Chapter One: The Beginning of My End
Brightly shone the shattered moon the night my life ended. The road leading to Eneas' Landing was flanked on either side by grassy fields spattered with luna orchids, my wife's favorite flower. It was indeed beautiful, the greens and purples of grass and thistle now interspersed with the pure-white blooms of the orchids that only unfurl from the bud under the light of the moon. The bright silvery glow from the cold, broken orb above was all I needed to follow the path through the gently rolling rises and dips in those budding fields, all the way to the Shallow Sea, where the small, peaceful fishing village that'd been named for the hero of the Battle of the Burning Pass lay. I hadn't lain eyes on it in close to three months. The only worry I had in the world was the possibility that my baby girl wouldn't remember me, despite Leila's assurances when I'd had enough scroll signal to call home that she'd been showing little Summer my picture every night when she tucked our baby into her crib. She said my little silver-eyed daughter smiled and reached out every time she saw the image. I couldn't help but grin hopefully at the thought.
Pausing at the top of the next rise, I stooped on the side of the path and surveyed the nearest flowers for the biggest and brightest I could find. Withdrawing one of my throwing knives, I cleanly sliced a dozen of these prime blossoms from their vines, tying them together with another length of excess stem and sheathing the blade. It would be even better if I could find some roses to mix into the bouquet, but crabby old Ms. Cyrella who lived a few cottages down from ours was the only person who grew any rosebushes in the town… And she'd made her annoyance at my 'borrowing' a few of her precious blooms painfully clear the last time I'd tried it.
Still, maybe I would anyway, I thought as each footstep took me closer and closer to the village outskirts. I could see the town inn, a humble stone and driftwood building where my friend Grey and his wife Aqua would faithfully keep a welcoming fire burning in their hearth for weary travelers along the coast road or coming in from further east as I was. Sometimes I'd be able to hear patrons laughing and even singing along with Grey as the elderly fellow bellowed shanties and played his old hurdy-gurdy, their shadows dancing on the glass of the front windows as a merry blaze lit the main room within. After a mission, I'd usually stop in and have a drink, and trade the account of my most recent adventure for another of the old man's outrageous sea stories of monstrous sea-grimm that he'd outwitted in games of riddles or fought back against with naught but a broken oar back when he himself was a fisherman.
Grey himself was out on the front porch of his inn, changing the wick on an old lantern he kept lit in the doorway. As I approached, he waved, old eyes squinting to see who the black-cloaked traveler was. I already knew he was about to hit me with his 'Evening, Friend! Come on in, we got a warm fire and good rum' routine.
"Evening, Friend! Come on in, we got a warm fire, good rum, and the softest beds anywhere outside a' the big city waitin' for yeh!"
"Come on, Grey. You don't recognize me? I haven't been gone that long."
"Hang on, I knows that voice. Cedric, that you, you young liar?" I laughed. 'Young liar' was one of the nicknames he'd given me when I'd made the mistake of trying to out-embellish him on one of our rounds of back and forth storytelling. If anyone was a liar, it was Grey, but I let the old man have his big fish tales.
"Yeah, it's me, Grey."
"Ah, well, come on in. We're havin' a sale on me home brew! One night only, you pay exactly what I normally charge, and I tells you about the time I reeled in a flying sea-serpent for free! Damn thing burst out the water and took off, I'm tellin' ye. But I wouldn't let go a' the line. Had the time of me life, flyin' around like I broke wind with a gravity-dust crystal shoved up me arse!"
"Not tonight, young man," I replied. "Gotta get back to the missus."
"Young man, he says. I do believe you're mockin' me there, mister."
I raised my hands defensively. "Me? Never."
"Ehhh yeah, whatever kid. Go on then, get! Oh and ah, Cedric?"
"Yeah?"
"Almost forgot. Feller was lookin' for you earlier. 'Bout a hour ago, actually. Tall guy, black beard and some kinda robes. Like a nightgown, I thought. Religious type, I took him for. Had some kinda two-headed snake clasp on his mantle. Know anyone like that?"
I thought for a moment. The description didn't ring a bell. Something didn't sit right, either. "Two-headed snake?"
