Saffron put her hand to her chin. "Interesting," she said with intrigue. "You want to create a town that's an amalgam of all the allied settlements."
"Sort of. Nexus will be a settlement that will be the crossroad for all of Vacuo. It will be located somewhere of equal distance to everyone and will support everyone. I asked the leaders of other settlements to lend a hand in helping me build Nexus and have come to a fair agreement. Any neighboring towns that provide Nexus with ten percent of their resources a month will be given protection against threats and refugee should tragedy befall them as did Fortuna. We all come together and support each other."
"Hence the name Nexus," Saffron stated.
"It will be a cornerstone that helps with our survival. My newest project and I want to know if you'll help me in this endeavor," Clair said while presenting Saffron with a pen.
Saffron smirked, wondering why Clair even had to ask. Virago was a place where women run the show and men are second-class citizens. Such a place isn't seen as favorable to many outside the village and fewer allies can be made with such a place, but Clair was one of the first to become her ally. Dust trading despite the embargo, sending aid whenever needed, being a truly loyal friend, Clair de Lune Vantablack was the definition of the word ally.
Saffron signed her name to the paper with no hesitation. It put a smile on Clair's face to see Saffron was going to play a part in the Nexus Project.
"The Nexus Project is truly impressive, but that's nothing compared to the creator. Nothing keeps you down, huh?" Saffron asked impressed with Clair's plan and her ambition.
"I can't be wallowing in sorrow forever. No more regretting the past. It's time to choose hope and to start believing in a brighter future.
Walking down the hall to her father's throne room, Violet made a solemn vow; no matter what plans he had for her, she would defy him every step of the way. Her times and experience with Team VRSZ proved she could handle pretty much anything thrown her way. Violet vowed to fight. She vowed to ruin whatever plans her father had in store, and if anything, choose to hope, hope to live for herself in this crazy household and not kneel to anyone.
Remus Cobalt, Silver Synch, and Zelts Allister were getting tired of waiting. They wanted to reach Atlas now to reach Violet. None of them had any concrete proof that she was there. They took this information from Platinum about Carabosse's original plan before her demise, so this was a massive guess. Whether Violet was alive or not was also up for debate, but that thought didn't cross their minds, not even once. The three of them were choosing hope, hope that Violet Tulipe was somewhere waiting for them.
Setting: Concordia
The three battles between both groups were still taking place around and within the former capital building of the City of Thieves. At ground level, Zelts and the Cobalts were fending off all the remaining mercenaries from helping the Ravagers while Silver and the Enforcers were battling Shiranui. At the top floor of the desolate building was the battle between the three leaders. Violet, Clair de Lune Vantablack, and Grayson were in a life-or-death showdown.
After the explosion to the face, Grayson scurried back into his room to properly take the two women down and they followed suit. They rushed in, not caring if he had a trap set, or more accurately, they didn't care. Violet and Clair assumed before they started this crusade that Grayson would do something underhanded in order to escape or kill them. Nothing he planned to do would surprise either of them. They were prepared for anything.
Upon entering the room, Grayson sheathed his grapple-sword and pulled out the second gun he had on his person. With both guns in his hands, he aimed them at the doorway and fired as soon as he saw one hint of Violet and Clair and he saw the latter first. Clair walked through the doorway and Grayson started firing, but he felt a stabbing pain in his chest and left arm before they started freezing over. He was forced to stop firing then felt tremendous force hit the bottom of his jaw, rearing his head back violently and lifting him four feet off the ground. Appearing before him, in a flurry of violet petals, was Violet with her leg stretched up, showing she kicked him.
The first thing the Violent Flower did was activate Invisibility. She entered the room before Clair and threw her ice dust knives at Grayson before he could fire his guns then gave him an uppercut with a kick. This gave Clair and herself a safe entry into the room and Clair the opening she needed. Clair made a small leap toward Grayson while Violet stepped aside. Her pen-sword was already out and she slashed his torso, damaging his aura and making him awkwardly take a few steps back.
