Apologies for the wait, I kept expecting that each season of RWBY would be the season where things actually happen that could justify re-involving CRDL. I don't see that happening at any point in the near future, so here's the final chapter in Redemption.

One point I will raise here, apparently this thing has a TV Tropes page and someone posted on there that Redemption had a spinoff story. There are no sequels or spinoffs to this story, but a number of people have borrowed plot elements - Cardin's Semblance is a big one (which is nice because now I know I wasn't the only one who was annoyed by that particular plot hole).

If anyone wants to borrow plot elements, please message me because I'm always interested to see how they turn out in other people's stories. If you could also give me credit, that would be both fair and nice but I'm not concerned either way.

If I do post a sequel, it will be posted under this account.

Chapter Forty-Two

I learn later that they call it the Fall of Beacon.

I don't care for the name.

'Fall' is too neat, too clean. I'm not sure what else fits, admittedly – the Chaos of Beacon? The Shattering of Beacon? They needed a word that hadn't been invented yet, something that captures the whole unholy mess, the screaming, the feeling of an ocean made of glass shards, sand one minute and a tide of blood the next…

The Death of Beacon.

That comes close, but – not close enough.

I don't remember a whole lot of that night. God looks after fools and madmen, they say, and after what I saw in the streets…Madness? It's not so bad. Sometimes you need some insulation from the real world. Like my Semblance, suppressing wounds, my mind rose up and suppressed my memory, for years in some cases, until the rest of me was strong enough to face it.

Some fragments come back to me more clearly than others. One of my earliest, and clearest, memories is seeing Octavia Ember and Dew Gayle, fighting against a ring of Beowolves, Gwen Darcy bleeding between them and Nebula, one leg gone, kneeling beside Gwen, picking off Beowolves with her arrows.

I don't bother trying to take the Grimm on. I'd just lose a limb too, and I like my limbs. They let me do things. Instead, I palm my nearly-empty Fire Dust cartridge from Octantis, and smash it against the roof I'm standing on so that it cracks. Then I yell, 'Hey, Gayle! Fire in the hole, blondie!' and throw it at her.

Dew Gayle looks up at me, shoots me a fierce blood-streaked grin, and summons one of her preposterous whirlwinds. The wind catches the escaping Fire Dust and carries it to the Grimm –just in time for it to explode.

The force nearly knocks me off my feet, but when I risk a look down at them, a second whirlwind has protected NDGO from the blast.

I may think she's a prissy stuck-up bitch, but damn if Dew doesn't know her stuff.

I jump down from the roof and trot over to them. Dew opens her mouth to say something, but Octavia tugs her out of the way, and I grab Darcy. She's definitely in more danger than Nebula – Nebula may be missing a leg, but Darcy is about to die.

She's been pretty thoroughly mauled, but I manage to drag her back from the brink. As I sway, she groans softly, and opens her eyes.

'What the hell is going on?'

'Hell is right,' I mutter, rubbing my forehead. 'Something – something has gone wrong. I don't–'

'Grimm,' Nebula says sharply. 'In the city. That is all you need to know. Help me up.'

'Let me–'

She raps my knuckles with the flat of her sword as I reach out to her. 'You can't grow my leg back, Russel.'

'You don't know that.'

'I forbid you to try. Even if you can, it's not the best use of your time. My leg, my rules. There are people out there that you can actually help. Go and do that.'

I nod slowly. 'You make a good point. But – oh my god!'

She jerks her head around to see where I'm looking with such alarm, and I grab her shoulder and reach out with my Semblance.

There's nothing there, though. I think I can stop the bleeding, but I hesitate, because I don't actually know what will happen, since most of the necessary veins are gone… but otherwise – there's nothing there. Not anymore.

Nebula slaps my hand away. 'So who was right?'

'I don't understand…'

'You're a healer, not a wizard. Some things can't be healed. They can be endured, however.' She raises her chin. 'I am not afraid to be without a leg. And I am not afraid to face the Grimm, legless or not.'

