This chapter got darker than I originally intended. Italics are there to indicate when Fox is using his telepathy semblance.
Tyrian was approaching the Faunus village with many Grimm following behind him. Unlike his goddess he could not actually direct their actions although he had some minor ability to nudge them one way rather than another.
He had, however, perfected his technique for laying a trail which the Grimm would follow. A split-up column of refugees suited it perfectly, as he could ambush a group, kill half or two thirds of them and use his stinger to poison the remainder so that they would lie dying in agony while radiating fear, pain, and despair. The Grimm would be attracted and would finish them off.
Today he had also destroyed or thrown away their scrolls so they could not warn others or seek help from huntsmen. Normally he liked to wait for the assistance to arrive and then ambush the would-be rescuers. In addition, today he had been using Watts scroll jammer when making the attacks so that they could not send warnings as he was attacking.
First it maximised the element of surprise for each group he attacked. Second, he had been requested by Hazel and had the order confirmed by his goddess that he was not pretending to be a member of the White Fang today. Apparently, some dust deal was being made with a bandit queen and the White Fang on another matter which meant that he was not meant to harm the reputation of either group. Unattributable mayhem was fine, mayhem which had a clear prima facie link to the White Fang was not.
Tyrian knew that he looked on the world differently to most, but he was mystified as to how his actions could possibly harm the reputation of bandits and terrorists. He would have thought that he would enhance their reputation because he was so effective. Still, it was not his place to question the orders of his empress.
Because most of the refugees had been on foot, he had even been able twice to miss out one group and massacre the next group along. The emotions of the poisoned and dying ahead of the group he had missed out had meant that the Grimm had been able to catch up with those humans and have a thoroughly satisfying meal.
It had helped that the road had been travelling through forests as that had given him plenty of cover. While he enjoyed fighting huntsmen, if he was going to fighting more than two at a time he preferred doing so on night when he could take advantage of his night vision.
He had bypassed one Faunus village for the time being. While he had no overwhelming objection to killing Faunus, there had clearly been at least six huntsmen in the village and a bullhead circling overhead presumably with a few others.
In addition, he knew that the LGDF employed combat school graduates with unlocked auras and that some of the older ones, particularly the Faunus and the poorer humans, would have been snapped up by the academies had they been born twenty years later.
This was not a mission which was particularly important to his goddess. She simply wanted him to make trouble on general principles. He was not supposed to risk his life as that would be wasteful.
He would have started retracing his steps when he saw that a bullhead had taken off taking about some obvious hunters with it. He scouted round the village and decided that once night had set in, he would see who survived the Grimm attack and then go hunter hunting then.
Besides which the woman wearing the sunglasses looked like a real poseur and one of the men had the ludicrous moustache. Even an acolyte had his dreams and dealing with those two would allow him to pretend he was killing Cinder and Watts.
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The sun had set in Ansel province and Kulsa was awaiting an assault by the gathering Grimm. All the senior staff in the Ansel LGDF were in or heading to Kulsa apart from Deputy Chief Reynard. Reynard did not mind.
Either or he or Chief Arc had to hold the fort and she was in a better position than him to bang the table and rally the troops in Kulsa. His fellow deputy was being sent back to Ansel to get some sleep and take over from Reynard in the morning. Marian would share the burden with him until at least two in the morning, especially when it came to dealing with human mayors or local leaders.
When he had woken up after a short five-hour rest after pulling an all-nighter, the tide had seemed to be turning. The footage of Amber ARC, Pyrrha Nikos and he teammate Nora something had taken out large Grimm in seconds and the slaughter of the Grimm attacking the broken-down convoy had increased morale all over Ansel.
The news that the Kingdom Guard was coming and politicians in that Mistral City were going on the record as stating that Ansel was a core part of Mistral had dealt with the immediate concern that the province was going to be abandoned and the volunteers had been reporting that spirits were lifting.
The improvement in morale had meant that in most of Ansel Grimm activity had been reverting to normal. However, it had been clear to him and Chief Arc last night that Kulsa was an outlier and was getting worse. Kulsa had always been the most difficult part of Chief Arc's remit and was one of the reasons no one serious had put themselves forward when her term had come up for renewal last time.
The Chief had taken the gamble of throwing most of her most trusted resources at the town this morning and until two hours ago it had seemed to be working. Between Nicholas Arc, Jesse Earl and Pyrrha Nikos they had persuaded the mayor of Kulsa to show the testicular fortitude to make the chief of police back down and the respectable people in the town to use their influence to calm tensions.
