Aeolian Chariot (New)
Aeolian Chariot
The private box that Lady Nikos had shared with the Wong family had, unfortunately, been wrecked in the initial grimm attack on the Amity Colosseum; Team JAMM had been rather more fortunate than the box itself in getting their charges out of there in time.
But, with the box gone, it meant that they had been forced to retreat onto the promenade, where they waited now in the shadow of Medea's airship, the Aeolian Chariot.
It was not a great airship, no skyliner or warship to be sure. No one — certainly no Mistralian aristocrat these days, save perhaps for the Steward himself — could afford to keep and crew and maintain such an airship privately for their own use; even Jason's Argo, which he had left behind in Mistral and which was large enough to carry up to fifty people within — he rented it out to cover its costs and supplement his income — could not compare with a true skyliner, or still less with one of General Ironwood's mighty cruisers. The Aeolian Chariot was even smaller than that, about the size of a Skybus, but with much greater range on it and, when it had to be, much faster too. Professor Lionheart had given them permission to fly it here from Mistral, rather than joining the rest of the Haven students aboard their skyliner, because Medea had wanted to bring it with her rather than leaving it back home in Colchis for a year.
And because it had seemed a marvellous adventure, the four of them crossing continents and oceans in a small airship, with limited dust and limited supplies, crossing empty skies and passing over lands that had frustrated the ambitions of generations of Mistralian colonisers.
The Aeolian Chariot was also much better looking than one of these Valish Skybuses that was comparable in size; it was built in the Mistralian fashion, with curved lines and faux-wood that resembled the hull of a ship, at least on the lower half of the vessel. The upper half of the hull was also curved, smooth and sweeping, but it was made of glass and metal, with metallic hoops forming a frame to which the great curved windows were attached, giving broad views up and out from within and — when on the docking platform thus — making it easy to see inside.
That was why the cabin — to conserve space, they had all shared a single cabin on the way over, as they had at Haven and indeed as they had at Beacon too — was down below, in the part of the hull that was concealed from outer view, along with the engine room and the stores. The visible top deck had the pilot's seat and all necessary controls, the dining table and chairs fastened to the deck, and a fair degree of open space for whatever one might wish.
The only parts of the upper deck that were not transparent were the doors, which were metal, albeit painted in a vivid gold.
Two great canvas wings were fastened to the sides of the ship, presently drooped down towards the docking platform on which the whole airship rested. The propeller, a traditional feature of Mistralian airship design, stuck out the stern, but also affixed to the sides of the lower hull were some rather more modern airship engines of the same sort used by Atlesian Skyrays and such, which gave the Chariot vertical take-off capability, as well as a healthier turn of speed than many Mistralian airships possessed. A long prow, fashioned to look like the necks of a pair of dragons, intertwining around one another, mouths open and teeth bared, emerged from out of the front of the ship, giving it the appearance of greater length even if it is not practically larger.
Lady Soojin Wong stared at it with wide-eyed amazement. "It's incredible!" she gasped. She looked up at Medea. "Is it really yours?"
Medea, fleece and hood thrown back to reveal her blue hair and soft features, smiled. "Yes, it is indeed," she said, raising one hand to brush her fingertips over the wood panelling of the lower hull. "It was a birthday present from my father."
Lady Soojin gasped, and she turned around to look at her father, Ambassador Lord Wong.
"Maybe when you're older," the ambassador replied. "Much older. On which birthday did you receive this great gift, Lady Medea?"
"My seventeenth, my lord," Medea answered.
"An indulgent gift," Lady Nikos observed from where she sat. Atalanta and Meleager had gotten a couple of crates out of the chariot for makeshift seats; Lady Nikos sat upon one of them, her legs stretched out in front of her, holding a cup of herbal tea that Medea had prepared.
Lady Wong, the ambassador's wife, sat beside her on another box, while Lord Wong stood not far away, hands thrust into the pockets of his waistcoat, his eyes upon his daughter.
Atalanta's eyes also fell sometimes on the girl, although she most often kept her gaze turned outwards, to the skies beyond, in case any more flying grimm should return this way. But she sometimes glanced backwards towards their charges, and to Lady Soojin especially.
Jason had sent Meleager to patrol the promenade, in case anything should approach from the other sides of the arena — the Amity Colosseum was very large and very round, after all — so he was out of sight at the moment. Jason himself stood guard upon their charges, standing closely beside Lady Nikos and Lady Wong, and not too far away from Lord Wong either — Lady Soojin was the farthest from him, but she was right next to Medea, so he was not concerned.
His hand was on the hilt of his sword, Pia Fidelis, or at least lingered close even when his fingertips, or the leather strips that bound his hand, were not actually touching the weapon itself.
The charge that Lady Pyrrha had laid upon them might have been thought to be a light one, now that all the grimm had been defeated in and around the arena itself, now that they had been driven from Beacon by that great unknown blast that had erupted from the school sometime earlier. Now that the battle had moved on and was now raging somewhere out beyond the bounds of Vale, it might be thought that there was little for Team JAMM to do except lament that they were not part of it.
There was an extent to which Jason did lament; he didn't know exactly how the battle was going out there, but no doubt, those who had gone forth — Pyrrha, Arslan Altan, his cousins on Team APAA, young Cicero Ward and many others — were doing great deeds and winning great glory in the field against the grimm, while they would gain no reputation by this night whatsoever. Furthermore, those who were winning great glory were also running great risk; he might have fewer cousins by the time this night was out, or fewer friends. There was a part of him which lamented that he could not share both risk and glory with them. What would they think of him, and of Team JAMM, when this night was over? Would they not think less of them because they had not fought in the battle before Vale?
And yet, set against all of that was the fact that this remained a weighty charge, a charge laid upon them by the Vytal Champion herself, to protect her mother — the head of the House of Nikos — and the Mistralian ambassador to Vale. That was not a request that could be lightly refused, nor easily abandoned. Not to mention the very pragmatic reasons for agreeing to such a request and for sticking with it: Lady Nikos and Lord Wong would remember, one hoped, the team who had kept them guard and company on this night. To have the gratitude, perhaps even the friendship, of Lady Nikos would be no bad thing, and Lord Wong would not be the ambassador to Vale forever; at some point, he would return to Mistral, and he, too, would be a useful friend to have.
And to be frank, Jason could do with powerful friends.
Medea turned her lovely smile upon Lady Nikos. "Yes, indeed, my lady, at that time, he was a very fond and — as you say — indulgent father. He loved me well and gave me every luxury and comfort that my heart desired."
Nobody commented upon Medea's use of the past tense; whether it was politeness that drove their reticence, disinterest, or the fact that they already knew the reason for the cooling of relations between father and daughter — because he was standing next to them with a hand hovering by his sword — Jason could not have said and didn't really want to know.
It was bad enough that Lord Colchis had rejected him as a match for his daughter without having to stand by and listen to other people talk about it.
Having Lady Nikos glance in his direction was bad enough.
Lady Nikos took a sip of her cup of herbal tea. "If I may presume to speak, Lady Medea, as a mother of a daughter, you may do your father wrong to say that he no longer loves you, though his manner may give you little consolation to be loved by him; and yet, in time, that love though buried now beneath the snows of wintry disapproval, will melt them and bring about a springtime of relations between the two of you."
