15: Of Gods And Men

The moment he heard the sharp, familiar crack, Special Agent Castello realized they were too late. Instinctively, he drew his pistol from under his jacket, holding it at the ready. He quickly scanned for the shooter. The sound came from the entrance, but he couldn't tell exactly where.

"Shots fired, shots fired!" he shouted into his radio.

"Oh god, what do I do, what do we do?" the security guard beside him asked, panicking.

"Calm down, kid," Castello said firmly. "Get on your radio, tell you boss we have at least one active shooter. You need to evacuate the building, and do it now."

"Okay... I'll do that."

Castello scanned the area again, cringing when he heard more gunshots. Definitely coming from the entrance. There was shouting coming from that direction, too, but it seemed most of the crowds didn't know what the shots were, because panic had yet to set in. He knew all too well that wouldn't last. Staying low, he crept around the stalls toward the front door.

What he saw was far worse than he thought it would be. He counted at least six- maybe twice that- faunus in White Fang masks carrying strange rifles and advancing through the entrance. Which left another burning question: where was Cinder?

He retreated with the security guard, leaving the civilians at the entrance to their fate. He hated himself for it, but there was nothing he could do. Not with only an automatic handgun and a security guard for backup.

"Sideline, we have unknown hostiles, uh... engaging the guards outside the building." He held back a feeling of horror and lined up his telescopic sight with one of the odd attackers. As he watched, a bright flash erupted from the dog-eared man's strange rifle and one of the guards fell dead. "Request permission to engage."

The reply was terse and hasty. "Permission granted, fire at will."

"Solid copy." The sniper pulled the trigger, the Barrett M82 rifle recoiling hard into his shoulder as it sent a .50 caliber semi-armor-piercing high-explosive incendiary bullet toward his target. He corrected his aim and fired twice more in quick succession. Normally, that was overkill for anything but an armored car.

The quick burst staggered the man, but he got up again, shouting to his comrades to move forward. The sniper tried to line up for another shot, but a support beam was in his way. He changed targets to a short woman with a long tail and round ears and pulled the trigger twice more. One of the other snipers had chosen the same target, and she collapsed to the ground with a bullet hole in her chest as her comrades continued to advance.

By the time the sniper managed to reload his rifle, the hostiles had all clued in and advanced quickly into the building. He cursed to himself. "No shot, no shot, hostiles are inside the building."

Cinder smirked as soon as she heard the shots. "Now."

Roman was the first to act, raising Melodic Cudgel and firing off three flaming rounds toward the still-oblivious girls. His shots missed, but set a stand full of figurines on fire. Emerald was next, leaping forward, drawing her pistols, and unleashing a burst toward the leader of the team.

Bystanders were confused. Some of them panicked, especially near the burning figurine stand, and began to run for the exits. Others were intrigued by what they thought was a cosplay show of some sort and stood around to watch.

Ruby reacted quickly, drawing Crescent Rose and extending the weapon into scythe form. She took aim and pulled the trigger- and was rewarded with a hollow click. Her eyes went wide in horror as she realized that she didn't have any ammunition at all. She swung around the scythe, leaping out of the way as storm of bullets flew toward her. "Guys, a little help here!"

"With what?" Yang shouted, Ember Celica extended but useless.

"Uh, nevermind, run!" Ruby shouted, taking off in a blur of rose petals.

"Come on!" Blake grabbed Weiss, pushing her under a booth displaying comic books. Seconds later, a flaming shot slammed into it and started another fire. The monochrome duo jumped to their feet and dashed away from the booth toward their leader.

"What the hell are you doing!" Yang shouted, running after them.

"We can't fight them! We have to get out of here!" Blake shouted back.

"Come on!" Ruby shouted from up ahead, pivoting around a corner with her scythe. They emerged into a very confused crowd, and to their horror Emerald and Mercury were already there- they'd become turned around at some point.

Meeting the voice actors that portrayed his friends was definitely the highlight of Jaune Arc's day, both for its sheer awesomeness and its sheer weirdness. They hadn't had much of a chance to talk, but he could tell they were excited to meet the real JNPR, and some of that rubbed off on his team.

"I still can't believe you guys-" Jaune began, but stopped after hearing a series of dull cracks. "What's that noise?"

