Author's Notes: Sup gang! Thanks for the kind words - I do appreciate em. Anyways, lucky chapter 50! Let's get to it!
Music Choices: Werewolf Gimmick by The Mountain Goats, Rage (feat Travis Barker and Aimee Interrupter)
Eclipse
Chapter 50
The White Rook
Part II
"Hey uhhh - should we actually be encouraging this?"
Natalia didn't bother to look away from the hard-light projector, having brought up the aura levels and vitals of the arena's occupants; below them, Sigyn and Raven were prepping for their late night - or rather early morning - spar.
"Cuz I feel that this could either totally solve our bullshit? Or just as probably launch our friendships into the unreachable icy void of space?" Reinhardt's umber reflection was staring at her own in the glass. "Annnd maybe we shouldn't do this?"
"What would you suggest?" Natalia paused, a chord of anger finding its way into her typically flat voice. "That we try silent treatment? That always works out so well."
Reinhardt blinked cartoonishly, before leaning in to stare at her expression as she focused on setting up the match.
"Are... Are you angry with me?"
Nat paused, before looking him square in the face and nodding once.
"Yes. I am angry with you."
"...Oh."
She went back to what she was doing. A hand rested on her arm hesitantly.
"I'm sorry. Um. I know I haven't...been my best these past couple weeks. And that this has caused a lot of, uh, stress. Which you don't need, none of us need more stress-"
"Do you know what's it's like to be emotional conductor?" Nat turned towards him, her face grim. Reinhardt's typically expressive face looked like deflated party balloon.
"No…"
"It's like having BIIIG dial on your feelings, and someone else is always trying to turn the knob to their favorite station," Nat cranked her hand in air. "And what's more, if you turn the knob? You control what other people feel, too. So if you aren't careful, and crank too hard in one direction or another when you take it back? You can hurt other people. I am always caught between processing other's emotions for them? And hurting them by refusing to do so."
Reinhardt winced, his hand still resting on her arm.
"When you are ignoring problems and not fixing them?" Natalia poked him in the chest with her index. He stared at her finger. "I am fixing them. In here -" she gestured to her chest. "Me. I am processing all that emotional riff raff for you, whether I want to or not. Because you are spewing it everywhere! But if I shove it all back to you like dirty dishes you left out? I could push too hard, and give you mental breakdown! Or prompt to commit suicide by giving you severe depression! Do you see dilemma?! And it's not like I don't have own emotions to take care of on top of that!"
Reinhardt nodded, his emotions flickering across his aura before he tried to get them under his thumb, taking a slight breath.
"When you ignore emotions, you aren't making them disappear like pixie dust!" Natalia twinkled her fingers in the air. "You are making them my fucking problem! Stop it! Stop making them my problem! Take care of your emotions, and talk to your friends! Idiot! I know you don't have problems detecting your feelings or processing them, so you don't have an excuse for letting them run wild!"
"Ok! Ok," he nodded fervently. "I'm gonna do better! I promise! I'll do better. I'm really sorry - I didn't, uh. I didn't realize."
She rolled her eyes and looked back down at the arena, having started the countdown.
"Oh, he'll do better, he says," she grumbled, before leaning down to the mic and speaking the to the combatants. "You start when the counter hits zero. When one or both of you reach zero percent aura? It's over. If you keep fighting past that, with weapons and Dust? I will personally wake up Professor Arc and sic her on both of you. After kicking your asses myself."
"Sure thing, Natty-beans! Love yaaa!"
"Understood."
Her scroll buzzed and she glanced at it.
"Coast is still clear. I'll call if I see any trouble roaming too close. Don't let them kill each other, please?" - A.
She sent a quick response, before hitting the timer.
Neither of them wanted to kill the other. This was just only way they knew how to process things constructively and resolve their differences. Better than many alternatives, at least.
"Starting in Five! Three! One! Begin!"
The buzzer went off; and the combatants moved.
"Wooo! I'm having chicken dinner tonight, boys!" Sigyn hooted, bursting into four separate clones, each wielding their version of Sigyn's obnoxious fucking weapon. "Let's fucking GO!"
Their environment shifted, the miniature arena springing up blocks to hide behind and spring off of, as well as multiple high rises, alleys , and other obstacles to gain the high ground.
