206

"MOM!?"

"Focus on the fight first! I'll explain what I can later!" Summer Rose shouted, grunting and conjuring a barrier of flame as Salem lashed out with magic again, an incomprehensible pressure crushing down on the entire area as the world continued to list and wobble dangerously, the monstrous whale grimm known as Monstra roaring and groaning as it fell from the sky.

"This feels like something that's pretty important to explain!" Ruby shot back, dashing in with a burst of rose petals and blocking a massive spike of grimm material from stabbing her mom (HER MOM!!!!) in the back with her own body- slashing through it with Crescent Rose and absorbing the material as it dissolved before whipping around and firing off a few shots alongside her mother- both rifles barking and blasting away as they put more lead into Salem with deadly precise shots.

It would have been gruesome and terrible, seeing a woman's body torn away like that. Her forehead, her eye, her heart, her chest, her gut, her face. All reduced to black matter that splattered against the floor as her body writhed and let off sickening cracks and squelches- regenerating in between impacts even as she continued to remain conscious enough to blast the area with flame- to which the immediate response was a barrier of ice that Neo conjured up with a sudden burst of motion. 

"Where the hell are Emerald and Mercury?" Yang asked, hissing as she ducked behind the ice and all but hid from view with Weiss and Blake, both of them looking between the main fight and Cinder, who was making sure that they were okay- with their Auras blasted so low, and lowered further still from the backlash of their own weapons, they were on the verge of Aura exhaustion already and that was so much worse to have at the moment than just a shattered Aura. A shattered Aura would come back after a breather. An exhausted one needed full bedrest, at least a few days. 

Days that they, obviously, didn't have.

"They're still in Mantle, making sure the people are safe. Just- take it easy you three. Hell- get out of here and get back to safety for that matter. Things are gonna get really intense soon and I'd really rather you not get caught up in it with exhausted Auras," Cinder answered, magic pouring from her eyes as she huddled low over her sister and her sister's girlfriends, gritting her teeth as she listened to the sound of intense combat on the other side. What kind of monster was Salem, that she could handle fighting even five Huntresses at the same time? Three of whom were Maidens, one of whom was a robot, one of whom was half grimm, and all of whom were considered some of the strongest fighters of their time. What kind of sheer, raw power did Salem have, that her blasts could rip holes into her own grimm better than even Ruby's strongest bullets- all of which had been wasted in the opening salvos and the fighting down below earlier- that she could regenerate faster and better than Ruby herself…

What a fucking nightmare this all was.

Cinder gritted her teeth and shook her head, scanning over the Aura levels of her three underclassmen and motioning for them to exit while they still could- the monstrous whale grimm now close enough to the ground that if they rode out on Bumblebee's jumpjets and used the last of Weiss' energy to hitch a ride on a Lancer summon back to Mantle, they'd probably be fine. Probably.

"No can do, Cin. Ruby's here, you're here, Raven's here, mom is here and alive somehow. I'm not sitting this out or running- Team RWBYP sticks together no matter what," Yang shook her head, and Weiss and Blake nodded along as their souls flared brighter- strengthened for a moment by their sheer resolve and the proximity to each other. "I won't abandon my family, and I won't abandon my team either."

"Neither will I. It'd be a poor showing of me as a Huntress if I were to retreat now, even if there's more to be done," Weiss stood slowly, tenderly, using Myrtenaster as a support as she peered through the cracking ice that separated the four of them from the fight on the other side. "Besides… even if it's just supporting fire… I think we can handle that much."

"We'll just have to fight like we did at the start of first year, then," Blake sighed, drawing Gambol Shroud and shifting it into pistol form as she clicked a fresh magazine into place, watching as Ruby and Penny harried Salem and deflected beams powerful enough that when they ripped through the whale grimm's flesh it left holes so large that the sky could be seen on the other end.

No wonder everything was starting to feel weightless. They likely didn't have long before the thing went down entirely, and then what would happen? A massive impact, probably the death of the whale grimm, maybe a stop to the flood of grimm that was still attacking Atlas and Mantle, and then- what, Yang, Weiss, and Blake would all run into combined Aura Exhaustion and shattering at the same time? They'd be knocked out from the crash, so they had to leave now.

Or…

"Hey."

Amber.

Cinder's eyes widened as she ducked below a blast of magic that burst through the ice above her, piercing through grimm matter and causing even more damage. Salem didn't even care that she was destroying her own forward base, did she? She would survive the crash and was counting on it weakening or killing at least a few of them, Cinder would bet on it. But-

"Cin? You good? You look like you've seen a ghost," Yang muttered, biting her lip as she collapsed Ember Celica and replaced the bracers with her Celica Blooms, the smaller gauntlets seeming out of place on her wrists even as she loaded them up with twelve gauge shells and peered through the holes in the ice barrier Neo had made. "What's going on?"

"Nothing you need to worry about- just-" Cinder reached out, grabbing Yang's arm and pushing. It wasn't anything like Jaune's Semblance, where he used Aura Amp to amplify someone else's Aura. It was Amber's Semblance- Aura Gift. Where she used her own soul to refill the Aura capacities of other people, or heal them. "Take this."

"Cin!? Wait- wha… oh my gods what are you-" Yang sputtered, watching as Cinder's Aura pulsed into her, refilling her pool by a surprising amount- almost back to full in nearly an instant, and Cinder barely even looked winded as she pushed and pushed and pushed. "What the fuck…?"

"Figured out a trick just now," Cinder huffed, listening for the sounds of battle again as the entire cacophony seemed to drift away and through the halls of the falling whale grimm, gritting her teeth as she reached out to Weiss and Blake and repeated the procedure on them, Amber's presence at the forefront of her mind as she pushed her soul into the two girls. "Take my Aura, I've got more than enough and more magic than that even. Whatever happens next… if you all wanna be here for it… you'll need to be in fighting condition."

"We won't let it go to waste," Weiss promised, gritting her teeth as the sounds of battle began to grow louder again, and the sensation of weightlessness began to grow stronger as the whale grimm began to fall ever faster towards the unforgiving ground below. "Thank you, Cinder."

"We'll do our best," Blake nodded, ears pricking up as the battle rejoined the open atrium where they had been hiding- all six combatant crashing through in a dizzying display of color that was almost blinding to look at- Ruby and Penny still giving it their all despite seemingly doing less than the three Maidens were. "Cinder- go!"

"On it!"

Without another word, and as the battle only grew more intense, Cinder joined the fray- rocketing into the fight and smashing the obsidian blades of Midnight into the back of Salem's head so hard the grimm woman was split into three from the sheer force of the blow- distracting her just long enough for a combined blast of magic to disintegrate her into ash.

To no avail.

"Well… time for round two," Yang sighed, rolling her shoulder as she slid Ember Celica back on- covering the Celica Blooms as the smaller bracers slotted into perfect place inside of the larger gauntlets and increased the amount of barrels from two four gauge on each hand to three- two four gauge barrels, and a twelve gauge in the middle. Extra firepower, extra recoil, extra boom. "Ready girls?"

"As I'll ever be," Blake muttered, holding Gambol Shroud's pistol form in one hand and the shotgun sheath in the other. "Weiss?"

Weiss rolled her neck, spinning Myrtenaster's cylinder around and shifting it fully into lance mode, eyes shining with her newly regenerated Aura as she pointed at the regenerating grimm queen. "Let's show this bitch why you don't mess with Team RWBYP!"

"YEAH!"