The blonde woman- she voiced Yang and he could tell- shrugged. "It's probably just-"

She was cut off by a plainclothes FBI agent grabbing her and forcefully dragging her toward the nearest exit. Two more grabbed the other voice actors and pushed them forward.

"Hey, what's going on?" the black-haired woman who sounded kind of like Blake asked.

"We have a major terrorist attack in progress," the agent stated tersely. "You need to come with us, right now."

He turned to the blonde-haired teenager behind her. "Are you Jaune Arc?" the agent asked. "The real Jaune Arc?"

"Uh, yeah," he replied to the odd question.

The agent pushed a black cloth bag into his hands. "Get this to your friends. Now."

"What's in the bag?" Nora asked, immediately ripping it open. Her eyes widened. "Hey, I missed you!"

"It's ammunition," Pyrrha observed, grabbing a few magazine she recognized as her own. She tossed a few green ones to Ren before taking the bag from Nora and zipping it up. "Jaune... we're the last line of defence."

"Then we're not going to let these people down. Let's move!" Jaune ordered, dramatically unsheathing his sword and transforming into his shield.

Yang dashed through the crowds, her partner in tow. What she was doing felt wrong. She could hear gunshots, screams, feel the panic around her. A tragedy in the making they were doing nothing to prevent. They should be fighting the bad guys, not running away. But they'd be outmatched by Cinder and her minions even if they weren't next to unarmed and horribly out of practice. She smashed her fist into the metal frame of a stall in frustration, buckling it.

She heard her partner say, "Yang, watch-" before being interrupted by a nearby gunshot. A split second later the blonde brawler felt something slam into her side.

Mercury Black, the grey-haired and grey-clad minion of Cinder's, stood beside a destroyed stall, cocky smirk on his lips. He stared down the duo as they turned to face him. "Come on, Blondie, running away already?"

Blake answered him. "What do you want with us? You're delusional if you think this world is going to let you get away with this."

He shook his head. "Oh, Belladonna-"

"Ohmygod, Mercury!" a green blur screeched before slamming into what she thought was her favourite character.

Yang opened her mouth to shout something at the stupid girl, but it was too late. In a series of smooth movements, Mercury pivoted, kicked the girl's legs out from under her, and slammed his foot down on her head, blasting it into a barely defined mass of bone and flesh.

Another girl shrieked as what had been a confused crowd dissolved into panic, running away from the murderer and his opponents in whatever direction they could. A few were frozen in fear, including a young woman staring in shock at Mercury and the body by his feet.

"Earthicans," Mercury tutted. "They're so... squishy." As if to make his point, he kicked toward the screaming woman, triggering the gun in his boot. Splotches of red appeared on her chest, her screaming turning to gurgling as she collapsed to the floor.

"You son of a bitch!" Yang screamed, bringing up her empty Ember Celica and dashing forward toward the merciless killer.

Blake swore to herself as her partner launcher herself into the fray. The brawler's fury caught her opponent off-guard, and she managed to land a few strikes before Mercury managed to put up and effective defence. The tables turned quickly, with the assassin parrying every strike and managing to land several hits. He moved quickly and precisely, and unlike his opponent, he had loaded weapons to help him out.

Quickly, she weighed her options. Trying to drag her partner away would be futile- the blonde was stronger than her, especially when pissed off. If she jumped into the fight, they'd probably still lose to Mercury, but maybe they could buy enough time to escape.

Something cold and hard burrowed into the back of her neck. An unpleasantly familiar voice told her, "Not so fast, kitty cat."

She would not give in so easily. Focusing her Semblance, Blake created a shadow clone of herself, drawing Gambol Shroud and turning to face her green-haired opponent.

Emerald raised her own weapons, unfolding the scythe blades. If she were to be completely honest with herself, she'd be disappointed if the cat faunus hadn't tried to fight.

Blake moved first, determined not to let her opponent gain the upper hand. She ignored the sense of dread in the back of her mind and swung Gambol Shroud in a wide arc. Her opponent easily sidestepped the attack, swinging her own weapons and landing two nasty slashes across Blake's back.

