.

"You had one job, Neo! One job!" Roman cried.

"Are you yelling at me, or the me that can talk?" Neo signed.

"Yes!"

"Cardin, grenade." Emerald ordered.

"Very last one." He said, tossing the explosive through the opening and moving back from the ensuing fireball.

"They're gonna get in." Emerald panted as she glared through the opening.

"I can close it from the outside." Neo said as Yang laid her on her back.

"No one's coming back from that." Emerald grunted as she slumped down and sat next to Cardin on the floor. "How much ammo do we have?"

Cardin was panting as well. "Three full mags, and my third leg. That's all."

"Okay, wow. He's making some assumptions right there." Coco laughed.

"Gross assumptions." Velvet gagged.

"The elevator's not working." Cinder reported.

"When they come," Emerald said, aiming her weapon at the opening, "Try to plug the hole with them."

"I'm starting to lose some feeling here." Neo said.

"Okay, lie still. I'm gonna give you something- " Yang said as she reached for her bag, but found it missing. "My bag- " she stood to retrieve it, but caught a bullet in the side of her stomach.

"NO! Not my ship!" Nora yelled. "They were so cute together!"

"Forget the ship, my sister!" Ruby cried.

"What am I? Chopped liver?" Neo signed angrily.

"Oh, please, you know you're gonna live." Roman chided.

"Well, duh, but it's the principle of the thing."

Time slowed for Ruby, her eyes widening as her invincible big sister fell backwards. The sound of gunfire brought her back as she saw Cinder kneel next to her sister and placed her hands on the wound to stop the bleeding.

"M-my bag." Yang strained to say, "I nee- I need, adre-adrenalin, and a- a shot of c-calaphar for Neo. I can't… Ruby?" the silver-eyed girl knelt next to her sister. "Ruby, I'm sorry."

"No. No." Ruby whimpered. The sounds of the world dulled around her so that all she heard was Yang.

"I hate- I hate to leave…"

"You won't." she shook her head, giving her sister a smile. "You take care of me, Yang. You've always taken care of me." The 17-year-old girl stood up straight. "My turn."

"What am I doing?" Ruby asked worriedly, "What the hell am I doing?!"

With that, she turned and ran up the hall, diving through the opening and knocking a Reaver on his ass. Another thrust a spear at her, but she grabbed it, twisted and knocked it from his grasp. She cleared the immediate area long enough to press the close button and toss in Yang's bag, but the Reavers pulled her away from the opening before she could jump through.

Below, Winter dropped down onto the tempered glass floor while Roman struggled to pull himself up onto it. The fight that ensued was extremely similar to what happened at the Training House, Roman's brawler style no match for Winter's military-trained martial arts. He soon found himself disarmed, bruised and having trouble seeing out of one eye.

As he tried to get up off the floor, Roman reached into a toolbox for a weapon. Winter drew her saber and leveled it at her foe. Roman stood up, wielding a small screwdriver, maybe four inches in length. Winter slashed at him twice, Roman dodged twice, flipping the screwdriver in his grip and grappled the specialist, threatening to drive the metal spike through one of her eyes. Winter kneed him in the side to drive him back, brought her saber around and drove it through the flame-haired thief's gut.

"Oh, god, that can't be fun." Roman said, rubbing the side his other self had been stabbed in.

"It really isn't." Weiss and Blake said together, the Scar Sisters hive-fiving each other.

"Do you know what your sin is, Roman?" she asked quietly.

"Aw, hell," he croaked, "I'm a fan of all seven." He headbutted the woman in the nose, and, sword still in his gut, drove the screwdriver into her foot when she tried to roundhouse him, and used the leverage to punch her to the ground. "But right now," he pulled the sword out of his body and held it in two hands, point down, "I'mma have to go with Wrath."

"Badass." Jaune said, amazed.

He stabbed the sword down, but Winter rolled to one side. She then rolled to the other and pulled the saber from his grasp, then delivered a kick to the side of his head.

"We ain't got long." Cardin said, listening to the sounds of the Reavers beyond the blast doors. He looked over at Emerald. "You think he got through? That Roman got the word out?"

She nodded. "He got through. I know it."

Roman landed cheek-first on the ground yet again.

"Or maybe not." Emerald snarked.