Then someone had committed a crime against all sentient beings by creating a breach in the town's defences and the situation was no longer under her control.
Deputy Chief Reynard's task was to keep a lid on the rest of Ansel and his main worry was how cheerful a message he could get away with. It was clear to everyone that something was happening in Kulsa particularly as every strong hunter or combat school graduate who could be redeployed were being sent to Kulsa. However, the last thing anyone needed to know was that a rogue Haven student was responsible for the breach and that the situation was so serious that Chief Arc had emptied the dust reserve at Ansel.
He decided that his line was that the Chief was going in for shock and awe tactics at Kulsa and that an attack of overkill in front of the cameras. The mantra of the last king of Vale who had led his kingdom to victory in the great War was that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and his fellow LGDF full time employees would buy into that.
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Lucas Earl had felt physically sick after hearing the news of the explosion. He should have suspected something last night when Magenta had invited herself to his room. They had hooked up a few times a term while they had both been at Haven.
The relationship had teetered on the edge of becoming something more. However, she resented the fact that he would not back her up when she complained about Beau and Daffy being closet animal lovers.
In that regard he had managed to satisfy no one. Even Orion, who probably agreed with 80% of what Magenta said, had told him, "Bros before hos." Orion had explained for this purpose Daffy was a bro which luckily their cousin had accepted in relatively good part.
Daffy, who had early on in their time at Haven spent a few drunken evenings with Magenta, made no secret of her view was that woman was a bunny Faunus boiler.
Even Beau, who preferred not to put too much stress on the fact he was ten minutes older and certainly had never previously interfered with Lucas's love life, had asked whether he was certain about her with a strong implication that Beau thought he was barking. In any event while his brother and his cousin did their best to be polite to Magenta's face, it was clear that they zoned out when she started monologuing at them.
Lucas was attracted to Magenta and felt sorry for her. He found it hard to blame someone for sticking up for her family and wanting revenge. Besides which too many of his friends had lost fathers and brothers to the White Fang for him not to share some of her desire to strike back. Unlike the others he had held the woman as she had nightmares about the day her uncle was kidnapped and the state in which his body was returned to his family. It did not help that her own team felt that she was an embarrassment and did not hide it.
He and Beau had been lucky that Grandpa Jesse had been there to help them through their anger and to separate their anger at the White Fang from their views towards Faunus as a whole. He had reminded them of the Faunus servants who had helped him and Grandma bring them up after their parents had died in the airship crash. He had also introduced them to the Faunus with whom he worked in the LGDF.
On the night Beau had christened his car the General Lagune and painted the flag on it, the old man had sat them down in the dining room and told them what they did not want but needed to hear.
He had said how some of the murdered humans had made no secret on their trips back to Kulsa of how they treated the Faunus workers in Vacuo and asked them to think what they would have done if they were Faunus and their relatives had been treated the same way.
"I'm not saying it's right or that they all deserved what happened to them, but so far as I can tell this is targeted and not indiscriminate terrorism. Fine, if you catch a masked member of the White Fang committing a crime, kill him or her, but if you just go after Faunus because they have ears or a tail you are just perpetuating the spiral."
Grandpa Jesse had fought in the Faunus wars and had been awarded medals which he kept in a locked drawer. He had a complicated attitude to his fighting years. He was clear that most of his fellow fighters had been honest and brave but that their cause was wrong. When he and his friends gathered, they told the stories and sang the songs but never belittled their opponents and were selective about the verses they sung.
Anyway, he should have guessed that something was up when she contacted him on his scroll yesterday and asked to meet up. She had pretended that she was in town to help defend Kulsa against the Branwen Tribe who had allied themselves with the White Fang. She had also said that seeing the monkey Faunus first year joining in the fighting against the White Fang in Vale showed her that perhaps Beau and Daffy were right in distinguishing between the White Fang and Faunus generally.
It had been a memorable night and he had woken up exhausted and surprised to see that she had already left. She had left a note saying that she would meet him for brunch. When she had been a no-show and did not answer her scroll, he had first pooh-poohed Daffy's concerns. However, he had agreed to pass on their concern to Pyrrha Nikos and had not disagreed when Beau had mentioned her disappearance to Grandpa Jesse.