Medea blinked her lilac eyes. "I thank you for that pretty expression of your good wishes, my lady, though I am surprised to hear you on the verge of preaching daughterly disobedience."
"As am I," Lady Wong murmured, a slight smile playing across her face.
"Have we great ones of Mistral not endured by cutting our cloth to fit our circumstances these many years past?" asked Lady Nikos. "Have we not endured by bending our ideals and wills and all that we would have to what is and is possible and practical? Have we not bent ourselves to the times and endured by reaching accommodation with the world as it is rather than raging that the world is not as we might have it so? I have learnt that a daughter's settled heart may fortify her will more securely than any city in Mistral, and if others wish to profit from my example instead of learning that same lesson through their own hard experience, I will not begrudge them."
Jason wondered — he could not help but wonder — if Lady Nikos' objections to Jaune Arc had been solely rooted in his outward characteristics: Valish, of no family of any note, of no great wealth as far as anyone could tell, of no extraordinary martial qualities either. Or had she objected to the boy himself as well, his nature? His nature did not seem very objectionable, but then, Jason didn't know him.
Medea's father objected to Jason's outward characteristics — his father imprisoned, his inheritance unlikely — but also to his character. He thought Jason changeable, unlikely to be faithful to his daughter.
That struck Jason as rather harsh, but also as the kind of attitude that was far more likely to survive even prolonged resistance from Medea than mere concerns about his wealth or lack thereof.
Medea bowed her head. "I dearly hope that you are right, my lady, and thank you for offering me such cause for hope."
"For myself, I am glad that Soojin is too young to understand what is being discussed," muttered Lord Wong.
Medea bowed her head. "Forgive me, my lord, I should not have raised the matter."
Lord Wong drew a hand out of his pocket to wave it dismissively. "It's nothing. As I said, Soojin is too young; I doubt she has even been paying attention."
Indeed, Lady Soojin's attention had returned to the Aeolian Chariot. "Can you fly this?"
"Indeed I can," Medea said, crouching down to get more on young Lady Soojin's level. "I have flown this vessel from Colchis in every direction, passing over forest and pasture and the wine-dark sea. I flew from Colchis to Mistral to begin my first year at Haven, and my teammates and I flew from Haven aboard this ship all the way to Beacon, enduring many adventures along the way, to be here for the Vytal Festival."
"'Adventures'?" Lady Soojin half gasped, half cried.
"Exactly!" Medea declared. "Like the time when we—"
A roar split the sky. It was an immense roar that could only have come — that sounded as though it could only have come — from a creature of immense size. A creature of immense size and in close proximity to them.
It went on a long time, too long; the roar of any grimm would have been bad enough, but this roar went on and on and on before it finally stopped like a trumpeter trying to draw out the note.
It wasn't a roar that he recognised. Professor Artemis had played them various grimm calls in first semester, so that they could recognise what they were dealing with, but Jason didn't recognise that long, loud, deep-throated roar that had just split the sky and for too long drowned out all other sounds.
The fact that the grimm were back — by the sound of it — was bad enough, but the fact that they couldn't tell what sort of grimm it was made the whole thing even worse.
"What was that?" Lady Soojin asked. "Is it monsters?"
Medea's voice was quiet, but Jason respected that she didn't sound frightened as she said, "Go back to your mother, little one." She gently nudged Lady Soojin in that direction.
Lady Soojin ran to Lady Wong, who got down off the box she'd been sitting on and swept her daughter up in her arms, wrapping both arms around her.
Lady Nikos rose, slowly but steadily, to her feet; Lord Wong looked left and right uneasily.
Medea also got to her feet, pulling fleece and hood up so that her face was half hidden from view, only her chin and painted lips readily visible, everything else cast in the shadow of her lavender shawl and the golden ram's head that she wore like a helmet over it.
"Atalanta," Medea said. "Do you see anything?"
"No," Atalanta replied, without looking back. "It must be coming from the other—"
"Jason!" Meleager shouted, his feet pounding on the promenade as he came running into view towards them. "Atalanta." He skidded to a stop upon the metallic tiles on which they stood. "You need to come and see this, right now, all of you."
The fact that it was his oldest friend asking this would have been reason enough to go, but the fact that Meleager sounded rattled — literally rattled; his voice was shaking like dice in a cup — was an even greater reason. Jason bowed slightly to Lord Wong and Lady Nikos. "If you will excuse us, my lady, my lord."
"Go," Lady Nikos commanded. "You will protect us as well there as here, no doubt."
The four of them ran, with Meleager leading the way — initially, at least; Atalanta swiftly outplaced him, her hair flying out behind her as her long, loping strides with her well-toned, defined, and muscular legs ate up the promenade. Jason was not quite able to catch up with Meleager, who held a comfortable second place; there wasn't much between the two boys in terms of speed, but Meleager had started off ahead. Medea, the least athletic of the four of them by some distance, brought up the rear; Jason looked back to see that she wasn't falling too far behind and was greeted to the sight of her robes flying — or flailing — around her in all directions in an ungainly fashion as she flapped her arms like a bird trying to take flight.
Atalanta might not have stolen the lead from Meleager if they had needed him to lead the way, but the promenade only went in a circle; sooner or later, by following its circumference, they would come to the point; there were few enough people here now even after everyone had been evacuated up here from Beacon; most of them had retreated inside the into the interior of the Colosseum, but those that remained looked anxious, fearful even; some were drifting in the same direction as Team JAMM, but at less speed, while others were moving rather more rapidly in the opposite direction.
That the source of that roar might be behind it didn't seem like much of a leap of imagination.
Atalanta came to a stop at one of the docking pads more or less on the other side of the Colosseum from where they had left Lady Nikos and the Wong family. Another girl was there already, a girl their age, with a gun, a lever rifle in one hand, maybe a huntress who hadn't wanted to join the fighting down below. Probably a Shade student; there were enough of them scattered around the place.
Atalanta led the rest of Team JAMM to stand beside her at the edge of the docking pad, looking out into the darkness towards Beacon Tower, and beyond.
"Well Ah'll be a long horn steer," muttered the presumable Shade student. "Will you look at that?"
Indeed, they looked at that. They all looked at that.
What they were looking at was a dragon, like the ones whose intertwined and snarling heads graced the prow of the Aeolian Chariot, except it was a grimm dragon, and its snarling face was covered by a bone mask covered in red markings, and its eyes were a burning blazing red that lit up the dark like smouldering stars, and its body was all black so that, without the spurs of bone that ran along its body, neck and tail, it might have blended in with the night sky.
But its wings would not, for its wings were as red as the markings on its face, almost as red as its eyes, as red as drying blood.
It was huge. The only thing that you could say about it to diminish its size was that it wasn't as big as the Amity Colosseum, but that was small comfort considering it didn't need to be that big in order to rip the arena to pieces, or simply fly straight through it using its armoured head as a ram until there was a hole from one side of the arena to the other. Though it wasn't as large as the arena, it was quite big enough, big enough to maybe swallow the Argo whole, at least vertically, as big as an Atlesian warship, almost as big as one of the large Mistralian battleships that had been sold to the Valish, so big that it would cast a terrifying shadow on the world below.
And it was coming this way, flying over the road towards Beacon as though it were up from Vale visiting on a trip or out for a fly like Medea on her airship. Something was … it was hard to make out, black blending into black, things merging with the night behind them, but it looked almost as though there was something dripping from the enormous grimm.
