3rd Person POV

During the chaos with Team RWBY and the Dinobots, Oscar had returned to the Atlas Academy dorms where he was set upon by Neopolitan disguising herself as someone else with her Semblance. By the time team JNPR had arrived, Neo had stolen the Lamp of Knowledge, Oscar had tried to fight back, but Neo proved too much for him. Team JNPR had caught up to who they thought was Oscar, but the real Oscar stopped them. Now that Neo has revealed herself and Team JNPR sees she has the Lamp, they prepare to fight her, but Neo looks unworried.

Jaune: Surrender the Relic. You're outnumbered.

Neo flicks her umbrella down to make the hidden sword protrude from the top, and the others respond by readying their weapons.

Nora: Have it your way then.

Ren fires his weapons at Neo, and Nora fires two grenades from hers, Neo opens her umbrella and effortlessly blocks their attacks by turning around and resting the open umbrella on her shoulders, she smirks and turns to the group only to shield bashed by Pyrrha, who then uses her Semblance to get the Relic back to Oscar.

Jaune: Nora, Ren, get Oscar out of here.

The three are reluctant to leave, but as they watch Pyrrha counters Neo's retaliation, effortlessly, they finally agree, Jaune then runs in with his sword and shield drawn and helps Pyrrha.

Neo is frustrated, but figures she can't escape Pyrrha's Semblance so she decides to fight back and force her way past the two Hunters. Neo blocks Pyrrha's gunfire while charging with her open umbrella, but as she gets close, Jaune gets between them and blocks her attack before his shield glows a pinkish-purple and emits a blast that knocks Neo away. By the time she skidded to a stop, Pyrrha was already into her next attack getting in close with her sword and shield, Pyrrha slices three times with Neo managing to block, when she counterattacks though, Pyrrha throws her off by discreetly using her Semblance to move Neo's weapon a little to make her miss while waiting for an opening. Neo connects a kick to Pyrrha's shield, but Pyyrha counters kneeling down and lengthening her sword into a spear up at Neo, Neo backflips to dodge, and continues to do three more backflips and readies her counterattack until she realizes the walls and ceiling crumbling around her, she then looks at Pyrrha and sees she's using her Semblance, Neo charges at her, but Jaune gets between them and blocks with his shield then repels her, Neo did a rolling backflip to recover, but was stopped by the appearance of Jaune's deployable barrier. Pyrrha then unleashed her attack and several I-beams erupt and surround Neo, then bend and contort to trap her, the metal then drops to the ground, and both Pyrrha and Jaune take a quick breath, until-

Atlas Soldiers: There they are! Blast them!

Jaune was quick to act and extended some barriers from his shield and blocked the flying bullets.

Pyrrha: We've gotta get outta here!

Atlas Soldier: Look out!

Slash: *screeches*

Pyrrha and Jaune look to see Slash, in Dinobot form, jump onto one soldier, then swipes her tail to trip two others before screeching at the rest, making them all run in terror. Slash then turns to her mom and chirps softly.

Pyrrha: Yeah, we're okay.

Jaune: Great job, Slash. Let's find the others.

Slash uses her sense of smell to find Nora, Ren and Oscar, and leads the way.

Meanwhile, Cinder had managed to break into the facility where Winter and Penny are guarding Fria, the Winter Maiden.

Penny flies through the hole in the wall of Fria's room in an attempt to punch Cinder. Cinder though, catches her fist with her shadow hand and then, using it's stretching ability, flings her through a pair of double doors. Cinder starts to walk into Fria's room only to be impeded by Winter's flock of Nevermore summons.

At the tail of the flock, Winter charges towards her, swinging her sword at her. Cinder does a back handspring to dodge it and a subsequent attack, then sidesteps a thrust Winter. She then uses her Maiden powers to form a pair of black glass swords to block as Winter swings her own sword down at her. She steps forward, pushing on Winter's sword and keeping their weapons locked together.

Cinder: You Atlas elites are all the same!

Winter starts to push back, and Cinder breaks her swords free of the lock. Cinder begins swinging her swords at Winter, who blocks the attacks with her own swords. As Winter attempts to fight back, Cinder parries her attacks.

Cinder: You think hoarding power, means you'll have it forever, but it just makes the rest of us hungrier!

She kicks Winter hard enough to send her flying, causing her to slam into a wall. One of Penny's swords flies past Cinder's head and stabs into the wall that Winter was slammed into. Cinder looks at the sword, then toward the doorway she had sent Penny through.

Cinder: And I refuse to starve.

Grimlock: Guess this not your lucky day, Cinder!

