Here we are yet again with another chapter!

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~Angel and Hel

Chapter Nine: The Red Path

-.-.-

Nobody moved for several moments as Ironwood stood there, watching them. An… air of confusion swept through the assembled applicants. Was there a starting signal they needed to wait for? An alarm?

Winter tried to look more closely at the corridor, but given how the room had shifted a number of the other applicants blocked her line of sight. It looked - modular, yes. The walls were held in place, could shift, she supposed. And there was that path - was there writing on it? It was hard to tell. The red path was almost certainly a -

The red path. The red path.

It was at that moment that the wall under Ironwood's balcony began to glide inexorably forward towards the crowd, towards the corridor. Like a hand sweeping chaff towards a bin.

Helia sighed, yawned, and tried to clamber out of Winter's grip, stretching as her knives held her in the air. Winter clutched a little for her - how could she leave her to face this whatever-it-was alone - but no, she was a Schnee, for whatever that meant. She took a few cautious steps forward -

And was thrown back by that ignorant, idiotic dimwit Red, who was running past without a care in the world and swinging her flaming sword as though it could ward off whatever threats she faced, realised or not.

"Three… two…" Helia counted down.

That moron stepped onto the black of the corridor, still swinging.

The ground sank a little beneath them, and there was a faint whistle, almost imperceptible, a small hole opening in the wall to her right. The girl collapsed, a foot long dart sticking from her throat, eyes rolled back into her skull.

Panicked erupted almost instantaneously.

"RED!" the innately grating shriek of Blue assaulted everyone's ears. Of course, she rushed ahead, skipped over the pressure plate Red had stepped on, and fell prey to something even worse. Worse being a series of iron lashes that grabbed her and pulled her screaming away behind the walls, from which there was an unpleasant series of crunches before the screaming stopped.

Winter chanced a glance behind her. Ironwood was chuckling quietly. The psychotic prick. How dare he -

She caught the barest glimpse of a feathered limb retreating through the passage behind him. Helia? But the objective was over -

"CHAAAAAAARGE!" Maverick yelled, riding on Yolona's back. Winter briefly boggled at the sight of the ridiculousness.

Yolona growled, not even bothering to shake him off as she brought up her shield and did just that. Winter swore she felt the ground shake just a little with each thundering step Bastion took. So she watched, in dumbstruck awe, as Yolona triggered her first trap. The floor opened up before her, denying her next step - and she was gone, Maverick whooping as - as the ignorant bastard cheated and… used his semblance.

Despite the pair's somehow legitimate strategy garnering an outcry from the rest of the stream, Winter was honestly a little impressed. It was as good an idea as any, using Yolona's durability and Maverick's speed together. She was forced to take a few more steps by the encroaching wall, stepping onto the ribbonpath at last, rolling under the dart that had taken out Red. A set of saws whizzed past along the floor, an inch from her nose, and she vaulted over them, using her sabre to briefly jam one in place. A pit yawned open in front of her, but she place a pair of glyphs under her feet, bounded across.

No, she had to stop reacting. She needed a valid strategy. Maybe - the ceiling, wouldn't be trapped, right? Or not as trapped?

She sighed. No point holding anything back now, at the final part. She knelt, stabbing her sabre in the ground, the familiar spinning weight of her glyphs settling around her as she drew a line of them across the ceiling, enough to keep her stuck to them. A twist of her hand and the repulsion glyph launched her up to them, landing feet first, running as fast as she could despite the rush of blood to her head, the terrifying flip in orientation.

She managed to dodge the first two traps through sheer speed. The swinging blades she slowed for a moment then stepped through.

A thundering crash forced her to lose her balance as Yolona crashed through a pop-up barrier, barely even slowing down as Maverick lost his grip. She looked back briefly - Aphoth was surrounded by a phalanx of whispering shadowy candidates - she recognised some from the entryway. The shadows triggered traps for her, formed human shields, held traps in place even as their unliving flesh was cut away, allowing her to jog past, Ashlyn following in her wake. Slade was a marvel to behold, simply running and flipping and dodging past the traps, taking the odd hit but surviving, somehow. Beside him were Blue and Red - wait, what? - the disheveled sniper holding her comrade over one shoulder as she stumbled on, shaking her head slightly as if to clear a fog. Looking back more carefully… something had broken open the wall she'd been dragged into. Yolona? Or Blue herself?