"Atlanta," Jason said, appealing to the night vision of a bear faunus. "Is that grimm—?"
"Dripping? Sweating? Leaking? Yes," Atalanta said. "I can't tell what it is, but something's coming out of it."
"You sure paint a pretty picture," muttered the assumed Shade student.
The dragon turned as it crossed over the boundaries onto the grounds of Beacon; it banked to the right — their right, its left — coming towards them. No, not coming towards them and Amity; it was headed towards the CCT Tower where the emerald lights burned.
The dragon flew around the tower, roaring as it circled the tall spire; roaring, but also moaning too, sounding as though it wasn't happy about something.
There wasn't time to even begin to consider what it might be unhappy about before the dragon opened its mouth and, as well as a roar, unleashed a jet of something, something bright yellow, as bright as the sun, something powerful enough to blast the tower into pieces.
Parts of the tower disappeared in a flash of light that made Jason shield his eyes with his hands, his teammates doing likewise. Another part of the tower simply exploded, the blast rippling upwards from the point of impact as stone and steel were flown across Beacon in all directions. Some of them were just fragments, bits of debris with burn marks on them from where the destruction had just missed them; others were larger parts, whole chunks of wall or roof or interior clinging together, shedding their own little fragments of wreckage as they travelled and fell while they travelled. Some of them were flung so far that Jason thought for a moment that they might hit the Amity Arena. They didn't, but only just, falling short to slam into the docking pads below, while other debris landed on top of school buildings or cracked courtyard stone, or simply slamming into the ground hard enough to make a crater.
"Gods of the night and moon and sun preserve us," Medea whispered.
The remains of Beacon tower stuck up above the ground like a half-burned candle, ragged at the top, or like the trunk of a tree where all the branches have been cut away. The dragon settled there, flapping its wings once or twice, raising its head up on its long neck and roaring up towards the same moon Medea had just beseeched to aid them.
"Is it nesting there?" asked Jason.
"I don't know," Meleager replied. "But we should attack it now while it's stationary."
"'Attack it'?" Jason repeated, aghast. "The four of us? Against a grimm that size?"
"Are we huntsmen or caretakers to old women and little girls?" Meleager demanded. "Would our ancestors have shrunk from such a challenge as this, such a foe as this?"
"Hot blood spills quickly," Jason replied. "Master Chiron taught us that. What do you want to do, charge up the ruins of the tower to get at it?"
"We must do something," Atalanta declared. "We cannot simply allow it to attack the Colosseum; it will kill everyone here, including the children!"
"And I would rather die with a fire in my heart than cowering in fear," declared Meleager.
"I said nothing of cowering," Jason snapped. "But I would rather be wise and brave than simply valiant. Medea, what's our plan?"
Perhaps it should have been his job to come up with such, as team leader, but he had learned long ago that Medea's plans were much better than his own. He sometimes wondered if she should have been chosen as leader instead of him; but then, what would the team have been called?
Medea was silent for a moment. She made as if to fold her arms across her chest, although she didn't actually do it, and let her hands — hidden beneath her long and flowing robes — fall to her sides, or at least, he thought she did.
"I don't know how we can kill it, or if we can," she admitted, making Jason's heart sink for a moment because if Medea couldn't think of anything then what chance did the rest of them have?
Were they doomed, then? Did all their hopes rest upon the dragon not turning its burning gaze upon the Amity Colosseum?
What chance of that?
"But," Medea went on, "I think I know how we can protect the Arena. Atalanta, do you think that beast can have its attention captured with your semblance?"
"I don't see why not, though it may drain my aura," Atalanta replied. "But large or not, it's still a grimm."
"Then I will fly you out on the Aeolian Chariot," Medea declared. "Jason, Meleager, you stay here and protect Lady Nikos and the Wongs; Atalanta and I will draw the grimm away from Amity — over Vale and out to sea."
"What then?" asked Atalanta.
"Ask the gods, I've no idea," Medea confessed. "But at least we shall have saved everyone here, and who knows? Perhaps Callisto will bless your deadly shaft and guide it to the creature's weak spot."
Atalanta snorted. "One can only hope. Alright then, I'm game, though hope is all we have."
"You two can't do this alone," Jason said. "We're coming with you."
Medea snapped around so sharply to stare up at him that Jason feared for a moment that she might stumble and fall clean off the edge of the docking platform. Her robes swirled around her as she turned and cried, "What? No!"
"Yes," Jason declared in a voice as implacable as the fabled wandering rocks that would smash ships that plied the sea route between Argus and Solitas. "You may be our wisdom, but I am still the leader of this team, and I say that we go together."
"To what end?" demanded Medea. "I need to fly the Chariot, Atalanta's semblance is vital, but what will you do, die alongside us?"
"If need be," Meleager said. "Better that than to have waved you off on such an endeavour. Chiron may have preached a touch of caution, but he would never want us to abandon our—"
"Team," Atalanta finished before he could.
Meleager's mouth downturned ever so slightly, for ever so slight a while.
Medea pushed back hood and fleece to reveal once more her face, and her blue eyes so wide and so beseeching. She reached for Jason, her soft, pale hands emerging from her flowing robes to touch upon his arms. Her fingers felt lithe and gentle upon his biceps, for all that she squeezed his arm, her fingers on his left arm travelling upwards to push against the golden honour band he wore.
"You are cruel," she said, "to make me thus the instrument of your death. Or has some god put this notion into your mind to cause me aching in my spirit? I would not have this; I would not have you die thanks to my plan."
Atalanta coughed into one hand.
"Bad enough that the best I can devise puts Atalanta in such way of harm," Medea went on.
"Thank you," Atalanta muttered.
"But you also, against such a grimm, and to so little purpose?" Medea asked.
"My purpose would be to be by your side," Jason declared. He took Medea's arms in turn, finding them beneath her robes. They were such slight things, so thin that he could put his hands around them, and he did so, holding her not tightly — he hoped — but securely, masterfully. He pulled her in closer, bending down to plant a kiss upon her forehead. "I will not leave you, not at such a time as this, not to such a danger. For you are mine, as I am yours, and you are the cruel one, to ask me to do otherwise." He smiled down at her. "But I will forgive you, if you relent now and speak of this no more."
Medea continued to look up at him. "You call me the wisdom of this team," she murmured. "Yet when you speak so, all wisdom flies from out my ears, and I am—"
The dragon roared again, and seemed to roar even more loudly than it had when it settled upon the ruins of the tower. The dragon roared, and this time, its roar was answered by the cawing and the crying and the shrieking of nevermores and griffons as they began to return to the skies around Beacon.
"Thank you for that," Atalanta murmured to the dragon. "That was becoming unbearable."
As Jason, his face flushing, released her, Medea hid her reddening face beneath hood and golden fleece alike. "You can be a rather mean person sometimes," Medea observed.
"And you can be cloyingly sentimental," Atalanta responded. "Let's get a move on."
Jason cleared his throat. "That might be for the best," he agreed. "Come, let us go."
Once again, they ran around the promenade like Juturna running around the walls of Mistral in days of old; they ran back the way that they had come, back towards the Aeolian Chariot. Once again, Atalanta took the lead, though this time, it was Jason who was marginally in front of Meleager, with only Atalanta running ahead of him. Once again, Medea brought up the rear, struggling somewhat to keep up with the others.