If only he had checked the team dust store earlier in the day. It was not until Grandpa had told them to make certain that they were ready for anything that night that he had discovered the theft. Beau had supported Daffy's argument that the best thing to do was to first warn Pyrrha Nikos and then tell Grandpa Jesse the whole story.
By the time they had reached Jesse's office, it was clear something was up. The conference room door was shut and everyone not in that room was on their scroll and looking ashen. Beau had swallowed and was obviously preparing to barge past the guards at the door of the conference room.
In the end this had not been necessary as Nicholas Arc had emerged from the conference room and had smiled wryly at seeing them.
"Great, can I just have a word with you about where you should be deployed. Chief Earl is busy." He ushered them into Uncle Jesse's office, closed the door and pulled down the blinds.
"I am afraid your fellow student is in the Faunus Quarter and has just used at least some of the stolen dust to destroy the gate mechanism at the main road gates leading out of the Quarter and weaken the open gate. They are still assessing the damage, but it should be assumed that the result is that the gates cannot be closed."
He had looked at them and said, "Do not blame yourselves for this. Believing that someone could break their oaths to that extent is hard enough and suspecting that someone you know is going to do so is almost inconceivable. You warned us about her presence in the town a couple of hours back and you prompted my son to ask Professor Pink about her semblance."
He said, "I should have checked the team dust store earlier and guessed what she was capable of."
"You all legitimately thought that she was just going to use her semblance to attract the Grimm to the Faunus Quarter. After all she would have plausible deniability if no one who knew her saw her in the vicinity. Certainly no one else here thought she might be up to more."
Orion said, "But we were the only ones who had listened to her rants. We knew what she felt about Faunus."
"Ok, perhaps you could have put it together quicker. I do not blame you for not wanting to believe the worse about an acquaintance. When you realised that she had enough dust to cause a serious explosion you notified the people on the spot who were in the best place to do something about her."
Lucas thought that they could have done it earlier but decided that it was best to keep quiet. He did not want to admit to his team that he had dithered for thirty minutes before telling them about the red dust shortfall. He also did not want to admit how ashamed and upset he felt about being taken for a fool by someone he sort of loved.
The old huntsman continued, "The fact that Professor Pink and his team knew about her semblance and were warned that she had a large quantity of dust meant that they were in a position to take effective countermeasures. Among Professor's Pink's team there was a trainee hunter with a semblance which neutralised hers. Although some of the Grimm made an early advance on the gate there has not been a full-scale attack. We still have time to prepare for nightfall and the real attack."
Daffy said, "I think you should bear in mind that she may have more dust available to her. We did have quite a large store of fire dust. If her semblance has been neutralised, then she may go for more direct measures."
Beau said, "We know that there are good reasons why the gates between the Faunus quarter and the rest of town were built the way they were. While they make it very hard for a mob to attack the Faunus sector, it also makes it hard to evacuate it quickly. When we met her last night, she asked Lucas questions about how the walls worked."
Daisy added, "She is one of the best students in our year in stealth and tracking and one of the best shots. It will be hard to stop her getting close to the gates. Besides which if she uses her semblance at the wrong time, it could start a stampede."
Nicholas Arc frowned, "Rack your brains for anything else she might have said which would give us any clues to her plans and capabilities. I need to speak to my wife and your grandfather."
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In Vale Ozpin and Goodwitch had been warning and calling in favours to prevent the Vale Broadcasting Company from live streaming the coverage from Kulsa to the Mistral Broadcasting Company or indeed anywhere else. This had not been too difficult. Ozpin rarely made such demands, and the presence of Grimm made the networks receptive to pressure. Besides which it was their alleged responsibility which allowed them to argue against granting new licences to competitors.
The authorities in Kulsa had taken the Mistralian journalists who had arrived in the human part of the town into protective custody and the authorities in Mistral had ordered the main networks to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don't mess with Mr. In-between.
Still there was surely a limit to the extent to which they could replay the footage of Team JNPR strutting their stuff from this morning and Ozpin was not entirely convinced that supplementing it with the LGDF black and white footage of Miss Valkyrie and Amber Arc going Big Grimm Hunting was a good thing. Eventually someone would ask what so many large Grimm were doing within five miles of the second largest town in Ansel province.
