Note: Geez, sorry everyone. We have just not been in a major writing mood lately. It took us forever to get any of this done. It's just very hard writing entertaining action scenes in text. Hopefully, we can get back in the swing of things soon. In the meantime, enjoy.
Neopolitan.
The Droog Queen.
That vengeful, impudent, little bitch.
Mrs. Glass's rage peaked, and then tempered and died. She didn't allow herself to feel pain or anger. She tightened her chest and forced away the impact of the van into her heart. The pink-haired woman smirked at her. She actually dared to show her face again. Had she really come all this way just to get revenge on her? In some sense, it was respectable. It would have been so easy for her to just disappear and be thankful that Glass had something better to do with her time, but instead, she decided she was going to be a hero. Good for her.
She could die a hero, too.
Mrs. Glass shot up to her knees and outstretched her palm. Like a storm of bullets, a hundred tiny shards of thick obsidian shot forward out of her palm towards the fire escape. Neo and Sun leaped down to the sidewalk as the glass bullets shredded through the metal platform like it was paper. The trail of obsidian followed them down, impaling into the brick wall, but Glass's targets split off before she could hit them. She had to target one, and the choice was obvious. As Neo hurried to flank her, Glass quickly aimed and unleashed her hail of glass bullets onto the young Droog leader. But, despite her confidence of a quick death, Neo simply twirled her parasol out beside her in the bullets' path—and where metal and architecture had failed, Neo's parasol held firm, knocking away the shards of glass like swatting flies. Mrs. Glass fired relentlessly, but Neo continued to circle her, drawing her attention away from Sun as he dove toward her, swinging a long red staff toward her head. It was only on instinct that she ducked his blow in time, though she wasn't so fortunate to dodge his wit.
"Long time no see!" the Faunus taunted her. He twirled the bo-staff around his neck and swung it over her shoulders, hoping to knock off her head. She sidestepped the next one and felt a pain in her ribs. "Remember when you lied to us and tried to eat us?"
Mrs. Glass sneered as Sun whiffed another swipe at her midsection. "It was nothing personal."
"Kind of feels personal!" Sun stated, jabbing at her face. She weaved back out of range, but the rhythm of Sun's jabs distracted her for long enough to let Neo fully get behind her. The Droog Mistress smirked and dashed forward, keeping low to the ground as she unsheathed a long, thin blade from the inside of her umbrella. She raced forward as fast as she could toward Glass's exposed back, pulling back her hand. Right before contact, the glass woman noticed the presence behind her, and she retaliated quickly. Mrs. Glass extended out her palm, and out from the nothingness, a long, thin sheet of her namesake materialized, a perfect square a meter across on any side. Thinner and sharper than the most well-crafted knife, the makeshift weapon caught Neo off-guard as Mrs. Glass suddenly spun around and let her momentum swing the glass sheet through the air. Neo, too close to back out, instead leaned back and slid forward on her knees, sailing beneath the sheet and catching her own reflection in it as she gazed up toward the sky. She skidded past Mrs. Glass's legs, and though the mysterious woman was quick, Neo was far quicker. They both turned to face each other as quickly as possible, but Neo was able to swing her weapon and connect the blade to the back of Mrs. Glass's knee.
It deflected off, harmlessly ricocheting off the glass beneath her tights.
Neo slid to a full stop by Sun and twirled herself up to her feet as Mrs. Glass summoned another sheet of glass in her other hand, the same size as the one before. Armed with two long glass panes, Mrs. Glass snarled and threw herself at the two Droogs. Her attacks were slow but wide-reaching; the panes were so massive that she couldn't keep her arms anywhere near each other, having to hold them out nearly opposite one another, and the momentum from her swings carried her around like a helicopter with deadly whirring blades. Despite the clunky method of attack, Mrs. Glass was able to propel herself forward easily, and Neo and Sun were forced to back off to keep out of her circumference. There was no opening to attack her physically, but Neo had plenty of tricks up her sleeve. She reached down to her waist where she kept a holster or two and pulled free a pistol to aim at Glass's head—and it was no sooner that she removed the pistol that Glass charged at her, making sure she would never get off the shot. She swung the long panes upward, and while Neo was able to backstep out of the way, the barrel of her gun was caught, and the sharp panes tore straight through it, clean as can be, steel and all. The shock was almost enough to elicit a sound from her.