Raven mapped out her environment rapidly as she stayed ahead of the other girl, aware that her odds were grim. She'd known coming into this that Sigyn had the power advantage. The renegade had improved dramatically since her first days at Beacon, even over the summer while they'd been away in Anima; and she could maintain nearly every one of her clones for hours on end, each with their supply of aura for Dust attacks and shielding.
They were credibly weaker than Sigyn prime, who's own aura would be decreased by maintaining her clones; but the fact was, Sigyn could create her own team, and they were all a hive mind, aware of everything that one saw and capable of reacting to that information at the same time without delay.
On top of all this? Sigyn's Semblance could be used to counter Raven's on an average day. She had plenty of spare bodies to move around and counteract a few giant, spooky portals, especially since all of Raven's portals were predictable - they manifested wherever one of her teammates were. Taiyang had the advantage with his portals, in that he could put them wherever he wanted, though his range was significantly shorter than her own.
None of that mattered currently, however, because Raven couldn't even use her Semblance at the moment. Not without waking up her entire team which, needless to say, she was trying to avoid doing. She did have a backup strategy, however; though she was trying to hold back on utilizing it until she could gain the upper hand.
No, for now, it was the old tried and true: Dust and out-maneuvering her opponent.
Raven darted into the shadows immediately, doing her best to stay out of sight as she formulated her plan; as she moved quickly through the maze-like network the arena had spawned, she would drop little pebbles in the angles before moving on quickly.
Sigyn and her clones could be quiet when they were hunting, but currently they were all making lots of noise as they pursued her through the small arena; which meant that they were trying to drive Raven into a trap.
Two to the right, one directly behind, another to my left - there's gonna be a fifth sneaking around now, likely above me, trying to drop down.
She drew her blade an inch as she sprinted and jumped over the rotating blocks, keeping the multiple clones in her periphery, tracking their colors.
Blue and purple, pink, green - frost, gravity, Sigyn prime, wind, anndddd Amber is on top of me -
Raven coated her sword blue and swept over head, forming a curving, slash of ice spires that briefly countered the fire clone's cyclonic attack.
Steam whoosed outwards, covering the immediate area. Raven darted into the thick of it, breaking up her outline instinctively as she moved from cover to cover. Direct confrontation with all the clones wouldn't work, and it's also what Sigyn wanted - a big glittery brawl, where she could talk shit and chase Raven around in exhausting, chaotic circles like a rat in a corn-maze full of cats.
She was determined that that's not how this was going to play out.
"Come out, come out, wherever you arrrrre! Awww! I thought this was a spar, not fricken hide and seek?"
"Widdle chicken's scared! Boooock Bock, bockbock Ba-cock!"
"Say, if you get killed as a bird? Do you stay a dead bird orrrr do you like? Turn back into a person like a were-bird? Seriously, how does that work? Do you know? Do you wanna find out?"
"Maybe I should just win by default?! Since you don't wanna plaaay! I hear Anima is really nice this time of year - but Haven still sucks maaaajor chili dog!"
"But forfeiting is no fun! I wanna count your teeth on the concrete! So come on Rae-Rae! Come play tag with me !"
Raven sneered, refusing the bait. Sigyn wasn't actually a ditz, though she liked to play like she was to bait her enemies into making obvious mistakes; a simple, but extremely effective tactic that frequently worked on people who should really know better by now. One that she had fallen for herself in the past, much to her own embarrassment.
That wasn't going to fly this time. Raven had studied the other girl's tactics for over a year; and her sister sometimes liked to employ similar mannerisms to trick others into lowering their defenses.
During one on one - which was a joke, come one - Sigyn would triangulate with her clones, hunting her opponent like a pack of Beowolves throughout the arena. Whenever you heard one? That meant the others were sneaking up on you in the opposite direction, or above you - Sigyn loved the high ground. Her attack style was cyclonic or sweeping, as she would break her shears apart and control an even larger target area, driving her enemies into the arms of her teammates or her clones. If you got caught between several of those spinning vortexes of Dust and blade, then your aura would quickly be brought down below functioning level.
Sigyn was also dangerous in that she could whip around and utilize blatant Witchfinger techniques with even more proficiency than Summer or anyone else Raven knew besides obviously her mom or Tormund. Sigyn generally kept those techniques underwraps, however, unless it was a scenario like this where she could really let loose without worrying who was watching. Raven had only seen her do it once, and had immediately taken note of it, though she hadn't been surprised. Her father was the most skilled Witchfinger on the planet after all.