Titian was ahead of her. Winter didn't know how.

And she couldn't see Helia anywhere. She - where was she? Had she really just gone out the door behind Ironwood? That was ludicrous. And - and why had she left anyway? She'd stuck to Winter like some sort of irritating cuddly glue before.

Her glyphs flickered. She'd lost concentration, she tried to focus again… but she was already falling away, landing on the floor with a rolling thump that thankfully took her out of the way of a stomping spike plate.

Helia. She had to get through this to find Helia. Titian was using her grapple knife, swinging, pulling herself forward. That was how she'd got ahead. Winter didn't run with her glyphs this time - instead she bounced from one to another through the air, steadily catching up.

She checked her Dust vials. The Schnee semblance liked Dust, devoured it like a flame devoured wood, and she was already running low. A quickly thrown ice vial and set of glyphs froze a set of jabbing spears in place.

Titian was level with her, her giant flaming sword melting through walls of steel that hampered her progress. She felt the girl's eyes land on her glyphs, heard her snarl. But she continued through the course, making no motion to attack.

Which was a pleasant change.

She looked back.

Ironwood's platform was moving faster, she thought. A few more stragglers had been caught by it. Aphoth's army was dwindling, her relying more and more on her khopesh-staff to try and cut through or evade traps.

Ashlyn seemed to be exceedingly adept at outright avoiding traps altogether. Once or twice Winter caught her trying to stop and almost losing her balance. Could she see which steps were safe ones? Something to do with her semblance, and the way she'd used the guitar earlier… did she have sound manipulation? Sound detection? Semblance speculation was always so difficult.

The one time she did lose her balance, it was because Yolona had smashed through another barrier. Ashlyn barely managed to roll out of the way in time before picking up the pace again, using her axe as a vaulting pole.

Maverick's insane cheering ground on Winter's nerves and she grit her teeth, promising to herself she'd get him back another time. The wall was getting a lot closer - wait, was that girl sitting on her sword? Yes, a red cloaked girl had jammed her sword into the balcony and sat there, legs dangling.

She had the audacity to wave. She even winked at her! If she was related to Maverick…

A shiver went down her spine. One was bad enough. Two of them were just -

"Hey, need help?" Ashlyn asked, surprising her as she carefully step-stoned up to her.

Winter leapt over a whirling set of blades, feeling a couple nick her aura, her uniform. "I can manage." That was a little too terse - "But thank you for your offer."

"Alri- DUCK!"

Winter fell onto her front, trying to ignore the pain of the air being squashed from her by the impact. Above her, a large section of wall had flipped to reveal a grasping cyclone of steel that she definitely would not have been able to dodge without warning.

She threw out a green Dust crystal, focusing it through a series of glyphs into a tightly controlled implosion of air that wrecked the machine. The remaining currents were easily directed to assist Ash and launch her further forward - with a startled yelp. Maybe she should have told her first?

Ash twisted and landed badly on her shoulder, triggering a trap. Something disturbingly worm-like shot out of the ground and - and ate her head.

She'd got the girl into that situation she was going to get her out.

Another glyph launched her forward, sword drawn. She had to get her out. The worm thrashed aside, flinging Ash's body with it, her muffled screams audible through the metal. Winter slashed at it twice, but only scratched the thing - and the balcony was still approaching, faster than ever before.

A shambling ghost, its face a patchwork of holes and shadowed bone, fell to its knees next to Ash, raising it's buzzsaw-coated gauntlet and bringing it down on the armoured plates of the robotic worm. Sparks and slivers and scales flew everywhere as Ash continued to scream and kick, trying to pry the thing's maw off her neck.

"Tell mama I'm sorry," whispered the ghost, hacking wildly. A second crawled next to it, crying tears of black blood, its arms mangled wrecks. "It hurts so much it hurts so much my bones I can't move my arms -"

It touched the worm and the metal began to rust.

Ash's screaming had turned into pained whimpering. Half the remaining applicants were in the safe zone. Slade was beside Winter and the ghosts, a simple curved sword in his hand. Together they struck the weakened metal - then Slade's limbs multiplied, like they had before, cutting more of it away from the poor girl's face.

Aphoth ran past over a pit on a bridge of ghosts. They collapsed into nothingness in her wake. "Come on!" She looked back, paled on seeing Ash on the other side and she reached for her, but the gap was too far.