"Yeah, but not like, er—you know, two heads on one end. Thing had a head on each end, coiled around itself like so." Grey wound his weathered old arms around each other as best he could to show how the two halves of the strange symbol had been intertwined, before continuing. "Kinda reminded me of a Sea-Taijitu that swallowed a cast-net full a' sea-bass I was fixin' to haul in one time. That was big money right there, must've been a twenty score a' fish in that net. I jumped in after the damn thing so quick I—"
"What did you tell him?" I interrupted.
"I—er, oh. I told him you was away on business, but yer wife could take a message for yeh if it was somethin' important. Didn't know you'd be back tonight, and I guess I figured Leila could handle herself if this guy was some kinda door-to-door preacher man."
That she could, I thought amusedly. Still, something about a guy wearing a clasp with a grimm on it felt… Wrong. Even if he was just some religious nut. "I better be going. I might still catch him. Whatever he wants, I'll be sure to send him your way once he's spoken his piece."
"Ey, I'd appreciate that, kind sir. Though, don't bother if he don't have any lien to spend, eh? Have a good'n. Tell the missus and the little'n Grampa Grey says ahoy."
"Will do, Grey," I said, waving over my shoulder as I carried on down the cobblestone main street. I breathed a sigh of relief for having been able to get out of one of Grey's storytelling sessions. The thought of the bearded man with the grimm emblem though… My pace quickened. A tingle in the back of my neck like I get when a grimm has the drop on me on a mission was enough for me to stretch my stride down the half-kilometer or so it was to the row of waterfront cottages where my home lay.
I didn't have time for religious fanatics tonight, if that's all this guy was. All I really wanted to do right now was fall into Leila's arms. This mission had been twice as long as any I'd gone on before, a favor for Tobias, my old team leader. Funny how now, barely six years since we'd graduated Beacon, the guy was getting ready to take Hargrave's spot as Headmaster of the school. Having a several-millennia-old soul stuck in your head had to come with some perks, I supposed. I guessed the old King had finally decided Ozzy was ready. Anyway, I couldn't very well tell him no. Especially not for how much lien the council had put forward on this one. A whole cell of Faunus militants had been raiding the overland routes between Vale and the settlements on the western coast of Sanas, stalking trade caravans deep in the Andarian Mountains, even killing some huntsmen hired to protect the cargo and passengers.
Apparently, these guys had been dismissing Ozpin's messages that the Faunus War three years ago had ended in a victory for their species as nothing more than human propaganda. I couldn't say that I blamed them, given how shamefully humanity was still treating their kind. That'd been a bad war. Cruel, brutal. A societal curb-stomp of a people already pushed to the brink. I shook my head at the remembrance of some of the things I'd seen. I hadn't wanted to kill any of the ones I'd been sent to root out of the mountain passes, and honestly wasn't sure that I didn't anyway. It'd taken quite a bit of 'convincing' to get them to come out of their hideouts, and that's not even considering that I'd had to find the caves first. Once I had found them, it was simple enough, if inelegant. Amazing how effectively a few well-placed explosive dust crystals and the resulting rockslides motivated the hard-headed. Once I'd flushed them out, it hadn't taken long for disagreements on how to continue their war on the humans devolved into infighting that drew the grimm in droves. All but their leader and his most devout followers scattered after that, and I figured a half-dozen misguided faunus weren't going to be as much of a problem as the forty or fifty that had been terrorizing the pass before I took care of the situation. They'd give up and go home eventually, and hopefully learn that Oz hadn't been lying to them.
As I passed the building that was both the small town's mayor's office and his home, I began to hear the sounds of the sea beyond the rocky barrier islands that protected the docks in the cove of Eneas' Landing. That's how I always could tell I was almost home myself. I remembered Leila's eyes lighting up when we'd seen the ad for the little seaside cottage in the Vale CCNet's 'For Sale' home listings within the Kingdom. She and I had both been raised on the island of Vytal, and Leila had always loved everything about the ocean. I'd always liked the mountains more, but since we were kids I'd had a crippling inability to deny her anything when she started with that 'big blue eyes' routine of hers. Hm. Maybe with all the money the Kingdom wired to me for this last mission, we'd be able to afford a cabin up in Forever Fall as our winter home.
