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Guilty Intentions
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Chill in my heart.
Weight on my shoulders.
Ghosts beside me.
.
.
If she could find the right moment, she knew she could turn this match around.
The thin sword sliced through the air and Yang ducked under it by a hair's breadth.
She overcommitted on that.
This is my chance!
Yang rarely spotted flaws in her opponent's technique, and fewer still she could capitalize on. If she failed to take this one, it was likely there wouldn't be a next.
The boxer settled her mind and opened her senses. Her vision blurred, but something else sharpened in its opposite. An almost trick of the light or dimension of focus.
She traced the paths of energies to where they connected. The convergence she could glimpse for shorts amount of time, with a few met conditions. It came as a crack as small as a pebble, but it drew Yang's attention, like gravity.
Her hair blazed like the sun, and she could feel a tightness travel down her forearms to her knuckles. The punch would not be her best. She never chanced throwing haymakers against such a nimble enemy, so a more peppering strike would have to do.
Yang traded her dynamic strength for speed and accuracy. Her feet were light, not weighed. Like a marksman, she closed one eye—concentrating only on the glimmering speck that would soon disappear.
The low, left hook whipped out with a snap.
Even before seeing the effect, Yang felt the feedback from her fist. It was gratifying and electric. An almost magical moment where one's intentions aligned exactly with what was executed.
Neo buckled from the blow that connected clean with her liver. The Aura surrounding her dipped.
Without wasting a moment, Yang followed up with a second punch that stopped just short of cracking her opponent's temple.
"I…I won?"
At this, Neo recovered and attacked Yang's back, but Yang didn't care.
"I WON! HAHAHA! I WON! I BEAT NEO!"
Her partner proceeded to strangle her neck, but Yang continued to bounce with joy.
"I gotta tell Merc and Em!"
Neo puffed her cheeks and repeatedly slapped Yang's head.
"Ow, ow, ow! Hey, are you okay? I didn't hurt you too bad, did I?"
The petite woman finally climbed off her with a pout. Neo rubbed the section of her belly where the blow landed, a light bruise starting to develop.
"Oh, come here, baby." Yang kneeled down and kissed the sore spot. "Better?"
When she tilted her head up, she saw Neo hovering a sword over her eyeball.
"Sore loser," Yang grinned. "Let's go find Merc and Em. Now, that I think about it, I haven't seen much of them lately. Wonder what they're up to…"
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X
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A great scythe howled through the air and almost cut Mercury in half, causing a sharp gust of wind to stagger him back. Although, the weapon was massive in size, its wielder manipulated its center balance with a depth handling.
Mercury back-pedaled and danced around the grim reaper's touch. Constantly, a narrow measure away from being cleaved down. He was hardly allowed any space to catch his breath.
"Freakin', crazy, overpowered old man!"
Qrow continued to give Mercury chase. Not flinching the slightest, when his enemy managed to throw a kick that grazed his cheek. Instead, pushing forward and punishing the shallow attack with a blade through the chest.
Jagged steel caved into Mercury's chest cavity. Blood pooled in his mouth, as the life drained from him. He could feel Qrow give a quick twist of his scythe to make the wound too large to recover from.
A fatal blow.
"DAMN IT!" Mercury cursed as the hallucination faded. "Em! Didn't you make him a little too strong?"
Emerald opened her eyes from her meditative stance.
"I only have the small encounter after the fight with the Fall Maiden and the crappy intel we got from Jupiter to work off of. Everything else, I had to fill in with a suped-up version of Ruby. It's as close a simulation you're going to get!"
Mercury stood from the middle of the sparring stadium. His clothes were drenched in sweat from hours of practice. The frustration obvious in his body language. Emerald did a better job of hiding it, but the stress was mounting on her as well.
Their training and preparation for Qrow's assassination was going poorly. Every scenario played out, ended with them losing. Emerald especially, who wasn't a frontline fighter, struggled to combat the weakest iteration of their target.
There was also a tall number of unknowns surrounding the job. Few had ever seen Qrow Branwen fight at full strength, much less record it—or lived to tell of it. The target's location was vague. There was a possibility he was accompanied by Ruby, and it was unclear if he had more allies.
It was the kind of gig anyone in the professional world would call, bad practice. A mission that would inevitably lead to a disadvantageous fight, followed by a quick defeat, and a not-so shallow grave. The script to a terrible play no one wanted to see.
Mercury and Emerald were catching their breath, when the doors to the practice room banged open.
"You guys were training? You should've invited us!" Yang entered with Neo strolling by her side.
"Not now, blondie. I'm not in the mood," Mercury groaned.
"Eesh. Bad session, huh? Well, guess who just beat Neo! Boom!" Yang did the double thumbs pump to herself.