Jason looked over his shoulder to see Medea's robes flapping as she ran. He slowed his pace, letting Meleager overtake him and Atalanta far outstrip him, as he dropped back to where Medea was.
"Go on," she urged. "I'm not so far behind; I can manage."
"I know," he said. "But we are in haste, after all." And he swept her up in his arms, robes falling down off her like curtains falling from a rail to drape across the window, as Jason pushed himself to recover some of the lost ground between Meleager and himself.
Medea had let out a little gasp of surprise at the initial moment of being picked up, but she said nothing more as he bore her on. Certainly, she did not demand to be put down, which Jason was inclined to see as a good thing.
They must take their pleasures where they could in situations such as this.
He did put her down a little before they came in sight of their charges — their erstwhile charges now, perhaps, although they would be keeping their word as best they could in the situation — to allow her to make her arrival with a little dignity in front of Lady Soojin and the rest.
What little of her face was visible looked pleased rather than at all embarrassed, which Jason was definitely inclined to take as a good thing.
"What is that roaring?" demanded Lady Nikos as they approached.
"Are we in danger?" added Lady Wong.
"Not for long, my lady, if we have anything to say about it," Atalanta replied.
"There is a grimm," Jason informed them. "One of great size. It has just destroyed Beacon Tower."
"'Destroyed'?" Lord Wong repeated. "'Destroyed Beacon Tower'? But that means … the CCT network will be down; how are we to contact Mistral?"
"How is Mistral to contact its farthest reaches?" asked Lady Nikos quietly.
"Questions for wiser men than I, my lord," Jason said. "But as far as the grimm is concerned, Medea has come up with a plan to lure it away from the Arena and you all."
Medea produced her scroll from out of the folds of her robes and used it — that still worked even if the CCT network was down — to open the door to the Aeolian Chariot. The painted door slid open, and a ladder descended down the side to almost touch the docking pad surface.
"Atalanta, you go last," Jason said as Medea began to scramble up the ladder. He didn't trust Medea not to shut the door as soon as Atalanta was aboard and take off, leaving Meleager and he behind.
Atalanta didn't reply, but she didn't try and get up the ladder either. Instead, it was Meleager who went second, while Jason made towards the ladder to follow him.
"I presume you mean to use Miss Calydon's semblance to hold the grimm's attention," Lady Nikos said.
Jason looked at her. "Yes, my lady, that is it precisely."
Lady Nikos nodded. "A sound plan to keep us safe. I hope that you will be similarly inspired when you must think about what comes next."
Applejack barely spared them a glance — in pretty much the same way as they'd barely spared her a glance — as they left, heading back the way they'd come to try out that plan of theirs.
She knew who they were, Team JAMM of Haven, the first round opponents of Rainbow Dash and her team.
She knew what semblance they were talkin' about too, the one that had almost been the undoin' of Team RSPT before Penny had unlocked her own semblance to counter it.
That was what they were plannin' to use on that there big ol' grimm. Applejack wished them luck with that. It might work, at least as far as gettin' that grimm away from Amity was concerned.
Didn't mean she couldn't also think that they'd been awful dramatic about it though. Made Rarity look restrained.
Actually, that wasn't fair. Rarity was restrained when it came to what was important; she only got all up on her faintin' couch over nothin' at all, that was what made it kind of annoyin' sometimes.
Kind of charmin', too, mind, in a way it might not have been if she'd been all, well, like those Mistralians that had just run off. Carryin' on like that with a grimm that size in sight.
Took all sorts to make a world, she guessed.
Still, for all that, Applejack wished them luck. From where she stood, lookin' out across the sky at where that grimm the size of an airship was sitting on top of the tower it had just wrecked like it weren't no thing, it was hard to think of any way they could stop it if it decided to wreck Amity the exact same way.
Applejack's hands tightened around the stock of One in a Thousand. She stared out at the grimm because that was all she could do right now.
Twilight had gone down into the depths of the Colosseum to try and get it movin', just like the General had asked her to, and while she hadn't gotten this flyin' stadium to work yet, she would. Applejack had faith in her.
But it wasn't somethin' that Applejack could help her with.
She was startin' to wish she'd gone down to fight with the others, like Rarity. She was supposed to be backin' up Shining Armour, but there hadn't been much call for it up 'til now, and now that there was, it wasn't somethin' she could do anythin' about.
She was just here, watchin' this grimm sittin' on top of the tower like it was layin' a nest, worryin' about what it might do next.
Worryin', and relyin' on a bunch of Mistralians with no sense of timin' to get it away.
Relyin' on Twilight, too, which didn't feel quite so bad.
Applejack thought she maybe ought to be gettin' back; she'd gone to check out what huge roarin' sound had been, and she was meant to come back and tell everybody what it was, better or worse.
If she went back now, it would definitely feel like worse.
She'd stick around and hope that Team JAMM pulled off their stunt and she had some good news to bring back to the others.
As she stood there, watchin' the grimm, listenin' to it roar, hearin' other grimm answer it because things weren't bad enough already, Applejack saw an airship, a Bullhead, headin' up from Vale towards the Amity Arena.
Applejack frowned as she pushed her hat back on her head and wondered who in tarnation would want to come up here at a time like this.
As the stolen Bullhead climbed through the sky, all Gilda could think was how nuts this was.
Not just because of the plan, although the plan was awful in so many ways, both practically and … morally, too, even while it was the best plan that Gilda had been able to come up with at very short notice.
Having completely lost any idea of where Blake and Rainbow might be — except a vague and generic 'somewhere on the battlefield' and Gilda wasn't about to venture out there for the White Fang or the God of Animals — her plan was to make them come to her by…
By taking Atlesian Councillor Cadance hostage and using her to draw Dash and Blake to them.
It wasn't the same as Cinder holding Fluttershy under Mountain Glenn; when you stood for Council, you had to expect that you would be in the firing line, literally and metaphorically, and this particular Councillor had already been targeted once.
That didn't really make Gilda feel better.
Nor did the fact, indisputably true though it was, that if she hadn't come up with something, then Ilia and the peanut gallery in the back would have come up with something worse.
How could it be worse? It would probably involve more murders. At least Gilda could ensure that they didn't kill anyone. Not even the Atlesian Councillor, who they would deliver to Sienna Khan to use as a bargaining chip to improve the lot of the faunus.
But nobody else needed to get hurt, not any of Dashie's other friends, certainly not Lady Belladonna.
If Gilda hadn't been here, that wouldn't have been guaranteed.
It was hardly guaranteed with her here.
This was not a good plan. It wasn't … when you joined the White Fang, you accepted that liberation wasn't going to come easily, and it wasn't going to be squeaky clean. Gilda had heard better educated faunus than her talk about how, in the bad old days, the faunus slaves used to help themselves out by poisoning their masters and their families, which didn't sound cool, but what could you do when you were a slave and living in constant terror of what your owner might decide to do to you instead?
What could you do when you had no power, because someone else kept all the power to themselves?
Fight back, sure, but … Fluttershy was no one's master or owner. Councillor Cadenza kind of was — that was what made her a legit target — but…
Doing it this way, doing it here, doing it now, it was almost like bombing her car or her office; you didn't know who was going to get hurt in the process, even with the best intentions.
Still fewer than would be hurt if she stepped back and let Ilia have her way.