Creating another shadow clone, Blake circled around, swinging with her blade and its sharpened sheath in quick succession. The first hit landed, but the second missed as the green-haired girl stepped around it and blasted away with her pistols. Blake was quick and managed to avoid most of the attack with a shadow clone and a quick roll, but she knew she couldn't keep it up for much longer.

"HYAAAAAAAH!" a high-pitched shriek interrupted. Neither Blake nor Emerald could tell whether it was male or female, but the question was quickly answered when a heavy sword crashed down on Emerald's back.

She stumbled, pivoting on one foot and dropping low to avoid the Jaune's clumsy strikes. She blocked a strike from Blake with one of her pistols, opening fire on the blonde with the other.

"Blake!" Pyrrha called, tossing her pair of small black rectangles. She instantly recognized them and slammed one into the magwell of Gambol Shroud before slingshotting the slide.

"Nora smash!" With a mighty battle cry, the girl in pink descended on Mercury, slamming Magnhild into the floor where he had been a split second earlier. She pulled the trigger, launching herself back into the air along with a significant quantity of dust and pulverized masonry.

"Bring it on," Mercury said cockily. He dived out of the way as the two girls rushed at him, grinning in satisfaction as they clashed with each other. The moment was short lived. While he had been distracted by Nora's arrival, Pyrrha had given Yang strips of ammo for her gauntlets.

She blasted away at the grey assassin, who felt several hits before he managed to get out of the way- bringing himself into the path of Magnhild in the process. The blast sent him to the ground, and he jumped to his feet, backing away slightly and preparing for another onslaught.

"Pyrrha, Ren, go find Ruby and Weiss!" Jaune ordered, voice probably more confident than he felt. "We can handle this!"

"Okay!" Pyrrha acknowledged, darting away with Ren behind her. As an afterthought, she shouted to the people still watching the fight, "Please get out of here! This is real!"

"You can handle it?" an ominous voice echoed. Cinder calmly strutted into the battle, her red dress having seen better days but eyes glowing as bright as ever. "Are you so sure about that?"

Captain John Beckworth seemed the very image of a professional soldier, holding onto a rail on the inside of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter as it bounced through the morning air. Inwardly, he was nervous about the mission, even if he wouldn't admitted.

It wasn't even a typical mission for Delta. Usually, this would be handled by the SEALs overseas and the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team within the United States. But they were trained for it, they had practised for the scenario, and they were as ready as they could be.

Which, admittedly, wasn't very ready at all.

"Sixty seconds," the pilot told him.

"Remember, you are to take down the targets at all costs," he told his men, checking the large weapon in his hands. "Rifles won't do shit against the people we're up against. Use the Punisher even if there are civilians in the blast radius."

Officially the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, the Punisher was created to give ground troops more effective firepower. It was a 25mm semiautomatic grenade launcher, but that was only half the system. The other half was a computerized sight with an automatic rangefinder and smart rounds that could be set to explode above the enemy.

It was only one of many specialized weapons they carried on this mission. They swapped out their usual M4 carbines for higher caliber silenced ones built on the same platform, and several members of the team carried the XM25, 40mm revolver grenade launchers, or even AT4 anti-vehicle weapons. He knew the FBI had a special surprise of their own, but his team was not equipped with it.

"Descending." The pilot announced. Stomachs lurched at the helicopter plunged toward the ground, decelerating at the last minute to hit the pavement at a safe if uncomfortable velocity.

Beckworth threw the door open and jumped to the ground. "Striker on the ground. Moving to intervene."

"So, how are we going to get out of this?" Weiss asked her partner. They stood back to back, weapons raised and as ready as they could be. They were in a corner of the hall, with Roman Torchwick blocking one approach and Neo blocking the other. They advanced slowly, clearly savouring the moment.

"Help is coming," Ruby said quietly. "We just have to stall."

Weiss nodded. She shouted at their opponents. "What do you want from us? You'll never get out of here alive. Is killing us really that important to you?"

"Oh, it's nothing personal, you understand," the thief told her, raising Melodic Cudgel. "Just business."

"How much is Cinder giving you?" Ruby asked.

His answer was quick. "More than you can, Red." He pulled the trigger, sending a flaming projectile toward the duo. They separated and dodged, forming back together again a few feet over.

