Crushed

Ruby

These stupid heels. How can anyone walk in them? I'm annoyed at myself for choosing to wear high heels. But I'll power through my difficulties with them. I'm at the dance with Weiss, I'm gonna enjoy the evening. I can't believe she agreed to come with me. She's simply stunning. It's actually worth not being able to walk to be able to see Weiss tonight. On the way to the dance, Weiss loops her arm through mine. Neither of us say anything though. We just enter the dance hall, and see Yang greeting everyone.

"So, you two finally figured it out, huh?" she asks, and winks. I ignore her, which I'm pretty used to doing when she's being annoying, while Weiss facepalms.

"I'm not going to let your brute of a sister annoy me tonight, Ruby," she tells me. "I'm going to enjoy my time with you." With that, she leads me to the dance floor.

As we dance, I know people are staring at the two of us the way I stare at people who choose to eat raisin cookies instead of chocolate chip. No one says anything though, probably because they're afraid of incurring Weiss' wrath. After a few songs, I catch Yang's eye while she's getting punch. I try to ask her what I should do now with my eyes and without Weiss noticing. It seems to work, because my sister gestures at my partner, the kisses Blake. I know exactly what she's trying to say, and I gulp nervously. I've never kissed anyone before, much less an heiress to a multi-billion Lien company, but I tell myself that if I can face down a giant Nevermore, I can do this simple act. I tune everything out, sights and sounds, and focus completely on Weiss. She really is beautiful. I could stare at her forever and not get bored. Looking her straight in the eyes, I lean in slightly, hoping I don't do anything wrong. Weiss also leans towards me, which tells me she wants me to do this. I force myself to ignore my nervousness, and go for it.

It feels... Nice. I don't know how else to describe it. I've always found the idea of kissing kind of gross, but I've always thought of it with guys, not girls. I don't know if it would be different, and I don't care. I focus on Weiss' lips, feeling their softness. I could get used to this, I think, before I realise I'm out of breath, so I pull back and open my eyes. I see Weiss smiling, and I know I'm smiling just as wide, but I'm also blushing. So is she. Before either of us say anything, someone else does.

"OMIGOD YOU GUYS TOO?! YOU'RE ADORABLE!" Nora yells from somewhere. She's so loud, everyone stops and stares. I look around, and see Yang smiling proudly. After several seconds, or maybe a few minutes, I don't know, everyone goes back to what they were doing, and I ask Weiss if we're dating now.

"Of course we are, you dunce," she answers smiling. "You're still a dunce, but you're my dunce now."

"So that means you're my princess, right?" I jokingly ask.

"Yes, Ruby."

The next half hour is a blur. I feel really happy the whole time, but that's all I know. I have a sense of... What's that word... Eu... Euphorism? I think that's it. Anyway, Weiss and I are getting punch when we hear glass shatter. We turn to the window, and find that it's broken. Various Grimm are pouring in, and very few students can defend themselves in formal clothes without their weapons. Weiss is one of those students, because of her glyphs.

"Ruby! Go to our dorm, get changed and get Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster! Now!" she yells at me. I nod, and remove my high heels so I can run. Loose stones dig into my feet, but I ignore them in my determination to get prepared to fight before too many people get hurt. On the way, I see hundreds of Grimm approaching the school.

I run into a Beowolf just before reaching the dorm building, and think it looks different from normal, but I'm not sure why. I ignore this thought, and run around it and up to my room. It takes me less than five seconds to change, then I grab mine and Weiss' weapons. I jump out the window to save time, and fire a shot from Crescent Rose to slow me down before hitting the ground. I get back to the dance hall in no time, and throw Weiss her rapier. Unfolding Crescent Rose, I prepare to do one of my favourite things: killing Grimm.

I easily slash through every opponent I see, with one thought in my head the whole time. Where the hell are Blake and Yang? After finishing off an Ursa, I turn and see something that stops me in my tracks. Another Ursa, behind Weiss, with its claw raised, about to strike. She doesn't know it's there, and I'm too far away to help. I can't risk shooting, because I might hit her. I close my eyes in despair, until I hear a distinctive sound. A shotgun blast, to be precise. I look up, and see my sister standing where the Ursa used to be, one of her gauntlets smoking. Blake is behind her, striking at any target in range. I run over, slicing a Beowolf in half along the way.

"Where the hell have you two been?" I ask Blake and Yang.

"Vale. The White Fang attacked on Torchwick's orders," Yang explains. "No time to go any further." She's right, as one of the walls explodes, and an Atlesian Paladin enters. Through the hole, I see at least ten more. All of them have the White Fang logo on them. It suddenly dawns on me that the extremist group is somehow behind the Grimm attack. With so many Paladins, and an army of Grimm seemingly supporting them, it looks like the end for all of us, but Team RWBY doesn't retreat if we're gonna die anyway.

