December 4, 2016: 1500 hours: Vale

Alex watched as more and more people piled in hordes onto the ship.

The other E.R.C Super-Carriers were docked in port, letting their own masses onto their ships. Alex himself could not believe that so many decided to take part in what may well be the end of the multiverse.

The members of his platoon, his closest friends, were letting people onto the ship, writing down information about the participants and handing them identification tags so they could go downstairs and get some extra training.

He thought back to a recent summit for the captains of the ships, including himself, at the old Embassy Building. He was a bit disturbed by his return to Winchester's grave, but he got over himself in time.

Besides himself, the captains consisted of General Adam Morgan from Earth, a tall, white haired man who was roughly in his seventies and was captain of the Covenant.

In addition were Captain Shining Armor and Princess Cadence from Equestria, Twilight's brother and sister-in-law, respectively, who commanded the Revelation. It had been Alex's first time making their acquaintance, and both were slightly perturbed given their prior information about him, but they eventually settled down.

Next in line was the captain of the Inferno, Vice Admiral Forrest Pines of Adenien, Locust's high superior. Locust had explained this to Alex before, The Ryders were basically Adenien's version of the Huntsmen, special mercenaries hired by the actual military force used when faced with disaster, Vice Admiral Pines was a member of the actual military force of Adenien.

But that didn't excuse him for being a jerk about it. He basically called Alex out for being an orphan, having little military experience, and having gotten the rank of Admiral out of pity by people who, quote, 'who didn't have the necessary qualifications from this Multiversal Military Coalition'. Ironwood, who sympathized quite a bit with Pines, said that Alex had 'disturbed the natural timeline and brought death and destruction to everywhere he went'.

Speaking of Ironwood, he ended up becoming the captain of the Ragnarök. The way both he and Pines spoke about him, Alex was worried that they may both try to fire at the Iliad the second the battle plans would go sour. General Morgan basically accused them of trying to break the Coalition itself when it was needed most, while Cadence and Shining Armor tried to settle everyone down.

Ah, politics.

He felt someone sit down next to him and scoot closer by.

"Everything okay?" Rainbow asked.

"Shouldn't you be signing volunteers in?" Alex asked.

"I asked Ember to fill in for me." She smirked.

"Alright, I'm guessing you're going to want to talk, so, what's the topic this time around?" Alex asked.

She laughed slightly.

"You worry too much."

"Rainbow, look where we are, what's happening around us, and what will happen next week. I think I'm in just the right spot to worry." Alex replied.

"Even for this, the invasion isn't happening for at least another week." Rainbow assured.

"Yes, but there are battle plans, strategies to go over, with the people on this ship and the other captains, half of which are considering running a smear campaign." Alex scoffed.

"That's just how people are. Look, I can't tell you everything's going to be okay, I don't think we're all going to make it out alive. But please, just slow down a bit. You might get a heart attack." She patted him on the shoulder.

"I gotta go test something for Vinyl, catch ya later!" Rainbow sped off.

"But she's also supposed to be signing people up!" Alex yelled back.

"Can't hear you, flying away!" Rainbow screamed in reply.

"F**k this world." Alex scoffed, throwing his hands in the air.

----

Alex laid down on the observation deck, the late-fall chill sent ice down his veins. He was tired, sick, and wanted nothing more for all of this to finally be over.

He heard the familiar sound of boots meeting the stairwell as he turned behind him, finding the crimson-cloaked leader of Team RWBY standing behind him, nearly expressionless, if it were not for the feeling of overwhelming sadness in the air.

"Um, hi.." Alex began awkwardly.

"Hi, Alex. Everything okay?" She asked.

"About as well as could be expected." Alex shrugged.

Ruby sat down near him, he would've said next to, but she shifted a bit to the right.

"Something wrong?" Alex wondered.

"It's just... People like your brother... What would make him-" Ruby sorrowfully wondered.

"Kill your mother? Look, I know this can't be easy for you. Keep in mind, the sick bastard took my other brother, too." Alex sighed.

"I don't know what would possess someone to do something like that! Every time they kill someone, they leave hundreds of other people without a friend or family member!" Ruby burst out, looking away from him.

"Look, Ruby. I can't promise you everything's going to be okay... I'm sorry about what happened to your Mom, but I've lost much more than a mother." Alex stated.