It had been a long fight, and even Winter was looking worse for wear. He crawled to the cortex rig and pulled himself up to the record player.

"I'm sorry." Winter said before she drove her hand into Roman's back and twisted, the same way she had with Watts. Roman locked up as Winter walked around him.

"You should know there's no shame in this." She said as she retrieved her saber, "You've done remarkable things." she placed her blade on her free forearm and aimed at Roman's heart, "But you're fighting a war, you've already lost."

She charged him, but Roman batted the blade aside and drove his elbow into Winter's throat, using one of her own moves against her. Winter dropped the blade and grabbed her throat, nearly unable to breathe.

"Wait, what?!" Weiss yelled. "How!?"

"Shut up and we might find out." Ruby hushed.

"Yeah, well, I'm known for that." Roman said as he pulled Winter's arms behind her back and dislocated them both. She grunted loudly in pain, unable to truly scream, as Roman sat her down against the safety railing. She continued to gasp as he grabbed her sword. "In case you were wondering, a piece of shrapnel tore up that nerve cluster in my first tour. I had it moved."

"Is that even possible?" Weiss asked.

"Not with our medicine." Winter said, "But with theirs, it just might be."

"Remember, Weiss, it's called science-fiction for a reason." Blake teased. Weiss girly slapped at her in response, making her friends chuckle.

"Sorry about the throat. I assume you wanted to say your famous last words right now, but there's just one problem." He looped her saber behind her back pinning her in place. "I'm not gonna kill you."

"In fact," he walked over to the rig and set it for a universal broadcast. "I'm gonna grant your greatest wish; I'm gonna show you a world without sin." He put the record in the player and hit play. The message played before Winter's eyes as Roman hit a button and the walkway extended, allowing him to walk away. Or limp would probably be the proper term at this point.

Up above, Ruby was a whirlwind of pain and death for the Reavers.

"Look at her go…" Roman said, wide-eyed.

"Not a single wasted strike." Glynda mused. "Each blow is either fatal or serves a larger purpose."

"And she moves with such grace." Ozpin added. "Almost like it's a dance to her."

Roman exited the elevator to see his crew, sans Ruby, on the ground feet away. He stumbled toward them, his revolver held loosely in his hand.

"Sir?" Emerald asked.

"It's done." He replied. The group sighed in relief. "Report. Ruby?"

Suddenly, the blast doors opened to reveal Ruby Rose standing amidst the bodies of several dozen dead Reavers, a wicked, curve scythe held behind her back in her signature pose. The wall behind her collapsed inward and a platoon of Alliance soldiers, weapons ready, came running out of the dust. They shouted at the crew to lower their weapons and surrender.

"Targets are acquired." One of the soldiers reported to Winter over the radio. "Do we have a kill order?" when she didn't respond, he asked again. No response. The men prepared to fire, while Ruby tightened her grip on her scythe-

"Stand down." Winter ordered with a cough. "Stand down. It's finished. We're finished."

"I am going to so surprised if word of this getting out doesn't trigger some kind of civil conflict, if not an all-out war." Roman said.

"I must agree." Ozcar said, "If an entire race can start and win a war just to get arguably better social rights, than an entire planet being killed as a result of an experiment is sure to trigger something violent."

"I guess it's just lucky there aren't any Grimm in this universe." Glynda shrugged.

That evening, after everyone had been patched up by the Alliance by Winter's order and under her supervision, the crew of Serenity held a private sunset vigil in honor of those they had lost. Small concrete tombstones were erected for Junior, Salem, and Mercury, each with small holo-display pictures of the three set on a loop for as long as the displays would last. Each member of the crew had dressed up for the occasion, with even Cardin managing to scrounge up a dress coat for the occasion.

Over the next months, the crew managed to restore Serenity to her former glory, courtesy of Winter and her large pull within the Alliance military. The cannon was removed, the damaged wing repaired and replaced with a fresh thruster, the entire ship removed of paint- allowing Cinder to paint a fresh Serenity logo on the neck of the ship- while the crew handled the internal systems. Turns out Ruby was fairly handy with electronics once given a manual.

"WOOO! Yang and Neo getting brave!" Nora jeered.

"Again, don't make me awa- what the fuck?!" Ruby yelled.