'We aren't leaving you,' Dew says firmly. 'Octavia, you're the fastest. Get Neb somewhere safe–'

'Such as?' Nebula asks bitingly. 'Grimm. In the city. I'm going up there.' She gestures at a balcony nearby. It's protected by a roof, meaning flying Grimm will have more trouble reaching her, but it commands a view of the street. 'We heard your message, Russel. Your team will get the civilians somewhere safe – well, I'll keep a path open.'

'I'll stay,' Darcy adds. We all look at her, and she grimaces. 'I got taken out in the first thirty seconds. You all know I'm not a melee fighter. I'll help Nebula.'

'At least let me stop the bleeding,' I plead with Nebula.

She waves me off without even hesitating, the stone-cold bitch. I'd think I was in love if flickers of gold didn't keep dancing across my mind like fire. 'That's what tourniquets are for.'

'Hey!' someone else calls. We all flinch around, but it's two of the members of the team Nora creamed in the first round. Nolan Porfirio and May Zedong, from BRNZ.

'What is this, the Vacuo reunion party?' I yell.

'Kind of,' Octavia murmurs. 'We all arranged to grab dinner together. Before, you know…The Grimm.'

'I don't care!' I yell, and turn to Nolan. 'Where's the rest of your fucking team?'

'Dead,' he says, and his voice is enough to stop me in my tracks.

'Then you're going to go link up with Sky and Dove,' I say after a moment. 'They're arranging a safe place for civilians. Go make sure it stays fucking safe.'

That's all I remember of that mess. The next thing I know, Octavia and Dew are at my left and my right, helping me kill an Ursa that outmasses the three of us together.

I really fucking hate those things.

They're with me for the rest of the night, I know, keeping the Grimm off my flanks while I heal as many as I can. This works – we're all fast, we're all nimble, and with luck we're in and out before the Grimm even know that we've been there.

We still have to step over so many, many bodies.

Yang, Yang, Yang…I can't justify taking the time to try and call her. There's too much blood in the streets for me to stop even for a minute, and Yang is strong, so strong – she'll survive, I know she will. She's a fighter, and she will never stop fighting. Yang is the sun and the sun will never cease to burn.

Sometimes I fear that all the injuries I absorb will drain the blood from my heart before my Semblance has a chance to catch up. But would that be so bad? The heartless have a lot going for them, really. They're not haunted by what they didn't do, by the bad decisions they made – but what else can you do when all the decisions are bad? One Huntress against hundreds of civilians: that's the decision that allows my mind to remain whole. One Yang against hundreds of strangers: that's the decision that tears my heart in half.

At the darkest point of the night, right before the sun comes up, I find myself being shaken awake. Blake Belladonna is hunched over in front of me. In the darkness, the black and white of her looks like a Grimm, and before my head has completely cleared, I find myself pinning her to the ground with one dagger raised above me, ready to stab her in the heart.

'Hey!' Octavia says from beside me, startled awake. Did I fall asleep on her? No, vice versa – she has a crease in one cheek that matches the shoulder seam of my jumper. Shit, where are we? Just outside the door of one of the evacuation shelters. Nebula is still on lookout somewhere down the street (though she did finally consent to being hooked up to an IV of blood) and Zedong has set up down the other end. Cardin, Dove, Lark – I panic for a moment before I remember that they've gone on some civilian runs of their own, with Darcy and Porfirio taking my place.

'Sorry,' I mumble. 'Thought you were a Grimm.' Hasn't this happened before? Would it really kill her to add a splash of yellow? It might kill her not to, if she's going to keep waking up edgy, exhausted assholes.

I realise something warm and wet is soaking into my knee, and I glance down. Blake's bleeding from a stab wound to the gut. 'Oh, shit,' I mumble, and hastily heal her.

She sits up, and hunches over again. Worried, I grab at her, trying to make the hurt go away. 'What – what's wrong? Blake? Blake!'

'Yang…' she whispers, and my heart stops dead.

'Blake,' and my voice is completely clear and cold as ice, 'Tell me what happened to Yang or I'll kill you here and now.'

The emptiness in those golden eyes...When she whispers 'Yang's alive,' I almost stab her anyway, on principle, just for scaring me.

'She's alive?'

'Her arm –' Blake whispers. 'Russel – she's lost her arm. You need to heal her.'