"You can walk away from this, Torchwick," Weiss pleaded. "You're a criminal, not a maniac. Just walk away. Disappear."

"And they'll hunt me to the ends of the world," Roman reminded her. "Nice try. I'll admit, I don't care about her grand plans. But Cinder had the only offer, and it's not a bad one. Better the demon you know than the demon you don't and all that."

"There's no way back," Ruby shouted, connecting the dots. "She's lying to you! We've been stuck here for a year!"

"That's what you think-" Roman began, but was cut off by a spinning piece of metal slamming into the side of his face.

"Pyrrha!" Ruby shouted excitedly.

"Ruby, catch!" the red-haired warrior shouted, tossing the younger girl a magazine for her rifle. Using her semblance, she retrieved her shield, dropping into a fighting stance and preparing to take on the thief.

Ren came leaping over a stall, landing beside Weiss and silently handing her a familiar pouch. He raised StormFlower in Neo's direction. "It's your Dust. I'll cover you."

Roman smiled thinly. "That's more like it! Now things are getting interesting."

Agent Castello knew the firefight would be a horribly lopsided one the moment it began. On his side was himself, two members of an FBI SWAT team, an off-duty sheriff's deputy, and a few armed rent-a-cops. At stake were three dozen civilians, some of them wounded, and three badly injured officers they were trying to evacuate. Against them was a half dozen White Fang, between them and the only usable exit.

There were others, but they were blocked by fire, debris, or fighting. What had been brightly coloured stalls offering every facet of nerd culture were now collapsed, trampled, and smashed. An acrid haze pervaded the hall, produced by burning cloth, paper, and equipment. Fortunately, the fires were contained by the sprinkler system now soaking parts of the convention center, at least for the moment.

He was mulling over the situation, peeking over a stall at the White Fang when the leader- Castello guessed it was their leader- of the group noticed him. Or perhaps the security guard behind him. Bullets peppered the walls behind them as the faunus terrorists opened fire on them.

"This is Castello, we are under fire, repeat, we are under fire! I have civilians, requesting immediate assistance!" He raised his rifle and returned fire, focusing on the leader. His allies did the same, weapons chattering away. He saw some of them go down.

"Standby, Striker is on the ground and advancing into the building." That gave him some hope. They just needed to-

Castello screamed in pain as a Dust-charged bullet lanced through his left shoulder. His weapon clattered uselessly out of his arms, and he collapsed to the ground, nearly blacking out from the pain. Whatever it had hit, it was something important, and he could vaguely feel something wet under him.

He fought to stay conscious. At some point- his sense of time was totally trashed, but in fact it was only seconds later- the shooting stopped. He craned his neck slightly and forced his eyes open. The faunus were advancing toward them, weapons pointed at the civilians but no longer firing. One of them, a woman with small white ears and a bushy orange tail, marched up to and stood above him.

She pointed her gun at his head, hesitated, then lowered her weapon before turning to the leader of her group. "What the hell are we doing, Braith? We just shot a dozen kids with fake guns! And these guys? These guys were trying to get out, and we shot first!"

The leader- Braith- replied, "We didn't know that, Siena. This is violent business and some-"

"We didn't know anything!" Siena roared. "We just walked in and started shooting on the off chance that we'd

"You're losing your resolve now? This is not the time to have a change of heart!" a third voice shouted.

"Gods damn it, Urdin! What have these people done to us? We have no idea where we are, what we're doing, or why we're doing it anymore! This isn't fighting for our people! This is pissing off another Kingdom, maybe another planet. What the hell are they going to think of faunus now?"

The third voice- Urdin?- again: "If you won't do it, I will."

"No," Braith interrupted.

"No?" Urdin objected angrily.

There were a few seconds of silence, then he thought he heard, "I was wrong."

"I can't believe it!" Urdin shouted. "What the hell, Braith? You're betraying the White Fang!"

Braith: "Your Fang. Not mine. This isn't the Fang I joined."

Siena: "It doesn't matter-"

"It matters to me. It matters to us."

The last thing Castello heard was a gunshot before he passed out.