Cinder barely avoids Grimlock's fire attack fired from his sword, she then turns to see, Grimlock, Snarl and Swoop, in human forms, with their weapons at the ready.

Grimlock: Grimlock no let you leave here alive. RAAAHHH!

Grimlock goes on the attack and swings his massive greatsword multiple times, with Cinder dodging all of them, and kicking Grimlock in the head. While the attack didn't hurt him, the kick made Grimlock stumble, Cinder was about to attack again when Swoop used his machine gun to fire at her, Cinder used her Maiden Powers to block most of the bullets until one hit her shadow arm, causing her to reel back and scream in pain. Cinder recovers only to see both Penny and Grimlock charging her. Grimlock sweeped right and kept going in a circle motion to swing right again and miss, Penny uses her swords in a circle like motion to keep Cinder off balance. Cinder simply yells as she uses her Maiden powers in a explosion which knocks Grimlock and Penny away, Winter was sent out of a hole in the wall leading to her falling outside.

Penny: Winter!

Penny reacts and goes after her, Grimlock and Snarl both go on the attack to prevent Cinder from getting to Fria.

Cinder: I will not be denied my destiny, I've suffered too much to settle for anything less than absolute power!

Grimlock: No one deserves power just because they suffered more! You have to be worthy of power!

Grimlock swings his greatsword multiple times, with Cinder needing to dodge rather than block because Grimlock is so much more physically powerful than her. Swoop circled around fired his machine gun's rocket attachment, but Cinder simply flew up letting the rocket hit Grimlock instead.

Swoop: Sorry!

Cinder went for the opening she made to Fria's but saw Snarl was blocking her way. Snarl charged at her but Cinder simply used a stream of fire to hit Snarl in the chest, but Snarl endures it and actually tries to push through.

Snarl: *with effort* Gonna tear you apart!

Grimlock watched as Cinder added as much power as possible into her attack and finally sent Snarl flying through the hole and crashing into the wall next to Fria's power transfer chamber breaking his Aura. Cinder turned around and grabbed Swoop while he was in mid-air and slammed him onto the ground, and Grimlock watched as Cinder stomped on Swoop's head to break his Aura and knock him out.Cinder simply gave a psychotic grin before walking into Fria's room.

Back inside the academy, Jaune and Pyrrha are following Slash through halls while dodging Atlas soldiers. Nora, Ren and Oscar are also running through a seperate set of halls, but Oscar is struggling to keep up due to his earlier unseen battle with Neo.

Ren: Come on!

Oscar tries his best but ends up losing Nora and Ren, he rounds a corner and doesn't see then, but then hears the commotion and chatter of approaching soldiers, he backs up towards a wall when the door opens up and a hand covers his mouth in a nearby roomwhile the soldiers run past. Uncertain of what's going on at first, Oscar panics and claws at the hand hyperventilating. Once the soldiers are gone, he notices a mirror in front of him showing Nora standing behind him, and he relaxes. With a smug expression, Nora let's go and moves out of view of the mirror. He turns to face her and then yelps in fright and jumps backward, falling through the doorway and leaning back to dodge Neo's umbrella. The umbrella moves aside and Nora blinks, her eyes turning pink and brown. Oscar's gaze moves to Nora's belt where the Lamp is hanging. His eyes widen, and Neo strikes him with her umbrella, knocking him into a closed door. As she runs away, he reaches towards her.

Oscar: No!

Jaune comes into view around a corner down the hall, looking around.

Jaune: *panicked* Oscar!

Pyrrha: *off-screen* Jaune!

He turns around just in time to see Neo running toward him. She thrusts her umbrella's blade at his face, but before she connects, Neo is grabbed by Slam, in human form, he then throws her onto the ground, Neo rolls to recover and looks at her new heavily armored opponent.

Slash: *screeches*

Neo turns around and sees Pyrrha, Oscar and Slash, in Dinobot mode, and on the other side, Slam, Jaune, Nora and Ren.

Ren: Give up the Relic!

Slash doesn't wait and charges at Neo with her Semblance, buy somehow Neo simply did the splits and lets Slash crash into Slam and Jaune. Neo then charged for Ren and Nora, Nora went for her with her hammer and swung it at Neo, which she easily dodged and kept running. Ren leaped toward her and was about to slice at when she turned her eyes into Nora's eye color and feigned a expression of fear, which caused Ren to hesitate and purposefully miss Neo, she then ran down the hall and rounded a corner. Jaune and Pyrrha went after her, but when they rounded the corner, they came face to face with three Atlas soldiers and an Atlas Huntress.