All the blood I've seen tonight, scattered through what's now my home, is pounding in my head. 'I can't.' It's my voice, but it seems to come from far away.

'You have to!'

'I can't.'

'You don't understand–'

'Some things can't be healed,' I whisper. 'Only endured.'

Her arm. Her arm. No, this is fine. The rest of her is intact. All that's missing is her arm, and they have prosthetics for those these days. Yang is fine.

'But it's my fault,' Blake whispers.

'You cut her arm off?' I ask after a stunned moment.

'NO! She was protecting me – and it's all my fault, Russel, and–'

I'm too tired for this angsty bullshit. 'Blake, people are literally dying.' I pull myself up to my feet. 'Civilians. People who live in the city. Could you pull your head out of your ass and do something to help them, or would that inconvenience you?'

She looks up at me, and her eyes clear. 'I can.'

I spread my hands. 'Neat! So go do that.' I look away, running a hand over my skull. 'I'll go to Yang, I will, but I have to save as many as I can. I have to. This can't be for nothing.'

Blake stands, and she touches me on the shoulder. 'Russel – take care of Cardin.'

That's a weird thing to say on a number of levels, and I twist around to stare at her, but Blake Belladonna has already disappeared into the shadows.

That's the last I see of her that night, and for quite some time to come.

Cardin, Dove and Lark come back within half an hour of my rude awakening. Cardin walks over to me and pulls me into a brief hug.

'How is it out there?' I ask, alarmed.

'The city is destroyed and we don't have to worry about collateral damage,' Dove says, beginning a minute examination of his weapon. 'It isn't as liberating as I imagined.'

I manage a half smile, remembering confiding that very thought to Dove after the tournament. 'Is it dying down?'

Cardin shakes his head. 'More Grimm are coming into the city. Most of the civilians have been evacuated – or not.' I wince. He takes a deep breath. 'We need a bigger safe zone. Civilians are having too hard a time reaching this one. Every time we get held up fighting a Grimm, another one swoops in. Goddamnit, we need more arms!'

'It's, like, funny you should say that,' a feminine voice says. We all snap to attention, weapons out, but it's only a pale-skinned brunette dressed in red.

There's another flicker of movement, and a girl who has to be her twin steps into the light. She's wearing white, and I spare a moment to marvel at how clean she is in this bloody, sooty night. 'Because we actually have some?' the newcomer says.

'And you are?' Cardin demands.

'Miltia,' the one in red says.

'Melanie,' her twin adds.

'We work for a local business owner, or whatever.'

'And he has a business proposition for you.'

'Can't see how the situation can be made any worse,' Sky murmurs.

'Don't bet on that,' I mutter, at the same time as Miltia says 'Things can, like, always get worse.'

'But sometimes,' Melanie adds, 'I guess they can get better too.'

Cardin goes with them to speak to their boss. Sky, Dove, and I return to killing Grimm and saving people. Before this night, all the things we do would have been remarkable. By the end, it's just work. Hard, gut-wrenching work, but still just work.

When Cardin comes back an hour later, he has Goodwitch in tow. She looks exhausted, but there's still life in her eyes as she looks over us.

'I'm glad to see you're all well,' she says in her understated way.

'You too, Professor,' Sky says with real enthusiasm.

'There's been a change of plans.' She nods at the evacuation shelter. 'We need to move all of these people three blocks south.'

'There's five hundred people in there at least,' Dove says blankly.

'At least,' she agrees.

'Three blocks south on a street choked with Grimm?'

'I'm glad to see your powers of observation remain intact, Mr Bronzewing.'

'Why?' I ask baldly.

'We have allies in this city.'

'What, we didn't already?'

'Useful allies,' she says with a flicker of irony in her eye. 'They can protect civilians better than these bunkers. So if you could kindly arrange the guard detail amongst yourselves, I'll go and organise the civilians.'

'Two and a half teams,' Cardin says flatly. 'For five hundred civilians.'

'You really need to chill, sweetie,' Miltia says, popping up like a jack in the box.

'I guess we'll, like, help,' Melanie adds, appearing on Goodwitch's other side.

'You really need to stop doing that,' Sky tells them wrathfully, lowering Alouette.

'How much combat experience do you two have?' Dove asks, casting a doubtful look at them.