Neither girls wanted to give him time to recover, so they continued their assault on the leader of the Ravagers. Violet grabbed one of her kukris and swiftly slashed Grayson's side and did so three more times. Clair stabbed into him with her blade, but his aura protected him from the lethality of her attack. She was waiting for his aura to break apart so she could deal the finishing blow. Grayson fell backward but he quickly placed his hands on the ground and somersaulted to his feet, but not before dropping some of his explosives on the ground. There were about a dozen of them and the duo quickly backed away, but the bombs didn't go off.
"Duds?" Violet thought before she felt a fist slam into her stomach.
As Violet and Clair backed away from the bombs, Grayson used his decoy to close the distance and counterattack. He landed a solid punch on Violet then turned his attention to Clair, delivering a backhand to her face with a smack that knocked her back.
Violet recovered somewhat and swung her kukri at Grayson but he parried with the gun in his right hand then aimed the one in his second hand at her face. She quickly lowered her head while simultaneously kicking Grayson's arm upward with a kick, making the gunshot hit the ceiling. Violet regained ground and attempted to strike him again with her knife only to have her arm blocked by his own. Grayson watched her try to karate chop his arm away with her other hand and he retreated his body, barely avoiding her hand, but being hurt when it passed. He felt the same cutting pain he felt the last time they fought.
"Same stupid tricks," he thought as he looked at her hand. He knew she was holding the second kukri and made it invisible. Violet deactivated her semblance, showing he was right.
Despite all the hatred between them, Violet and Grayson knew each other very well.
With both kukris in her hands, Violet activated the dust inside both. The blade on her left was cloaked in flames and the one on her right crackled with lightning. She filled the fourth dust slot in the hilt with lightning dust. She wanted an all-out offensive assault against the Ravagers.
Violet dashed toward Grayson and he had both guns aimed at her until he felt stinging pain behind his back. He forgot that Clair was here as well and she thrust her sword to his back. He turned o her and planned to eliminate her first so he could kill Violet unrestraint. He swiftly elbowed Clair in the gut to stagger her, but instead of doing what he expected, she grabbed his arm with both of hers and kept it close to her body, keeping the gun away from her and holding him in place.
Grayson could hold his own in combat against Violet. Clair was aware of that fact, including the fact that she couldn't beat Grayson on her own, something she was clearly aware of. All her training up till now wasn't enough to make her fight at his level but to make her more competent in combat and assist Violet.
She refused to let go. Clair kept a strong hold on Grayson's arm and yanked him toward her, forcing him to turn from Violet who moved in with her knives and attacked. She brought the flaming kukri down on the gun Grayson parried with earlier and the knife cut deep into the firearm. She quickly twisted then jerked the knife away, breaking the gun into two. In response to losing his weapon, Grayson grabbed a knife from his pocket and jabbed it into Clair's abdomen, or he would've if Violet didn't intercept and parried the knife with the kukri surging with lightning dust. When the two blades came into contact with each other, the lightning traveled through Grayson's knife and started shocking him. Violet unintentionally shocked Clair as well since she was still holding onto their enemy. Seeing she was hurting her friend, Violet pulled her knife away and Grayson used the moment to quickly jump up, bringing his legs up, then kicked both girls in the head while knocking himself away. When he landed on the ground, he got back on his feet and grabbed his reliable grapple-sword from his back.
Violet put the flaming kukri back into its sheath after deactivating the fire dust and grabbed a few throwing knives from her pouch. She threw them at Grayson, aiming for his face, but he took hold of the cable on his sword and used it as a shield, deflecting the knives as they fell to the ground. Keeping his hand on the cable, he started twirling it around with the sword on the end, spinning his grapple-sword like a flail before throwing it at the girls. Clair rolled out of the way and Violet took a side step to avoid the sword that pierced the door behind them. The Violent Flower saw this as her chance to move in close and Clair stayed behind. There was another way she could assist in the fight.
