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The air whistled beside Pyrrha faster than she could react. The next time, however, she caught a glint of light from just behind Penny and leaned away. In the time it took for her to look at the flying sword passing her by, the edge had already glanced off of her arm. Both blades embedded into the ground behind her. Pyrrha rushed ahead, spear and shield at the ready. Two lines of light so faint Pyrrha almost missed them shone at her sides, and then Penny was flying for her with a kick hard enough to nearly bowl her over, even blocked by her shield. The crowd roared.
Penny kicked off of her shield, and suddenly, the sky was sparkling with metal. Blades. Over a dozen of them. They came raining down, twisting and turning at all angles. It was all Pyrrha could do to just keep the stage's edge in mind. Step by step, dodge by dodge, she weaved her way through the torrent towards Penny. Finally, she found her chance: a single break in the downpour. Pyrrha spun her spear, reformed it into its rifle form and fired, scoring a hit to Penny's shoulder. The clatter of falling metal was music to her ears, but there was no time to waste. She put everything she had into a dead sprint, firing all the while.
Penny pulled her hands back, and Pyrrha could feel the amount of metal coming towards her from behind. With the help of her Semblance dragging her shield up, Pyrrha flipped backwards through the air and saw a wall of swords slice by where she stood before whirling around Penny again. She also saw—and felt—two more swords slip right through her guard from ahead and slam her back into the ground. A sweep of her arm and they were cast away, but it erupted into pain, and she was pulled in right alongside Penny's blades. Wires. She must've been controlling the blades with wires! She glanced at her arm to try and find them, to get untangled.
She barely had time to see the next sword aimed at her head.
Crescent Rose drew sparks off of Torchwick's aura as its very tip scraped across his cheek. He rolled from the ramp and had his cane raised before Ruby brought her scythe down again. Both of their weapons were twirling blurs in their hands, only coming into full view when they would bounce off of one another with the sharp crack of steel against steel.
"How did you even survive the train!" Ruby shouted. She swung out hard and Torchwick turned with his cane behind his back for it to glide off of it. The pressure alone carved a ragged scar across the deconstructed Bullhead behind him.
"Wouldn't you like to know, Little Red?" He turned his cane and fired a rocket to cover his advance. Though his cane crashed down with enough force to dent the metal of the hangar, every turn of her scythe knocked him back a little more.
They were equal now. Despite her anger and disgust, Ruby's determination grew. No, she was better now. She ducked beneath a kick from Torchwick, collapsed Crescent Rose and fired a set of shots. Each was deflected with a lightning-quick swipe of his cane, but a sneaky charge of her aura into the last shot sent it flying back from his hand. His hand dipped into his pocket, and by the time it was out, Ruby was atop the running Bullhead.
A depleted Dust crystal cracked onto the ground: a feint. Torchwick dove for his cane and rolled to his feet with it raised.
"What's your plan, Torchwick? Why are you even doing this?" Ruby called down.
"Do you really think I'd tell you, kid? You really are naive!" He fired a rocket right into her chest, but she exploded into a whirling comet of rose petals. Scowling, he emptied the cane, blast by blast. Each missed or was lost in the petals as she zipped closer, exploding harmlessly against the walls. The last struck dead into the center. Torchwick smirked.
Then the comet split in two. Both rushed past him, and Crescent Rose formed with its blade already curled around his stomach.
"Oh, motherf—"
Ruby slung him into the broken-down Bullhead, sending it skidding into the far wall with a crash of clattering metal and torn wires. The whine of the working Bullhead's engines was the only thing Ruby could hear.
"Ready to give up?"
Another trio of rockets replied.
Blake took off. She really just ran away. Weiss stood, shocked. Then, she dashed off in pursuit. Time wasted hesitating was bad enough, but she could already tell that Blake was faster than her. The only question was where she was going. She slid across a line of glowing glyphs to catch up. Blake glanced over her shoulder, and that was all the distraction Weiss needed to create a glyph just high enough off of the ground for Blake to slam face-first into, sending her tumbling across the ground.