However, she had an obvious weakness to exploit and it was her temper. Which in combat manifested as her clone, Amber, the fire Dust wielder. Amber could single handedly win the battle or lose it, because the clone was a wild card; sometimes Sigyn couldn't even reign her in, and she would rampage, particularly if Sigyn's aura dropped below fifty percent.
'Amber' was also very easy to bait, if you knew what buttons to push on Sigyn; and she took up a significant portion of Sigyn's aura. Take her out? And you had a much stronger chance of defeating Sigyn one on one.
A quick flash to her left, and Raven rolled to her right to dodge an ice Dust attack; which drove her into a wind Dust attack, which then drove her into gravity Dust attack and so on, like a pinball in a loud, madly cackling arcade machine. She found herself soaking absurd amounts of damage in a staged attack that had lined up before she could react, and was now stuck purely playing defense against multiple, jubilant opponents.
To be frank, Raven wasn't a pure defense fighter, especially not when she was flying solo like this. She could soak damage, but not indefinitely. Pure defense wore her down over time and if she couldn't exhaust her opponent first? Eventually her aura would shatter. She worked best being able to perform devastating blitz or Dust combination attacks, then going on the offensive steadily until her opponent was either completely torn down by her efforts or they were exhausted and forced to make a mistake; or being able to lead a stronger opponent around by the nose, tiring them out while avoiding taking much damage herself, and then going in for the kill once they were depleted.
All of that was not taking her Semblance into account; Raven was a totally different combatant when her Semblance could be relied upon or when fighting alongside a group of people she was bonded to too. Because then she could then control the field of engagement, much like Taiyang; and lately, with the two of them? STRQ could transform their area of control into a fucking meat grinder.
Currently, however, Raven was the one stuck in the meat grinder, and it was a perspective she didn't appreciate. Sigyn was grinding away at her aural reserves at an unsustainable rate. The moment Raven got her sword up to deflect a gravity attack, then fire and ice were performing a pincer attack on her flank; and when she deflected that, it was Sigyn prime and the wind clone, blowing her back into Sigyn's reach, who merrily tried to snip her head off her shoulders and dealt an ugly blow to Raven's aura levels.
"Hahaha, what's the matter, homeslice? Just tryna to take a slice off the top!"
"Hey, come on, don't run! You're doing great, sweetie!"
Raven disengaged again, trying to get her bearings; after that blitz attack, she was down to nearly below fifty percent aura. The cackling followed her merrily, echoing around her like a pack of hyenas. Refusing to get psyched out, she forced herself to take a calming breath as she decided to try something a little drastic.
Recently, she had discovered that it was possible to mix Dust coatings chamber of her sheath, if she was fast enough and glitched the coating mechanism out. Technically, it wasn't designed to do that and she was literally playing with fire by doing so; it was very possible for her to cause an explosion, or rip all her limbs off. Or evaporate both herself and her opponent, which she wasn't keen on doing.
Overall, the risk was immense. However she had learned, much to her delight, that gravity Dust combined with electricity could create a magnetic plasma wave that had devastating results; and could hypothetically level the playing field durin very, very quickly.
This would, technically, be the first time she'd ever tried to do so.
She sneered and flipped Sigyn the bird as she skidded around a corner again, and the renegade hooted as she gave chase, springing after her in terrifying concert.
"This is what you get for spam-camping, you little shit!"
Raven ignored her, ducking behind a barrier and shifting her Dust chamber rapidly, mixing the coating on the blade. She didn't combust or collapse into a singularity so she was ok for now. However, she still needed to be extremely careful with where she directed the wave and triggered the Dust. The slightest mistake would likely kill both her and Sigyn.
And if it didn't? Then Natalia or Summer would.
Taking one of Taiyang's focal points in her hand, Raven made sure that several Sigyns spotted her ducking around a corner again, and activated the focal point - ducking, through one portal and out behind the Sigyn cluster on a raised platform she'd planted a focal point on previously.
"Peekaboo!" "Wait - huh? "
"Peekaboo," Raven smirked, activating the combo-Dust coating.
Black and yellow currents of Dust combined menacingly as a roll of nearly prismatic electro-magnetism arced out from her blade; several huge bolts of lightning struck down at the Sigyn's, the floor, the platforms and even the Hard Light projector overhead. The sound reminded her of the time Qrow had accidentally left a fork in a microwave, and today, Sygyn's clones were the forks.
The air stank of ozone and Raven was already moving to take advantage of the confusion.
