Book I

Rage:

Sing, Goddess, of Pyrrha's rage,

Black and murderous, that cost the many

Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls

Of Heroes into the Void's dark,

And left their bodies to rot as feasts

For Beowolves and Nevermores, as God's will was done.

"I love you."

Three simple words registered in Pyrrha's head as a massive white aura shield expanded over them, engulfing the stadium. It was a phenomenon that Pyrrha knew well. After all, it was Jaune's semblance.

It had taken semesters, but Jaune could finally do it, creating an impregnable shield with his aura, and expanding it not just over himself, but over others. Yet he'd never tried it on a large area before, such as a floating stadium filled with thousands.

As the massive projectile barreled down onto the floating target, the Atlas military's guns uselessly bounced off it. The massive amounts of dust huntresses and hunters were throwing up useless. The shield held.

When the mass finally reached the Amity stadium, the airborne colosseum shook. It groaned under the weight as a force too large to even imagine battered itself onto the aura projection, blotting out the sun for all those under it.

Yet the shield held.

Even as cracks formed in the white aura, and the seconds ticked by, it held.

Then the shadow shattered.

The sound was indescribable, simply calling it a boom didn't fit in Pyrrha's mind. That would be implying she understood what she had just heard. The sound created a physical wave so clear she could see it as it exploded outwards.

It was deafening, the concussive force of it shredding the surrounding area, the coastline below looked as if it had been through a cheese grater. Even those within the shield were knocked off their feet as the structure shock, Pyrrha impacting a wall hard enough to dent it, losing consciousness.

Slowly, the inky blackness receded as pain filled her being. Ignoring the throbbing pain, as her aura slowly knitted and healed her, Pyrrha forced open her eyes. Where there had been darkness against light, now there was only light, the shield slowly receding in the absence of a threat.

"Did we survive?"

The aching pain she felt led Pyrrha to the conclusion that she was most definitely alive.

"We… we survived."

Relief flooded through her, andshe couldn't help but start laughing as Pyrrha slowly pushed herself up. People around her were slowly getting to their feet shakily, the looks of wonder shared on their faces.

The shield had held and they were safe. Jaune, the blond who didn't even know how to hold a sword a year ago, had saved everyone. Despite what had happened, Pyrrha felt a bright smile start to creep onto her face; Jaune is going to be the hero he always dreamed of. All of his hard work, his dedication, finally paid off.

"He's going to be a hero." Despite all that had happened, there was still a positive silver lining to it. "Jaune is going to be a hero." Pyrrha couldn't stop repeating it. "He is goi-"

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Of all the places that Pyrrha expected to hear a klaxon going off, it wasn't from her scroll. Not from the stadium itself, or the city below, or any of the number of Atlas military devices lying around… no, the blaring noise was coming from her scroll. Shakily opening it up, the teen looked at the alert. "Oh no." Pyrrha felt the air leave her lungs, the device clattering to the ground as she took off in a mad dash. "No no no no no!"

"JAUNE?! JAUNE WHERE ARE YOU?!" In the chaos of the impact, everyone had been tossed this way and that. Pyrrha's doubles' partner, Nora, was nowhere to be found, eventhough they had been standing next to each other moments ago. But Nora is alright! Nora's aura bar on the scroll had clearly shown she had enough left, unlike Jaune.

Jaune's aura was in the negatives.

Pyrrha had seen someone with a flat zero before, that was common enough in practice matches, even with fifteen percent left as a cut off, sometimes a combatant would go overboard or there was an accident, such as the match before hers' with team RWBY. But negatives… Pyrrha had never even heard of someone going into the negatives before. It was with that lack of information that her thoughts fed on.

How is that even possible?! Maybe his scroll broke, unless it's something else. That was the bit that Pyrrha's mind latched on to. Why did it say negative? Pyrrha's mind instantly went to all the ways he could be bleeding out in the rumble. I need to find him!

Going around the bend, Pyrrha found what she was seeking; Jaune.

The blonde was covered in debris, but looked otherwise fine. Besides the fact that he was pinned to the ground by a slab of concrete roughly the size of a car, but alive nonetheless. Pyrrha's relief was cut short by the unmistakable sound of metal groaning and giving as huge chunks of the stadium's roof started to fall.

Right towards Jaune.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha bolted frantically towards him but she already knew that she would never reach him in time. That only left her second option; polarity.

Pyrrha didn't care if she was going to burn through what remained of her aura as she ripped anything she could manipulate off the ground and hurled it towards the falling rubble. The redhead's aura was drained in seconds as literal tons of debris were hurled up in a protective shield around Jaune moments before the falling concrete impacted.

The sound was deafening. Not as bad as the shadow's impact, but loud as concrete pelted onto metal, creating a horrific racket and kicking up a small dust storm. When Pyrrha finally reached him, the dust cloud had settled, revealing a heart wrenching sight.

Jaune was no longer pinned by the concrete slab, somehow it had been moved in the confusion. He just had an eight foot long piece of debris jammed through his chest. Pyrrha knew enough as the blood pooled out from under him even if she denied it.

