"No! I won't leave them!" shrieked Weiss, fighting against the hold of the ragged Atlesian who was dragging her along.

"Damnit, that's no- shit!" the soldier cursed, dropping Weiss hard onto the floor.

Weiss felt the wind get driven out of her as her back slammed into a jagged rock. All around her, black obsidian fell in droves from the collapsing castle, crushing friend and foe alike. Weiss heard the repeated bark of a pistol above her as the soldier emptied his clip.

Even writhing in pain, Weiss rolled onto her stomach, trying to crawl back towards the stairs she'd been dragged from. Gasping, she looked up at the dissolving form of a Beowulf, though others like it were emerging from the cracks in the wall like fungus.

Two hands settled under her armpits and hefted her to her feet, dragging her once again from her goal.

"Let me go!" Weiss sobbing violently as she thrashed with what little strength she had left.

The man ignored her, instead shouting to the rest of the living as they fought their way out of the building. Another Atlesian and a scruffy, cloth covered Vacuoan in goggles rushed up to them, muzzles flaring as they poured fire into the oncoming Grimm.

A few others joined them, each bearing the respective marks of their kingdoms. They took cover behind the bodies of their countrymen, firing desperately as they fought a hard retreat.

Weiss' eyes widened as the Grimm oozed through the ceiling, dropping Beowulves on top of the defenders. One of the men who had stepped forwards to save them was crushed, not even uttering a cry as his hardened ceramic armour splintered into a hundred pieces. The Vacuoan, who was now obviously had the figure of a woman, howled in fury as she drove the bayoneted end of her rifle into the creature, accompanied by rounds of ammunition.

"Please, Miss, you have to get up!" said the soldier, his voice hoarse. Weiss numbly staggered to her feet, her hand wrapped tight around Myrtenaster's hilt. She felt the soldier press his pistol into her hand, before he slammed a fresh clip into his own rifle and roared.

She could see him clearly now, and saw a single dull brown eye through where his vizor had once been. The rest was either covered in blood or blocked by what was left of his helmet. His armour had been crumpled, clinging uselessly to his uniform.

The cry of the dying brought her mind back into line, and she raised her pistol. She fired rounds into the Grimm who seemed about to finish one of the rapidly dwindling number of humans around them. Though, there weren't just humans. Pushing past her was a White Fang trooper, his uniform long since fallen into disrepair and mask discarded.

She didn't have a chance to see his face before he was impaled with feathers, flung from freshly formed Lesser Nevermore. He collapsed to the ground with a meaty thud, landing next to the body of a Beacon student who couldn't have been done with his first year.

Weiss' cap- no, her saviour, swore and dropped his rifle, tearing a knife from his belt. "I'm dry."

The click of her pistol accompanied this worrisome announcement, and she tucked it into her belt with a sigh. "As am I."

Weiss looked beyond the rows and rows of torn bodies towards the staircase at the end of the long atrium they were dying in. While her friends had charged up that staircase, she and Miss Goodwitch had stayed behind to deal with Arthur Watts. The headmistress' purple cloak still poked out from underneath the rubble of a column, it's owner charred black in her suicidal attack to put the man down.

So many had been lost to get her friends up those stairs, but before Weiss could think any further on it, the ceiling above them began to come apart at the seams. Small cracks splinters and fell, crushing friend and foe alike. Weiss could see the men and women around her fighting desperately without purpose, unsure whether to run or stand in the face of death. Frantically, her eyes flickered between the living and the staircase, before shuddering and drawing Myrtenaster.

With tears in her eyes, she raised her blade high in the air and shouted the most difficult words in her entire life: "Fall back!"

What remained of the greatest army Remnant had ever seen gave a final, ragged roar of desperation and ran towards Weiss, who wavered and leaned on the broken soldier. Those who weren't crushed or cut down raced out of the twin doors of the citadel, down the steps and sprinted across dark maroon earth that lay clear ahead of them.

No Grimm challenged them in the open field as they ran as fast as they could away from the building, every creature charging and flying towards the topmost spire of the citadel. Weiss took a chance to look backwards as she ran, eyes wide as silver light blasted out of the shattered windows. It lit up the Grimmlands like a sun, then went out like a candle in the dark.

The whole world seemed to shutter. There was silence as even the Grimm stopped in their tracks to watch. And then the tower exploded, every single brick and shard flying outwards in a frenzy like a million hornets. Below it, the building collapsed inward; and the dreaded Castle Evernight was no more.

