Good afternoon Folks! I'm still chugging away on legacy, but I figured I'd post this short scene I cooked up for the rwby/g on 4chan. It got inspired in large part by a pic by Dishwasher 1910 called The Goddess (Also the attached pic of the story). It's currently being worked on their tumblr, so make sure to go check it out!

In any case, just a short scene to tide you over until the next chapter. Thanks for reading as always!

"And that concludes today's report. Repairs are continuing throughout Vale and we hope to have Beacon Academy back to fully operational status within the month."

Ozpin thumbed the activation button on his scroll pad and it hummed quietly before shutting off. He smiled.

"Thank you Professor. I'm so glad to see things are recovering so quickly. Were my efforts in the agricultural district enough? I'm still trying to come to terms with my new abilities."

"You have nothing to worry about Ms. Nykos. The crop fields have been fully cleansed of the Grimm taint thanks to your efforts."

"We've also received reports that the potato fields and apple orchards are already bearing harvestable produce. It's only a matter of time before the other crops follow suit."

Pyrrha breathed a small sigh of relief. The fallen leaves surrounding her chair stirred gently, drawing an appreciative glance from Beacon's tired headmaster and her now ad hoc secretary.

"In any case, I'll retire for now. You've had a long day tending to your duties and visitors. I've cleared your schedule for the rest of the day so you can recuperate." He stood to leave.

"I'm so sorry Professor...making you do all of this. And on top of trying to rebuild Beacon..."

Ozpin leaned heavily on his cane. Though he hid it well, there was no denying that the incidents of the last several months had taxed him severely.

As much as he tried to put forth a brave face and soldier on, her new..."abilities" could see that he was a man running on very little sleep and too much of that abominable coffee he consumed every day.

While she enjoyed a full night's rest each evening, his duties kept him up far past the point she drifted off into the land of dreams.

A rough breeze blew through the outside veranda they had been sitting in, giving voice to her concerns.

"It's no trouble Ms. Nykos. I've long since come to the conclusion that the needs of this world far outweigh the needs of myself. There's so much to do, and never enough...time to complete it all..."

"Promise me you'll at least get to sleep at a reasonable hour...your heart is beating so-" She stopped herself, realizing too late she just examined him without his permission.

Ozpin merely chuckled. "Thank you for your concern Ms. Nykos. The mantle of the Maiden is a heavy burden, and I won't chide you for putting it to good use. Please have a good evening."

And with that he left her alone on the balcony, gently shutting the door behind him.

Pyrrha sighed as she slowly raised herself from her chair...or "throne" seemed more appropriate. It felt too ostentatious for her sensibilities, but she had been too humbled to decline the gift.

A local stonemason, grateful at her efforts at healing his sick child had crafted it out of a single block of the most ornate marble she had ever laid eyes upon.

The various layers flowed through the smooth stone like a gentle river, and glowed under the light of Beacon's shattered moon, giving even more misplaced credence to how blessed and worthy this seat of power would be for the new fall maiden.

Truthfully, she missed her chair from her dorm room. Though they were simply made, they were surprisingly comfortable, much more so than this stone eyesore.

But maidens didn't sit in such base accouterments. Especially one like her...

She frowned as she looked out upon the kingdom of Vale. Even from this distance, high up in a newly converted living quarters adjoining Beacon's CCT tower, she could see the sections of the town that had yet to rebuild.

Dark "scars" pockmarked the city, areas where utilities still hadn't been brought back online, or worse, rubble yet to be cleared.

Each day she would spend several hours in those "exclusion zones" as they were politely called. Purifying the land of the horrible taint that had been unleashed upon them by Cinder and her corrupted maiden powers. Seven days of a living hell she thought she would never see the end of...

Each time she ventured into those areas, she relived that weeklong nightmare. The tidal wave of Grimm entering the city, the rampant destruction, streets piled high with bodies, hunter, soldier and civilian alike. And Jaune...

She shuddered as the gentle wind kicked up more forcefully around her, the leaves scattering and twisting in miniature tornadoes as she tried to forget that horrible night.

A whine of servos.

A gurgle of hydraulic fluid.

Sounds that would normally be obscured by the raging winds around her carried through to her ears.

"Pyrrha? Are you ok?" A metallic voice called out from the dim light of the balcony.

She turned as the winds calmed. Heavy footfalls echoed dully on the polished stone floor as the daily reminder of how much she had lost approached her. Jaune emerged from behind a pillar, trying and failing to look inconspicuous while she had been attending matters with Ozpin.

"I'm fine Jaune. Really...just...thinking about things." She paused then frowned at him. "You know, you don't have to stay so out of the way when people are here...you're not some piece of furniture to be set aside."

He raised his metallic arm to scratch the back of his helmet, only to bump the attached combat shield into the visor. The impact made a resounding clang that echoed loudly in the still night air.