"H-How do you go on?! Both of your parents, your entire family is dead! You don't even have a place to call home but you still keep fighting!!" She fell into his shoulder, and Alex could feel tears soaking his shoulder.

"Listen, I doubt we're the first people who've been hurt by these assholes, but if we all pull together, we might be the last." Alex helped her up, her head still in his shoulder.

"My immediate family is dead, I can never go back to my old life. I've had a month in a CIA cell and three months drifting around the cosmos to figure that out. When I was fighting Task Force Crimson in Ponyville, I lost hope. I thought I was going to die. But then Karis guided me out of there. If it wasn't for her, I would have died, either by Equestria's army or Crimson. I have no real family, but I have a lot of good friends who are willing even to die for me. And, hell, I guess even the other way around." Alex elaborated.

Alex guided her to the stairs, and sat down on one, letting Ruby slide awkwardly onto a step herself.

"That's the reason I'm willing to put up with Vanoss's near-homicidal antics with his friends, and Twilight injecting random shit into my arm for science, and Yang's painfully awkwardly punny training sessions for hours on end. That's why I'm even willing to risk my life to save hundreds of trillions of people I don't even know. Because the ones that matter most are the twenty-three that followed me to Los Santos." He stated, pulling her into a sincere, albeit awkward hug.

He still felt tears sliding onto his shoulder, fueling determination to never let another would feel what he felt, what she felt.

Vanoss stood about five steps away, holding a mug of coffee and shuffling nervously. He hadn't even heard him approach.

"Um.... Is this a bad time?" He asked, obviously a bit weirded out at the sight of Alex giving a crying Ruby a hug.

"It's fine. Remember how Omega.. Well.." Alex began, but stopped himself out of respect for the huntress still clinging onto his shoulders.

"Oh... Shit. My bad." Vanoss realized uncomfortably.

Ruby sniffled, wiping tears away with her sleeve and locking Vanoss into her own hug.

"Um. Uh... What do I do here?" He asked, even more perturbed.

"Just let it happen, I don't know." Alex shrugged.

Ruby eventually let go, wiping the remaining tears away before walking over to Alex.

"Thanks. I needed to hear that." She smiled for the first time since hearing about Omega.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure your teammates are wondering where you're at right now." Alex nodded.

"Okay. Are we still training tomorrow?" Ruby asked.

"Yep, there's a war going on, so let's end it. Once and for all." Said Alex.

She hugged him again before speeding off to her room, leaving him and Vanoss alone.

"So, how's life?" Alex asked merely to break the awkward silence.

"Meh, I guess it's okay. Delirious hooked up a few Xbox Ones to that plasma TV we bought for our lounge or whatever, we've been playing random shit on there, recording a lot of it, and uploading it to Youtube." Vanoss replied.

"People like it?" Alex wondered.

"They seem to. Earlier this month I told them what happened and why I haven't been posting videos, so a whole lot of them are coming here because apparently the government is allowing public inter-dimensional transport now. And people who aren't are wishing us good luck. I even got into an agreement with some of the news networks, we're going to record the whole battle." Vanoss explained.

"That sounds like the worst f**king idea I've heard in my life. But hey, imagine if someone dies on camera and one of you is like 'Are you not entertained'?!" Alex inquired in a joking manner.

Vanoss couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that comment.

"Somebody gonna get the hurt real bad." Vanoss laughed.

"Wait, how many did you get to join?" Alex asked.

"I don't like to think about numbers that much, it's the thought that counts." Vanoss shrugged.

"Just a ballpark is fine." Alex demanded.

"Oh, you're serious. I think I heard about 3 mil." Vanoss figured.

"THREE MILLION?!" Alex gasped.

"I guess. Maybe more.."

"My god, we'll wipe the f**king floor with the Inquisitors." Alex laughed slightly.

"Why, how many is that total?" Vanoss asked.

"Fifty-Five million volunteers from Earth, Equestria, Remnant, and Adenien. Four thousand from Fiore, 56 thousand from other worlds, including Iridia." Alex listed.

"Iridia?" Vanoss wondered.

"One of my top ten in the retirement list. Lush world, beautiful and relatively open housing, and mercenaries there are paid pretty nicely." Alex smirked.

"Nice!" Vanoss nodded.