Gilda glanced at the other girl, who sat in the co-pilot's seat beside her. She was staring intently forward, eyes fixed on Amity. She didn't even seem to really notice the giant grimm perched on top of the CCT tower it had just destroyed.
Gilda's plan was morally awful; not indefensible, but all kinds of rough, but practically, it was awful because they were doing this at a time when the world had gone absolutely insane! Vale versus Atlas! Mad generals! Grimm cultists! Grimm attacks! Gigantic grimm that shot laser beams out of their mouths! If this was a TV show, you'd be straight on the forums complaining that the writers were throwing too many twists at the wall in a desperate bid for ratings! That Blake and Dashie show they were making — seriously, Rainbow Dash was getting a TV show, Rainbow Dash — was probably going to turn out more grounded than this.
Only, this was Gilda's life, and she had to live in it! So did everyone else, including all the ordinary faunus stuck in Vale right now who were left rooting for the Atlesians who stood between them and the grimm outside.
And Gilda had thought the world had been out of whack when they'd been working with Cinder.
She hadn't known how much sense everything had made back then.
While the fact that the Atlesian forces were so distracted was obviously a big advantage, it didn't seem like it outweighed the fact that there was a huge grimm, the biggest grimm that Gilda had ever seen or heard of by a long, long way, just sitting right there on top of the tower that it had just destroyed — it had just destroyed the CCT; the CCT network was down, how mad was that? — preening itself, and all the while looking as though it could swallow this Bullhead whole whenever it chose.
Her hands itched to turn around and fly back to Vale while she still could.
"Keep going," Ilia said, as though she could read Gilda's thoughts.
Gilda looked at her, stared at her, then gestured with one hand out the window. "You can see the giant grimm out there, right? I'm not just imagining that?"
"It doesn't matter," insisted Ilia.
"'Doesn't matter'?" Gilda repeated incredulously. "'It doesn't' … it's huge! It could kill us!"
"It doesn't matter!" Ilia yelled, louder now. "We're the White Fang, and we're willing to give our lives for the cause; we have to be!" She took a deep breath. Her voice was a little quieter when she spoke again but had lost none of its fire. "If we perish, by Atlesian guns or even by grimm fangs in the pursuit of justice, then we will be honoured as martyrs of the struggle." Again, she paused for a moment. "I was there, when your girl Strongheart brought Adam's heart to Menagerie, to present it to the High Leader as a relic, to be held alongside the other relics of the struggle and its martyrs, going back to the days before the Revolution in Mistral. Have you ever seen the reliquary, where all the relics are held, Adam's heart along them?"
"No," Gilda said. "Like I told you, I've never been to Menagerie."
"Right, of course," Ilia muttered. "You should go. A follower of the God of Animals like you would appreciate a visit to the temple, where the sacred white hart presides and foretells the fortunes of men, armies, and kingdoms."
"I've been to see the black ram in Mistral," Gilda muttered. It had told her — or rather, the priests had told her that the ram was telling her — that she would serve a virtuous lady. Gilda had thought at first that was the High Leader. Later, she had wondered if it might be Blake. Now … now, she thought it must be the High Leader, although she might not have called her virtuous.
Committee, yes; passionate, for certain. Virtuous? Hmm, well…
"That's not the real thing," Ilia told her. "And Mistral doesn't have the Reliquary. People make pilgrimages there, as much as they do to the sacred hart, to ask for blessings on their endeavours and the strength to fulfil them, or to give thanks for those who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our people."
“You realise that if we get swallowed whole by that monster, we aren’t going to leave anything behind to become our relics, right?” Gilda asked.
“I think that we will be remembered for our sacrifice,” Ilia declared. “Whether we leave anything behind of our bodies or no, what we leave behind of our spirits will endure and inspire those who will come after.” She frowned. “You sent Adam’s heart to Menagerie; why do that if you don’t believe in heroes and the power of memory to move those left behind?”
“Adam was a hero,” Gilda said. Maybe not at the end, but for a while. “He deserved to be remembered, honoured.” Honoured for the best of what he was, not for what he became. “But this…” She trailed off. “Nobody will remember or honour that we got eaten by a grimm while engaging in some skullduggery for the High Leader. This isn’t heroic. It might be necessary, but it isn’t heroic. Nobody will tell any stories about the people who died taking out a couple of people who are…”
“Finish it,” Ilia said.
“It’s nothing,” muttered Gilda.
“Finish it anyway,” Ilia insisted.
“A couple of people who are just trying to do their best, okay?” Gilda snapped. “The High Leader might be right that they have to die, but let’s not kid ourselves that this is going to get into the hall of heroes.”
Ilia was silent for a moment. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. “It is dirty work, too dirty for the people to accept, even if it is necessary. But because it’s necessary, it has to be done all the same. It’s…” She wrinkled her nose, as though she had a bad smell underneath it. “It’s an hour to play and the last man in. We have to do it now; we can’t stop and we can’t turn back; we have to run whatever risks are placed in front of us, even giant grimm like that one.”
Gilda frowned. “'An hour to play'? Play what?”
“Cricket, I think,” Ilia muttered. “It doesn’t matter; it’s just a stupid bit of Atlesian verse from…” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, shuffling from left to right, stretching against the restraints. She didn’t say anything else until she’d settled down again. “Play up, play up, and play the game.”
Except this isn’t a game, Gilda thought. I wish it were a game, but it isn’t.
The stakes are too high for that.
Still, high stakes or not, Gilda continued to guide the airship in towards the Amity Colosseum, hoping that the grimm wouldn’t bestir itself before they landed.
She took a little comfort from the fact that if the black ram, whom some said was the sacred avatar of the God of Animals, was right, then she wasn’t going to die just yet.
She still had to find a virtuous lady.
Medea shrugged off robe and fleece alike, freeing up her hands for the airship controls, but also to fling her outer garments into the corner of what might be called the cockpit of the Aeolian Chariot.
Not an actual cockpit, of course — the Chariot wasn't compartmentalised on its upper deck — but it was the space around the controls, which amounted to the same thing.
Medea held out her hands, letting her sleeves fall down for a moment to expose her arms to view, before she sat down. The Aeolian Chariot was designed so that instead of being set at the very extreme front of the airship, her chair was set back from it a little, with a semi-circular control panel arranged around it, with enough room in front that if a thoughtless Jason wished to, he might walk in front of the pilot to get a view out in front of them and in the process block hers.
He wasn't doing that now.
"Restrain yourselves, dear hearts," Medea called out to the others as she settled down in her chair.
There was a column — one might have called it a mast if it led anywhere outside the airship — running up from the lower decks, through the floor, to the ceiling, coming up just beyond the dining table. Four black wires were attached to the stout shaft, coiling on the floor where they lay, with restraining harnesses attached to the end of each wire.
Medea glanced over her shoulder behind her, to see Jason, Meleager, and Atalanta clipping the harnesses around themselves.
All to the good. After all, Medea wasn't going to shut the airship doors — the upper decks might be transparent, but they wanted to make this as easy on the dragon as they possibly could — and they didn't want anyone to fall to their deaths, did they?
Atalanta strode to the edge of the airship, her black safety line trailing after her; she stood at the doorway, not looking down, at least as far as Medea could tell.
Medea's own eyes were drawn to look ever so slightly down, to where their charges — their erstwhile charges? No, they were their charges still; they protected them in this more than they could have by standing guard and waiting for the dragon to attack — stood, looking at the airship about to depart.
