"It's unfortunate that you were promised a power that was never truly yours."

The piercing burn of shame and desperation shot through me just as painfully as the glass arrow in my heel. No matter what I could do, I couldn't stand, couldn't fight. The ever-present comfort of my aura was gone, broken, for the first time since I was a child.

So much for the Invincible Girl.

No pain from any bodily wound could hurt so badly.

I had failed.

Beacon was in ruins, my team scattered across Vale. Penny, the robot girl-Ruby's friend. I had killed her. She had seemed so alive when the few times I saw her, so full of hope and excitement at the beginning of our match.

She had seemed so terrified as my semblance wrapped her own wires around her and pulled. Pulled, and ripped. The fear in her eyes had been real, robot or no. She had had an aura, she had been a person. And I had killed her. I had killed her when I had not meant to, driven mad by fear, seeing things that might not have even been there.

I had killed an innocent girl on accident, but even when I pulled out everything I had, used my semblance to a degree I had never done before, I could barely even hurt the golden eyed, dark haired woman in front of me.

She had started this. She had attacked Amity. She had let in the Grimm. She had killed the old Fall Maiden, and used her power to kill Professor Ozpin.

How many more were dying out there in the streets, to the White Fang and the Grimm, because of this woman's plan?

How many more would die because I had failed to stop her?

At least Jaune will be safe, I reassured myself as tears dropped onto the steel of the floor below. I had been able to ensure that much, sending him away in the locker. That kiss, my first-my last- still burned on my lips. Why had I been such a fool, such a coward, to not approach him sooner, never make my intentions known, let him run off chasing Weiss who clearly didn't care for him. No one had cared for him like I did, no one else saw that spark of potential, no one else put in half as much time to nurture it and watch it grow. Did I not deserve some happiness in exchange?

It was a stupid thing to think about, considering the circumstances. I couldn't help myself.

Just another regret to add to the others bearing down on my broken soul as the distinct clink of glass against glass draw nearer.

"But take comfort in knowing," surprisingly soft and gentle fingers glided across my jawline, tilting my chin up to look into the woman's golden eyes, "that I will use it in ways you never could have imagined."

Her eyes positively gleamed with her triumph, her pride in what she had accomplished. Such genuine joy at what she had done.

I had fought Grimm since I was twelve years old, and seen enough videos and pictures of abandoned villages and destroyed homes to think that I had known what a true monster looked like. Inhuman, with black fur, spiked armor and masks of bone and red eyes glowing like the hottest furnace of hell. Shadow and fear given form out of a child's nightmare.

How could I have been so blind? The real monster was beautiful. The most desirable woman, she could have been the envy of the entire world, the perfect image of what a huntress should be. Perfect in poise, grace, dress, manner, and skill with weapons and semblance. All of it nothing more than the silk wrappings over a core of the darkest and most vile ambition. That was what shone through in her eyes most of all, that lust for power, that desire to dominate all others as she had dominated me.

I tried not to imagine what devastation this woman might wreak with the powers she had put on display here, but I couldn't stop them from bubbling up to the surface. Thoughts of homes, entire cities going up in flames, fleeing survivors hunted down and savaged by the grimm like the worst nightmares from the Great War leapt to mind. Each scene came with a flash of shame, knowing that I was at least partly responsible. If I had just agreed to Professor Ozpin's request sooner, and taken the other half of the maiden's power, not let my fear rule me and been a true champion and warrior, would I have been able to beat her? To stop this, stop this power, magic, true magic, from falling into the hands of this murderous madwoman?

And here she was, almost caressing my face, looking down into my eyes with a new look of surprisingly sincere pity.

My resolve reformed, eyes hardening as I pulled away from the woman's grasp. No, just because I failed doesn't mean the others will as well. I thought of my friends, the only friends I had made in years ever since mother first began training me. Of Team RWBY and their boundless enthusiasm to fight for what was right. Of calm and cunning Ren, of strong and unstoppable Nora. Of Jaune.

Oh, dear, sweet Jaune, whose aura had shone like the sun and nearly burned when placed against my own in that first, glorious moment of its release. The goofy, kind hearted boy who had the potential to grow so much with the right guidance and drive.