Sun tried to attack her from behind while she was distracted, but Glass reached behind her and launched the pane outward, sending it rotating and flying through the air like a saw blade. Sun panicked and slipped past it to the side as it tore through the pavement, and with the Faunus off her back, Mrs. Glass continued swinging her remaining weapon at Neo's head, each swipe barely missing the skin of Neo's neck. Neo rapidly stepped backward, dodging, dodging, dodging—until Mrs. Glass grew sick of whiffing and chucked the pane at Neo's face. The pane hit its mark, but both it and Neo's visage exploded into pieces. From the remains, the real Neo dashed forward, grinning as she prepared to plunge the knife into Glass's torso. Sun recovered and followed suit from behind, and together, they lunged toward her, aiming to take off her head. Instead, Mrs. Glass outstretched her arms and effortlessly caught the two weapons in her hands, blocking them with thick glass gloves and stopping their momentum once again.
Their stalemate didn't stop them from fighting. Neo reached down to her waist with her free hand and pulled a handgun out of her holster. She aimed it straight at Glass's stupid see-through mug, but as she pulled the trigger, Glass delivered a sharp kick to her knee, knocking Neo's leg out from under her, dislocating her aim and sending bullets into the pavement. Another kick to the knee dropped Neo to a full kneel. Sun tried to throw a kick of his own to Glass's back, but without moving, she summoned a hard panel on her skin to intercept it. His blow was repelled with his bruised leg. She extended out her right arm and bashed Neo in the face with the glass glove. A hard kick to Sun's shin. She rotated her arm and pulled Neo's weapon away from her. With her other hand, she forced Sun's staff down by his side. Two heavy glass pieces coated her: one over her knee, which collided into Neo's jaw, and the other over her forehead, which rammed into Sun's skull, shattering upon impact.
Whatever advantage the two of them had before the fight started, it was clear they had lost it the moment Glass drew their blood. A pillar burst forward from the earth and jammed into Neo's ribs, and then it extended out infinitely, carrying Neo far away to the opposite side of the street. Sun suddenly found himself without backup, but as Glass created a sword in her newly free hand to slice him into two, he found himself unwilling to die that easily. Before Glass could strike him down, his staff suddenly exploded and broke away from her grasp, giving Sun enough distance to recover and prepare to go back on the assault. His staff transformed, morphing into a slick pair of nunchaku, and as Glass checked the singe mark in her palm, he pressed forward and whipped the rod of metal toward her face.
At the last moment, Glass battered away the nunchuk with her sword. Sun kept up his attack, but when Glass move to defend herself, he switched his stance and jumped back before lunging forward again, hitting at her from an unexpected answer. He kept in constant motion; switching feet, twirling metal, and rapid movement kept him unpredictable as he moved more like a dancer than a fighter. He threw everything he had at her. High kicks. Sweeps toward her leg. He came close—despite the blood starting to drip down his forehead, he was able to keep her guessing. Still bruised from the car crashing into her, she couldn't move as swiftly as she needed to. Yet, she was still able to backpedal out of range of his kicks, and whenever his nunchuks drew close, she swatted it away with a glass sword. She shook the pain out of her singed hand and summoned another long sword, but when she swung it at his head, he propelled himself back on his tail.
"Stand still," Mrs. Glass order, but Sun couldn't help but smirk.
"Sorry. Can't help it."
Glass took a step toward him—and immediately received a hard, glowing fist to the left side of her face. She staggered to the side directly into the path of another blow in the form of a glowing staff to the side of the head. She planted her foot and shook her head, snapping to attention. Sun was still in front of her but to either side: more Suns. Glowing. Clones. Armed. A Semblance. While the two Sun clones were expressionless, the real Sun was staring her dead-on, and she could see every outline of his smug, stupid grin. He thought he regained the advantage. Cute.