Young Lady Soojin looked back at her, through the glass.
Medea smiled, to conjure the hope in the little girl that was … well, there was something of an air of desperation about this endeavour, wasn't there?
And yet, I would not wish for better company in the whole world to share these desperate circumstances.
Perhaps they were not the best team in Haven Academy. Perhaps Jason was not the best leader — although he was the most handsome; Medea would fight anyone who dared suggest otherwise, and he was brave, and faithful too. Perhaps Medea was not the best strategist that any team could have been endowed with. But she was theirs, and they were hers, and she would not change them or aught about them.
She had not wanted the boys here, but at the same time, she would not deny to herself that there was a part of herself that was glad of it.
That they were all together.
Medea flexed her soft, small hands as she laid them on the stick.
Thessaly of the all-smothering night, if you will wrap your raven cloak around us and deliver us safe from harm through all this, then I shall restore your temple in Iolcus. This, I vow to you.
A weighty promise, considering the expense and the fact that Medea was in no position to do anything in Iolcus, nor would she be until Jason's father regained his lost position, but considering the circumstances, a weighty promise had seemed required.
And she had never broken her word to the gods yet.
Medea took one hand off the stick, the long shaft that rose out of the floor to steer the airship once it was airborne, and began to tap the controls, her lithe fingers flying along the buttons and switches. She heard the dust engine down below in the lower decks begin to hum and thrum, making the whole airship vibrate. That was good; it would have been a terrible time to have to go below and try and work out what was wrong with the engine — Medea didn't like doing that at the best of times; she accepted the sad necessity of such grubby-handed maintenance, but she didn't enjoy it even when she had ample leisure to work.
But it was working. Everything seemed to be working, everything was green, nothing was showing any problems at all.
The only problem was the grimm.
Medea gripped the steering column firmly but didn't move it as she flicked the switch that would turn on the VTOL thrusters mounted below. Slowly, steadily, the Aeolian Chariot began to rise off the docking pad, Lady Nikos and the rest seeming to drop away beneath them, becoming harder to see as they fell below the opaque lower part of the hull. Medea nudged the stick to the right somewhat, sending the airship drifting out off the docking platform and into the night sky.
The grey metal of the Amity Arena before her became replaced by a starry sky, and Vale somewhat far off below. Parts of the city were so dark that there were more lights in the sky than in the city, but there were enough lights on in other parts of Vale that Medea could locate the city clearly.
With sufficient distance between the Aeolian Chariot and the Amity Colosseum, Medea unfurled the wings of her airship, spreading them out on either side. They began to vibrate rapidly, like the wings of a hummingbird as it hovers by the flower and sucks out nectar with its beak.
"Atalanta," Medea called out. "Are you ready?"
Atalanta reached into her pouch and pulled out a large marble; she held it gripped between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand, as with her right hand, she gripped a handle beside the doorway. "Ready!" she shouted.
Jason and Meleager stood on the other side of the doorway. The Aeolian Chariot did not have any mounted weapons, but it did carry a store of heavy spears, like harpoons or the bolts of a ballista, and the two boys each held one gripped tight in their hands.
The dragon seemed very large to be hurt by such weapons, but perhaps the gods would favour them.
Medea brushed a loose strand of hair back into place and took a breath.
"Alright," she murmured. "Let's race."
Medea was nudged back into her chair as she urged the Chariot forwards. The world shifted around her, as though she were the fixed point and all else on the move; stars swooped overhead, visible through the glass, Amity Arena spun around her as Medea turned, circling the airship around it.
Flying was about so much more than simply getting from one place to another. It was thrilling in and of itself, the closest that anyone not born a bird faunus would get to having wings. This feeling, this feeling of making the world move around you, making the skies and the land below wheel and dance, it must be how the birds felt.
And the feeling as she rounded the Amity Arena to behold the dragon might be how the pigeon felt when it came face to face with a hungry hawk.
The dragons on the prow of the Aeolian Chariot snarled at the grimm dragon as Medea guided her airship towards the ruined CCT Tower and the beast that sat atop its stump. She did not turn away, not yet. Soon, but not yet.
"Remember," Atalanta said. "Once I activate my semblance, you must avert your eyes."
"We remember," Jason told her.
Atalanta couldn't control who was affected by her semblance. It would restrict Medea's ability to look back.
"Then I will rely on you to tell me what the dragon is doing," Medea called to her. "Tell me if it's going to fire that beam that destroyed the tower."
"I'll try my best," Atalanta assured her.
"No doubt," Medea murmured. "No doubt at all."
The dragon didn't seem to notice them. Medea couldn't turn away until it did; there was no point flying off and leaving the beast here; that would defeat the object — although it did occur to Medea that the dragon might be pretending not to notice them in order to lure them closer.
She was still moving slowly, cautiously; she didn't want to rush too close, even as her fingers were ready to squeeze the lever to accelerate as hard as it would go. She began to turn — gently, ever so gently — away from the dragon, presenting the side of her airship to it, where Atalanta stood.
Come, come, what could be more interesting than we?
What could catch your eye when we do not?
Should I have Jason throw a spear at you and see if that gets your notice?
There was no need; out the transparent side of the airship, Medea could see the dragon finally descend its head and catch sight of the Aeolian Chariot and its occupants below. It tilted its head a little to one side. Its eyes so red seemed to smoulder more intently than before as it looked down upon them.
"Now, Atalanta!" Medea shouted as she yanked hard on the stick to turn the airship away from the grimm and towards Vale.
She saw reflections of a gleam of gold in the glass that surrounded her, but thankfully, Atalanta's semblance did not work through reflections. So long as she did not look back and catch a direct sight of the golden marble shining in Atalanta's grasp, then she would be alright.
She could not look back.
Even if the dragon's roar booming out from behind them made her sorely wish to.
Medea squeezed the accelerator for all it was worth, squeezing it until her knuckles were white as the Aeolian Chariot shot forward; Beacon rushed away beneath them as though it was terrified by the dragon and put to flight; Medea swerved, jerking the Chariot to one side — Jason and Meleager squawked in alarm, and there was a sound of thumping and thudding behind her — to avoid a Bullhead heading the other way, towards Beacon.
Who would come in that direction at a time like this? Can't they see there's a dragon?
She had little time to wonder on the madness of the Valish — although tonight had shown that there was much madness in this city; the brain fever of their general seemed only a fraction of it — as the airship bore them away from the school and past the cliffs and on, on towards the city of Vale.
Medea wondered if she might have done better to have gone a different way, led the dragon somewhere else away from the city. But it was a little late for the gods to put such notions into her mind now; she would have to slow down to make the turn, and she did not want to slow down.
"It's following!" Atalanta called to her.
"Marvellous," Medea muttered. "Absolutely wonderful."
She couldn't look back, but she had a few sensors on her control panel, and they confirmed what Atalanta was saying — that there was something very large on their tail.
It wasn't getting closer, but it wasn't getting further away either.
"I told you not to look!" Atalanta shouted at someone, Jason or Meleager or both of them.
Medea couldn't look back to see which of them it was, if not both, but she did know that Atalanta shouting at them wasn't likely to help.
But it was an understandable impulse.
Medea was being pushed back against her chair as the airship sped through the sky, galloping over Vale now, devouring the lights of the city that passed out of sight beneath the dragon prow.