Jaune was going to die.

"NO!" Pyrrha was on her knees cradling him as he coughed up blood. She didn't have any aura to transfer to him, her scroll had been left lying who knows where. In short, Pyrrha was helpless as Jaune started to bleed out.

Pyrrha's vision blurred as she tried in vain to stop the bleeding, wrapping her sash around the gaping wound. "Jaune, wake up! Please wake up!"

Blue eyes opened with languish. "P-Pyrrha…?" The voice that had brought so much happiness to Pyrrha's life spoke, only to start coughing up blood.

"Jaune! Just stay with me Jaune, and everything will be fine." Pyrrha's voice cracked when the blood started to ooze through the sash. "It'll be okay."

"I…I thought you loved me?"

Pyrrha only noticed the fear, the complete and utter terror that had entered his eyes as they focused on her, like a kicked puppy not knowing what had happened after it ran into a screen door. Pyrrha couldn't stop the sobs. "Of-f-f course I l-l-love you Jaune, I will love you forever, ju-just ha-ang on and it'll be okay… Jaune?"

The blonde boy's limbs had stopped shaking as Pyrrha shook him slightly. "Snap out of it Jaune! …Jaune?"

Blue eyes were frozen with terror as the light slowly dwindled from there.

Jaune Arc was dead.

The sound of Pyrrha's grief stung in the air.

"What do you think it's like?"

Pyrrha slowly moved, lethargy making her want to stay put, her head cradled in Jaune's lap. "What do I think what's like?"

Blue eyes dragged themselves from the swirling clouds to look down at curious emerald ones. "To be a cloud?"

The teen couldn't help but giggle at her partner's question. "I don't think you can be a cloud Jaune." Her arms wrapped around his torso, locking her against him. "You'd float away then."

"You won't let me be a cloud then?" The question prompted Pyrrha to shake her head as an all too familiar cocky smile graced Jaune's face. "What if my dream is to be a cloud?"

"You don't get that dream." Pyrrha pouted while slowly shifting around, pulling the blond teen to the grass covered ground. "Plus, I thought your dream was to become a hero…"

Jaune limply let himself get pulled to the ground as Pyrrha rested her head on his chest. "Well… uh, clouds still have dreams!" The boy nodded to himself. "I could be… a heroic cloud."

Pyrrha didn't respond, letting the comment slip away as the two cuddled in the sunlight. It was a type of quiet they hadn't experienced in a while, the hectic schedule of the tournament cutting deeply into their alone time. Into the small bubble of tranquility that the two teens had found in each other. I just wish the tournament would end already… then I could just be… Pyrrha again. It was a selfish thought to be sure, but it was something that Pyrrha craved; the time when it was just her and her friends… her teammates… Jaune.

A huge goofy smile tugged at the corners of Pyrrha's mouth as she snuggled her partner, a hand lightly running through her hair. "Hellllllloooooo?" Pyrrha could hear the teasing tone in the voice. "Anyone home?"

"Perhaps…" Pyrrha craned her neck to look at her scraggly blond boyfriend. "But all I see is a heroic cloud floating away."

"I'm not a cloud yet!" Jaune retorted. "Maybe someday I'll be up there..." Pyrrha felt the weight leave her hair and saw Jaune point up at the swirling clouds. "But first I need to be a hero."

"You're already a hero to me." The words left Pyrrha's mouth without a second thought. "You've proven yourself to everyone."

Pyrrha could hear the teen chuckle. "Who would have ever thought that a guy like me would have qualified for the Vytal tournament?"

"I did!" The redhead admonished him with a pout. "You've always been a hero to me… you're my hero."

Their conversation died out as the warm sunlight vanished as Amity colosseum loomed over head.

At least the tournament is nearly over.

All this time Pyrrha, daughter of Nikos in the line of Gods,

Nursed her anger, the great runner idle by her fleet's fast hulls.

She was not to be seen in council, that arena for glory,

Nor in combat. She sat tight in camp consumed with grief,

Her great heart yearning for the battle cry and war.

Twelve days went by.

The funeral had been a grand affair.

The hero, no, savior of the Vytal festival, the one who had saved not only the lives of nearly every huntress and huntsmen in the world, but the lives of Vale itself, had every honour possible awarded. A massive tomb to house the hero who had given up his life to save everyone else was beyond compare. Already there was a call to rename the festival in his honour.

Jaune Arc was a hero, praised for all time for his martyrdom, for saving the very institution that he had cheated his way into.

His dream had become reality.

My reality is a nightmare.

If someone had asked what loss felt like, Pyrrha could only describe it as losing everything, yet nothing.

To the deepest reaches of her core, she felt empty, a void had started that she knew was never going to be filled, that her existence was incomplete. Yet at the same time, everything felt normal; physically she was fine. Cuts, scrapes, bruises… those all healed relatively quickly. Having lost the meaning to her life, Pyrrha thought she'd feel sick to her stomach, like she was deathly ill, but that wasn't the case.