They both smile at him.

'Tell you what.'

'If you, like, somehow manage to kill more Grimm than us–'

'We'll totally buy you a drink.'

From the way they were looking at him, I'd have been making some very specific enquiries about what ingredients were in the drink, and whether any of them were poisonous, but Dove just grinned and accepted.

Needless to say, he didn't win. But to be fair, he would have if there hadn't been two of them.

I imagine that could have gone on a number of headstones, in fact. These two didn't fight like Hunters, they fought like bruisers. We ended up leaving the human-sized Grimm to them and taking out the flyers and the bigger ones. Don't get me wrong, there was a gracious plenty of all to go around. The evacuation was as messy as we feared, even with Goodwitch keeping the civvies all together. It was hard, by the end, to tell who they were more afraid of, the Grimm or the mad-eyed blonde with glasses.

I know I'm far more afraid of Goodwitch, that's for damn sure. The part where she crushed a Goliath with a fucking building was especially – memorable.

Our destination is a nightclub.

'You're shitting me,' I said to Goodwitch.

'I can confirm that I am not, Mr Thrush. And you will also watch your language, young man. Please do not forget that you are a representative of Beacon.'

I pluck at my bloodstained shirt and consider commenting on how anyone who looked at me would associate me with Beacon at the moment. Then I decide I want to keep living, and I don't. 'Come on, seriously, a club?'

The last of the civvies disappear through the doors and we follow them in, keeping a wary eye out. Although, now that I think about it – the Grimm have sort of been falling off the last block – there are definitely not as many of them…

A massive dude dressed in a suit steps forward and nods to Goodwitch. 'Professor.'

She nods back. 'Mr Xiong.'

'I just got word of more coming in from the south,' he says, falling into step next to her. 'Wouldn't be a problem, but some Nevermore seem to be considering making an appearance.'

Goodwitch smiles very slightly. 'I imagine you have plenty of experience dealing with gatecrashers.'

'Flying ones are new to me.'

'Well, luckily we happen to have some very accomplished snipers.' She turns to me. 'Mr Thrush, locate Ms Zedong, Mr Lark, and Ms Violette. We have some work for them.'

As I turn to do her bidding, still wondering what the hell is going on, Melanie and Miltia fall into place next to me.

'So you're the healer,' Melanie begins.

'And we're like your bodyguards now,' Miltia finishes.

'Bodyguards?' I repeat.

''Cause the civilians are pretty freaked out, and your professor is worried they'll mob you?'

'So basically I have to keep an eye out for Grimm, murderers, and now the people I'm trying to save?' I ask bitterly.

The twins nod in unison.

'Neat.' I stop and stretch, hearing my spine pop. 'At least I have bodyguards.'

Good god, I'm becoming an optimist. I'm disgusted at myself. I shake my head in amused irritation, and then I keep walking, to go and do my job. Melanie and Miltia trail me without a word, and even though my team is elsewhere, even though I'm in unfamiliar surroundings, even though Yang's – Yang is – even though Yang (and even thinking it makes my heart lurch in my chest)…

Even though all those things, I've somehow never felt less alone.

That night was almost a month ago, and I still don't remember all of it. The following days are clear enough, or if I don't remember anything, it's only because I'm so goddamned tired.

Junior's club became our basecamp in the first few weeks of the Fall. I didn't learn this for a couple of days but he was showing the tournament on screen – who the hell wasn't, I guess – and when it all went to shit he decided not to wait for it to get better. The place is super defensible, and let's be honest, he's almost certainly a criminal, so he has some pretty tough friends. None of Junior's crew are Hunters, but all of them the next best thing. Some of his boys held the doors, some went to set up spotlights on the roof to attract the attention of anyone in the neighbourhood, and the rest fortified the club and the street outside.

It took them three bloody – and I mean that literally – hours, but eventually they established a perimeter that's held ever since.

We, Goodwitch, Qrow and Ironwood started directing refugees there as early as we could. It was hard, but necessary. Now, the Hunters who trickle in to Vale come here to get orders. CRDL sleeps here (in some rooms that we all pretend not to notice are hidden, soundproofed, and almost impossible to find from the outside) and the civilians who aren't sleeping in the surrounding houses come here to free up space for the ones who are. Sometimes it can get quite stressful, but the twins never have any trouble keeping order. It's impressive, scary and funny in equal measures, watching two little waifs put angry councillors into arm locks until they stop yelling.