But while Mrs. Glass readied her defense, on the other end of the street, her allies were crumbling. They hadn't come prepared for a fight, at least not against a sizeable force. The Faunus were locked into a shootout with the Droogs, and those whose bodies weren't scattered over the sidewalk were hiding behind their opposing crashed vehicles. There five Droogs to four Faunus, but the action had stalemated as they tried to aim their guns around the sides of the cars. The Faunus were pinned to the open end of the street and could see Glass fighting, but they knew better than to interrupt the work of their boss. She could easily handle herself. They were more focused on the sudden appearance of the Human criminals who had no business getting involved. They had complicated everything, and with the amount of gunfire that had been wasted, there was no doubt that at least some police would be heading their way soon, even if the Grimm attack would be taking priority. What had become a simple escape had mutated into a fight for survivor—and that fight only intensified when Adam and Blake's battle ended up on the roof of the van.
Blake was the aggressor, slashing furiously at Adam's midsection while staying comfortably out of reach of his sword. Whenever he tried to retaliate with an attack of his own, she would carefully jump backward out of the way, and after several back-and-forth exchanges, he had managed to press her backward into the stalemated skirmish between their henchmen. The other fighters barely saw them coming until Adam cornered her against the van, and she was forced to backflip up onto the roof to dodge the edge of his sword as it carved straight through the metal. Adam jumped up to follow her, and the shootout came to a sudden stop as Blake and Adam furiously locked weapons on top of the limited roof of the van.
"You really had to grow a conscience now, didn't you?" Adam screamed at her, stepping into their swords. He had the more powerful build, but Blake defended herself with both of her weapons, managing to keep the red blade away from her despite the increased force.
"Always had one!" Blake sneered. "Thought you did, too."
Both of them heard the sounds of guns cocking and immediately glanced behind them. The Droogs and Faunus aimed at them, easy, open targets on the roof, too concerned for survival to worry about hitting their own. They stopped struggling and instead dove past each other, Blake drawing out her gun from her sword. She crouched low and aimed lower, sweeping out the Faunus's legs with a wild sweep of machinegun fire. She watched them fall and drop their weapons in agony, and though she knew it was necessary, she couldn't help but feel their pain. They had been manipulated all the same as her. They deserved better.
Adam yelled and slashed down at the remaining Droogs, slashing them across their torsos. They all fell like toy soldiers.
With the rest of their enemies taken care of, their fight resumed. They whipped around and slashed at each other, perfectly matching their strikes and repelling each other away. How often had they trained with one another, studying the perfect way to dissect their foes? They knew each other inside and out, and their sparring had become the closest thing either of them had ever come to sharing a dance with one another. Like everything else in their relationship, it seemed the only time they could be spurred to romance was when it was mixed with violence. Whenever Blake locked her sword against his and she looked into his eyes, she wondered if he was holding back, even just a little bit. He seemed to be trying his hardest. His strikes were quick and intently fatal. But so were hers, and she knew that no matter what she told herself, she wasn't trying her hardest. Her arms moved just a tad slower. Her footwork wasn't sharp. Maybe in his emotional distress, he didn't notice, but she did. He was her Adam. She couldn't bear to kill him either.
She let herself get distracted, and the hilt of Adam's sword swung into her already-cracked jaw. She spun out onto the roof and caught herself just before she slipped off the edge, but Adam screamed and plunged his sword toward her midsection. She pushed herself backward just a few inches, enough to watch the sword pass harmlessly between her legs, tearing straight through the roof of the van.
"You self-righteous bitch!" Adam grunted, pulling out the sword and rearing it over his head. "You could never just fucking trust me!"
He aimed the sword again, but Blake swiftly kicked out his leg before he could strike. He stumbled and she wrapped her legs around his knee, tripping him over onto his stomach. She gritted her teeth and plunged her blade into the back of his thigh. He roared in pain and she fought back her guilt.
"I did trust you!" Blake told him. "I would have done anything for you!" She scrambled to climb onto his back, pinning him to the roof. She yanked her blade out of his leg and then jammed it firmly into the shoulder blade of his sword arm. Out of sheer anger, he managed to hold onto his weapon, but he was hurting. Blake leaned forward, jamming her forearm into the back of his neck to keep him still. She tried her hardest not to let her rage turn into tears. "I don't want to do this to you! Just give up, Adam!"
Hearing her say his name pushed him over the edge. She didn't deserve to call him that. She didn't get to treat him like that. He clenched his fist, and with a yell, he pushed himself up with his superior strength, and with Blake still on his back and Gambol Shroud embedded into his shoulder, he threw himself off the van. He and Blake tumbled onto the hard sidewalk and he broke free from her grasp, clamoring to his feet ahead of her. With the blade still jammed into his back, he grabbed onto her by the collar of her shirt, picked her up, and forcibly rammed her spine into the nearby building. She gasped in pain and he rammed her into the building again, easily hoisting her around by her smaller frame, and with a grunt, he turned around and threw her haphazardly against the side of the van, slamming her into it with such force that the metal dented behind her.