Guard: Drop your weapons!

The soldiers open fire at the two and they both block with their shields.

Jaune: Fall back!

The group flee back down the hall, Nora looks over her shoulder and looks at Ren who has tears in his eyes. The soldiers continue chasing after the group and the two kids.

Soldier: This way!

The Huntress starts to follow but stops and looks down a couple of hallways, before confidantly walking away with the Relic of Knowledge hanging from her belt.

Fria opens hers eyes to the sound of a loud metallic sound, and sees Cinder with the transfer machine's pod door missing. Cinder's glove has been removed and her left sleeve has been ripped off, making her Shadow hand visible. The Shadow hand has spread up to her shoulder.

Cinder: You've had your time in the sun, but now I'm afraid your time is up.

Fria: Yes. I've been waiting here.... for some time, I think. What was I waiting for?

Cinder smirks and her eye flares with orange Maiden flames.

Cinder: Me.

Cinder reaches forward with her Shadow arm, Grimlock tries to get up, he sees Cinder reaching for Fria, he starts growing uncontrollably angry, something in his brain is telling him not to transform, but he doesn't care.

Grimlock: CINDER!!!

Grimlock transforms into his robot mode, then into his Dinobot mode.

Grimlock: *ROARS*

Grimlock springs his head forward with his jaws wide open, Cinder reacts just in time to fly up and avoid his mouth, Grimlock ended up knocking over Fria's pod, but at this point all he wanted was Cinder's death, and continued going after her. Unexpectedly, Fria recovers and her memories remind her of her duty and she starts unleashing her powers.

Cinder: *sees Fria* No!

A strong whirlwind of ice and wind start swirling around Fria as she floats off the ground. The cold was so strong that Grimlock started to the feel it and turned to Fria still in his enraged state of mind. Penny had caught Winter and flew her back up to top of the building where they both see the whirlwind coming from Fria's room.

Penny: What is this?

Winter: The power of a fully realized Maiden.

Grimlock roared at Fria, who launched an ice attack, Grimlock took the hit and stumbled backwards, Swoop dove out of the way of Grimlock's footfall. Grimlock roared and retaliated by unleashing his Semblance at the Maiden's attack. The two struggle for control, when Ruby and Weiss show up, Ruby sees what's going and responds with.

Ruby: Grimlock!

Grimlock doesn't listen and continues using his Fire Breath at Fria.

Ruby: Grimlock, stop!

Grimlock finally stops and sees Ruby, his eyes return to blue and he leans over to her, until suddenly something takes over and his eyes return to red and he snaps his jaws at Ruby. Ruby manages to avoid, Grimlock turned right and started smashing everything in the room, unknowingly, he swung his tail and smacked Fria down to the ground.

Weiss: Ruby! Are you okay?!

Ruby: No, something's wrong with Grimlock. We have to stop him.

Ruby readies Crescent Rose in it's scythe mode and uses the recoil from a shot to launch herself at Grimlock. Feeling something on him, Grimlock starts swinging and bucking around trying to get Ruby off him. Weiss manages to get to her boys when Winter shows up.

Winter: What's going on here?!

Weiss: I don't know. One minute Grimlock has his anger under control, now he's gone completely mad!

Winter: Where's-

Everyone here's Fria scream, and look to see Cinder using her Shadow arm to forcibly take the Winter Maiden power, Cinder laughes maniaclly as the others are in too much shock to immediately react.

Cinder: And that's why the Maiden powers belong to me.

Cinder finishes Fria off and flies out of the building barely missing Grimlock's snapping jaws.

Penny: I've got-

Snarl: Look out!

Everyone dodges Grimlock slamming his tail on the ground, Snarl and Swoop go into Dinobot mode and try to hold back Grimlock. Snarl swinging his tail spikes, only for Grimlock to catch it and spin around and toss Snarl into the wall. Swoop fired his machine gun blasters at Grimlock only for him to respond by using his fire breath to knock Swoop out of the air and crash on the ground. This did allow Ruby to climb onto Grimlock's face and she stares right into his eye.

Ruby: Grimlock, please.

Grimlock stops moving around so much and stares at Ruby.

Ruby: Shh, shh. It's okay, Grimlock. I need you to stop fighting and calm down. It's time to rest. Everything will be alright, I promise.

Grimlock's eye returns to it's normal blue and he transforms back into his robot form, breathing heavily with confusion in his eyes. All he manages to say is....

Grimlock: Grimlock sorry.

Ruby: It's okay.

Weiss: Is she?