The sounds of the waves crashing and receding over and over on the rocky barrier that protected Eneas' Landing's small cove brought up memories, deep and fond remembrances of days spent playing on Vytal's rocky shore with Leila and her dogs. So many years ago, that'd been. I think I'd been five or six when I'd first met Leila. My mother, Eliana Rose, had brought me over to stay with some of her friends while she and my father went off on business down in the capital. The Nightshades were a couple that, like many around that time, were only a few years removed from the battlefield and beginning a family of their own. Mister and Missus Nightshade had been in the same company in the Army of Vale as my father and mother during the Great War and had settled down about five miles up the coast from us.
My parents were leaving Vytal for a few days, and my older brothers had a nasty habit of getting me into trouble, since I was too impressionable to say no when they dared me to swipe a candy bar or break a window with a rock or something. I hadn't really had many options. Go stay with two strangers and some girl, or stay home alone with a pair of energetic and careless older siblings who would undoubtedly use me for some scheme the moment our parents were out of sight. My mother ended up choosing the prior for me, and my brothers, Cobalt and Cerulean, had ribbed me terribly for it. I remember trying to protest after the decision had been made, but our mother had been rather… Insistent.
"Aw, look at little Cedric, all dressed up for his playdate with a giiirrrrllll…"
"Bet he's gonna come back all covered in makeup with a little toy doll she gave him!"
"Am not!" I protested, fussing with the navy-blue neckerchief on the stupid sailors' uniform my mom had bought for me to wear.
"Are too! Just wait, first thing she's gonna say to you, squirt! 'Hey, I'm Leila, your outfit is soooo cuute, wanna go paint our nails?" Cobalt was twelve, and Cerulean ten. They really were just my stepbrothers, adopted 'orphans' from the 'War' my mother and father had told me ended less than a year before I'd been born. I didn't know what the word 'orphan' meant. Heck, I didn't know what 'War' meant. To me, 'War' was the reason I had two brothers whom I hated but mom and dad told me I had to love, even when they got me in trouble or shoved me around or made fun of me with their friends. Whatever 'War' really meant, it must be a bad thing. It caused stepbrothers.
"You two should be so lucky," I heard my mother chide from the dining room. She finished tightening the final clasp on her dented and scratched breastplate and pulled her shimmering gray-green cloak up over her shoulders. "I can't leave you three alone for a few hours, let alone a few days it seems, or you'll set the whole island on fire. So, you two little ruffians get to keep an eye on the house, while your brother gets to spend a few days with my friends and their daughter. Leila's a beautiful young lady, just so you boys know."
"Girls are dumb," Cerulean grumbled.
"Yeah, dumb as rocks," Cobalt added, nodding his agreement.
"If you boys weren't so young, I bet you wouldn't think so," my mother pointed out, kneeling and ruffling my brother's hair. "At any rate, you keep the house safe, alright? Our little guardians, right? Your dad and I will be home before you know it."
"Yes ma'am!" Cobalt assured my mother, straightening his back and puffing his chest out. Cerulean mimicked the soldierly posture. It was something my father had taught them. He strode out from into the foyer where we all stood from the kitchen just then as well, hefting his twin warhammers into the steel holsters attached to the belt that hung outside his own armor's tassets.
"Look at my boys! Standing so straight and proud! You look like you could take on a whole Atlesian division, or five or six packs of grimm each! Haha!"
"Don't put dumb ideas in their heads, Agîl. You know that's the first thing they'll actually try to do, right?" My mother scolded my father playfully. "Can't have them starting a second war now, can we?"
"Strapping young fighters like them on our side? It'd be over in ten days, not ten years."
"Days or years makes little difference. I'd rather not think about any of our children having to live through anything other than peace for the rest of their lives. Why else did the two of us even go to war, hmm?"