"What the cheesy puff fuck was that! " Sigyn prime shouted over the chaos. On the intercom, she could Reinhardt chime in.
"Raven? Where'd you get a plasma grenade?"
"A flippin WHAT - no, no that was her sword -HEY! Did you just glytch out your Dust chamber?! You crazy fucking schtup! Are you trying kill us?!"
"Cuz I might be down with that-"
"NO I'M NOT, IGNORE HER - ME! IGNORE ME!"
" You destroyed projector with that move ," Natalia sighed through the mic. " Arc is going to pry open our buttholes for that. "
Raven slipped up behind Sigyn prime, tallying the damage as she went on the attack. Two clones were gone; Sigyn, Amber and Violet remained.
Amber was exposed and had taken damage during the plasma attack. Raven moved, her blade changed fully to yellow as she dropped down to stun Amber. There was a sluggish beat as she was airborne, and the hairs on the back of her neck shot up; and she spotted the Jorogumo webbing at the last second and hers flew open in panic as Amber gave her a vicious grin.
Raven managed to cut through the aura eating webbing by awkwardly redirecting her strike; a strand of it still wrapped her calf and she was thrown on the defensive once again, blocking against a vortex of flame as she tried to keep from cutting her leg open, her aura dropping below thirty percent as she redirected most of it to her calf.
"Did you want to fight dirty?! Because bitch? I can fight dirty!" Amber hissed.
Shit! Where the fuck did she get this?! How did she even get this!
Raven snarled, trying to free herself from the Jorogumo snare without dropping her aura or severing an artery.
"Wanna know what pisses me off about you!?" Sigyn snarled, coming in swinging. "That condescending ass EGO! Holy guacamole, is it obnoxious!"
Raven dropped one of the focal points at her feet and portaled, rolling out awkwardly on the other-wise of the arena as she worked to free her leg.
"Psst!"
Raven glanced up and promptly got a pink and white boot to the face.
"That's not gonna work again, sweaty!"
"You really do always think you're the smartest person in the room, don't you!? Incredible!"
"Your punkass is going to Haven, Rae! Or Shade! Or Atlas! I don't care where , but your caboose is vamoosed!"
Raven grit her teeth, the rage that had been building up throughout this confrontation finally coming furiously to the surface. As she feigned an injury, Amber swept in close for the finishing blow. Raven then swept her legs out, trailing a little blood from the shallow cut on her calf, knocking Amber down and onto her side; and Raven promptly shoved the yellow blade of her sword through Amber's weakened aura and straight into her gut.
"I am so sick ," Raven hissed as she twisted the hilt, the clone burst apart like shattered aura. "And tired. Of people projecting. Their fucking bullshit on me! !"
Sigyn paused briefly next to her clone, and Raven practically growled at them, feeling utterly savage in that moment.
"You stupid bitch," Raven spat, tasting copper. "Even if you win? I'll just convince the team to come with me ! We were thinking about transferring anyways! After everything that's happened? Vale isn't safe for us - for her especially!"
Sigyn's eyes darkened as she visibly considered the merits of committing homicide.
"What's wrong? Pissed you might lose your fucking therapist ?! It's not like you give a shit what's best for her overall or what she wants - all this horseshit is just you throwing a gods damned temper tantrum!" Raven snarled at her, stalking closer. "Because you aren't the center of her attention! You don't give a SHIT what she wants for herself or what's best for her! You selfish fucking brat!"
Sigyn and her clone visibly activated the Dust on their weapons, staring Raven down as they roved closer, blatantly contemplating murder.
"So even if I lose?" Raven raised her arms as she stared the other girl down. "You're going to lose with me!"
Sigyn looked absolutely feral, and she and her remaining clone launched at her with all the ferocity they could muster. Meanwhile, Raven was calculating multiple finishing moves, her sword up and ready.
Two pairs of blades blurring at her from both sides, and Raven doing her best to deflect both and still protect her aural levels; they clashed furiously, with boneshaking force as they each tried to get the upper hand. After several exchanges, she managed to drive her sword tip through Violet's eye and pry it out as the clone combusted. There was little to no pause before Sigyn prime was on her and they finally engaged in an honest 1v1 fight.
Sigyn was cursing and spitting as Raven cursed and spit right back at her, and the pair were locked in a blur of blades and Dust and kicking that would have been hard to keep up with from the sidelines.
" Take it BACK!"
"Take what back, you pink twat?!"