I'm sleeping with them both now, naturally.

Goodwitch is in charge, technically, but she lets Junior manage everything but the actual business of killing monsters while she plans the liberation campaign. We're her right hand guys at the moment. Most of the Hunters who come in are asked to go on roving patrols, keeping an eye on the perimeter.

Us? Our job is simple: kill the Grimm.

Some of the Hunters kicked up a fuss the first time they realised the majority of the fighting would fall to us. It would have been touching...if they weren't frequently speaking out of misplaced pride. Goodwitch's argument was that we were still students, and a dragon taking up residence in our school was no excuse for our education to suffer. The really scary thing is that Sky said she wasn't lying.

It's Cardin's Semblance which tips the balance, though, every time we have to have this conversation. It's become a gamebreaker and a huge threat to anyone who's not on the team. None of the Hunters will take the risk that they might get hit with it, and besides, if Cardin draws the Grimm in to his location, the other Hunters can just pick them off as safely or recklessly as they like. That's usually a good indication of how reliable someone is: how closely to Cardin they're happy to set up.

Close, and they're responsible. Further out they're adrenaline junkies and not worth our attention. Some will set up at the absolute outskirts of Cardin's effect, to catch the Grimm before they get mesmerised by Cardin's Semblance. We haven't lost one of those idiots yet, but it's a near thing.

Cardin is always the bait. Sky is always the sentry, in charge of managing the Grimm's approach. Dove is always our hammer, destroying huge swathes of Grimm with each breath. I am responsible for keeping the Grimm off Cardin's back. We're the heart of any offensive against the Grimm.

As far as the civvies know, we're invincible.

It's exhausting.

I heal any injuries we get. Dove has worked out a trick that lets him sort of chirp dents out of armour, like a neat little hammer-stroke. Sky will examine us before we leave to make sure we don't have any visible bloodstains. Cardin has started carrying around a fucking comb. And the last thing we do before we enter the bar is to make sure we're all ready to appear mid-way through some totally banal conversation, or that we have some believable shit to sling at each other in a light-hearted manner.

That's why I'm sleeping with the twins.

I'm exhausted, all the time. Each day civilians come in with injuries, and we can't afford not to heal them, because letting them stay hurt would make everyone start wondering if we were as on top of it as we seem. That would create fear, which would attract the Grimm, which would make the whole problem entirely worse. I have to heal them. I have no choice.

I suspect Cardin had a word with Junior so that he knew I needed to be handled with care sometimes: the richest food, the most comfortable seat, and as many vitamins and Dust cartridges as could be spared. None of us were expecting the big scary crime boss to go into full mamma-bear mode as a result. The dude started making sure we had as much privacy as possible, that our duties around the bar were limited to looking pretty, and he even started hoarding sugar and coffee for us, for when we really need that final shot of energy. The twins weren't his idea, though; alarmingly, they were Goodwitch's.

If there is anything spookier than your female teacher ordering you to sleep with two sisters at the same time every night for the foreseeable future, I consider myself blessed not to have come across it.

It's not a bad idea, though. Any energy I can save by not having to keep myself warm at night is energy I can use to keep this whole wretched cat's-cradle intact. Which is why, each day, I climb the stairs, kick my boots off, and crawl under the covers. Melanie and Miltia then climb in on either side of me, and we sleep side-by-side like a pile of tired puppies. They aren't necessarily happy with it but they can see the logic, and I am, after all, a gentleman, especially around women I'm pretty sure have murdered people before.

The civvies aren't told what we're up to. As far as they're concerned, I wake up, go look for monsters to kill, and hurry back to spend the night with two twins who are twice as scary as I am. My life is a Spruce Willis film, and they find it really uplifting, for some reason.