Yang dived to the side, cringing as one of Cinder's fireballs glanced off her Aura, taking off a significant chunk of it. It was four against three, but they were totally outmatched. They'd managed to get some hits in, but their opponents managed to get in far more. She gritted her teeth in frustration. At least they were buying time... for someone.

She sidestepped, sliding up beside Blake and putting Mercury between them and Cinder. Yang threw a punch forward, which Mercury blocked with a kick accompanied by a blast to her face. Blake stepped forward, swinging both blades. He ducked under them and delivered a kick to Blake's exposed shin, this time not a shadow clone.

"Come on, I know you can do better than this," Mercury taunted.

"You know, if you want to get us dead, this is a really shitty way of doing it," Yang shot back.

"You know what? You're right," Mercury agreed, stepping back as Cinder advanced toward them. She gestured with her arms, a bow appearing seemingly out of nowhere. The woman smirked as she drew back the string, letting fly with a trio of arrows made of Dust. Fast as lightning, she let another loose.

"Damn it!" One of the arrows had slammed into Yang's shoulder, sending her stumbling. She was still too slow! She dove behind what was once a promotional booth, another arrow flying above her head.

She caught a glint in the corner of her eye. It was followed a second later by a horrendously loud bang and a blindingly bright flash. Flashbangs. She covered her ears and closed her eyes. Three more bangs in quick succession she could feel. She couldn't hear the two pops of smoke grenades, but when she opened her eyes, she could see the fog through her impaired vision.

Blake was on the ground beside her, even more dazed than she. Yang grabbed her partner and pulled her up. "Run!"

They dashed toward what they hoped was the exit, still dazed and surrounded by thickening smoke. A trio of arrows flew past them from one direction. A barrage of small objects flew past them the other way. They could barely hear the scream of pain in front of them and the explosions behind them.

"Yang Xiao Long!" a stern voice shouted through the din, hand grabbing her shoulder. She turned and saw the man it belonged to. He was dressed in all black, carrying what looked like a large rifle. He pulled her down behind a pile of debris, then motioned to a spot behind them. "You need to get them outside."

"What?" she asked immediately.

Her partner was more articulate. "What about the civilians?"

"Evacuated. We have gunships waiting for them," the man told them. "Can you get them to follow you through the front door?"

"Uh, maybe?" She paused, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, we can do it."

The soldier- she assumed he was a soldier- nodded. "Do it. We have your back."

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Pyrrha was in her element. She ducked under Roman's cane, twirling around and striking him in the stomach with Miló. The thief doubled over, but recovered, jumping back and letting his partner take his position. Pyrrha slammed Akoúo̱ into the young woman's face, only for it to connect with empty air.

The tournament champion disengaged, allowing Weiss to send a blast of ice toward the criminals. They dodged to the side, only for Ruby to come streaking on from one side and Ren to rush in from the other.

Ruby missed the first time, but slammed Crescent Rose into the ground and swung around, slamming her feet into Roman's torso. She planted one foot and then the other, levering her weapon out of the ground and swinging it again.

Ren, meanwhile, rushed at Neo. He forced himself to ignore what he saw as much as possible, relying on his other senses. As the smirking petite woman rushed toward him with her sword out, he ducked to the left, pivoting and slashing at where she really was, beside him. He pulled the trigger, sending out a burst of bullets that may or may not have hit their target.

Ruby's next hit would have connected if it weren't for a loud bang that reverberated through the venue. It didn't startle her, but it did distract her enough to miss. Her next swing, though, connected, sending the thief flying. More bangs echoed through the hall.

"Give it up, Torchwick!" Ruby shouted over the background noise. "You can't win!"

He smirked as he stood up, dusting himself off. "No, but I can force a draw."

Ruby swung Crescent Rose, pulling the trigger and accelerating the blade to blinding speed. To her surprise, it went through Torchwick's body, shattering the illusion into a thousand pieces.

Cinder blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. She hadn't expected the flashbangs at all, and it took her by surprise. Her Aura kept her eardrums from blowing out, and kept the rapidly expanding smoke from burning her eyes, but she could still barely see through the fog. The kids they'd been fighting were gone.

Before she could react, another grenade flew in and exploded. She dove to the side, two more exploding where she was a second before and blasting shrapnel against her body.