"She's not my fucking therapist!" Sigyn prime swiped at her face. "She's my sister you bitch - and YOU are ruining her goddamn life with this shit !"
"OH, sure and you're making her life loads better right now!" Raven countered, blocking Sigyn's swipes desperately. "Emotionally blackmailing her because she didn't tell you everything while on another fucking continent!- yea, don't worry, you're the fucking hero for sure !"
"I'M NOT - That is NOT WHAT I'M MAD ABOUT - and I don't have to justify SHIT to you!" Sigyn tried to gut her for the dozenth time, her teeth bared like fangs. "You and Qrow are the ones -"
"Shut the fuck up about my brother! And you don't give a shit about Summer's life!" Raven struck Sigyn's wrist with her blade, and the other girls aura didn't fully engage, allowing her to knock one of the blades free. "You're just mad she's not available to fix YOURS twenty four fucking seven, you selfish p iece of-"
"RRR-FUCK YOU, YOU NEUROTIC JUNKWEED!" Sigyn's aura was dropping to Raven's level, as she nearly broke Sigyn's wrist trying to disarm her.
"It takes one to know one, sweetie!" Raven snarled in her face.
Sigyn practically roared and with a bizarre, inhumane twist, kicked Raven's sword loose from her grasp; in the same moment, Raven latched on to Sigyn's right wrist and wrenched, tearing her remaining blade loose from her iron grasp. They were both disarmed, low on aura, and madder than all hell. So they swapped to hand to hand combat.
Raven was not as good at hand to hand as she could be, but better than she had been previously, largely thanks to sparring with Taiyang. Her grapples and ability to outmaneuver physically stronger or larger opponents was far more technically skilled than they had been; Sigyn, meanwhile, was matching her in hand to hand skill, but struggling more than Raven had expected. Perhaps it was the banter, or lack of practice, but Raven was wailing on the other girl at a rate that Sigyn could not currently keep up with.
They were on the ground, beating the dogshit out of each other, hauling back and punching, scratching. snarling, biting, kicking - it had all devolved into a playground brawl.
Perhaps that's really all it had been the entire time.
"RRrrrr - I'll fucking kill you!" Sigyn roared, trying to flip the pair of them. Raven had her down and was sucker punching her one, and two and three, and four, over and over, but the renegade still wasn't down. She didn't let up though - breaking Sigyn's aura was the only way to finish this argument as far as she could tell, and she wasn't about to give up now.
"Not when you hit like a fucking cotton ball, you won't!" Raven mocked.
Suddenly, Sigyn headbutted her right in the nose with a furious growl, breaking both of their auras at once. Raven's head swam and Sigyn flipped them. Natalia's voice barked over the intercom.
"You're both done! Stop!"
They were not both done. And they did not stop.
"Come on, Rae Rae, get those little bitch fists up!"
Raven socked her in the mouth and Sigyn's lip split, as Sigyn tried to slam her head through the mat.
"Fuck," Natalia moved towards the door to intervene, when her scroll went off. Argent was calling her. Her eyes widened a fraction as she answered, jogging and talking as Reinhardt ran ahead to try to break the brawl up. "Go."
"You've got incoming," Argent started seriously, his voice strained. He sounded like he was out of breath.
"Ozpin?" Natalia spat out quickly, running onto the floor.
"No - Nat, she's gonna be there any second and she's, phew she's mad-"
Her eyes widened.
"Sigyn! Let go! NOW!" Nat shouted over them.
"Raven, come on chica, it's over - YIPE, not me you jerks!"
"Move!" "Get the fuck out of the way - you bitch, you BIT ME?!"
"Let go, idiot bulldogs!" Natalia tried to move in without getting clocked herself. "It's over, you both lost!"
Then there was a blur of motion to her left and it was too late. Natalia cursed under her breath as the bloody brawlers were separated at a speed she couldn't keep up with, rose petals showering the arena floor. Sigyn yelped angrily at being so rudely disengaged from her prey, confusion quickly giving way to recognition; Raven was shaking her head, likely suffering from a mild concussion from the half drunk way she was leaning. The angry, dazed glare shifted quickly.
Summer, despite still being very much in her pajamas, had one of the scariest expressions on her face that Natalia had ever witnessed; and she was no amateur at making such things herself. She hesitated, as Reinhardt visibly scooted closer to her, looking nervous.
Ah. Not good.
Summer's wolf ears were flat against her head, eyes pinpricks of anger as she glared furiously at her sister and her partner; both of whom shared awkward glances, their childish scuffle briefly forgotten in this moment of solidarity.