"All right, girls, we probably won't make it out of this one, but I'm going to kill every single fucking one of them that I possibly can. Are you with me?" I ask.

Yang looks shocked, because she's never heard me use that kind of language before, but she nods and stares defiantly at the enemy. Weiss and Blake also nod, and the four of us look death straight in the face, and smile.

Yang

Blake and I head back to Beacon in a flat sprint. The sight that meets us on arrival makes my heart stop. A stupidly huge number of Grimm, more than I've ever seen in one place, is attacking the school. Even worse than that, there are at least a dozen Atlesian Paladins, decked out in White Fang colours. I look at Blake.

"Are they… Working together?" I ask.

"It does seem that way. But I don't know how they're controlling the Grimm," she answers. With that, we fight our way to the dance hall, where the majority of people at Beacon are, so naturally the majority of the Grimm are there too. While fighting, I notice that the red glow all Grimm have in their eyes seems duller than it should be. Strange. They don't seem any weaker. After punching an Ursa in the throat, I notice another weird thing. My fist went through metal. It doesn't take someone who pays attention in Grimm Studies to know Grimm don't have any metal on them. I look around, and every Grimm has some kind of collar on them, or two in the case of King Taijitus.

Apparently, Blake notices this too. "What happens if the collar should come off?" she asks me.

"I don't know, but you should try it. I would, but Ember Celica doesn't do precision," I answer. She nods, and cleaves through the collar of a nearby Beowolf without killing it. The glow in its eyes returns to full strength, before the beast goes crazy and attacks everything in sight. Blake stops it with a shot to its throat.

"Do you think the collars are keeping them under control?" I ask, and she nods. We continue fighting, me still stronger than usual because of my Semblance, but it's wearing off. When we reach the dance hall, I see Weiss coordinating a Dust attack, completely unaware of an Ursa behind her. Using my gauntlets to get over there faster, I punch it and fire Ember Celica at the same time. Blake joins me a second later, killing any Grimm in range. There's blood everywhere, and I don't even want to think about how many people were hurt or killed in the surprise attack. Luckily, I don't have to, as Ruby suddenly appears, dressed in her regular clothes. She probably changed and came back, because Weiss is still in the dress she was wearing earlier.

"Where the hell have you two been?" my sister asks me.

"Vale. The White Fang attacked on Torchwick's orders," I tell her. "No time to go any further." Right as I finish speaking, a wall explodes and a Paladin enters.

"All right, girls, we probably won't make it out of this one, but I'm going to kill every single fucking one of them that I possibly can. Are you with me?" Ruby says.

I look at her, shocked to hear her swear, but then I nod and stare at the enemy, silently challenging them to come at me. Weiss and Blake also nod, and the four of us take up battle stances. Before anyone gets a chance to do anything, a missile is fired from the Paladin. It hits me, and my Aura absorbs the explosion. I'm sent flying, and realize how fortunate that is. I don't have to worry about my Semblance wearing off now. I charge the Paladin and punch it, causing it to undergo rapid unplanned disassembly. In other words, it shatters. I have no time to congratulate myself though, because my momentum carried me outside. I falter when I see another dozen Paladins accompanied by seven Deathstalkers and five King Taijitus. Where the actual fuck is Ozpin?! He should be protecting the school! I think, and decide the safest thing to do would be to go find him. I run back to the dance hall and tell my teammates we need to fall back.

"There's a couple of injured people here! We can't just leave them!" Ruby protests. I look around and see who she's referring to. I don't recognize them, but I scoop them up and throw them over my shoulders before running to the main building of the school. I bring them to the infirmary and drop them off. The nurse seems surprised to see me carrying two people on my shoulders and not be out of breath at all, but I ignore her.

"I'm going to find Ozpin," I declare. "Who's coming?"

Ruby and Blake say they'll follow me, while Weiss decides to stay and guard the infirmary. She kisses Ruby and whispers "good luck", before the three of us run to Ozpin's office. When we get there, the door is closed and locked, so I hammer on it.

"Professor! The damn school is under attack from the White Fang and a fucking army of Grimm! What the hell could you be doing that's more important than helping fight them?!" I yell. Blake looks shocked to hear me talk to the Headmaster like that, but there's no answer from inside the office. I hammer on the door a few more times, before deciding "screw it" and kicking it down. I'm half expecting a very angry Ozpin to berate me, or have a bemused smile on his face. Neither of those things happen.

Looking around, I see that the office is empty, apart from the door that is now in the middle of the room. I don't get a chance to say anything about this to my team, however, because a stern voice suddenly calls out.

"Children! What are you doing in here?" I turn and see Goodwitch, who doesn't seem happy.

"We were looking for Professor Ozpin," Blake explains. "Yang decided to kick the door in because it was locked."