Yanking the sword out of the door, Grayson was retrieving his weapon, but it wouldn't reach his grasp before Violet, so he waited for his sword to reach Violet's backside and cut into her. But she knew his tactics just like he knew her's and she slid down to the ground to avoid the sword and attack Grayson by his feet, but he jumped over her and grabbed his sword when it finally returned to him then immediately swung down. Violet was able to counter with her lightning kukri blocking the sword and lightly electrocuting him before their weapons stop clashing. The two, life-long enemies began a bout of weapons.
Knife met sword several times and each clash shocked Grayson thanks to the lightning dust, but that tactic didn't last forever. The lightning dust was used up after a dozen more shocks, leaving Violet to fend him off normally before pulling out the second kukri. The two of them seemed evenly matched. Neither was backing down or giving the other a single opening. Outside the situation, their battle seemed like a beautiful dance and Violet and Grayson appeared to be the perfect dance partners. They knew each other's moves and the best way to counter them. They've been fighting each other longer than they have anyone else in their lives so the only cooperation they had was when they combat one another. They were great enemies, but this battle will be their last.
Suddenly, the two fighters started to hear singing and they both knew who it was. Clair began singing a ballad about Violet and VRSZ as a whole. She did this while using Songstress. Grayson didn't feel any different, but the same couldn't be said for Violet. She felt revitalized by Songstress and began fighting with great vigor. Grayson felt it. Violet's strikes were getting stronger and delivered faster. He was able to fend off the kukris at first, but she was getting too fast for him to keep up. Violet began mixing in kicks, knee and elbow strikes, and other blows now that she had the upper hand. Knife clashed with sword and Violet quickly spun around to deliver a back fist to Grayson's shoulder then she brought her arm back and punched him hard in the gut with a strong uppercut to his jaw. He retaliated by swing with his sword and Violet sidestepped out of the way and quickly kicked him across the face.
Clair kept Violet's adrenaline pumping, making her move faster while Grayson was moving slower. The fatigue was getting to him and so was the frustration. Grayson took a few steps back to recover from the battle turning one-sided. He gripped his grapple-sword tightly as he kept his eyes on Violet while still hearing Clair sing with her semblance. He knew what he needed to do to turn the tide.
In one fell swoop, Grayson threw a few of his bombs at Violet, forcing her to jump away, and as she did, Grayson tossed his sword directly at Clair to stop her from singing. The former monarch stopped singing and rolled out of the way, landing in front of the door that led to her old bedroom. Violet was moving back as the bombs went off around her and noticed the grapple-sword returning to Grayson. With her flaming kukri, she cut the cable attaching the sword to Grayson's armband before landing beside Clair. Violet started talking to her friend.
He felt the cable snap on the other side of the explosion and waited for Violet to emerge from the smoke his explosion caused. Instead of seeing her approach, Grayson heard the sound of a door opening then closing. He looked to his right to see the doors to the room were wide open and realized it was the door leading to his armory. Grayson was about to pursue them until he noticed there were a lot of his explosives scattered across the floor.
"Some of them didn't go off?" he thought before he realized this was a trap. He remembered Violet advancing toward him after falling for his decoy ploy and how she slid to reach him. She intentionally did that to swipe all the bombs he didn't set off and kept them on her person until she needed them. She turned his own tactic against him.
"Shit!"
Clair and Violet were behind the door leading to Clair's former bedroom and Violet quickly held her body against it while Clair stood several feet behind her. They had to brace themselves for what was coming.
BOOM!
The door was pushed back and so was Violet. She was knocked into Clair and they both fell to the ground as smoke from the room filled the hallway. Both their aura levels were pretty low but were still protecting them from serious harm. The duo got up and cautiously walked back into the room. It didn't take long for the smoke to clear thanks to the explosion blowing the ceiling and roof of Concordia. Everything in the room was blown apart or destroyed. Everything, except Grayson.
The man was lying on the ground, breathing heavily with burn marks and scorched clothing. He was alive. Clair was surprised he survived while Violet wasn't. His semblance, Vitality, increased his ability to survive plenty of things. She figured he stopped using his aura to shield himself after the explosion so he could use it to fuel his semblance. Eventually, the burn marks would fade and he'd be moving around again, but Violet didn't plan for him to survive. He was defenseless without his aura shielding him. Grayson was trying to get up, doing his best to ignore the excruciating pain, but only managed to lift his upper body. He had his eyes on Violet and Clair as they stared at him.