"We're trying!" Winter snapped back, her heart pounding in her ears as the Wall got closer and they couldn't get her out it might just decapitate her and -

"You owe me for this, Rockstar," Maverick chuckled, suddenly right there and grabbing her and not right there anymore. "Focus, Ice Queen~" Maverick taunted, his voice far away and -

The Wall the Wall was getting closer so much closer far too quick -

"Hello, love!" the ridiculously cheery woman in red waved to her, standing on her sword. "Try not to get run over!"

This was - this was -

"Unacceptable!"

The Dust vials flew to her hands. The glyphs spread from her fingers, multicoloured, a tracked layering of symbols spread across the base of the balcony. White and blue and green and red and black and cyan and yellow and more. She lit them all off at once, rock pillars slamming into and through melting metal, ice sealing it back in place, wind and gravity battering and trying to slow the juggernaut, time dilation, more.

It hurt, doing this many glyphs at once. She was screaming her fury, at this stupid test, at Helia for abandoning her, at her father, at Maverick and the red dressed girl. Her fingers clenched and spasmed, and she collapsed.

It was over. It had to be over.

Something nudged her foot.

It was the wall. It was still moving. Slowly, but still moving.

"Bloody hell, love," the woman in red crouched behind her, patting her on the shoulder. "That was a damn good show. Buuuut we still need to get moving."

Winter couldn't muster enough effort to reply.

"Fair enough," the lady shrugged, pulling her sword out of the ground and jamming it back into the wall, just over Winter's head. "I'm Vivian, and it is a pleasure to meet you~" she purred right in Winter's ear as she wrapped her arms around the exhausted girl and pulled her onto the makeshift platform.

She barely noticed when Ironwood stepped back to lean over the balcony and give them both a stern look. "Well. As my machine appears to be broken - congratulations on failing the test. All of you." He looked over the crowd of shocked applicants. "If we are entirely technical, only one applicant passed this test. But…" Ironwood sighed. "We can consider all of you passed, for now."

"Only one?" Vivian gasped. "Was it the pretty one~?"

Winter felt the grip holding her up tighten a tiny bit. She tried to squirm free a bit, but she still was too shocked to really do it. First the wall and the glyphs then Vivian and - wait, they'd lost? Who'd won?

"Helia, please step forward." Ironwood commanded. Nothing happened for a moment. Nothing happened for several moments. "Helia?"

"Here!" Helia's small voice cried out as she emerged from doorway, Winter barely spotting her hand waving about amongst the crowd of those who'd made it to the other side.

"... where were you?" Ironwood asked, frowning slightly.

"Uh, the… y'know…" Helia shuffled awkwardly on the spot, her cheeks turning pink. "Couldn't find the bathroom."

"Ah." Ironwood nodded. "That makes sense."

A lot of awkward shuffling throughout the room. Did nobody realise that mid-action bathroom breaks could be an issue in their Hunting career?

A small shudder nearly made Vivian drop her. "Oh, finally turned the bloody monstrosity off?"

Winter groaned. She could see- she could feel the edges of her vision turning dark as the strength left her limbs and Ironwoods words turned to mush in her ears.

"Hey, mine!" Helia's muffled claim rang through her head as she was set down on the floor.

Darkness claimed her.

-.-.-

Endless… endless… void. Void. More nothing.

Pain, exhilaration. Adrenaline, hurt.

Sadist. Darkness. Endless...

pPAAAAAAAINnnnN

-.-.-

She woke up on a couch. She was honestly surprised to be unharmed, considering Titian's… view on her. As more awareness returned to her, she noticed a weight on top of her. A weight that purred.

Helia… her very own guardian angel. What on Remnant had she done to deserve her? That could be interpreted both ways of course, and Winter meant it both ways. The minx could be a right pain - and still save her life. Could speak and annoy with utter gibberish - then cuddle her close and say the cutest things. What a conundrum.

Helia shifted and nuzzled her, just… rubbing her face against Winter's uniform. The motion seemed oddly endearing.

"Oh hey, Ice Queen's awake!"

Winter glared in Maverick's general direction. "Maverick."

The orange haired boy grinned and put his hands behind his head. Now that Winter could get a decent look at him… he didn't look any better. His faded black - no, grey now - pants were scuffed, his jacket was worn thin, and the only parts of his attire that looked like they were even vaguely maintained were the pair of pistol holsters strapped to his thighs and the goggles on his head.