"It's going to fire!" Atalanta shouted.
"Hold on!" Medea yelled back at her as she threw the stick forwards, descending and jerking to the left as a beam of yellow shot through the sky overhead. Medea could see it through the glass ceiling, so bright that it would have been like staring at the sun to look directly at it.
The dragon was above them now, and that meant that Medea could look up and see it without being dumbstruck by Atalanta's semblance; she could see — just — the dragon descending upon them, talons outstretched.
The dragon swooped down — dropped down, almost, out from on high — with a speed even greater than it had used to pursue them. Its wings were raised above it as it fell, roaring, like a stone to crush them beneath its weight.
Medea was thrown to one side, her aura bruising as it hit the arm of her chair as she swerved away, the Aeolian Chariot twirling in the sky like an ice dancer along the frigid frozen surface, tracing circles around the dragon's dropping claws before Medea shot forward once again to put more distance between the dragon and herself.
She was going the wrong way for the sea; she had gotten turned around and was headed back towards Beacon, no, she was heading for the walls of Vale. That might be … no, there was fighting out there, their friends, Admetus and Hylas and Scarlet the Sour and those sweet fools Alcestis and Pisithia; and Pyrrha, of course. No, it would be inexcusable to lead the dragon back in their direction. She would have to turn, once she could open up a little distance.
Medea climbed; as the dragon had dropped so swiftly, she had some hope that it might rise more slowly, and that ascent might prove a boon to her in consequence.
She had lost sight of it once more — she could only truly see it once it was above them — but her sensors told it was somewhere … somewhere below.
"Speak to me, Atalanta, keen-eyed huntress," Medea implored. "Sing to me like one of the muses on the mountainside."
There was a pause. "It's below … and behind," Atalanta replied. "And firing again!"
Medea jerked to the left, pulling the stick violently in that direction, throwing herself to hit the armrest for the second time and punch her aura once again — and in the same place too. Medea grunted in pain, but she was gratified to see the dragon's beam pass by, rising up into the sky, missing the Aeolian Chariot completely.
She was less gratified to hear Atalanta shout wordlessly in alarm.
"Atalanta?" Medea called out, wishing that she could risk looking around. "Atalanta!"
"She's fallen!" Meleager cried. "Gods, she's fallen!"
Now Medea looked back, because if Meleager had been freed from the stupor of Atalanta's semblance, then that must mean the marble was out of sight. It was out of sight, as she saw when she looked back; Atalanta was out of sight, the only trace of her the black safety line trailing outside the door, falling off into the sky beyond.
Medea's breath caught in her throat. Please let the line have held.
Would you like a new altar in Colchis too, Thessaly? And an inscription that tells all who come not only that I raised it but also why, that all may marvel at your benevolent protectiveness?
Meleager and Jason scrambled across the floor of the Chariot on hands and knees like little boys, grabbing the line with both hands and hauling on it to pull her up.
Beyond, visible through the glass at the airship's rear, the dragon. No, wait, it had stopped following. It was turning away. Why, how could it turn away, unless—?
Atalanta's hand appeared, gripping the lip of the Chariot's doorway. It was swiftly followed by the rest of Atalanta as she pulled herself up, helped by the two boys.
"I dropped the marble," she grunted, hanging her head a little as she crouched on all fours. "I dropped it when the harness caught me. The snap." She shook her head.
"Does that mean the dragon will be drawn to it on the ground in Vale?" asked Meleager.
"No, it means I stopped using my semblance," Atalanta replied, a touch of sharpness in her voice. She glanced at Medea. "Shall we try and get its attention again?"
Medea didn't reply. She levelled off the airship, then tilted it a little to the right, where the door was closed, so that she could look down without risking anybody falling out again. The dragon was circling Vale. It was roaring too — its cries reached her ears up here quite clearly and loudly through the open door — but it didn't seem to be attacking anything. It was circling over the rooftops but not diving down on them, still less unleashing its terrible breath.
But all the same, they had brought it to Vale. They had led it away from Amity, which was good, but over the city, which was … less ideal. They had no real right to say 'job done' and leave it at that, however tempting it might be.
Our great grandparents sought the destruction of this city, but we will be shamed if we turn our backs now.
Medea breathed in and out. "Yes," she murmured. "I think we must."
She began to turn the Aeolian Chariot — slowly, but steadily — preparatory to a descent back down on the dragon. She would descend, and then she would rise up once more, and at the rising, if the gods continued to favour her, then they would gain the dragon's attention once again and could complete the plan to—
Before Medea could complete the turn, so that the dragon was still below and the airship was still facing at least partly away from it, two Atlesian airships streaked by beneath, heading for the dragon. Medea, whose enthusiasm for flying extended to her own airship but not to any details about Atlesian technology, could not have said what kind of airships they were except that they weren't the big transport ones that they used; rather, these looked to be combat airships: they were already firing at the dragon with rotating cannons mounted somewhere underneath, and they both had enormous missiles mounted under their wings, missiles so large they seemed almost as big if not bigger than the fuselages of the airships that carried them.
Through the glass, Medea could see that the airships were already firing now, bullets erupting from underneath the fuselage to strike the dragon's neck and shoulder.
The dragon turned its head towards them, bellowing in anger.
The enormous rockets fired from beneath the airships' wings. Each airship only carried two — there was no physical room for any more — but all four of them streaked towards the dragon, flames as large as furnaces burning behind them.
The dragon kept on roaring, but it didn't try to move as the great missiles approached. It hovered in the air, wings beating, as the missiles came on and the two airships that had fired the missiles broke off, turning away in different directions.
Only then did the dragon move, starting forward in pursuit.
The missiles struck home, not quite all at once but in quick succession, each missile striking before the fireball of the last had died so that it grew exponentially outwards and outwards, consuming the dragon's immense body within them.
Die, Medea thought. Breathe your last and turn to ashes. Let the fires burn as hot as Aeolus' sun and consume you utterly.
The dragon erupted out of the flames, Medea could see the scorch marks on its plates of bone, and she could hear the frothing fury in its screams as it pursued one of the two Atlesian airships. They were not fast — in fact, it seemed positively sluggish — and the dragon quickly began to gain upon it.
The second airship came to the aid of the first; though it had turned and headed off in a different direction — perhaps to ensure that they could not both be pursued — it rounded on the grimm, spitting bullets with its cannon once more as it closed the distance as best it could.
The first airship — the one that had been the focus of pursuit — dropped out of sight as the dragon turned its attention on the second. Medea saw it descend towards Vale and thought that she might have seen the pilot eject, but it was difficult to say for sure in this lack of light.
What she did see was the second airship breaking off again, turning its back for the second time upon the dragon.
But it was not fast either.
The dragon caught up with it and caught the Atlesian airship in its tail, crushing its rear beneath the chimerical three claws that waited there as though the tail belonged to some other beast grafted onto the dragon by some god. The dragon held onto the Atlesian airship for a moment before flinging it upwards through the air.
Towards the Aeolian Chariot.
Medea's eyes widened as she started to accelerate. The Atlesian airship was moving too quickly, and Medea could only partially move her airship out of the way before the Atlesians struck.
There was an almighty crash that flung Medea out of her chair and slammed her head up onto the ceiling with a flare of her aura, before dumping her back down on her back on the floor. The stern of the Aeolian Chariot was completely sheared away, shards of glass flying everywhere.