"Welcome to Earth!" an irritating voice shouted from somewhere ahead of them in the smoke. "I told you it was a shitty way!"

Seeing a dark shape in the smoke, Emerald opened fire, blasting away with her pistols. She smirked when the shape screamed and collapsed to the ground.

Cinder glared at her. "Ignore them. The blonde and her friends are our targets." Her eyes burned with defiant fire as she stalked forward, ignoring the shapes to their left and right and focusing on the voice ahead.

"Keep up the fire, drive them toward the entrance!" Beckworth ordered from his vantage point. He cursed as something slammed into the pillar he stood behind, sending bits of concrete into his face.

He raised his XM25, peering through the thinning smoke with its thermal sight. He could recognize Cinder as a very bright blob, but couldn't make out her companions. Squeezing the trigger, he sent a high-explosive airburst round toward his target. It exploded next to her but seemed to have little effect. She disappeared around a corner.

"Team Two repositioning," one of his subordinate elements reported. They, too, no longer had a line of fire.

However, another now had an opening. "Team Three engaging."

"Copy. One moving." He left the safety of the concrete pillar, and two other men from his team formed up behind him. Staying low, they moved toward their target, rushing forward and taking cover behind a collapsed stall. They had to be more careful now, as there was little smoke to conceal them from their enemy. Fortunately, neither Cinder nor her companions seemed particularly focused on the Delta operators.

His foot slammed into something hard on the ground. He glanced down at it. It was one of the White Fang rifles, sitting beside a corpse. It wasn't the only one- there were several around them. From his quick glance, it looked like friendly fire, but he didn't have time to speculate. He scanned for more with his thermal optic and found none in the immediate area.

"Sideline, several White Fang dead," he reported before focusing on his primary target once again. "Targets are pursuing friendlies toward the entrance."

Cinder surveyed the situation as she stepped carefully out of the building. She was surrounded- by targets. Police cars and officers armed with standard assault rifles at most. Not a huntsman or huntress in sight- she was sure that her foes were around somewhere behind the police cordon, but they were probably more interested in running than fighting. Fools. She was only getting started, and these humans of Earth were about to find out the true extent of her powers. They were about to see what she was really capable of. She glanced behind herself and nodded to Emerald and Mercury.

Though she noticed the sound of helicopters, she dismissed it as something unfamiliar and unimportant, turning away from the attack helicopters streaking in from the north. Neither did she understand the significance of the large plastic rifles several police officers were pointing at her.

A blinding light suddenly assaulted her eyeballs, and she instinctively slammed them shut. It barely helped, and she recoiled in response to the light. Doubling over, the light subsided, and her vision started to return.

She felt bullets strike her body, more irritating than painful. The bullets were accompanied by small explosive grenades that she shrugged off. Smirking, she raised one hand, readying her own much more powerful attack. As she did so, she caught something in the corner of her eye, coming in from above her.

She pivoted and raised a hand to block the incoming missile before realizing her mistake. It wasn't one missile, but two dozen, twice the size of anything she'd seen before, and moving too fast for her to dodge.

"No!"

Emmett Lyons coughed as the smoke and pulverized debris washed over him. He wasn't used to seeing that kind of firepower, and it blew him away in more ways than one. A ragged crater was all that was left of the cobblestone in front of the entrance. The two AH-64 Apache gunships zipped by over the destruction they had just caused, two more fully loaded ones hovering lazily behind him.

"Hit them again, just to be sure," he ordered over the radio, even though he couldn't even see if there were bodies left at all.

The two Apaches behind him obliged, tearing into and enlarging the crater with their 30mm chainguns and APKWS laser-guided rockets. Though the impact of the weapons firing was more impressive than the Hellfire missiles the previous two gunships had used, the actual effect on target was less impressive.

"Are they dead?" Lyons asked.

The response was accompanied by a dark chuckle. "I don't see anything bigger than my hand."

That was the closest thing to confirmation the FBI agent was going to get. "Tactical team, move in."

The four-man team, looking like soldiers but wearing prominent FBI insignia, moved slowly toward the building with their weapons raised. It was beyond tense. If their plan had failed and Cinder was still alive, they were about to find out in the worst possible way.

"I see... a few bits, uh, a leg, maybe, and some weapon fragments," a relieved voice crackled over the radio. "Target is destroyed."