"Explain," Summer said, her voice dangerously quiet. She hadn't taken her eyes off her sister or Raven.
"Um - well," Sigyn grinned nervously, her teeth bloody. "We were - resolving our differences?"
Summer didn't even blink as she stared at them. Raven's split eyebrow raised slightly, a half mask of blood coating her face.
"That is not what that looked like," Summer observed, her tone still deadly. Her eyes flicked to Raven's leg, observing where she'd been bit by the Jorogumo webbing. Her eyes narrowed even more, and Sigyn started to visibly sweat. "To me."
"I, well. Things might have gotten a little out of hand?" Sigyn simpered, scratching the back of her head. "But um-"
"A little?" Summer appraised the trashed room and its occupants coldly, before locking onto Natalia and Reinhardt. "And the rest of ARSN? You were enabling this?"
Natalia and Reinhardt shared glances; behind them, Argent suddenly opened the door, panting. Summer didn't even look his way.
"It was my idea."
Summer's ears flicked briefly, but her expression didn't change as she stared down her partner. Raven didn't wince, holding the glare.
"I thought it would help us get all the bad feelings out of the way."
Summer took a slow breath and exhaled quietly.
"You thought...that this would help ?"
The ARSN collectively winced at that tone.
Mm. Very bad.
"Yes."
Summer looked away briefly, a flicker of something in her face and eyes. Natalia instinctively shielded herself from the emotions rolling off the faunus.
"Well? Did it fucking help, Raven?" Summer asked, her voice still low.
A slight wince on Raven's part; and Sigyn shuffled over to the other girl, a sheepish grin on her face as she clapped her shoulder.
"Kinda! it um - I mean, we were gonna talk shit out after and everything and uh - I know that looked really ugly, Summer, and I'm sorry," Sigyn waved her other hand expressively. Raven was staring at the hand on her shoulder in bewilderment. "I've been...well I've been a big ole bitch lately, I know I have -and taking it out on everyone - on you, and -"
Summer held a finger up and Sigyn's mouth snapped comically shut as her sister took another calming breath.
"I am too angry right now," the faunus started, her pupils still small. "To have a constructive conversation about this. With either of you - any of you. So I am going to go calm down. We can talk about it later."
Summer turned and brushed past Natalia without further comment. For a brief second, Raven's mask dropped and she looked like she might run after her girlfriend; Sigyn shook her head rapidly and Raven sighed, the fractures disappearing again. The arena door shut coldly and the group flinched.
"Welp," Argent muttered. "That sucked."
"Yeaaaaaa," Reinhardt rubbed his palms together to soothe himself. "Holyshitdude, she is scary when she's pissed off!? Natty, she scares me more than you do sometimes , damn!"
Natalia snorted and strode over to the two bloodied girls, who were successfully standing next to one another without trying to strangle each other.
"Well?" Natalia folded her arms, glaring grimly at the pair. "Idiots? Are you finished?"
Sigyn sighed, slumping as she stumped around to look Raven in the face. Raven raised her bloody brows.
"...Wanna talk it out?" Sigyn quirked her shoulders, grinning a little. "Siiiince we're both in the shithouse together now?"
Raven studied her inscrutably, before nodding once, looking tired.
"Cool! Cool, cool, cool - let's get out of here first, though?" Sigyn looked up at the ceiling. "I dunno if we're gonna get in trouble for that projector?"
"We signed in to use the room," Argent explained, shaking his head. "And it records you the entire time. They'll know we did it. We'll be insanely lucky if they don't examine the footage of you two and everyone gets more counseling for it."
Raven cursed under her breath as Natalia grumbled, moving towards the exit herself, more than ready for this night to be over.
"Welp! Poopie!" Sigyn exclaimed.
"Nah fuck that noise," Reinhardt scurried upstairs to the observation room. "I'll take care of it. I'm framing BBLK-"
"Do not do that," Argent insisted. "Just like - make the explosion look like an accident. And tweak the end there, so they don't see these two trying to disembowel each other. Anything counseling worthy-"
"You think this is the first time I've done this, bro? Because lemme tell you: it is not."
As the group made their messy way out of the arena, and endeavored to reasonably cover their tracks to avoid a trip to the Headmaster's office, they didn't notice the soft, reflective gleam of the arena's lower panels; nor the reflection that seemed to trail after them of its own accord.