My father's proud look softened into some emotion I couldn't place, like he was remembering something… Something bad that he didn't want to remember, but my mother's words forced him to think about anyway. He sighed. "Yeah, I know, Ell. I know." My mother stood and wrapped her arms around my father's neck, each of their worn old sets of heavy steel plate clanking against the other's as they embraced.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to be such a downer. C'mere, big guy." I hated when they got all mushy like that. I looked away, rolling my eyes as I heard them kissing. Blegh, I thought. Finally, they broke it up, and my mother ushered me towards the door. "Don't forget your bag, Cedric, my mom said, handing me the little black knapsack that held a toothbrush and enough clothes for a few days' stay at with a family of strangers. I looped my arms through the straps and cast a look back at my stepbrothers as my father pat their shoulders. Their mischievous grins were enough to convince me that I really probably better off somewhere else while Mom and Dad were gone. Still, I promised myself that if this 'Leila' girl so much as brought out a single doll for us to play with, I was gonna get as far away as I could as fast as my little legs would take me.
It was a thirty-minute canter up the coast on horseback to the Nightshade residence. I rode with my mother, on the back of her old retired warhorse, Hestia. The pale old mare was as smart and loyal a beast as they come, and I would often go hide in her stall in the barn when I was trying to escape my brothers. She'd always been more than willing to snort and snap aggressively at the Cobalt and Cerulean if they ever came looking for me, especially if I brought her an apple or two. My father's horse, Brego, was a bit meaner to everyone except Hestia and my father Agîl. The crotchety old black stallion tolerated me only because Hestia did, I sometimes thought. Other times I'd look in that horse's eyes and swear he just wanted to kick me in the face. Today however, with his master on his back, Brego stayed singularly focused on the path ahead, like in his mind he and my father were going off to another battle.
Rounding the base of a small hillock, I saw a stone pillar marked with an emblem that kind of reminded me of the one my own family used. This symbol was of a flower somewhat more delicate and narrower than the 'burning rose' sigil that was emblazoned on my mother's cloak and father's armor. Three berries hung from a vine that circled the five-petaled bloom, and an arrow and sword crossed behind those. The stone pillar marked the end of a path that wound up the back side of that hill to a house at its crest, nestled in a copse of live oak trees. "We're here, sweetie," my mother murmured to me as she guided Hestia into a turn off the main road and into a trot up the hill. Two figures appeared from the doorway of the house as the clopping of hooves on the gravel and dirt path drew close. "Serena! Tabor!"
"Hi Ell!" The woman on the porch called out. The man who I could only assume was Tabor waved as well. "Agîl! Surprised you still fit in that armor!"
"Always the one with the jokes, Serena," my father rumbled back as we approached.
"That little Cedric up there with you?" Mrs. Nightshade asked my mother after the four old friends shared a chuckle at the jab at my father's weight and my parents brought their horses to a halt.
"Yep! Here Cedric… Uuuup we go!" My mother took hold of me under my arms and hoisted me off Hestia's saddle, leaning out and lowering me as far as she could before dropping me the last two feet or so and dismounting herself. "Last time you saw him was what, three years ago?"
"Yeah, grown up some, hasn't he?" Mrs. Nightshade replied. I stayed close to my mother's leg while the grown-up chatter faded out of focus and I looked around the homestead where I'd be spending the next few days. The house was tucked between five old live oaks. I hadn't noticed from the road, but one of the gnarly old branches of one tree passed right through the corner of the second floor of the house, like the home had been built around it. A window was situated right by where the branch emerged from the front of the simple painted clapboard fascia of the residence, and for a moment I saw a figure peeking out from within. The little silhouette ducked back as soon as it realized I was looking at it. It must've been the girl.
Besides the winding branch that was growing through the house, there was very little else remarkable about my new surroundings. The hill was vast and grassy, with a draw that became a gulley or streambed of some kind further around that I hadn't noticed earlier. The road my parents and I had traveled up to get here wound close to the sea on this side of the island, a lot closer here than it was to our house. If I listened really closely I could hear the pounding of waves and the calls of gulls in the distance. I'd probably be spending most of my time down there, I thought.
"Alright, bud. Daddy and I have to go now, or we won't reach the port in time to make the ferry to Sanas. Gimme a squeeze?" My mother knelt by my and crushed me with an armored embrace even as she was asking if I would hug her back, so I kinda had no choice in the matter.