"You can't really be trusting Cinder over us, can you?" Weiss slowly lowered herself to the ground atop a glyph, a hand on her hip. "I understand that we don't know each other, but aren't you Adam's friend? I know everything, Blake: I'm not here to turn you in." She walked forward as Blake pushed herself up to her knees. "I'm here to get you somewhere safe. Then we can stop whatever Cinder's planning."
Weiss was sent stumbling backwards, vision flashing and jaw stinging. Blake was standing, now. Weiss silently touched her fingers to her lip and glanced at them. Red. Blake had just kicked her. Her aura healed over the cut Blake's attack left behind. Weiss imagined her inevitable response was clear on her face, because Blake took a few steps back.
"Just leave," Blake said. "Take as many people as you can and go." She raced off again.
Weiss swiped the blood from her lips. Hard way it was. Blake was trying to escape through one of the doors deeper into Amity when, storming ahead on a road of shining glyphs, Weiss drew and swept Myrtenaster out. A gravity glyph black as night formed on the door, and Blake couldn't make it budge. She looked over in alarm just before Weiss threw herself at Blake, taking them both to the ground into a rough, rolling fight of quick jabs and vicious knees.
As Blake less punched and more clawed across Weiss' face, she really began to reconsider if she was going to do this without resorting to using her rapier in full. Her thoughts were broken by something approaching from up ahead. A small squad of Atlesian Knights were approaching, the sound of their steps having been masked by the roar of the crowd and thunder of the announcers' voices. Suddenly, she sank through Blake altogether, and looked down to find only dissipating shadows and the door deeper inside closing.
She slammed her fist against the ground in frustration and, ignoring the pain in her knuckles and the squadron of robots pausing up ahead, shoved through the door behind her. A wide maintenance hallway stretched out ahead, pathway thankfully empty bar a few stacked boxes here and there too thin to duck behind. Though more doors lined the sides of the corridor, there was nowhere to hide. Not for long.
"I don't want to fight you, Weiss!" Blake shouted out ahead, still trying to get away. "I'm here to save people too!"
"Then you better explain what you think you're doing!" Weiss stabbed Myrtenaster into the ground. Anger served as wonderful fuel for summoning, as out from a glyph lined with flame beside her, a hook and chain fired out, wrapped around Blake's leg and yanked her to the ground. She dispelled the false Melodic Cudgel and reattached her rapier to her belt.
Blake sprung up to her feat, but Weiss could see the conflict in her eyes. Blake instinctively reached back to where Weiss had seen her weapon normally at her back, but there was nothing for her to defend herself with. Weiss hoped that would help her see reason.
"I... I—I can't." Blake lowered her head. "I'm sorry. This is bigger than you know."
Weiss sighed. "For what it's worth? I'm sorry too." She formed another black sigil behind Blake. "But you'll be apologizing to the others yourself." Drawn by the gravity, she leaped up into a kick.
Despite catching Mercury's kick on his half-sheathed blade, the force was enough to shove Adam back. The hilt grinded against the side of the tight hallway: there was no way he'd be able to fully draw or swing his weapon length-wise without obstruction. Kickboxing it was. He pressed himself to the wall to avoid Mercury swinging his foot down like a hammer, then snapped a kick into Mercury's gut to get some distance. It didn't last for long. Both of them were quick, unable to trade blows simply because they were unable to catch the other at all. Adam ducked down beneath a roundhouse that left a spray of sparks as Mercury's boot scraped along the walls, then dove forward with a knee that Mercury jumped back from.
Of course, there was the more pressing question: how in the hell was Mercury walking in the first place? Prosthetics took time to get used to. Was all of that an illusion? That'd be impossible!
Then their kicks met, and pain shot up his leg. Mercury capitalized on his distraction and stumble, and with a bang that echoed down the hall, used his gun to land a kick to Adam's chin that sent the world spinning. One kick became two, two became four, and Adam found himself sprawled out on the ground. His vision returned to normal just in time to see Mercury lifting his boot. Adam rolled back, let his Semblance take hold and fired Blush. He swept his blade up, and a rolling wall of ruby-red flame blasted Mercury backwards.