"Dammit, I keep forgetting that thing's there..." He held out his shield arm and with another loud clank and whine of gears, the shield folded and retracted neatly back into his arm. The sound made both of them jump slightly.

"...and I don't think I'll ever get used to that sound either...heh..." The chuckle was filled with mirth, but coming through his sealed helmet made it sound hollow...sinister even. Like the punchline of a mean joke at his expense.

"And why do you keep your helmet fully sealed like that? We're not out in the zones right now, you don't have to keep it closed on my account." She grasped his remaining normal hand and squeezed it gently.

The faceless visor tilted down slightly. "Sorry Pyrrha, I figured after the incident yesterday with the mom and the kid it'd be better to...well...keep a lower profile."

She shook her head. "It's not your fault Jaune. Your appearance doesn't change the fact that you're a hero, both to me and to Vale. Never be ashamed of who you are, especially around me."

Each day they seemed to go through the same argument. Jaune trying more and more to blend into the background and Pyrrha trying to draw him back out.

She understood why he felt they way he did. He wasn't originally a large man, but the results of his new...situation had changed him considerably.

Standing now a full seven and a half feet tall, the once diminutive knight was now encased in a gleaming suit of cybernetic armor, courtesy of the Atlas military.

No, encased wasn't really the right word for it, grafted or bonded seemed more appropriate. His "reward" for saving Pyrrha during the final transfer process with the former fall maiden, an event Cinder tried to interrupt.

Jaune, Nora and Ren had bought the precious time needed to complete the transfer but he had been horrifically injured in the process. Massive aura reserves or not, no one man could withstand the combined might of Cinder's powers and that many Grimm at once.

Even now, she still had trouble fully recalling the events of that night. They came to her in flashes of noise and sight, mashed together in some freakish slideshow.

She remembered them bringing his mangled body in on a stretcher. Nora was sobbing hysterically. Ren looked like he was going to be sick, and all she could do was stare in mute horror as medics rushed him into an operating room.

Then the endless hours of waiting in Beacon's infirmary, people coming and going all in a blur of faces she couldn't recall even if she wanted to, save for one.

It was the massive retinue surrounding them that caused her to finally look up from the floor. Ironwood had come to visit them personally, surrounded by a horde of troops and hunters, the best of the those still able to fight.

It would have been an impressive and fearsome sight in any other situation, but that evening, they merely looked weak. Afraid. Terrified of how close they had come to oblivion.

Ironwood began talking. Saying something about how severe Jaune's injuries were, how he would lose both of his legs, possibly both arms. He might not make it through surgery.

The words washed over her in a haze, unable to follow the conversation, she honed in on a singular fact: Jaune might die? No, that couldn't be possible, he had the strongest aura in their entire class, Ozpin said so! This wasn't possible!

She remembered asking what they were going to do. Ironwood mentioned something about cybernetic biofusion. Experimental dust techniques to fuse metal to flesh. He personally wasn't sure it was going to work, that it had never been done on this scale before.

"He...might not come out of this the same way you remember him Pyrrha. We're confident this will save his life...but he won't be the same Jaune Arc you once knew. You'll need to be prepared for that."

She demanded to be present for the surgery. They initially denied her request. Said it was too dangerous, would interfere...she didn't care. Jaune was dying because he had protected her, she didn't want her last memory of him be him lying in a pool of his own fluids on a gurney.

After some back and forth and intervention on Ozpin's part, they relented and allowed her entrance into the operating theater.

Jaune's screams of pain would haunt her until her dying days, she was sure of it.

And the surgery was indeed a success. Him standing here was proof of it. He was alive and walking around under his own power, and better still they had managed to save an arm.

Yet for all that, it was a bittersweet victory.

She thumbed the manual release on his visor. It slid back with a gentle hiss of hydraulics, revealing a face she had fallen in love with all those months ago...or at least what was left of it.

The best thing that could be said was that they only had to replace a portion of his skull and only one of his eyes.

The techs had been practically giddy going over Jaune's replacement eye, or "Grimm-Eye" as they colloquially referred to it in the lab.

They boasted how it had sensory capabilities on par with an Atlas warship and how it would improve Jaune's combat and tactical prowess a hundred fold.

To visitors however, the ocular implant and the other crudely grafted augmentations to his skull gave him the the ghastly visage of an armored corpse.

That was probably what caused that little child to run screaming from the room earlier. The mother looked she had wanted to do the same but only held back out of politeness.

To Pyrrha however, it merely made her sad. Why had so many people had to suffer on her account? Why had Jaune had to sacrifice so much?

For as marvelous as the technologies were that saved Jaune's life, they also were the very chains binding him to it. He would never be free of that armor. It was both his protection and his sarcophagus.

All because of a damn madwoman believing in some crazy fairytale.