The airship started to spin as it plummeted towards Vale.
Jason, Meleager, and Atalanta were hanging on by their safety lines, clinging to the wires, pulling themselves up by them as they hung half out of the ruined rear half of the Chariot. For herself, Medea had wrapped her hands around the pole of her chair, clinging to it as her airship fell.
If she could pull herself up, if she could reach the controls…
If she let go of her hold.
The world whirled around them, and through the glass, she could see the streets of Vale rushing to meet them.
Everything went black. Medea heard glass breaking all around her, felt the shards hitting her like arrows, slicing into her aura.
She felt her aura breaking.
Everything went black.
Everything was dark. Medea opened her eyes, but the world was still dark; the moonlight was too ill to see anything brightly.
Her head hurt. Everything hurt.
"J—" Medea tried to speak, tried to call out to Jason, but when she opened her mouth, only a hoarse, quiet sound, barely audible, emerged. She tried to swallow; her mouth was so dry, her tongue was parched. She tried to swallow, but even that was difficult. She tried and tried and tried again before she managed it.
"Jason?" she croaked. "Atalanta? Meleager?"
There was no response. Not even a mewling moan of pain.
No, Medea thought, her eyes welling up with tears. No, no, no, no, they cannot—
Someone coughed, a long and spluttering cough, as though there was a lot that had to be expelled from the lungs.
"Medea?" Atalanta called softly, sounding as though she was in pain.
"Yes," Medea grunted, trying to twist her body around. It was too painful; she groaned in pain and stopped trying to move.
Her hands were bloody, and her fingers … her fingers didn't look entirely in the right place, or at the right angle.
No wonder they hurt so much. No wonder she had tears in her eyes from the pain.
Something flopped down onto the ground in front of her, something black and liquid falling from the sky like rain.
If rain fell in puddles.
The black puddle lay in front of her for a second or two, sprawling across the … concrete. It looked like concrete; was she on a road? Turning her head, Medea could see half the hull of the Aeolian Chariot, the lower decks, lying on their side, half in a building of some kind that it had smashed through. She had been thrown out, if only a little, and she lay on the ground surrounded by shards of glass. The head of one of the snarling dragons of the prow lay on the road beside her, severed from the rest of the airship.
And the black puddle lay in front of her, sprawled across tarmac and broken glass. And then it began to shrink, the puddle contracting as something began to rise out of it: a juvenile beowolf, of the lean and two-legged Valish breed, its body all black, no bone to be seen except the mask on its face.
The beowolf looked down on her and bared its teeth.
Medea was not the greatest huntress in Haven, or even on Team JAMM, but with her aura up, she would not have feared a single beowolf so young.
But her aura was broken.
A low growl rose from the beowolf's throat.
Its growling was answered by a louder sound, by the roaring of an engine racing towards them.
The beowolf turned around as a black blade sliced off its head.
Soteria, the black sword Soteria sliced off the beowolf's head as a chimera motorcycle skidded to a halt in front of Medea. Upon the motorcycle rode Weiss Schnee, all shining white — and the bearer of the black sword, Sunset Shimmer.
"See if you can reach Professor Goodwitch, tell her we need an ambulance," Sunset said, as she and Weiss leapt off the motorcycle. "And tell her … tell her there are grimm inside the city."
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And with that end, hopefully we segue into catching up with Sunset and Weiss. Talk about doing damage control with the wounded. First Sunset with the First Councillor, then Weiss with Lt. Martinez, now both of them with team JAMM.
Apparently, Lady Nikos didn't object with the team leaving her and the Wongs unprotected.
I find it amusing team JAMM presumed Applejack was a Shade student.
And now Gilda's headed for Amity, and will come face to face with Applejack. Gilda, please, follow your conscience and turn away.
Yeeowch. Marks for effort, team JAMM, but all you've done is get the dragon to birth juvenile Grimm into the city. Glad we finally get Sunset again. A shame that if she's recovered any aura, it's probably not enough to take even a single hit.
Found a little editing error; there’s too many “into, interior” in this passage.
I loved the chapter; it was great seeing Lady Nikos again, but I wonder how she will fare now that her bodyguards are gone and Gilda and Ilia are in the Amity Arena; I am excited to see Applejack giving them the smack down they deserve. I wonder if Rainbow will be able to go up there or it will be a job for AJ and Twilight to deal with them.
Also, hoorayyyy! Sunset and Weiss are here! My favorites from each franchise are fighting side by side again and I am pretty sure they will now have to defeat the Dragon with the rest of the students in Vale proper. But I think they’ll have to kill it without Penny this time; with the way her arc has gone, I don’t think her whole Drangonslayer persona and her becoming a symbol of Atlas will go well in the Rewrite. Weiss, on the other hand, being hailed as a hero would be an interesting twist on her story, and it would contrast with Jacques whole storyline. I really like the idea that Weiss could kill the Dragon and clean the Schnee name as a hero (Also would be cool for Weiss to be able to summon the Dragon with her Summon Glyph) fingers crossed that Weiss or Sunset could kill the Dragon.
Excited as all hell for next chapter!!!
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It was a good plan, but since Medea kind of had to commit to the mistake of flying over Vale because correcting said mistake too soon would result in death... if she had known that the Dragon was literally dripping with Grimm goo that was creating fresh Grimm wherever it flew, I suspect she might have tried to fix the mistake a lot earlier.
I suspect that Thessaly is still going to get her new temple. Because Medea's request of said Goddess was A) Help her get the Dragon away from Amity and B) Please protect her and her team so that they live to fight another day. Both of which were achieved. While this has resulted in a situation that is no doubt going to result in an uncomfortable amount of bloodshed, it may also result in the death of the Dragon as well: A situation that would not have arisen if the plan had worked and the Dragon went out to sea and murdered Team JAMM. Deities work in mysterious ways after all.
I kind of hope this Jason isn't unfaithful. Sure, he is prone towards checking out pretty women, but there is a difference between checking someone out and outright cheating on someone.
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Honestly, with Jaune and Penny up at Beacon now, I think, in the rewrite, Sunset and Weiss could be subbed in for the roles of strategist and dealer of the final blow respectively instead. Sunset comes up with a comprehensive, well-though-out plan, possibly even revising the original plan in the rewrite, making her come a long ways from her shortsighted plans like with taking down the apex Alpha with the other team leaders way back when, and thus pulling another miracle, as Goodwitch put it, and Weiss, as you said, stands out as a hero despite her family name, (and makes Winter proud.)
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It won’t just be Applejack. There will also be Blake’s mother. Looking forward to how that will go!
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That does beg the question of how long it takes for aura to recover, though I doubt all the exertion Sunset has done isn't doing it any favors, since it must require rest to recover.
Now that it's had time to sink in, I must say how monumentally disappointed I am in Ilia.
There's a saying: "No one fights in a burning house." The wisdom behind it is self-explanatory. Then I remembered Volume 5, and realized that Ilia literally kept fighting in a burning house, when the White Fang wanted to silence Ghira. And this is even worse. The walls are tumbling down all around. The CCT tower destroyed, grimm cultists destroying the power, a dragon on the rampage, innocent humans and faunus dying everywhere... and still Ilia only thinks of personal revenge.
Let us hope she'll still bring herself to walk away like in canon. I'm counting on you, Sienna, and you too, Cadence.