"Be good, son. We'll be back in a week." My dad shook my hand as my mother stood and stepped back. He never hugged either my brothers or me. "Good grip you got there, boy," my father added with a grin. I could almost sense he wanted to give me a hug, but something was stopping him. I didn't think much of it. That's just how he was. Instead, he patted my shoulder and stood, towering over me in his armor, before snapping off a smart salute to Mr. and Mrs. Nightshade and leaping back into Brego's saddle. "C'mon boy. Hupp!" Brego whinnied and clopped off down the hill. My mother watched my father and his horse go for a second, before looking back down at me.
"Be nice to Leila, okay? Friends are a warrior's greatest weapon, son. Remember that." With that, my mother turned, leaping back onto Hestia and giving the old mare a quick pat on her well-muscled haunch. "Hyahh!" Hestia reared a little as she turned, kicking up rocks and dirt as she galloped off to catch up to Brego.
"Well, Cedric, may as well come on inside and meet the family!" Mrs. Nightshade said warmly as I watched my parents leave.
"They never told me why they had to go," I said absently.
"Oh, honey… It's very important. The King needs help building that school down in Vale."
"What's so important about a school?" I asked, turning and actually looking at Mrs. Nightshade for the first time since I'd been dismounted from my mother's horse.
"Well, you're a curious one, aren't you? King Zoroaster wanted to build a place where warriors like your mother and father could find… Answers. It's… It's hard to explain. You were born after a very terrible time. It left people confused."
"Confused about what?" I pressed.
A reflective look crossed Mrs. Nightshade's face as she looked to her husband. "A lot of things," She finally answered. "You'll understand someday. It's not easy being a warrior when there's no war left to fight. Now, come on, I'll fix you and Leila some lunch, and you two can go play after that."
"Does she play with dolls?" I asked. Mr. Nightshade actually laughed. Loudly. It took me off-guard a bit.
"I don't think you'll have to worry there, son." That was a little reassuring, I supposed. I still didn't understand what he meant, but the promise of no dolls was a good start. Mrs. Nightshade held the screen door for me as I took my first steps into their home. It smelled like chocolate chip cookies inside. "Here, let me get your bag, little man," Mr. Nightshade said, taking my pack as I unslung it. "Leila! Sweetie, come on down here, we have a guest. Say hi!"
I heard footsteps padding down the stairs in response to her father's call. A moment later, a head peeked out from the landing. The brilliant blue eyes in that head studied me for a moment, before the rest of the girl they belonged to stepped around the corner. She was a few inches taller than me, with short black hair shot through with blue highlights. She wore a girly denim overall skirt over a purple tee-shirt, and she kinda just stared at me for a few moments, studying me the same way I was her.
"Your eyes are a funny color," she said finally.
"Leila! Be nice," her mom scolded.
"What? I just said they were funny, momma," Leila replied, shrugging innocently.
She may have been trying to play it off, but I knew a challenge when I heard one. I had two older siblings, after all. Though I addressed my next comment to her mother, I stared straight at Leila as I mimicked her shrug and smiled. "It's okay, Mrs. Nightshade. She has funny blue hair."
"It's not all blue!" Leila shot back defensively. "These are highlights."
"I know what they are," I replied evenly. "I just said they were funny." Leila stared at me, as if surprised that I'd matched her in some war of wits or something.
Mr. and Mrs. Nightshade looked from me to Leila and back, as if worried we were already getting of on the wrong foot. "Listen, kids, maybe we need to just start back at introduc—"
"I like you," Leila said to me, interrupting her mother, who paused before breathing a sigh of relief.
"I dunno about you yet," I replied. Leila grinned. It's like she could tell I was being sarcastic. She was definitely a lot smarter than either Cobalt or Cerulean, that was for sure. Those two oafs would've assumed I'd forgotten my place and probably pounded on me for it. That didn't seem like it would be the case for this girl. For the first time since I'd learned I'd be spending a week with strangers, I felt like it might not be so bad.
As I rounded the corner onto the waterfront street that ran around the edge of the semicircular cove of Eneas' landing, I caught my first sight of home. It was the last house on the left, a small, welcoming place that looked almost identical to the home Leila had been raised in, save for the live oak branch growing through the second floor. My memories of the day I'd met the girl who would eventually become my teammate and wife were interrupted, however, when a robed figure stepped out of the shadows behind a dockside bait shack and planted himself into the middle of my path. He didn't match old Grey's description of the man who'd been looking for me, except for his robes. Those were the same. A long, mantled, religious-looking getup with a clasp bearing the two twisted ends of a king taijitu.