Pyrrha felt dead inside. It couldn't be real, there was no way Jaune was just… gone. It was impossible! You can't just… die! Her senses felt dulled, food held no real taste, colours were no longer vibrant. Sleep was a process that happened automatically. Reality only started to set in during the funeral, as Jaune saw the open sky for the final time.

It had dawned on her that this truly was the end, Pyrrha felt her insides go cold, as it settled into her mind; Jaune was truly dead.

Then Pyrrha wished she still felt dead inside.

Tears were the least of her concerns as the void suddenly filled partially with pain. Pain that came from reality finally slamming into her like a crashing bullhead. Jaune was gone. He wasn't going to come back. Where she had once felt robotic, now she felt everything. Yet the emptiness was still not filled, ever present in the depths of her chest.

Sleep was an elusive concept to her; every time her eyes closed, he was there, limp in her arms, never to move again. Food tasted of ash, calling it a monochrome experience was insulting as there was only a singular colour to it. Her friends, her teammates had tried to talk to her, to console her in some small measure to no avail. Their words had bounced off her as she stayed huddled in a ball.

Pyrrha's body ached as she laid in her bed, silent sobs wracking it, the tears long having dried up. Nora and Ren had tried to stay with her, they really had. The two of them were the only reason that Pyrrha had eaten anything. Yet they were no closer to breaching her shell than anyone else.

So she stayed in a little ball on her bed, as days turned into a full week.

Pyrrha did have a couple mementos left of him. For one, the oversized hoodie of his that now only smelled faintly of him. That faint smell was an ever-present reminder of him, its faded orange insides wrapped around her. The other was even more precious: Crocea Mors.

At the funeral, Pyrrha had tried to give it back to his parents, but they had refused – it was an Arc family heirloom after all.

'He would have wanted you to have it.'

Those words were burned into her brain, the clearest moment she had from that day. It was why she had Crocea Mors currently clutched against her chest.

Time doesn't heal anything, Pyrrha couldn't help but muse as she laid on her bed, not quite knowing what to do. The feelings of pain and emptiness, of loneliness was still as vivid as they were when they started. There was a new thought that had entered Pyrrha's head, however; what do I do now?

Pyrrha hadn't left the dorm room in days. Hell, she hadn't moved much besides relieving herself in the bathroom since the funeral. On an objective level, she knew why.

There was a simple reason; Pyrrha lacked motivation.

She didn't have any motivation to move as much as a millimeter, and why should she? Jaune was… was… he was gone. It made life seem rather meaningless. The reason she felt like a human being instead of an idealized form of victory was now dead. Gone. He wasn't going to return. A scraggly blond face wasn't going to poke out from behind the doorframe anymore, with tickets to a cheesy action movie.

Motivation was what had been driving Pyrrha through life, the want to fulfill her destiny, the want to be normal… to be happy with Jaune. Except, Jaune was now dead, what was she supposed to do now?

So what now?

Idly, Pyrrha's mind went back to what Nora and Ren had been trying to do; to get her up and out of the room. It wasn't that Pyrrha didn't want to leave the dorm room so much as she saw no point in leaving it. The outside world didn't even seem to have colour anymore as Pyrrha stared through the window. What's the point, even it's… it's…

Standing outside in the court yard in broad daylight, the familiar messy blob of blonde hair ever recognizable to Pyrrha, was a figure she thought she'd never see again.

Jaune? Suddenly colour jumped back into Pyrrha's sight, a surge of emotions rushed through her as she shakily got to her feet and bounded to the door, Crocea Mors still clutched against her chest. She barely noticed the surprised looks of fellow students as she whipped past them, the pointed glances that were shared, and the hushed whispers. They didn't matter, all that did matter was that Jaune was alive!

Yet the sight that greeted her once she was out in the courtyard wasn't the one she expected. It wasn't Jaune who greeted her, but a platoon of Atlas military. Before Pyrrha could so much as blink, an atlesian paladin landed between her and the school as another platoon emerged from the doorway she'd just gone through. All with their guns pointed at Pyrrha.

Most alarming perhaps was the tall white haired woman who was striding towards her as the Atlas military surrounded her, speech crisp and commanding.

"Miss Nikos, you are under arrest for the murder of Jaune Arc."

BETA & Editor: Super Saiyan Cyndaquil

Editor: MartunaMajor

AU: Finally this comes out.

I've been working off and on for this chapter since episode two of volume three and I can finally publish it. FINALLY. The quality of this went all over the place to be honest because it's been written over the course of months.

This at least gave me a way to channel some of my feelings after the last episode. Probably why progress picked up. Plus I said I'd wait until the volume ended before continuing. Which I have.

I can only give my deepest heartfelt thanks for your kind, kind words. Seriously thank you. I will give a lot longer response in a Spoon Equality chapter later because this isn't the place for that kind of discussion. Please bear with me everyone. In short, I'm doing better but the longer analysis of what's going on with me will be saved for Spoon Equality chapter whenever it gets put out.

Also I'm sorry for not responding reviews recently or even for Wrath's last chapter. Life got insanely busy during December and during January I was very sick. February was emotions getting screwed with.

As always, thank you for reading and have a great day everyone!