The heat was unbearable as Adam jumped to his feet. The air twisted and warped, and the walls glowed with a crackling light of their own. Any normal human who stepped into that hall would die in moments. As it stood, it only left the two of them sweating.
Right. Blocking with his own leg was out of the question. Mercury was on him again in a moment, uncaring for the heat and only redoubling his efforts. Every strike he missed buckled the floor, and every kick Adam blocked shoved him back a good foot or so. Mercury spun and fired his greaves. Adam fired Blush, swung Wilt, and his now-flaming blade slammed into Mercury's boot with enough force to leave the walls groaning in protest from the shockwave. Adam couldn't even sheathe Wilt before he was forced to shoot again to defend himself from another snap kick from Mercury.
In his head, he counted his shots. Two of Fire Dust, then a normal one. His next shot was Ice Dust. Perfect! Adam dove back, but Mercury gave him no time to focus: he turned and thrust his leg forward with the speed of a car piston, each kick firing his greaves. Adam ripped Wilt free and spun it ahead of him. Each blast shook his arm, but he held steady until Mercury realized he wasn't getting through. He drew a line in the metal floor with Wilt and sheathed it as Mercury fired his boots and launched himself forward.
Adam fired Blush one more time. Mercury didn't see his own caught bullets laid out on the ground until it was too late. He slashed out, and a wall of frozen air both banished the heat and struck Mercury back to the ground. His own bullets sliced and ripped past him, leaving trails of sharpened ice across the walls in their wake. One trail wrapped around Mercury's leg. Adam caught a glimpse of metal beneath torn pants legs. Mercury glanced down. The split-second was all he needed.
In a blur, Adam shot forward and sank Wilt into Mercury's leg. His aura bled from the blade and cast Mercury's own aside with ease. There was no cry of pain from Mercury, only an annoyed grunt before he fired his greaves again and slid back. He stumbled, and a spark of electricity jittered from his leg to the ground.
Adam smirked. He'd had prosthetics the entire time, then. He knew what to aim for. Normally, aura would repair the wounds left behind by someone using aura penetration, but that wouldn't work on machinery.
He aimed Blush with one hand and, with a twirling flourish, brought Wilt up, point aimed at Mercury like that of a rapier's. He'd picked up a thing or two from Weiss.
A single sweep of Weiss' rapier, and the floor turned to ice beneath Blake's feet. She leaped atop one of the many stacked boxes, heart racing. Weiss walked closer, unimpeded by the ice, weapon raised and stare determined. Once again, Blake found her hand twitching towards the empty space at her back. She needed to get the lockers: it was the only way that she could stand a chance.
"Don't you even care about how many people are going to die?" Weiss shouted at her.
Blake clenched her fists and pretended the ice in her stomach was just another part of Weiss' Dust. "Of course I do! That's why my job is to prevent as much as possible."
"How misguided!" Weiss flung up an array of ice spears that forced Blake to jump up higher, scrambling up the wall and onto the structural beams above. "Do you think it makes a difference if you're killing one hundred or one thousand?"
"It does when it's the only way!" She gripped one of the beams beside her. "It's not my fault Ozpin's made it like this."
Below her, Weiss scoffed. "As typical as it is sad." She raised her rapier up. "I've heard plenty of that talk from the White Fang before."
Blake squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth. Her ears tried to flatten themselves enough to hurt beneath her bow. "That's not it!" Right? Yes, she was fighting for the faunus in a way. Yes, part of it was through violence. But Ozpin used the students like a shield: what other way was there! This was different. Or was it just her time in the White Fang with a fresh coat of paint? No, it couldn't be! She wasn't a killer. That's why she left. No. She left because it was senseless.
So wrapped up in her thoughts, Blake didn't see the black glyph form beneath her until she was slammed into the ground, washing her thoughts away with waves of pain. The world swayed as she stumbled to her feet. Weiss was lunging for her with such speed that she managed to pierce her shoulder even through a clone.
"Enough talk. You're coming back safe even if I have to shatter your aura to do it!"
Blake shoved past her with another clone and, her aura beginning to bleed away in flickers of purple, made a break for the door. If she could get to the stands, she knew Weiss would never fight her there. She could find Emerald. She could take the time to think.