All in all, his very… bright attire was quite an eyesore.

"Ice Queen~" he smirked, bowing over-extravagantly. "M'lady, your royal entourage awaits," he said in a false-posh accent.

A swift blow from behind from an olive skinned hand clipped Maverick's head. "You sound like a moron, kid." Slade stepped into view, still wearing his heavy black and orange combat gear.

"What's new then?" Winter cracked her neck, and half started to lift herself up before remembering Helia's weight on top of her. Damnit.

"You try," Maverick chuckled, helpfully stepping out of the way and gesturing to the spot as if to say 'please, go on' to Slade. "After you fainted, and got molested by Viv-"

Winter's eyes widened. "What?!"

"He's lying!" a vaguely familiar voice called from behind the couch. "Though, if you weren't already claimed, I wouldn't mind coppin' a feel," the lazy red lady, Vivian, leant over the couch and looked Winter right in eye before giving her a cheeky wink.

"I'll - I'll cop you!" Wait, that made no sense. "I mean, try it, scumbag!"

"Oooh, feisty~" Vivian remarked rather excitedly. "People have wanted to molest me before, love, but none quite as enthusiastically as you!" Maverick falling to the floor in laughter was more than a little distracting.

"Ahem." Titian. Winter stiffened, hand twitching - she couldn't reach for her sword with Helia on top of her - "We should get going unless we wish to be late. Schnee?" Titian extended her hand.

"Is that we call her Ice Queen?" Ashlyn asked, popping into view from… somewhere? She seemed to be very good at hiding in the background. Something Winter found quite odd, what with the startling number of belts and metal studs her leather attire was adorned with. All black, metal, and sometimes with the barest streak of red to throw a dash of colour in. Though that may have simply been blood from other applicants… a notion Winter found quite unsettling.

"No, that's 'cause she's a cold-hearted bit-" Maverick was cut off by another idiot smack.

Thank you, Slade.

"I thought you were going to kill me?"

Titian nodded. "Oh I will, one day. But despite my outburst earlier I am capable of patience. Your death now would, having given the matter consideration, simply invite further reprisals. But on the dawn of revolution…"

"Why not have the revolution spearheaded by a Schnee?" Helia mumbled, her one good wing stretching out and flapping twice before curling against her back again. Winter resisted the urge to touch the fluffy feathers or stroke Helia's wing.

"That allows the bourgeoisie of the old world to remain in charge, little one. Paradise can't be achieved that way."

"He who maketh hell have the ability to maketh heaven." Helia stated, yawning and stretching. Winter would have complained about her boney butt, but she could barely feel her weight on top of her as it was.

"Win the war with the Grimm, then fight your petty squabbles." Yolona growled, striding over. With Helia shifting, Winter could finally sit up, and she found herself gawking at the woman approaching the group.

Even outside her armour, Yolona still towered head and shoulders over everyone bar Titian. And she had hair. Even braided it reached past the small of her back, thick, dark, and heavy. How could anyone bear to have that much of the stuff?

She stood there, planted her feet and folded her arms. Even at a distance Winter could see the effect Yolona had the others. Her muscles, her scars… she'd fought to get here. She had a quartet of tattoos on her left shoulder, small symbols left in the open - they looked like more than just whimsies. Memorabilia of those she'd lost, perhaps? If she'd been wearing her chainmail fully-fastened, instead of letting it hang from her waist, Winter never would have known about them.

"I disagree, but I see your view, Bastion." Titian nodded, shifting her weight to the other foot. She wouldn't give any ground, that much was obvious.

Aphoth moved into view. Outside of the trials, being drugged, or ambushed, Winter could get a clearer look at her - the mess of deep black hair, the pale skin and heavy eyeliner. The black lace dress was new, Winter thought - she remembered Aphoth wearing something different for fighting, but either way the black and green khopesh was sheathed at her side.

"We should get going. As fun as debating politics is…"

Helia seemed to glare at her. Helia was wearing a bright orange blindfold. Winter had no idea how that worked, but it did.

"Hey, the whole gang's together!" Maverick suddenly realised loudly. Everyone turned to give him a look of some kind of another. "What? It's a valid observation."

With a sigh, Winter started for the hall. Anything to get away from Maverick -

Aaaand he was following her.

Winter scowled.