"Goddammit," he hissed, reaching behind him and pulling Gambol Shroud out of his shoulder. He felt the warm trickle of blood down his spine and casually tossed Blake's weapon beside him, cursing at the worthless thing. Blake groaned and struggled to get to her feet, but a swift kick to the gut sent her flying back into the wheels of the van. Adam limped over her, looking down at her with disdain. "You just had to do this to me. You had to make it hard."
Blake sneered, mumbling under her breath. "As if you're the fucking victim here."
"We're all victims, Belle," Adam said, kneeling over her. "But at least I'm doing something about it—"
He drew himself in a little too closely, and without wasting time to gloat, Blake shot her head up and rammed it into his skull. His horned head was thick and the impact surely hurt her as much as it did him, but she gave herself a moment of free time to scramble back up to her feet. She made a snap judgment. Lunging for her weapon was tactically smarter but longer. She needed to go back on the offensive quickly. Her mind flashed and she remembered her constant fights with him and his glaring weaknesses. Adam was a large man, thicker and burlier than most of the other Faunus she knew. It gave him incredible strength and speed, but he had his blind spots. He was the perfect target to practice sneaking on. Adam stumbled back toward the building and instinctively slashed at the air, so Blake instead dove between his legs, rolled up to her feet, kicked off the closest wall, and leaped onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and getting him in a chokehold. He tried maneuvering his sword behind him to slash at her, but she hugged him close and his angle was awkward. For the moment, she found reprieve, though she doubted it would last.
Nearby, the pillar of glass pushed Neo a hundred feet before she became dislodged from the structure. She tumbled against the pavement, bruised but mostly intact, and she stared out at the wide, chaotic action in front of her. Her Droogs had been mostly taken out, and she would have shed a tear if she hadn't always found them so expendable. She saw Blake wrestling with Adam, clinging to his back like an abrasive spider-monkey, and then all the way on the other end of the road, Sun was putting up the good fight. The Glass woman was surrounded by two clones, holding them off with a glass sword in each hand while occasionally swatting Sun away with her heel. Despite being outnumbered, she remained calm and even graceful, her parries flowing into each other and her feet firmly planted as she warded off attacks from all unexpected angles. She had to be eighty feet away, but Neo could still see Sun's stupid confidence. He wasn't winning. At least, not yet.
Neo shook off her bruises and jumped up to her feet. The pillar of glass that had extended forth from Mrs. Glass's feet was still present, a long cylindrical beam stretched cleanly over the road. It was practically inviting her, and Neo smirked as she hopped on top of the narrow pathway, carefully balancing on its smooth top. With pure delicateness and precision, she sprinted across the top of the beam, leaning forward with her umbrella and sword neatly tucked behind her, deftly racing toward the action, sprinting past Blake and Adam as their struggle worked across the sidewalk. Her intent was singular and clear: kill Mrs. Glass at all costs. If Blake was collateral, that was no skin off her back. She may have accepted this job as payment for a favor, but her role in that was complete. Now was the time for pure revenge. Sun glimpsed behind Mrs. Glass and caught wind of Neo hurrying toward them, and he quickly acted to get his adversary in position. With her back turned to the pillar, Sun clasped his hands to the pillar and called his two clones inward. Both of their glowing weapons dissipated as they lunged toward her, and Glass held out her swords, expecting an easy kill. The clones dove straight through her weapons on top of her, but to her surprise, they hardly reacted. With her sword pierced through them, they forcefully grabbed onto her arms and held her in place, locking her in position as Neo sprinted toward her. She looked at the clones, confused by the Faunus's stupid smile until she heard the sound of footsteps clattering on glass growing closer behind her.
They were double-teaming her. Amazing. Incredible. She would actually have to start trying soon.