Lyons let out the breath he'd been holding, relaxing more than he should have. After all, they didn't know if Emerald's illusions could defeat thermals or not, and even if that group really was dead, they still had Roman Torchwick, his partner, and an unknown number of terrorists to deal with. "Stay on your guard."

"Sideline, I have an unknown signature approaching on thermals," one of the helicopters reported. He paused, then added, "Looks like two, actually, headed toward the entrance toward you. One big, one small."

"Copy that," Lyons acknowledged. He had a pretty good idea of who was going to come out of what was left of the doors. "Everyone ready."

Sure enough, Roman Torchwick emerged from the entrance, twirling his cane. He stopped twirling it as he awkwardly stopped a foot away from falling into the crater. His partner was right behind him. She stopped beside him, resting her parasol over her shoulder.

Roman looked pointedly first at the mangled remains of Cinder and her minions, then at the police cordon surrounding them, at the attack helicopters, and back at the barely-recognizable bits in the hole.

Slowly, he dropped Melodic Cudgel and raised his hands slowly above his head.

RWBY fights are hard to write. Also, I greatly underestimated how long this fight was going to be. I thought I'd have trouble filling in one chapter, but it turns out I could have made two chapters out of it. It's not perfect, but it's still probably my favourite chapter of Convergence so far.

QuestionsForSome: The real world does not care about how many chapters one appears in. The bad guys wanted them dead for admittedly questionable reasons, so they killed them. They probably should have done more research, but Cinder thinks she knows all she needs to know and Roman isn't really in a position to argue.

ItzABlueWulf: I did kind of botch the pacing in Convergence. In retrospect, sticking to a specific format was a mistake because it took away flexibility that I could have used to ameliorate this.

Tatopatato: You don't care about what? Also, we'll see Penny... eventually.

ALL OUT ALL IN: That would be an incredible headline, and I admit it did make me laugh. I know you- and a lot of other people- want to see Rose, and she will be in this fic, but not yet.

Harbinger: They aren't that familiar with Cinder to begin with, it's been a while, it was a brief encounter and she probably wasn't the first Cinder they'd seen that day. You're probably disappointed by now, but there was some prototype tech in the chapter: the not-quite-in-service XM25 grenade launcher and the experimental PHaSR blinding weapon. Also, I'm glad I'm getting the character right- to be honest, that's one of the things I have a lot of difficulty with.

Guest: Bayformers, definitely. I really liked the movies, even if they were inane at times, and Emergence was influenced heavily by them. Convergence, maybe less so. Man of Steel, on the other hand, I didn't like much, and if there's some Man of Steel in Emergence then it's probably coincidental.

Stormhands One: Unfortunately, The Forbidden World is more or less abandoned at this point. I gave up on it because I just couldn't come up with a decent plot. Okay, they meet, but then what? I could never come up with an answer to that question I liked.

Fallout24: Things will get very complicated in Act 3... maybe.

Guest: We'll see. There may be a non-canon Volume 3 reaction even if they don't.

MrtheratedG: Inverted self-insert. No idea if this is a real term or not, but it's what I've always called Emergence.

Guest: I'm not sure if this is satire or not. President Obama may not be the perfect President- he may even be a horrible President depending on your views- but he has shown some initiative and I do not believe he would ignore a threat of this magnitude. It may be because I'm a Communist Canadian, but I'm not a fan of Trump. I'd like to see Sanders as President, but I don't think it's that plausible in Emergence or in real life.

Swiggity Swooty: It's not that easy. Not when so many have seen it, told their friends, maybe lost some friends. It's not just amateurs, either; this is already going to be all over the news. Also, the potential conflict is that Yang lied to Gavin about who she was. That's a much bigger problem in their relationship than her being a superhuman warrior.

USA: It's supposed to be harsh. I did debate doing this, but ultimately I decided it made more sense for them to die than to live. Convergence- and for that matter, Emergence- was always meant to be visceral and realistic in this way.

Guest: No. See the above.

I'm hoping to get the next chapter out within the next two, rather than three, weeks. We'll see, but I already know what I'm going to put in it. Some of the other loose ends will be tied up and some of the questions answered.