"So, what'll you do after this is over?" Alex asked.

"I'll go back to Earth, be with my family and all that. Maybe see you guys on vacation." Vanoss shrugged.

"I can respect that. Sorry for keeping you away all this time." Alex sighed.

"Nah, it's fine. I got to see new shit, use a mech suit, I don't think I could've done that anyplace else." Vanoss said.

"Alright see you." Alex walked off.

"I'll see you around. I'm going to show Nora what Netflix is." Vanoss said, running off.

"Wait, what?"

----

Kat was lying down on a couch in one of the lounge rooms with Mako along with some of the other Elements and Volunteers.

"Kat?" Mako asked.

"Hm? What is it?" Kat inquired.

"I'm just thinking... Do you ever think you could go back with the way things were before?" Mako wondered.

"Before Unity?" She asked.

"Before Crimson. What got you into the Militia?" Mako clarified.

"Oh, I was pretty normal, went to school every day, went home, hung out with friends, usual stuff. My dad was the one who recruited me into the Militia, he said that because America was steadily growing more corrupt, it was the right of the people to fix it. Little did either of us know that that wasn't what they were planning at all." Kat sighed.

"I know, The Government wanted Die Glock, and so did the Militia, and you got caught in the middle, didn't you?"

"I guess I kind of did. My dad died one day during a raid on the Pentagon. You know, last year? And the Militia kept me there all that time, i doubted them a bit after that." Kat asked.

"What made you finally want to destroy it?" Mako asked.

"I found out what they were planning about a week after the Bohemian Grove Massacre. But no new recruits had come in at all since the government put us out there like that. Nobody wanted to be the bad guy. And then, a literal day before the raid, we found someone accused of being our top man tied to a post. I saved him for more reasons than to get out of the Militia." Kat said.

"Your new recruit." Mako realized.

Kat nodded.

"I let him in on the plan when everyone else was busy and he went with it. I didn't think for the kid or anyone at all, I just wanted to escape. I never expected to see the recruit again, alive much less." Kat sighed.

"After that?"

"You know, I went to Fiore and joined up with the Red Dawn guild, the Inquisitors set me up and framed me for the murder of some Red Dawn wizards. I ran to Adenien where I met up with Locust. He told me they were looking for an old Inheritor A.I called 'Zera'. After I helped the Ryders get that A.I and the information on it, he set a tracker to the A.I and told me to summon him when we needed him. And you know the rest." Kat finished.

"Wait, you're the reason the Ryders are with us?" Mako asked, surprised.

"I guess I was. I guess Zera's tracker stayed with Iris and she alerted them to us when we were about to lose." Kat realized.

"Huh, I never would have thought." Mako blinked.

"Yeah. I can't wait to go home, get back to life before the Militia and rest." Kat smiled softly at the thought of returning home.

"Trust me, I'm sure we'll be able to." Mako smiled.

"Thank god. After this, I won't ever have to fire another gun at a sentient being ever again." Kata sighed happily.

----

"Alpha, sir!"

Beta, Sigma, Gamma, and Scarecrow stepped into Alpha's throne room.

"Have you any updates on the Coalition?" He asked.

"Sire, we noticed volunteers flocking onto the Iliad nonstop." Sigma answered.

"We also noticed similar model water-craft on the docks. We have reason to believe they're readying for a large-scale assault." Gamma added.

"Do they know the location of Kalos Prime?" Alpha inquired, standing to his full height.

"Omega gave the riddle to Walker before he was killed by the latter." Beta said.

Alpha unsheathed his sword and ripped apart the tapestries on the cold, stone brick walls and the marble pillars that decorated the room.

"DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!!!" Alpha screamed, enraged.

"Sir, please." Gamma tried to calm his leader down.

Alpha slowed his breathing and sheathed his sword.

"Have we any updates on Neapolitan's condition?" Alpha asked.

"She's still locked in the Iliad's prison complex. It's how they were able to prevent the bio-attack." Sigma explained.

"Good." Alpha lowly growled.

"Alpha, sir, what are you planning?" Beta asked.

Alpha turned back at his second in command, a low, dark laugh booming from within.

"We shall see what breaks first, The Coalition's morale, or their fleet."

Author's Notes:

Happy Holidays from the 5/10 horse fanfiction author, The Destpyer