Winter, Weiss and Penny are standing over Fria's body, Winter kneels down to Fria and touches her fingers to her neck.

Winter: She's gone.

Penny: Then, that means Cinder got the power of the Winter Maiden?

Winter: ....Yes.

Weiss: What can we do?

Winter: Leave. Take your children and leave.

Weiss: But, together we can-

Winter: I'm giving you a headstart. *uses communicator* This is Lieutenant Schnee, requesting emergency medical backup.

Penny decides to go with Ruby and the others and they make their way to the helipad where Yang, Blake and the rest of the Dinobots have a Manta waiting to take them away from Atlas.

Team JNPR, Slash and Slam also made it, but Oscar was nowhere to be seen

Yang: Where's Oscar?

Jaune: I don't know, he said he had to do something alone.

Oscar was ruding down a secret elevator headed down to Maiden Vault beneath Atlas, where General Ironwood is waiting.

Ironwood turns around and see Oscar riding the elevator with his hands on his cane infront of him. When the elvator docks, Oscar walks forward to Ironwood, using his cane with every step.

Ironwood: And... whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?

Oscar: Still just me.

Ironwood: It was smart of you not to bring the lamp down here. I wouldn't trust me either right now.

Oscar stops a few feet away from the General.

Oscar: Trust is what I'm hoping to fix. I know we can still figure this out, all of it, together. Please.

Ironwood: Do you intend to fight me?

Oscar: No. That's what she wants.

Oscar lifts the cane and looks at it.

Oscar: I guess it's because of Oz, but... holding it helps me calm down when I'm afraid.

He withdraws the cane into it's handle and attaches it to the back of his belt.

Ironwood: You still think I'm afraid?

Oscar: We all are. It's what we do in our fear that reveals--

Ironwood: That's easy for you to say!

Ironwood begins to walk towards Oscar, who backs away. As Ironwood moves to Oscar's right, Oscar moves to his left toqard a portion of the platform that extends out to the side. The two stop walking soon after.

Ironwood: You can label me whatever you'd like, but the fact of the matter is that I was right! The minute I softened, let my guard down, that's when Salem had her opening.

Oscar: If you abandon Mantle, you abandon our best chance at reuniting the world. You abandon Remnant, leaving millions to fend for themselves so a few can survive. What kind of--

Ironwood: *rolling his eyes* All excellent philisophical points that won't matter if Salem wins.

Oscar: Listen to me!

Ironwood: No, you listen!

Ironwood walks toward Oscar again, who backs up to the edge of the platform.

Ironwood: I am done letting others' inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what's right. Robyn, the Council, the Kingdom... even you.

Oscar: Then you're just as dangerous as she is, James.

Ironwood: James is what my friends call me. To you... it's General.

Without hesitation, or emotion, Ironwood quickdraw and fires his revolver at Oscar, breaking his Aura and sending off the edge. Ironwood then lowers his smoking gun and turns away.

Oscar limply plummets into a pit, with his eyes half open and the cane falling near him. His eyes begin to close, when suddenly, a voice is heard in his head.

Ozpin: Oscar.

Oscars eyes shoot open and flash yellow for a moment before he looks around and reaches for his cane. Oscar manages to grab the cane and extend it. He then closes his eyes and presses down on the canes lever. The gears in the canes handle begin to spin. The cane builds up a yellow glow as Oscar continues to fall, until he opens his eyes and thrusts his cane toward the bottom of the pit, screaming. Green energy starts forming and creates a large orb around Oscar, then hits the floor of the pit, creating a dust cloud. Oscar manages to land on the ground, safely, with another green energy orb.

Back on the now airborne airship, heading for Mantle, Grimlock is seen giving a small coughing fit. He covers his mouth with his hand as he does, when he looks at his hand his eyes widen with slight fear.

Ruby: Hey, you okay?

Grimlock: *refocuses* Yes. Grimlock good. *small smile*

Ruby smiles back and turns back to Penny and the others, Grimlock once again looks at his hand and the camera reveals blood on it from his cough. Grimlock then clenches his hand into a fist as he looks out at Atlas with anger, and his eyes glow red again...

(A/N): Alright, Cut! Great take everyone! Great job closing out this finale. Go home, take a break. You've all earned it.

Hey everyone, that was the volume finale to volume 7. Things are going to play out a little differently for volume 8, so I hope you're as excited as I am, but right now I need a break from kick ass action. I will rest until the new month so I can figure out my new living arrangments, hopefully, I will be back with more chaoter soon, I promise. I love you all and wish you great rest of your day/night and I'll see you all next time. PEACE OUT!!!