He was also extremely unhappy about the revelation that Magenta Raddock was a student at Haven. While he was confident that, following last year's incident with Miss Scarlatina, Glynda and Bart had purged Beacon of the more psychotic human supremacists, he knew that the Vale council would use the incident to insist on greater security checks on the Faunus students.
As it was, the fact that he had allowed the daughter of the ex-leader of the White Fang to join Beacon under an assumed name had not been viewed with universal acclaim. This was even though the current White Fang had tried to kill Kali Belladonna in Vale.
If they did investigate Team LLAC, they would find that a Faunus accused of murdering a human in Mistral and another Faunus of a distinctly shady background were on the same team as a potential heiress to the Winchester fortune and the second son of the leader of the old Atlas Aristocracy.
No doubt the Faunus rights supporters would then insist on an investigation into Team CRDL especially as Cardin's father was now the leading demagogue for human supremacists in Vale. The story of Velvet's ears would surface in the press not to mention the rumours about the resignation of Miss Pettigrew from Pharos Combat school. He would have to burn up political capital in standing firm to his view that Cardin had made significant efforts to deal with his team's problems.
As usual, he would ask Glynda to deal with the political problems in Vale. As a two times Vytal festival winner and an ex-head girl of Pharos she was best placed to reassure the politicians and the wealthy. She also was, for reasons which he preferred not to think about too hard, quite good at intimidating the authorities in Vale, especially those who had gone to boarding school.
He wondered what help he could offer to Lionheart. As it was, Leo had not been able to prevent the political establishment exercising an undue influence in Haven's affairs.
He blinked. One of the problems of being immortal was that although he appreciated the importance of politics, he did not have the appetite to understand it and permanently micromanage the details. He was almost certain that he was missing something important here and that he needed expert advice. He decided that, despite the poor CCT links and the near certainty that both the Menagerie government and the White Fang would be listening to the call, he needed to speak to Dr Oobleck.
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Jaune and Ren were still trying to get the balance right on how to augment Ren's semblance and counteract Raddock's semblance most effectively without exhausting Ren's aura.
There was a tradeoff between width of coverage and the intensity of coverage. If they did not have to worry about Raddock's ability to intensify negative emotions, they could cover a half mile radius with ease together.
Raddock was undoubtedly moving round the Faunus quarter, activating her semblance, and then moving on. His guess was that she was taking time to recharge her aura between activations. She had also changed disguise at least twice to judge by the dead bodies which had been reported. The LGDF volunteers had been told to report any signs of panic in the areas they were patrolling, and until sunset he and Ren had kept moving to deal with these.
Jaune was also not convinced that his father and Professor Pink had made the right call. They had both vetoed putting out all put out an all-points bulletin for the detention of Magenta Raddock or even sending out a photograph of her.
Pink was horrified that a student of Haven had betrayed the code of hunters and was obviously frightened about the effect on the reputation of the academy. Dad had argued that advertising the fact that a human huntress in training was doing her best to kill the Faunus of Kulsa would play into her hands by justifying the distrust which the Faunus of Kulsa had for humans. In addition, he said that only a hunter or a trainee hunter had a chance of arresting her and that encouraging anyone else to try would be a death sentence.
Jaune could see where dad was coming from, but his father had not experienced the force of her semblance. Jaune believed that it would be better to be seen to be dealing with the problem rather than pretending it was not happening especially as he did not believe that they could her identity as a secret for long.
A compromise had been entered into whereby Sun had been sent out to hunt her down and Neptune to ensure that she could not leave the Faunus quarter by the gate leading to the human part of the city. Sun had been chosen because he had been the least affected by the traitor's semblance. Neptune had quipped, "I always thought that the nature of Sun was irrepressible." Sun had bowed, Mercury had clapped and given a thumbs up to Neptune while Emerald had facepalmed. Clearly there was a team joke going on here.
Pyrrha, Emerald and Mercury were stationed by the damaged gate to deal with any Grimm which tried to take advantage of the breach in the walls. So far, they had only had to deal with smaller Grimm. The LGDF forces were on the walls with rifles, spears, and swords to deal with any Grimm charging the intact walls.
Now the sun had set, he and Ren had been ordered to make sure that Ren's semblance protected the area around the damaged gate while the inhabitants had been evacuated from the immediate area. For the moment they were based in the offices requisitioned by the Faunus quarter branch of the LGDF. This meant that the traitor was being allowed free movement in around a third of the Faunus Quarter.