The Grimm around the castle were slaughtered by the collapse, and Weiss had to shield her eyes from the dust. Those had hadn't were frozen into statues by Ruby's silver eyes. When it settled, she opened her tear stained eyes and stared at the rubble. Inside it was everyone she had ever cared about. Every person that Weiss had left after all these years of senseless violence was buried in that rubble.

Words and tears had abandoned Weiss, and so she fell face first into the ground and whimpered silently. No one cheered at the rubble. No one found pride or purchase in its destruction. Instead they all watched on as a pillar of black smoke rose from the ruins.

The soldier sat noisily next to Weiss, gasping for breath as he tore off his helmet and tossed it to the side, a faint red light blinking on the outside of it. Men and women fell heavily to the ground, some gasping their dying breaths.

Smoke rose from the wrecks of countless burning warships and transports scattered across the massive field, bright flames doting distant cliff sides and plateaus.

All the world had come together in this final hour, each country and creed setting aside their own pride in the face of an apocalypse. Atlas had given every soldier and automaton they could, covering the skies with battleships and carriers, blanketing the ground with Knights and Paladins. The tribes of Vacuo had gathered into a moot for the first time since the Great Colour War, united under the banner of a chosen Khan, Sun Wukong. Mistral had barely any Huntsmen left, but they came all the same, alongside militia teams, Fang Remnants and all the military hardware that the crime families could scrounge up. And Vale…

Vale sent Huntsmen. All of them, and anyone who was close enough to be damned well called one. Teachers, Students, Criminals, Emergency Responders, anyone with their aura unlocked and a weapon with a trigger. All had come, some more willingly than others, but it didn't matter.

Almost every single one of them was dead.

Weiss sat on her haunches and tried to regain her breath. Her eyes glazed over at the sea of destruction, letting out a small cough as the smoke stung lungs.

"They did it…" said a feminine voice behind Weiss. Its owner stepped forward, revealing the Vacuoan skirmisher from before. What had once been an antique hunting rifle was clenched tightly in her hands, twisted beyond repair.

"Aye, they did," mumbled the man next to Weiss, running a hand through a mop of slick brown hair. Weiss was tempted to ask their names, but decided against it. She didn't want to bury anymore names in her lifetime.

Instead, Weiss settled for standing. Rising shakily to her feet, she dug Myrtenaster into the ground as a support. Her dress was in ruins, but she tore what was left of the hem and handed it to the still bleeding man.

The man quietly thanked her, but Weiss had already turned to the skirmisher. "How many are de- how many do we have left?"

The woman sighed and shrugged, wincing at some invisible wound. "We've got about twenty people left. About eight of those won't make it through the night, and that's only at first glance."

Twenty. Twenty damn people are all that's left. Twenty-four hours ago there were hundreds of thousands of huntsmen and soldiers, all making ready for this attack. Weiss shuddered, thankful that the acrid smoke blocked out the stench of death. The battlefield in front of her felt wrong, as though all these people had just… stopped. Grimm left no corpses, making it impossible for her to see the score they had settled.

Weiss tightened her mouth, eyes narrowing. Her body ached but obeyed her wishes as she took a step forward, wincing as she staggered to the closest body. It was dressed in bright orange and blue, two ornate daggers discarded next to it. Weiss dropped to one knee and turned it face up.

Bright green eyes stared up at nothing, the man's torn mouth hung open. Weiss sighed, stood up, and moved to the next one. It was the same story, so she moved on to the next one.

It was mechanical, if she was being honest. Staring death in the face over and over again became normal in the last days of their journey, pleading for the Kingdoms to unite. When Weiss wondered if she was doing more harm than good, she looked among the dead in search of the living. And when she found them, she knew she was doing the right thing. And when she didn't, Weiss believed more and more that they couldn't stop. If they did, then what would all the deaths be for?

But in a field like this, Weiss felt daunted. What could possibly justify so great a sacrifice? How could there be a future built on this many bodies? Even if there was never another death lost in battle, the cost would have been too great for her to order again.

One of the Mistralian militiamen that had joined with them walked past her, stooping down to check a body close to a downed Bullhead. The soldier joined him, and soon all those that could walk were shifting through the bodies.

Weiss plodded forwards, digging one after the other out of the blood soaked mud. A few shook and quaked, caught in their final moments. All Weiss could do was stroke their heads and sit with them as they passed. But then it was on to the next one.

She wished she could feel more at their passing, but in truth she didn't have the strength. A few shouts she could hear signalled the rare living that could be saved, and that was all it took to keep her going. Clawing at the mud, clambering through burnt out wrecks, all the while slowly making her way towards the ruins of Evernight.