She closed her eyes to stop the tears welling up within them. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. Why did all of these good people have to suffer on account of these accursed powers?

The maidens were supposed to heal and help the world! Yet all the Fall Maiden's powers had brought her was death and suffering.

As grief threatened to overwhelm her once again, the buzzing warble of Jaune's synthetic vocal cords cut through the silence.

"Soooo...I may not be the sharpest when it comes to reading emotions, but I can tell you're upset about something Pyrrha. What's going on?"

She sniffled quietly before wiping her eyes. "Oh, it's nothing...well ok that's a lie, it's so many things I don't even know where to begin Jaune. I'm feeling more than a little overwhelmed right now and don't know what to do."

"Well, I'm still not 100% on what the heck all of this maiden stuff is you have to do every day, but I'd like to help if I can. Standing around protecting you is kinda boring anyway." The non-mechanical part of his mouth curved into a smile.

"Jaune Arc are you saying you don't like being my guardian?" She gasped in mock offense.

"Come on Pyrrha, the toughest thing I've had to deal with so far have been those loonies thinking you're the reincarnation of a god or something. The maidens of-?" He cocked his head sideways.

"The Maidens of Mistral...and yes they are becoming a real problem." She frowned again. She'd have to bring that up with Ozpin tomorrow.

In a way she almost missed the days of the paparazzi and fans that would mob her after a successful Mistral tournament, they were practically tame in comparison to these zealots.

"You know Ironwood won't go for it. They're worried something will go wrong during a zone excursion! You're one of a kind and-"

"-And if something goes wrong, I'll have big strong Pyrrha Nikos with me to help me out." He gently squeezed her hand in return. "You worry almost as much as ol' Ironwood sometimes."

"Oh stop you!" She swatted his massive duststeel chestplate with a dull thud. Still, she couldn't help but smile.

She had tried all of her life to pull back from the fame and attention of being a Mistrali Tournament champion. For the most part, she had succeeded.

But now, the mantle of the Fall Maiden had once again pulled her back into that uncomfortable limelight.

Yet despite all the fame, despite all of the new responsibilities she had to perform, Jaune still hadn't forgotten who was behind the title.

It was how she managed to get through each day. She knew that regardless of whatever a Maiden was called to do, Jaune would be there to remember that Pyrrha Nikos still existed.

And she loved him all the more for it.

"Still, I'm glad we finally have some alone time together. Do you know what today is?"

She blinked. Frantically searching through her memory she tried to recall what today was supposed to signify. She almost reached for her scroll to call Ozpin when Jaune started chuckling.

"Judging by the panicked look on your face, I take it you don't remember..."

"Jaune I'm so sorry I-"

He held up his mechanical hand to quiet her. "Don't worry about it, if anyone has a right to forget something, you do."

"O-ok...so what makes today so special?" She was actually curious. The fact that Jaune had remembered something she hadn't was an event unto itself.

"This...is probably going to sound corny as hell but...today's the 6 month anniversary since the school dance. You know the one-"

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forget that sight of you in that dress Jaune." She recalled with a watery giggle.

"Yeah my cross dressing days are probably over. Still, I wanted to do something to commemorate the event, especially after what's happened lately..."

"Jaune...I-" She began but Jaune continued over her. He seemed to be trying to keep talking before he lost his courage.

"It took me so long to realize what that night meant to me Pyrrha. I'm the world's biggest blockhead, even before I got these upgrades." He tapped his helmet. "But I should have realized it sooner."

"You had faith in me when no one else did. You made me realize what it means when someone genuinely cares for you, and I was too damn stupid to notice it then, but I hope to make up for that now."

He pulled a pair of necklaces from a hidden compartment on his thigh. As the opening sealed with another quiet hiss, he held them up to the moonlight.

A pair of miniature metallic shields hung from each silver chain. Each disc resembled their shields they had once fought with. A golden Akouo and the white shield-sheath of Crocea Mors.

"I-I had them made from what we managed to recover from Crocea Mors. Ancient Ceramite is a pain in the butt to work with let me tell you..." He stopped and coughed.

"Jaune! They're beautiful!" The tears she had held back finally burst through and fell freely. With a delicacy belying his appearance, he clasped the necklace around Pyrrha's neck.

"Anyway...I had these made for us. We're each other's shields you know? We'll always have each other's backs. From now until forever, I'll never leave your side...well at least until bathroom breaks or something..."

"Oh Jaune! Thank you! Thank you so much! You- Oh come here before I make a bigger mess of myself!" She wrapped her arms around her Iron Knight.

Even through the multiple layers of metal and plastic, she could feel it. His heart still beat as strong as ever. His love for her, growing only stronger in the days since that dance.

Were she able, she would stretch this moment into eternity, content to bathe in the sheer bliss she felt at this moment for as long as she could.

"I'll always be your Guardian Pyrrha"

"And I will be yours Jaune."