Professor Pink and the Faunus deputy in charge of the LGDF had tried to further improve matters by recommending that the inhabitants evacuate the areas next to the wall and concentrate in the centre of town where it was easier to extend Ren's semblance.
Jaune was perplexed to find himself relying on Ren's semblance to repress his anger and frustration. He began to understand why the man was so stoical and calm as a matter of course. He also wondered what on Remnant Nora would be like if she spent too long away from Ren.
Professor Pink received a call on his scroll and after a few minutes switched the scroll so that it broadcast to all of them in the makeshift control room.
"Thank you all for your cooperation. I have arranged for bullheads to bring in hunter reinforcements to the Faunus quarter, including one who has significant tracking expertise. Team Auburn and my twin daughters are on their way as is a member of a two-time Vytal Festival winning team and the remainder of the official assignees from Beacon. They should be with you in twenty minutes."
She paused and then said, "I am on my way to Kulsa bringing in more dust from Ansel, additional bullheads, drone surveillance devices, and volunteer hunters from Mistral so there should be no need to worry about running out of ammunition, bullheads or hunters with aura tonight."
He hoped his mother was not bluffing but he had seen her in reassurance mode before. He tried to persuade himself that she thought they had a chance of holding off the Grimm tonight. If not, then surely she would not have committed four of her children and dad to the defence of Kulsa.
/-/
Neptune was on the Faunus wall of the division between the Faunus quarter and the rest of Kulsa. He was watching out for Magenta Raddock and observing the odd behaviour of both Faunus and humans.
He was annoyed by being forced to spend time guarding against actions of a single rogue human rather than being at the gates and on the walls defending the town against Grimm. A single woman had taken out him, Sun and Jaune from the front line. Arguably Lie Ren as well, but he supposed that even without Magenta's actions his semblance would have been more important than his fighting skills.
He would have expected the gates to be opened and the Faunus evacuated to the main town. As it was only the wicker gate was open in either wall and no one seemed to be making the trip.
Neptune knew that tensions were bad here and he had felt Magenta's semblance a couple of times in the last ninety minutes. Unfortunately, he had not been able to spot her.
On the other side of the gates, he heard a car horn blaring Misty. He recalled Jaune and Pyrrha commenting with some incredulity on having heard this refrain previously. He vaguely knew Team Blood from the bar at Haven. They were a popular team in their own years and so while not unfriendly, they had no great reason to mix with the first years.
Daffy had tried offering advice to most of the first-year women on who was best avoided in the senior years and even Emerald had acknowledged that the woman seemed well meaning. She had responded with amusement to his own attempts to cultivate an acquaintance although he had clearly got the message that nothing was going to happen and that he should keep his hands to himself.
Just then he saw four figures come through the gate at the human side of the wall and recognised Team Blood. Orion stayed put by the human gate, one of the twin brother stopped halfway while the two remaining team members walked up to the gate to the Faunus Quarter.
Thirty seconds later he was joined by one of the twins at the top of the wall.
The man nodded at him, "Neptune, isn't it. Lucas Earl here. Have you seen Raddock recently?"
"No. felt her semblance about twenty minutes ago, but Lie Ren countered it quickly."
"Maybe on this side of the wall, but not on the human side. The level of paranoia over there is unbelievable and once heightened it is taking a long time to cool down."
Neptune frowned, "Are we going to evacuate this part of the city?"
"Even without our colleague's contribution the humans would not trust the Faunus tonight and the Faunus are frightened of the humans. It has taken an hour of arguing to agree a partial evacuation programme and it remains to be seen how many Faunus take it up."
They heard the noise of two bullheads travelling at low altitude overhead and ten figures using their landing strategies to land on the top of a building.
Lucas continued, "In twenty minutes time first convoy will be on its way. It will consist of children under twelve and mothers whose auras have not been unlocked are to be allowed through and taken to the nearest school. Even the police chief cannot claim they are a security risk and has agreed to keep the jerks away from the school and the road to it. An announcement has been made over the local networks advertising this."
"Good. What is our role?"
"To protect them as they pass between the two walls. Your friend Sun and some of the new arrivals will be responsible for them until they reach the wall. Sun and my cousin Daffy will take them over to the other side while having their auras at full power. My brother Beau and my teammate Orion will activate their auras to augment the protection."
"And us?"