I'm the playboy. Dove and Sky are the loving couple who go around holding hands and kissing each other on the cheek whenever anyone is looking. Cardin is the mighty leader, beyond such petty concerns of the flesh. In the background, Junior spends what free time he has launching a campaign to woo Goodwitch that's no less thorough and detailed than the one she's using to try and save our city. Even money on whether it's actually working, but nobody doubts he's entirely sincere. I raised it with him once, and his eyes got all cloudy. All he said was 'Kid, how could I not?'

I guess it's sweet? Personally, she still scares me. I suspect she scares Junior, but he's persevering anyway. I...kind of hope he pulls it off, in the end.

The whole thing is so fucking bizarre, but it keeps morale high.

And so we survive. We're the only ones left. I don't know what happened to the other Beacon students, but I do know they're alive, somewhere. NDGO and BRNZ (what remained of them) were evacuated as soon as humanly possible. I really miss Zedong, for practical reasons, and Octavia, Nebula and Dew for personal ones. Smart girls, they never once offered to bring me along with them. Apparently, watching Nebula trip me with her peg leg was hilarious, so I think the rest of the team miss them too. There's also the fact that I suspect Cardin was as attracted to Nebula as was humanly possible. I know for a fact that he got her number. And hey, what do you know? She may not have been an heiress, but apparently Cardin's type is no-nonsense, amusingly bitchy ice-queens.

Yang…I tried to contact her, but with the towers down…I've been writing letters and sending them to Patch with those refugees that evacuate, but I don't know if she reads them. I know she receives them, because I got a response back, once, from Ruby, couriered by Professor Port.

It was full of empty words. Yang was alive, but reading between the lines – she wasn't well. Ruby assured me that it wasn't something that could be healed, but fuck, was that meant to make me feel better?

But what were my choices? When every decision is a bad one, how do you decide? All you can do is cling to something greater than yourself and hope it keeps you afloat rather than dragging you down. I dream of Yang. I dream of her all the time. When they repair the towers, I'll call her, and I'll tell her that in my dream, we were walking along the clifftop at Beacon. That's all I dreamed, and it was enough.

I dream of more than Yang. I dream of the cathedral under the earth, where the girl with a scarred face lay in slumber, surrounded by glass. I mention her once, to Goodwitch, and Goodwitch just shakes her head sadly. She can't seem to bring herself to speak, and I don't bother pressing her. I, after all, couldn't bring myself to mention Violet for almost a full year. So how much more must it hurt Goodwitch, to know that this girl, who was important to all those important people, is dead?

I only ask her one question. 'What was her name?'

Goodwitch starts to refuse me, but then she hesitates. Maybe she remembers that I saw her, that I touched her, that for a moment I knew her soul. 'Amber,' she admits eventually.

Amber. It's a pretty name. I wish I could have saved her. I hope one day I hear the full story. Until then, I'll survive, because even in this sort of darkness, there will always still be sunshine. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day.

I thought my world had ended when I lost Violet, but I was wrong. I came to Beacon, and I found my family. I found Yang. I found new friends. I found happiness. If it happened once, it can happen again.

One day, we'll venture outside our cities and the world will be waiting for us, full of light and life and promise. There will be more colours than black and white and red and there will be more to fill our minds than fear and anger. We'll be able to look at the horizons for more reasons than to check they're clear, and the horizons will expand. One day the world will be soaked in sunlight.

We'll build, and we'll create, and the world will be ours. I imagine there will be conflict over it, but not always. Never always. We'll have space to grow, and as we grow, we'll learn.

I dream of a moment of happiness, but I believe that one day, happiness will last more than a moment. Even if I'm not there to see it, even if it happens after I'm long dead, I know this is the truth. One day, there'll be a happiness and a peace that will last forever.

This is the choice I make, with every person I heal, with every monster I kill, with every moment I breathe.

This is the eternity I choose.

So, just quickly, I'd like to take a couple of moments to gloat. Spoiler warning for anyone not up to date with season 5.

Basically, I'm super smug that Jaune's Semblance in the show is basically Russel's (if a little less gory). There's also the fact that I made the joke about Pyrrha getting actual divinity before the show revealed that she was going to be asked to be the Fall Maiden. Then there's the fact that I also joked about there being a dragon beneath Beacon, and what do you know? There was a buried dragon.

To finish off this story?

I fucking called it.

Really, though, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did.