Though Neo had closed more than half the distance, she didn't get close enough. Mrs. Glass twisted her heel into the pavement and more obsidian was summoned behind her; not in the form of a smooth pillar, but a sea of spikes that ruptured from out of the earth and broke straight through the existing platform, rushing toward Neo. The Droog Mistress watched the earth explode out in front of her, and she was barely able to leap off the pillar before the incoming spikes destroyed it—not landing on the ground, but onto the spikes instead, balancing her boot on the sharpened tip before pushing herself off onto the next spike, using them like stepping stones as she bounded toward Glass without a loss of momentum. Glass herself was amused, but not deterred. The clones were bothersome, so she expanded out her sword into two more great sheets which bifurcated the clones right down their center and branched out from her arms, dragging through the pavement until they filled either side of the street beside her. They disintegrated into nothingness, and Sun, realizing that his plan had failed, jumped toward her again, hoping to catch her off-guard. Neo got into striking range as well, leaping off the spike and swinging her small blade at Glass's head.
Their timing was perfect for ruining each other. Glass merely had to step to the side and reach behind her; Neo's sword missed wildly and Glass took hold of her leg, using her own momentum against her. She swung Neo forward through one of the new panes of glass, shattering it into pieces, and smashed her into Sun like a baseball bat, throwing all of her body weight against his. The two Droogs collided and went flying backward across the street, and Glass barely smiled as she watched them crash and burn yet again. They groaned and mumbled, shoving each other in frustration, and as they rose back up to their feet to try again, she waved her hand in the air. The spikes and panes crystallized and transformed themselves into a large throne which she casually sat onto, and she crossed her legs and rested her temple on her fingers and sighed with disillusionment at the idea of this being anything other than a squash. She held out her other hand and gently beckoned them forward, and Neo and Sun carefully look at each other, trying to regain their composure.
"So, uh," Sun stated, "this is how tough she is after we hit her with the car, right?"
Back on the other end of the street, Adam stumbled with Blake on his back. He felt her trying to squeeze the life out of him, but he refused to go down to her so easily. He backpedaled and rammed her into the building wall, again and again, and again, until he finally felt her loosening up her grip. He grabbed onto her forearm and squeezed hard, and though she protected it with her Aura, it was only a matter of seconds before he broke her grasp over him. He curled and whipped her off his back, slamming her into the ground in front of him, and holding onto her wrist, he realized how easy it would be to finish her off. She was defenseless in his hold, and it would only take a moment for his sword to plunge into her chest and rid the world of her traitorous existence. Never once did he ever think it would come to that between them. Of all the people in the world, cruel and malicious, she was the only one he could make understand. He thought he had her, and yet something came along and broke that careful control. In the half-second he had her firmly at his feet, he thought of the guilt of letting her leave on that doomed assassination mission, how weak she was beneath him, how much it pained him to see her gasping in pain like some wounded animal. She was injured before the fight had even begun, and despite the lies, he still saw that immutable spark of rebellion inside of her. He assumed that maybe something had corrupted her, but deep down, she was still the same Belle Kataliana that he fell in love with all those years ago. It was really her that betrayed him.
He plunged his sword into her hip instead of her chest. The squelch of the blade cutting through her was only masked by her scream of pain.
Adam removed the sword and stumbled tiredly to the car, the wounds from his fight starting to take hold. The slash in his leg caused him to limp and his sword arm drooped down by his side, but he managed to throw open the door to the van as Blake rolled around in bloody pain on the sidewalk. He cast her one final glance of disappointment before slamming the door behind him. He had no more words to say to her. The Droogs had left their keys in the ignition, and Adam groaned in pain as he back the van over the corpses in the street—and some of his own living allies as well. He saw Mrs. Glass in his rearview mirror sitting comfortably on her throne, and he realized he didn't care about her fight. All that mattered was escaping. Regrouping. Planning. Trying to get over her.
The tires squealed as he pulled away from the sidewalk, zooming down the empty street. He didn't look behind him.
He didn't care.
He would make his way to the pier, or a highway, or to somewhere. Anywhere else. He was going to survive. While the Grimm destroyed the city, he was going to survive. He was damn sure of it. If Blake bled out and died, that wasn't his problem either. All that mattered was the road ahead.
Never looking back.
But Adam only drove a few blocks into the city before he heard something loud banging on the side of the van, and as he approached the heavy traffic of the inner city, he looked in his side mirror—and caught a glimpse of Blake, bloodied and furious, clinging to the side of the van with her sword.