This guy wasn't tall with a black beard, though. He was a few inches shorter than me, heavily muscled, with half his head shaved and the other half of his blonde hair grown out to shoulder-length. He had tattoos like grimm markings all along the bald side of his head.
"I heard someone like you was looking for me. Tall guy, black beard. He with you?" No answer. "Listen, man. Coming off a long mission. All I wanna do is go home. Whatever you're selling, or preaching, or whatever, we're not interested." The man still didn't speak. I eyed him cautiously, tried to get a feel for his aura. Something Oz had taught my team, back in the day. You can reach out to tell someone's intentions by feeling the shifts towards dark and light in their aura. Off of this guy, however… I got nothing. I couldn't even feel his presence, like he was just a hole in the ambient spiritual energy that always flowed around every living thing, every blade of grass, sleeping townsperson, or crab that scuttled around under the docks. He felt like… Like a grimm.
"Alright, pal. Whatever. I'm going home." I took another step forward, but before I could get any further than that, two more figures stepped out from the shadows on either side of the cobblestone street, completely blocking it off. I didn't need to feel their aura to know their intent at this point. Whatever they wanted, it wasn't good. My left hand dropped to Shadowrend, the double-ended glaive I kept collapsed in a sheath beneath my cloak. "You three trying to threaten me or something? Three-on-one? Gotta say, that's bad odds for you idiots."
The three men didn't move, didn't speak, didn't ready weapons of their own. That was, not until I saw a flash of light at that last house on the left, followed shortly thereafter by the sharp report of an explosion as the shockwave reached me. The noise was punctuated by the rapid rhythm of weapon fire. Our house. Leila's pistols. I'd recognize the sound anywhere. Flames licked the sky, big enough to be seen from here. In an instant, Shadowrend was in my hand and at full extension. "Get out of my way. Right. Now." The blonde man who'd revealed himself first smiled.
"I'm afraid that's not going to be possible. Worry not, the rest of our brothers and sisters are dealing with your wife and daughter. You, however," the man said, dropping into a fighter's stance as well and clenching his fists, "Will never get to see them again, I'm afraid." With that, the gloves the man wore began to emit a glow from inside his clenched palms. Rays of light shot out from between his fingers, like he had a piece of the sun clenched in each fist. After a moment, the red glow suddenly flashed even brighter, and a weapon appeared in each of his hands from seemingly nowhere. In his right, a curved sword like a dao or scimitar materialized, while in his left there was now a matching curved parrying dagger. Both weapons glinted like rubies, and glowed with an unnatural light. I could feel the radiant heat of the burn dust in his blades from meters away.
The men who flanked him also revealed similar weapons that seemed to grow from their hands like they were somehow able to control the formation and shape of whatever weapon they chose at will. The fists of the second man glowed blue as he clenched them, and what looked like some kind of liquid crystal flowed from between his fingers to encase his fists. Arcs of electricity flashed between spikes that sprouted from the fast-hardening substance. The third man hit his fists together, one atop the other, and pulled outward, the three-foot handle of what became an icy-blue morningstar a second later appearing out from his own glowing gloves.
"Like hell it is," I snarled back, undeterred by the strange, dangerous-looking weapons. I lunged left, leaping over the swing of the ice-dust morningstar as its wielder struck a powerful downward blow. The spiked head slammed into the ground, sending spears of ice forward from the strike that slammed through the side of the house several meters away. I drew and flicked a throwing dagger at the morningstar-wielder's back. It hit, but a green crackle of energy rippled across his shoulders and the blade ricocheted away harmlessly. So, these guys could use aura, but for some reason I hadn't been able to feel it. That means I had to assume they had semblances too. This just got noticeably tougher, I thought as I landed, spinning low in an attempt to take the legs out from under the blonde-haired man with the sword and dagger. He dodged away easily before changing direction and hurling himself back towards me. I parried his flurry of burning blows, and was surprised at how durable the blades of pure dust were turning out to be. Dust was usually a brittle, unstable element. These blades looked like crystal, but rang against Shadowrend like hardened steel. He was beginning to pressure me back.