"Seriously?"
Emerald scoffed. "So, what? You beat Neo. Once. In a spar. After how many losses, might I ask?"
"Say what you want, Em. But have any of you beat Neo before?" Yang asked with a snide look.
"That's not the point."
"Oh, really? I feel like it is."
"She's right," Mercury said. "Beating Neo's a little impressive."
"Thanks, Merc!"
"Neo's her girlfriend," Emerald added.
"Oh, is it official?" Mercury asked.
"I don't like labels," Yang shrugged.
"Kinda makes it more impressive. Y'know… cause Neo's all dominatrix-y with her."
"Alright!" Emerald threw up her hands. "If you're done with the back-patting, we still have work to do. Mercury, max difficulty simulation next."
"Oh, joy!" Mercury cried with sarcastic cheer.
"Oooh, can I watch?" Yang asked with interest.
"Sure, if you wanna see the idiot flop around in the middle of the room, be my guest."
Yang and Neo sat beside Emerald eagerly. It wasn't long until they saw an uncharacteristic reaction come from Mercury.
"Is he…shaking?"
Emerald flashed a broad grin.
"The next simulation's a li~ttle tough."
Although he knew there was no one else in the ring with him, Mercury still had to fight the urge to run away. Even if he knew they were hallucinations, Emerald's Semblance had grown leaps and bounds since ENMY's formation. And that meant the images she conjured had a disturbing realness to them. The same went for the simulated pain and death upon defeat.
As Qrow, Cinder, Raven, and Glynda took their fighting stances at the other end of the ring.
Group of Death, huh?
Bring it.
As Mercury began the simulation, the others watched with mild interest.
"Hey, Em?" Yang asked.
"What is it now?"
"Your Semblance can hallucinate anyone?"
"As long as I've seen them myself. But if you're talking about simulated abilities, I have to see them fight or have a lot of intel beforehand."
"Can I make a request, then?"
"My Semblance isn't a toy."
"…I'm not playing."
Emerald turned to Yang, and saw her expression was dead serious. She knew it would be difficult getting her to back off when she was in this kind of mood.
"Sure, why not. It's not like Merc didn't just get insta-killed out there. Hope you have something worth watching in mind."
"It'll be something alright." Yang leaned in and gave her two names. "Can you do it?"
Emerald responded with a crooked look. "You've been off the hinges lately, but now I know your brain's fragged. Yeah, I can make some realistic hallucinations of them—more real than real. But I gotta ask, why do this to yourself?"
"I'm going through some stuff and I wanna work it out. Plus, I need to see something."
"…You want their personalities included?"
Yang paused. "You can do that?"
"My Semblance works off my memories, but if we both know them, your brain can fill in a lot of it too. You ready for that?"
Yang took a huge gulp and strode to the middle of the ring. There, she hefted Mercury's body off the floor.
"Sorry, buddy. It's my turn."
Once he was placed off the side, Yang returned to the stage.
She inhaled a deep breath. Her heart pounded like it would burst from her chest.
Truth be told, Yang was afraid. She personally witnessed how realistic Emerald's Semblance could be on several occasions. She didn't much care for the experience, but today it would provide her with a unique opportunity.
Yang opened her eyes slow, and almost immediately teared up.
"This is going to be sen-sational, Yang Xiao Long!" a perky, freckle-faced girl greeted her.
"It will be an honor to fight you, Yang," another girl with scarlet hair made her declaration.
"Penny…Pyrrha…"
She froze with uncertainty. They were so much more life-like than she could have prepared for. The intonations in their voice to the smallest expressions in their movements—it all matched her memory. Nothing vague about them, like dreams or mere imaginations.
Yang cursed herself for her selfishness.
"Do you really want to go through with this?" she heard Emerald ask—a trace of guilt in her speech.
"Yeah. I need to do this."
"…. Fine. Have it your way. Just so you know, even if you've gotten a little better—those two have been in a different league from the start."
Yang banged her gauntlets together and produced a shockwave of flames. "I know that better than anyone!"
The afterburners in her Ember Celica torched blue. Her overflowing Aura channeled through her limbs and irradiated from her hair.
As she did so, Penny deployed her swords and began to hover into the sky. While Pyrrha set into her combat stance. All the metal on Yang's person hummed.
What would the two of you think?
What would you guys say?
I'm beside the people responsible for what happened to you.
I'm…betraying you, aren't I?
You were my friends, and they're…
She was losing herself to an amalgam of emotions. Her self-loathing never seethed as it did in this instant. But something inside her told her to push on. To never stop, despite what suffering may come.
"Here's your chance to beat me up for it!"
I've regretted this for so long.
But now, I'll confront you two.
I'll take it all on.
Guilt, pain, and all.