The dust cloud rising over the horizon made it pretty obvious where I needed to go, even if I hadn’t already known.
While I was slightly frustrated I had misjudged when the Breach would occur, the fact that it was earlier than expected slightly worked out in the City’s favor. It was simply too early for there to be a large number of people being out aside from the early risers. And thankfully there weren’t even too many of those as I ran towards the square where I could hear roars and gunfire in the distance that was audible even over the emergency sirens.
The bigger issue was that the Grimm were already pouring out into the city and even those few civilians were irresistible for the creatures. I’d already had to slow down a bit to kill more than thirty Beowolves that had run out ahead of the others.
Any thought of holding back on my projections was abandoned as I created a localized blade storm to sweep the streets. Those that were further away weren’t spared either as I swapped Bakuya and Kanshou for a bow and started raining down projected arrows all while making sure I was still moving forward.
And once I finally made it to the square, it became very clear very quickly that I’d underestimated exactly how many Grimm were making their way into the city through the broken railway tunnel. There were easily hundreds already in the plaza surrounding the battered group of Team RWBY, and thousands trying to shove their way through the tunnel.
I was reminded of the battle of Farthen Dûr in a very unpleasant way.
That thought was quickly shoved aside when I saw Yang take a bad hit from a flight of Nevermore. She was only the first too, because the others were obviously already tired and hurting from the train crash. Before I could even do anything there were already two other close calls.
I dismissed all my weapons and pulled my device back out. Now that there were no civilians in the way and clearing the Grimm took priority over any potential property damage, I could cut loose just a bit.
[Firing Mode: Nova Blast]
A yellow magic circle appeared at the head of the staff-like device and with a mental command a wave of magical energy cut a line straight through the mass of Grimm right past where Team Rwby had been surrounded.
Ignoring the surprised shouts from the girls, I quickly reconfigured my weapon – the head of the staff breaking into four sections with a smaller magic circle forming at the head of each one.
[Firing Mode: Rapid Accel Shot]
I gave the order to fire again and a stream of orb shaped bullets began to hose down the Grimm in front of me. Each orb was not only individually more powerful than my default arrows, but also detonated on impact without me needing to do anything else.
The normal Beowulfs died in droves from a single shot while the larger more durable Grimm either took several more hits before dying or ducked down and hid behind their more expendable brethren.
“Miss Alexandria, you’re here!”
“Yes, hi Ruby.” I replied as the four tired girls surrounded me, still ready to fight but obviously relieved. “Are all of you okay?”
“Never better, Teach!” Yang pumped a fist. “Just getting warmed up.”
“Well, make sure to pace yourselves. Until that hole gets sealed up and our backup arrives, we’ve got a lot of Grimm to deal with.”
“What about the city?” Blake asked.
I held up a gem I’d prepared earlier and checked I was relatively close to the center of all the marks I’d placed the other day. It wasn’t perfect, but more than enough to make sure things worked for several hours. “Got it covered. Just be ready because we are about to be the only things the Grimm can target in a little bit.”
“What does that mea–”
I didn’t let them finish and activated the spell. All along the edges of the plaza, my marks began to glow yellow before shooting into the air and connecting to the other points in a glowing transparent cage before it ‘vanished’.
With the Bounded Field connected the only way for the Grimm to keep spreading into the city was to somehow undo the spell or destroy the anchor point in my hand.
“What was that!?” Weiss asked.
“Something like a forcefield.” I briefly explained. “We can get in and out as needed but Grimm cannot leave. If your Aura gets too low, get to the edges and recover. You can still shoot into it from the outside. Now focus up, girls, things are going to be a little hectic until the others get here.”
As much as I wanted to keep playing with my new device now that I finally had an opportunity to use it – it really wasn’t the best weapon to use at the moment. Not when Team RWBY began jumping around all over the plaza again with me in the middle. One mistake and I’d catch one of them in my attacks which would be disastrous in their state.
[Nova Blast]
I sent one more wave of energy into the densest part of the horde – erasing it from existence – and folded the device away.
Luckily, I had plenty of other weapons to use.
Kanshou and Bakuya remained one of my best choices considering their anti-monster properties, letting me practically dance through the horde despite their numbers. And any larger Grimm were dealt with by quickly Tracing other Noble Phantasms to deal with them. Hrunting and Gae Bolg in particular were getting a workout dealing with whatever Alpha variant or Death Stalker I ran into while Tobiume occasionally made an appearance to shoot a fireball at whatever flying Grimm were close enough.
And the fight was slowly getting easier as time went on, not just because of my and Team RWBY’s efforts, but because other Beacon students and staff had started to arrive.
At one point I saw Team JNPR joining in on the fighting alongside some older students from other years. Professors Port and Oobleck had joined forces and were hunting down the biggest and most dangerous of the Grimm while leaving the rest for the students. And I had seen Cinder’s team hanging around the edges of the Bounded Field.
I thought they had stayed away from the Breach, did I remember wrong? Or did Cinder change her schedule because of something I did?