"I thought a real, live silver-eyed warrior would actually be a challenge. Seems I was wrong," The blonde man taunted. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a response, instead waiting, biding my time to find the rhythm in his attacks. I could almost feel it. He led heavily with his right and the larger sword there, favoring high to low and backhanded slashes. His dagger only seemed to exist to parry my glaive, though once or twice he lunged out with it. I let him drive me back, back, until I was cornered against a different house. "Now, DIE," he shouted, raising his sword for one final, powerful downward blow.
"Not today!" I struck out with the haft of Shadowrend, catching the man beneath his nose and breaking it right through his aura. He'd gotten cocky, routing too much of his protective field to his arms for that final strike. He staggered back, a stream of blood issuing from his nostrils, unsure of how I'd been able to mount such an effective attack after having been apparently outmatched since the outset of the battle. No use holding back anymore, I thought. Semblance time… Good thing it was night. The long shadows cast by the moon played to my advantage perfectly. The man with the spiked shock-fists leapt in to cover the retreat of his injured companion with a lightning-charged flying haymaker. I just stood there and stared at the new attacker, not even raising my weapon. His roar of effort as he swung morphed into a confused exclamation as his fist passed right through where my jaw would've been had I not burst into a cloud of jet-black rose petals and smoke.
The blonde man saw me disappear too, and looked about frantically to see where I'd gone… But he didn't check his own shadow. I rematerialized right behind him and stabbed straight through his weakened aura, driving one Shadowrend's twin blades through the back of his calf and into the ground. He screamed in shock and pain, crumpling to one knee as his injured leg gave out, and I spared no prejudice in ripping my weapon free of his injury and cracking him in the back of the skull with one of its unsharpened rear edges. One down, two to go.
As the blonde man fell, the second robed enemy, the one with the shock-dust fists, surged back over faster than I'd anticipated and landed a lucky sucker-punch in the small of my back. My aura crackled white across my body, and my vision blurred from the immense pain. Gritting my teeth, I whirled on this second attacker. A half-twist of each hand on the central grip of my weapon separated Shadowrend into two halves which I, in a single motion, folded over onto each other. As the two blades matched up and snapped together with a magnetic 'clang', I flipped the now exposed double barrels of the shotgun-form of my glaive straight into his chest and yanked both triggers simultaneously. The second assailant was blasted back across the street, slamming into the home on the corner as his aura flickered out. He would be dead, if his energy hadn't saved him. I hurled a volley of throwing daggers at him as he slumped to make sure he stayed out of the fight, pinning him through both arms to the wooden wall of the house. One left.
Another wave of ice spikes shot along the ground from the final attacker. I was only barely fast enough to dodge this time, and one spike caught my cloak and ripped it as I leapt. Leila would give me an earful after we got done with these guys, but it wasn't anything she couldn't fix. Nice try, I thought. I slammed another pair of ten-gauge slugs into the break-action breech of Shadowrend and flicked my wrist, sending the barrels back into line with a satisfying 'ScchhLOCK' noise. Twisting myself midair in my evasive leap brought the twin muzzles of my shotgun to bear on the third man, and another thunderous double-tap sent chips of his morningstar and a cloud of supercooled air into his face as he blocked. Perfect. Three daggers sailed into his blocked line of sight as he staggered back, the first crackling off his aura, the second slicing past his neck and drawing blood, and the third embedding deep into his right shoulder. The morningstar fell from his hand and shattered, as if not having a direct connection to his gloves made it lose its steel-like strength. The now unarmed man howled in pain, but was silenced as I twisted Shadowrend back into glaive-form and used it to vault into a swift flying axe-kick that slammed into the top of his head and knocked him out colder than the partially-melted pile of dust-charged slush that had been his weapon.
I wasted no time in turning to sprint up the street to the sounds of chaos and weapon fire that echoed through the town from the house on the corner. "Hang on, Leila. Hang on. I'll be there soon," I said, reassuring myself more than anything as I tore down the street, running unknowingly towards the end of the life I hadn't dreamed could ever be taken from me. Why did I have to be so damn naïve?