He would have to find someone else to guide him, now. That thought hurt the most, that I would never see the huntsman he might become.

I had to keep faith, that no matter what happened here and now, atop this tower, good would prevail in the end. This woman would not break me. She could take my life here and now, but I would remain defiant. Though the shadow of death loomed over me, I would face it, head up and eyes open, as the Nikos had before the armies of the Emperor of Mistral so many centuries ago. I am Pyrrha Nikos, champion, student of Beacon Academy, member of Team JNPR and partner to Jaune Arc. I owed it to myself and all those I hold dear.

There was a certain sweet feeling, a kind of deep assurance in my soul, that came with staring down death. I had stood, I had fought, and though I had fallen, I did not retreat when my time came.

The question I had asked Jaune, when he had come to comfort me at the fairgrounds after Professor Ozpin had first told me of the Fall Maiden sprung to mind, then. A hope, and a promise.

When I think of destiny, I don't think of a predetermined fate you can't escape. But rather, some sort of final goal.

A goal now out of my grasp. But one that the others, my friends, could achieve. Would achieve. I was sure of it.

I had to be.

"Do you believe in destiny?"

The woman looked down at me then, eyes narrowing, and I could almost swear that I saw the faintest sign of tears forming in the corners of the woman's eyes. She replied with a single word.

"Yes."

The Fall Maiden straightened, took a step back, and I was suddenly reminded of those words I had spoken in the Emerald Forest, when I had laid my aura against Jaune's own dormant one, waking it to its grand purpose. The Mantra of the Warrior, an old catechism of my people, used to focus the mind and soul for incredible tasks.

A rite of passage for the young and brave.

A guide for life.

A funeral chant, spoken as the bodies of heroes were laid on the pyre.

A preparation for death.

For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.

My murderer raised her arms above her head.

I remembered Jaune's smile, the feel of his face under my hand, that first pulse of brilliant white as my aura called to his.

Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all.

Shards of glass formed a bow and arrow in her hands.

My mother, when she first placed the spear in my hand, the look of pride mingled with a deep sadness I had not been old enough to understand as she spoke the words, and I felt the rush of my aura fill me, surrounding and comforting me for the first time.

I felt like I understood that look, now.

Infinite in distance and unbound by death.

I could have sworn I heard a noise off my left, like someone was scrambling up the side of the tower, but I could not turn, could not look away from the death that awaited me as the Maiden's bow lowered.

The string was loosed.

The arrow flew.

Pain.

I gasped. Agony like I had never experienced lanced through my chest, through my ribs, through my heart. It thrummed through me like my entire body was a single cord on a lyre, that single note I was playing one of intense agony. I couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, could only kneel, vainly try to lift my arms, only gasp as my last breaths escaped me.

I could feel my strength flee, as if it was pulled out of me through the shaft in my chest. My arms fell, and I leaned forward as the Fall Maiden stepped towards me, once more taking my head in her hand, caressing my face. And once more, pain arced through my body.

Everything turned orange, then red, then white, and I crumbled, fading away to a place beyond pain.

And in my mind, another voice, calm, kind, masculine, alien, a voice I had never heard before in my life, yet sounded vaguely familiar somehow.

I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee.

And in that white space, I thought I saw a vision, a series of snapshots, each passing sooner than the last. The twisting, molten length of a golden dragon seemingly composed entirely of light, the outline of a man with antlers composed of the same substance. And then my view widened, and shifted, as if I beheld all of space and time in a great fractal spider web of crystalline structures connecting worlds and universes, bending the very powers of creation and destruction to its will, an ever expanding harvest of souls and information as the great worms tunneled through space and realities. Another golden man, but this one in detail, hornless and bearded, clothed in a bloodstained white bodysuit and wearing a cape-

And then…

Breath.

So, I've decided to crosspost this story from Spacebattles to maybe see if I can spread it to a new audience and increase my motivation to actually start writing this again. I'll be posting chapters here regularly until it's caught up to the spacebattles version. Thanks for reading! Leave a review!