Before anyone says anything else, an explosion shakes the room. When I regain my balance, I turn and see Torchwick in an airship, smiling with his cane pointed at us, ready to fire.

"Sorry, ladies, the old man isn't here. I sent him on a wild goose chase to Vacuo, where he thinks he's gonna find an enemy too powerful for an ordinary Huntsman," he tells us. Seething, I prepare to finish what I started last week, but Goodwitch holds me back and fires a Dust attack at Roman's airship. The pilot manoeuvres the craft out of the way, before Roman heads back inside the ship, to be replaced by a shadowy figure with glowing eyes. This person looks familiar, but I can't place her. At least, I think it's a woman, because she appears to be wearing a dress, but it's hard to tell because she's basically just a silhouette. Ruby gasps in fear, and I figure she must know who this new enemy is.

Glynda narrows her eyes, before telling us to run. When the woman in the ship launches a huge firebolt that scorches most of Ozpin's office, we don't even hesitate. Ruby, Blake and I bolt down the stairs, figuring it will be much safer to fight an army of Grimm than the silhouette in the airship. After a while, we see Port and Oobleck annihilating Grimm with seemingly no effort. They catch sight of us, and tell us we need to push the enemy back before they enter the school.

"If we can reach the armory, there's Dust we can use to take down the Paladins," Blake suggests.

"Great plan, babe, but have you seen how many Grimm are between here and there?" I ask her. She smiles, and says it's no problem if we send Ruby.

"How do you figure? I know she's fast, but there's too many of them," I say, confused.

"If you're worried your sister will get hurt, nothing can stop you from ensuring she doesn't," Blake tells me, in a tone that says "duh".

I shrug. "Fair point. Go for it, Ruby."

My red-clad sister bolts towards the armory and I follow, punching Grimm left and right. I am not gonna let anything happen to her. She enters the armory, and I stay on guard outside while she collects the Dust. She comes out a couple of minutes later with at least twenty crystals. I raise an eyebrow at her.

"I didn't know how much we need," she tells me, and we sprint back to Blake, Port and Oobleck. The veteran Huntsmen see the Dust in Ruby's arms, and congratulate us on our "ingenuity".

"Dibs on blowing it up," I say, to which my girlfriend rolls her eyes. I switch to the long-range fire mode on Ember Celica and tell my sister to start throwing the crystals. Twelve throws, twelve perfectly aimed long-range blasts, twelve massive explosions. When the smoke clears, the Paladins are a dozen smoking wrecks of twisted metal.

"We're awesome," I tell Ruby, clapping her on the back. She nods and smiles, before pointing out that it was Blake's idea.

"Yeah, but I didn't actually have anything to do with the execution of it," the Faunus says modestly, before telling me to duck. I instantly do, and Blake shoots at something behind me. There's a howl of pain, and a thud as something hits the ground. I turn and see an Ursa clutching its throat as it lies on the ground, dying from the wound my incredible girlfriend gave it.

At this point, Team JNPR show up, joined by Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias. The six of them smile, before turning to face the remaining Grimm. Thanks to Port and Oobleck, their numbers have been decreased to just over a hundred. Easy. Sun pulls out Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang in staff form and starts swinging, while Nora hefts Magnhild and decides to smash. I'm surprised Weiss has never lectured that girl about "grace" or "form", given the way she wields that hammer. I seriously think she's insane. The other three members of JNPR also attack, while Neptune pulls out his gun and switches it to guandao form to join his leader.

"They can probably handle this, guys," Ruby tells us. "Let's go find Weiss."

"You go ahead," I answer. "I am not missing a fight."

"I'll stay here too. I need to make sure this one doesn't get herself killed," Blake says. Ruby looks a little crestfallen, but goes off on her own to find her girlfriend while Blake and I get back into the thick of the action.

Within minutes, all the Grimm lie dead or dying, and Ruby and Weiss return hand in hand. I smile at them, before suggesting to Blake that we go somewhere private for a celebratory make-out session now that the school is safe. She gladly agrees, so we rush to Beacon Cliff. On the way, we see the airship that contains Torchwick and the shadow woman flying away, looking damaged but intact. Next time, you bastard, I think. Next thing I know, we're at the cliff and Blake's lips are on mine in an instant. After a solid minute, I pull back and smile.

"What were you planning that day in the forest when we were interrupted by Jaune and Pyrrha?"

"Oh, that. We'll need a little more privacy," she says seductively, before pulling me to a dorm room that we know is uninhabited. I smile when I figure out what she's thinking, and prepare for a lot of fun.

Cinder

Surprisingly, Roman didn't screw this up. It still wasn't as successful as planned, despite the timing of the attack, but at least we know the devices work now. According to a news report, thirty students are dead, but no names are disclosed. I just hope the colourful girls Roman has so much trouble with are out of commission. Even if they aren't, no one will be able to stop me when I move to the final phase…