"We are to watch out for Magenta and take her out if we can. My grandpa thinks that she will not be able to resist the bait. You should assume that she is quite prepared to massacre women and children and I know she has fire dust crystals with her. We will wait until some allegedly hotshot tracker from Beacon who has just landed is within range. Apparently, Beacon has said that he will be able to identify her if she is around if anyone can."
Ten minutes later Sun arrived with two obvious hunter types and the LGDF Faunus deputy chief. One was a huge, tanned man dressed in a green robe carrying a huge sword. He looked like as though he came from Eastern Mistral. Curiously he was wearing dark glasses.
He was accompanied by an even darker shorter man whose arms were covered in scars. What was most distinctive however was that he was clearly blind.
Neptune felt his scroll vibrate. He answered it and saw a message from Sun, "Neptune, tell whichever Earl is next to you not to worry if he hears a voice in his head. We do not want either of you falling of the wall."
He showed it to Lucas, who nodded. Neptune texted back that they were ready and that it was Lucas next to him.
The next moment he heard a voice in his head, "Hello Team Blood, Hello Mr. Vassilias. My name is Fox Alastair. Call me Fox. My teammate Yatsuhashi Daichi is standing next to me. My semblance allows us to communicate without speaking. I suggest that this may be helpful for the current operation. If you see anything suspicious you can let everyone else know without alerting the suspect."
A pause and then "There is someone in a building directly facing Lucas Earl and Neptune who has a strong aura and is on the next to top floor. They are on the side of the building facing the wall and are higher than the wall. Lie Ren and Jaune Arc have been informed and are ready to concentrate on this area at my word."
A voice which sounded like Daffy's said, "Beau, I suggest that you and I investigate. We have her number is combat situations. In addition, we are not currently in her line of sight."
Sun said, "I can get on the roof from behind and Yatsuhashi can go through the back door."
Yatsuhashi said, "Once Sun and I are in position, I suggest that only then should Team Blood approach the building. If the aura moves, then we will be able to stop her or at least delay her entering the building. I suggest that I take position on the floor below the suspect."
Daffy said, "She has fire dust on her and may be prepared to take others with her. She uses pistols and presumably has dust enhanced bullets. Full aura is strongly recommended."
Neptune said, "I can see a water tower near here. I may be able to mitigate any use of fire dust."
Beau said, "Let's increase the chances that she runs rather than keeps still. Orion, you take the building next door on the right, I will take the building on the left and Daffy will take the building and meet up with Yatsuhashi."
Neptune did his best not to stare too conspicuously at the building which had been identified. Two minutes later Sun and Yatsuhashi confirmed that they were in position and then the three members of Team Blood emerged from the gate and walked towards their allocated buildings.
"The suspect is on the move and heading towards the roof."
Neptune drew Tri-Hard and made certain that it was in gun form. He kept it trained on the roof.
He saw Magenta emerge from the building onto the roof. Sun was waiting for her and slammed his staff on to the roof knocking her off balance. The woman opened fire, but Sun used his staff to deflect all the bullets with ease and then hit her in the stomach with the staff. Her aura absorbed the shock and she turned to leap off the roof. Neptune fired twice and she was spun around with the impact.
Sun took advantage of her distraction to activate his semblance Via Sun and his three alter egos mercilessly pounded her. As Sun had not used it at Haven, she did not look for the stationary original and sought to deal with the clones.
By this time Yatsuhashi was also on the roof and through the gunsight he could see her panic when she saw the sword Fulcrum just before it collided with her aura. Her aura shattered and two of Suns clones grabbed her limbs and the third searched her for the Fire dust crystals.
Just then Daffy arrived on the roof and confirmed, "We have her. Let's end it."
She raised a gun and aimed it at the now defenceless and Aura depleted woman. Looking through the gunsight she saw Magenta screaming and crying.
Daffy then thought again, "Frack it. I can't do it. What are we going with her while we fight the Grimm?"
Just then Neptune heard a gunshot next to him and saw a body crumple to the ground through his gunsight. He turned around in shock to see Lucas with his rifle on his shoulder and with tears streaming down his face.
"They shoot horses don't they."
I do think that Fox has a very useful semblance for fighting and setting traps and enjoy using it. The final line is a shout out to a film of the same name from the 1960s starring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarazin, and Susannah York. There may be a gap until the next one as it will be a mostly action chapter and I find those hard to write convincingly. By necessity there will be multiple POVs and I am uncertain whether sustained POVs or jump cutting quickly is going to work best.