"Is this the part where we finally end this song and dance, Violet?" he asked in a mocking tone.
Violet didn't say anything. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She came to the City of Thieves…no. She returned to Fortuna to make sure Grayson died, but it was never her goal to be the one to kill him. It was too poetic of an end for him to be killed by his life-long enemy. That honor was given to another.
Clair walked up to Grayson with her pen-sword and the grin on his face vanished. Violet was right: he'd prefer if she delivered the finishing blow over Clair. She won the battle and giving him an unsatisfying death. Clair got down to her knees and perched herself over Grayson, lifting her pen-sword up with both hands and aiming for his chest, the same spot Sterling was impaled.
Silence filled the room as Clair raised her blade over Grayson until the loud sound of an engine could be heard from above. Violet looked up as well as Grayson. Clair stopped her attempted homicide to see what was going on. An airship was flying overhead directly above Concordia. The engine was the only thing any of them could hear as the ship lowered itself next to Concordia until the hull was on the same level as the fifth floor. No one was sure what was going on, but Clair had a guess who owned this airship.
The sounds of feet stepping on metal grew louder and louder as two people appeared above before they jumped into the office building. Clair guessed right and Violet was annoyed and infuriated.
Jumping down into the room with them was Ebony Vantablack and Zinnia Underland. The former had a small grin on her face as her eyes laid on her cousin and the latter watched Violet, checking to see what she would do. A Vantablack and an Underland on opposite sides of the room.
"Long time, no see, cousin," Ebony said as a hello to Clair. She glanced over at Violet and playfully winked at her.
"Why are you here?" Clair asked.
"First, Corona, and now Fortuna! Why are you following us?!" Violet shouted at the Charming Vantablack. Zinnia already had her whip-sword out in case she needed to restrain her cousin.
Ebony didn't answer either question. Instead, she scanned the room they were in. The smile she had never left her face. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?"
"This place is where it all began for me, for all of us, really. It was the start of my journey, the end of your old one, and the beginning of your new story. The end of a storybook is just the beginning of another."
"What are you trying to say?" Clair asked, cautious of her cousin's motives.
Ebony looked at Clair for a minute before briefly eyeing Grayson then turning away. "Nothing. I was just reminiscing. All lot of things happened here and all the characters from that chapter are here. Though, I doubt this will end the same way." The last part was said in an ominous tone Clair and Violet picked up on.
She turned to Clair and Violet with her smile replaced by a neutral expression. It was impossible to read. Zinnia still had her hand on her weapon and her serious face did not break. What Violet learned about the Paragon was this; she did not play games. She knew a fight was coming.
"I'm sorry. I know you all went through a great deal to get this far-"
Zelts, Azura, and Remus were finishing their battle with the remaining outlaws. The last ones ran away seeing the battle as a hopeless endeavor. The three of them were grateful for the reprieve, but it was cut short when a fireball fell and crashed in front of Concordia's entrance. Zelts and Remus remembered the same act from two days ago.
The flames cleared and standing between the group and Concordia was the lizard faunus known as the King of Flames: Brenton Drake.
Shiranui of the Ravagers passed away.
When he felt like the job was done, Ghost released his hold on the corpse's throat then stood despite the pain. He sauntered over to the others to be with them and revel in their victory. That feeling was cut short when Ghost noticed someone new. This person was flying outside of Concordia and staring at them with conflicted eyes. Ghost didn't know what was going on and the other two didn't notice until Ghost spoke to the unexpected person.
"Why are you here?"
Silver and Bianca broke from their hug and turned around. The duo was utterly shocked with who they saw and Silver had the same question Ghost had. Bianca didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but Silver had a feeling it was bad.
"Why do you guys always show up when we least expect you?" Silver remarked.
With his large, brown and black wings, flying in the air was their former teammate; Blood.
"-but I can't let you kill Grayson," Ebony declared to Clair.