"There will be something more than this. There has to be," she mumbled, trying not to recognize the faces she turned over under that wretched moon.

"Ma'am, you have to stop. You'll die if you don't rest."

Weiss ignored him, clawing at the sharp obsidian below her. She could distantly feel the cuts forming and growing on her hands, but kept moving with mechanical determination. It was that damned soldier again, trying to keep her from her friends for the second time today.

There was silence for a while, save for the shifting of rubble. She could hear him hopping from one foot to the other before trying again.

"We've recovered food and blankets from one of the battleships, it would be best if you-"

"Leave me," hissed Weiss, grunting as she worked to shift a rock half her size out of the way.

He stood there for a little while longer before sighing and walking down towards the makeshift campsite. She was glad to hear they had recovered some essentials. If they could get enough real medicine then it would go a long way to keeping some more alive. The group hadn't really spread out much to search for the wounded, and instead followed Weiss' lead until they began searching the remains of the Atlas fleet. The vast battleships were smoking ruins, but some were partially accessible and combed for survivors. As they went, the group had gathered as many supplies as possible and dragged them back to the wounded.

The lack of medical supplies was worrying though, and Weiss could only assume this was because of how the medbay was placed on each ship. Standard Atlas aerial combat procedure was to gain as high an altitude as possible on attacking Grimm, and use their point-defense systems to keep the Grimm trapped below the incredibly thick under armour. This strategy meant it was best to place the highest priority targets on the top of the ship. The bridge, manufactorium and medbay all sat well out of reach of desperate claws.

Sadly, that meant that when the ships crashed, the medbay and bridges were trapped out of reach of any quick rescue. Normally there would be a support team that could be deployed from the rest of the battlegroup to evacuate survivors, but the magnitude of the battle had meant… It meant no one was going to be evacuated.

And with the fires of the ships burning brighter and higher throughout the ships, the odds of getting to anything before the fires burned it out were slim. But then again, everything about their lives seemed slim and dire up until now.

The world finally had a chance at peace, but Weiss had never felt so hopeless.

Her fingers sunk into the obsidian once again and lifted a stone, before damn near dropping it right on top of the familiar face.

Weiss hurled the rock to the side and gave out a hoarse cry. "Yang! Oh gods, please-no,oh please!"

She tore at the rubble in a frenzy, screaming in one long breathless voice of terror. Her mind ached for her to stop and put the rubble back, to run away from this confrontation. Instead she doubled down, ignoring cuts to her knees and hands that cut straight to the bone.

Voices neared from behind her, shouting concern as a few people climbed up towards her. Weiss soon had her chest free, and watched it intently.

A minute passed by without any discernable movement, and all Weiss could do was lower her head into the crook of her friends neck, weeping softly into the hair of her friends corpse.

"Why… why did all of you have to leave me… why didn't I die?" she cried, pressing her tear stained face against Yang's, trying not to think of how pale she was.

Then, it slowly dawned on her. Her skin was pale, but it wasn't ice cold like Weiss had known bodies to grow after such time had passed. Eye's wide, she held her ear close to Yang's mouth and could just barely hear the faintest breathing. Her chest wasn't rising, not that she could see, but that was all Weiss needed.

"Help me!" She shouted to the those clambering up, looking back to see three men moving up to her as fast as possible. Frantically, she started to shove rubble away from Yang's limp body, and soon three pairs joined her as they dug.

Weiss' shoes kept slipping on the loose rubble, so she kicked them off. Barefoot, she dug her heels into the shard-like ground and settle her hands under Yang's shoulders, struggling to move her. The others scrambled and shouted to one another as they pulled her out and settled her on to the ground. Weiss collapsed onto the ground as they secured her, placing Yang's head on her lap. A fourth person rushed up, a Valean medic by the looks of her tattered uniform.

She set a nearly empty bag of supplies down next to Yang and got to work examining her, an intense look of determination on her face as she tore away at Yang's outfit to get at the cuts and sickeningly purple bruises that spread across her whole body.

Weiss never even felt herself slipping into the void.

A/N: Heyo! Welcome to my brand new story, Old Order! This story is set within the same universe as Painting Penance, but you don't need to read that one to enjoy this!

This is a story from Weiss' POV set immediately after the end of RWBY. It's got all the exciting issues of supply, scavenging, sickness, laws, morale, diplomacy, war and the eternal battle to stay warm when the night seems coldest.

I hope you like what you see, there will be plenty more to come!