"Ara ara, Ruby, you little peeper." Neo signed, leaning over Ruby's shoulder.

The final day was stormy as Roman loaded the last bits of equipment into the cargo bay.

"It's not over, you know." He instinctively reached for his gun when he heard Winter's voice behind him. He looked back and saw her dressed in simple baggy fatigues rather than a form-fitting uniform, her hair let down from it's usual bun. "I can't guarantee they won't come after you. The Parliament. Your broadwave about Miranda has weakened their regime, but they are not gone, and they are not forgiving."

"So what else is new?" Roman shrugged.

"Damn, Winter, you should let your hair down more often." Qrow said, earning him a bag of popcorn to the face. "What? It was an honest compliment!"

"That doesn't exactly bode well for you." Roman replied. "Giving the order to let us go, patching us up."

Winter nodded. "I told them the Xiao Long-Roses were no longer a threat. Damage done. They might listen, but I think they know I'm no longer 'their girl'."

Roman turned to grab a rag to clean his hands with. "They take you down, don't expect me to cry over it. More likely I'll kill you myself the next time I see you."

Winter smiled knowingly. "You won't. There is nothing left to see." With that, she walked out into the rain, and took one last look at the words on the neck of the ship. "Serenity." Roman turned to her with a sigh. "You lost everything in that battle. Everything you had, everything you were. How did you go on?"

"Well, you see, alcohol played a large part at first." Roman started to say before Neo elbowed him in the gut.

"Boss, shut up." She signed with a flat expression.

"If you're still standing there when that engine starts, you never will figure it out." Winter nodded and walked off. "What a whiner."

"Sir, we have a green light." Emerald reported as she walked into the cargo hold. "Inspection's positive and we're clear for upthrust."

"Think she'll hold together?" Roman asked.

"She's tore up plenty, but she'll fly true." Emerald understood the actual question, and answered as best she could.

Roman nodded. "Make sure everything's secure." He ordered with the ghost of a smile. Emerald walked off to fulfill her task. "Could be bumpy."

"Always is."

Roman passed by Cinder as he made his way to the bridge.

"We're taking her out. Should only be a day's ride to get you back to your girls." He told her.

"Right." She replied, hiding her disappointment.

"Ready to get off this heap, back to civilized life?"

"Actually," he turned to face her. "I don't know."

Roman smiled genuinely. "Good answer."

"Oh! Late-game ship! What do we call this one?" Nora said thinking hard.

"Partners in Crime?" Yang proposed.

"Nah, that's us." Roman pointed to himself and Neo.

"Torchfall?" Blake said.

"Eh, better than nothing." Nora shrugged, having come up with nothing better.

He walked onto the bridge and took Mercury's old seat, the man's toy dinosaurs superglued in place as a memorial to him. "So, you gonna ride shotgun with me? Help me fly?"

"That's the plan." Ruby replied from the seat next to him.

"Think you can work out- "

The engines roared to life and the ship tilted backward as Ruby expertly took off into the storm.

"That's a yes." Ruby preened.

"Okay. Clearly some aptitude for the, uh…" he took the stick himself and flipped a few switches. "It's not all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say."

"Yeah." Ruby admitted, pulling her feet up onto the chair and resting her head on her knees. "But I'd still like to hear you say it."

"Love." He said simply. "Even with all the math in the 'verse, you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurting before she keens. Makes her a home."

Ruby smiled and lost out the windshield. "Storm's getting worse."

"We'll pass through it soon enough."

As expected, Serenity broke through the clouds into the open sky, spinning a bit before making the plunge into the depths of the void. Suddenly, a piece of metal tore free and the screen went black.

"What was that?"

The entire theater burst into laughter.

XX

Well, folks, that's that.

I honestly don't know what to say here other than to thank each and every one of you for all your support of the last year and a half. This little thing is easily my greatest creation, and I am so proud of it, but it would mean nothing if not for all of you people.

I definitely want to come back to this at some point. It's too much fun tweaking all these great movies to fit the world of Remnant and seeing your reactions to these changes. Do not think that I will be idle in my absence.

I don't want to say goodbye, because that feels too final, like I'm never coming back. So, I think good old Tigger put it best: "TTFN; Ta-Ta For Now!"

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