Either way, not only was Salem’s little infiltration team here, they had quite clearly seen at least one other aspect of my magic. Not ideal but nothing I could do about it right now.
At the very least they would kill some of the Grimm and take some of the pressure off the other students simply acting as another target.
Without anywhere to spread and more and more Huntsmen – in-training or otherwise – arriving to deal with them, the Grimm were actually being pushed back fairly quickly. The biggest issue that remained was just the fact there were so many of them pouring out of the Breach even now that we couldn’t actually try sealing the damn thing.
And I had a sinking suspicion that our defenders were going to start running out of ammunition before the Grimm ran out of numbers. At this rate I was going to have to be more proactive even with Cinder right there watching me. While it was more strategically sound to keep as much hidden as possible, I wasn’t about to put students in unnecessary danger just to hide one or two things. I would just have to be careful about what I showed off.
Which mostly meant my Device, Utility, and Gemcraft magics. Cinder might have gotten a partial look at a Bounded Field, but that wouldn’t be enough for her to work out the limits. Haste and the handful of other spells like it were trump cards I’d like to keep for when I was up against Salem’s agents in a way I could remove them. And my Device magic was simply too overtly magical to use more than I already had. Especially because it manifested completely differently than how Maiden powers did.
Once Salem got word about that I was sure I’d have her complete, undivided attention. Not something I wanted to deal with until I could trim away her more problematic supporters.
Tracing was still fine thankfully. I’d never particularly hidden that to begin with and even then I was holding back some of its more destructive possibilities since I didn’t want to destroy the Bounded Field.
While I was stuck in my own head, the fight that had stalled was actually showing some signs of reversing. And not in our favor.
My prediction of the defenders running out of ammo before we ran out of Grimm was starting to come true.
Utterly unsurprising considering normal people didn’t haul enough bullets to fight a small war while going out to brunch even if they did bring their purse-gatling gun.
As long range options dried up – the Grimm began to push further away from the Breach. Further into the plaza. They wouldn’t be able to get past the Bounded Field but sealing the hole was going to be that much harder.
At least until Atlas decided to show up.
The midday sun was cut off as a massive Atlesian Airship flew over the plaza and about a dozen smaller ships began dropping off squads of their Knights – humanoid combat robots that were mostly useless outside of urban environments but perfect for surrounding a single location and slowly advancing with overwhelming firepower.
I had to admit, I’d mostly written off Atlas’s tin soldiers as only good for mobile security and civilian control. But when the environment perfectly suited them, I could see why Atlas kept pouring resources into trying to make artificial soldiers that could supplement Huntsmen.
The Knights were tearing through the horde with incredible efficiency.
And even better – I spotted Professor Goodwitch walking through the Bounded Field.
Our eyes met for a moment and she had a look that meant I’d be explaining several things once this crisis was over… but that was fine.
I wasn’t some unknown person begging for assistance at the head of a bunch of refugees anymore. And while I wouldn’t exactly call us friends or anything like that, there was a respect between me, Ozpin, and Goodwitch.
Maybe even enough that with this latest demonstration they would be willing to look in certain directions that they previously would have dismissed from someone not part of their inner circle.
“We’ll have to talk about this later.” Professor Goodwitch said, echoing my earlier thoughts. “For now we focus on this.”
I nodded at her. “What do you need me to do?”
“Clear a path to the hole. Use whatever trick you are holding back if it gets things done faster. I can seal it but it will take a moment and requires my complete focus.”
Well then. She was serious.
“Got it. One path through the Grimm coming up.” My existing projections faded away and were replaced by a large knife-like blade instead. Swordbeams, after all, were not unique things I needed to hide. “All Huntsmen pull back! Heavy attack incoming!”
Once I had enough space in front of me I didn’t have to worry about someone getting caught in my attack, I focused my magic into the blade.
“Zangetsu: Getsuga Tensho!”
Swinging the giant Zanpakuto sideways, the wave of blue energy turned into a scythe that cut through everything in its path until it hit the inside of the Bounded Field on the other side of the plaza.
I paused for a moment as I feared that would be enough to break the field, but after a few seconds of fluctuating wildly – it smoothed out once again.
More importantly, a wide arc all the way to the mouth of the Breach had been opened and Goodwitch wasted no time moving forward – riding crop swishing and rock formations swirling around her head – and began filling in the hole as every other Professor, Huntsman, Student, and Atlesian Knight dumped their remaining ammo into the space around her in order to keep the Grimm away.
And with one final click of stone sliding into place, the Breach was finally sealed.
Cheers went up from nearly everyone as the last of the Grimm died, but I was not one of them along with two noticeable exceptions. I pretended not to notice the discrete looks Professor Goodwitch and Cinder were giving me, but one thing was clear.
My time playing a slightly mysterious teaching assistant was mostly over. I’d demonstrated things Ozpin and Salem couldn’t ignore. From now on I, specifically, would be a part of both of their plans for the future.
I just had to make sure I was accepted as another Player, and not just a Piece to be moved.