A wave swam over the wall, then froze in an instant. Blake's shoulders sank. Kidnapped by the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company to be sent off to Adam so that she couldn't right the wrongs committed by an immortal headmaster who tried to once massacre her race.
If this wasn't so serious, she'd laugh. What a joke.
Torchwick's wild laughter echoed throughout the hangar as he stormed forward, firing rocket after rocket. Ruby struck each aside, but every blast of fire pushed her just a little further back. She glanced over her shoulder. The darkening evening awaited only a few feet away through the hangar exit.
"Ugh, what's with the creepy laughing?" A last blast shoved Ruby past the Bullheads.
"Don't you get it?" Torchwick rushed for her, swinging with a direct ferocity Ruby hadn't seen before. She blocked each strike with a twirl of her scythe, but every time she even thought of breaking past him, he redoubled his efforts. "It was a night like this that started this mess, and it's a night like this that's about to end it."
She let Crescent Rose punch through the ground, reached out and caught Torchwick's arm. He flicked his cane into his other hand, end pointed at her. She jumped to the side, dragging him with, and though the loud crash of Melodic Cudgel left her head ringing, the shot blasted a hole in the wall instead of her aura. He pulled back his leg, and Ruby collapsed Crescent Rose and swung it in front of her to block his kick, but it was still hard enough to break her grip on him and launch her up onto one of the dismantled Bullheads' cockpit. That must've been the metal leg.
But the tables were turned, now: from up here, Torchwick was closer to the edge than she was. When he reached into his pocket for another Dust crystal, fake or not, she landed a shot that pushed him to within inches of the open air. She lined up another. Right to his chest. His eyes widened.
She hesitated.
A loud bang resounded from his cane, and Ruby retaliated before she could think with a final shot. It wasn't a rocket, this time, but his cane's hook firing out and latching onto the hole in the wall he'd made before. The chain pulled taut, and it was just enough to leave him with one leg off into the rushing wind. His aura strained and flickered a bright orange.
Ruby sighed in relief, but didn't let her guard down. "Had enough? Maybe you can have my sister's cell when we get her out!"
Torchwick grunted and pulled himself forward, taking shaky steps but not letting his cane go. Slowly, he drew his hand out from his pocket: his Scroll. "You've always been a thorn in my side, you know that?" he growled.
She grinned. "Well, I am a Rose."
"Are you really my enemy?" he groaned. "I should've stuck with the Ice Queen. Still, you kids taught me a lot," Torchwick said with a sly grin. "Like how there's never enough backups."
He'd tapped something on his Scroll before Ruby could react. She caught a flicker of light. The scent of Fire Dust. Then she was launched ahead by flame, heat and roaring wind. Her legs struck Torchwick's chain, and a fling forward was turned into an uncontrolled spiral out into the night. Out into the cold. The autumn air whipped around her in force, and when the swirling masses of color and light righted themselves, Ruby was met with the sight of Amity Coliseum growing further and further away, and sparks of her aura fading with it. She was falling.
There was a glint of light in the distance: Crescent Rose, cartwheeling so far away beneath her. There was nothing but distance between them, and it struck Ruby just how empty the air really was. Despite the fear in her gut, despite the lights of the buildings below leaving her looking like she was falling up into the endless night, despite the ice-cold air, Ruby steeled herself.
Gathering what remained of her aura, she shot off towards her weapon.
She had her landing strategies.
Deep in the core of Amity, the colossal building's main security room was far beyond the size of its secondary cousins. Screens lined the walls ahead and the multitude of desks along each side of it. The officers and soldiers scanning over them sat in tense silence, trained enough to not pay mind to the many shots of the Mistrali celebrity dueling against their own prodigy beyond what was necessary. Ironwood stood beside the door, the only one paying full attention on the battle ahead. Luck wasn't on his side: Pyrrha Nikos had requested not to be taken out; however, one of the strongest possibilities for her Semblance was related to magnetism. This normally wouldn't be cause for concern: Penny Polendina was heavily shielded against its effects.
But that was against mundanity. Machines. Dust. Not whatever magic Pyrrha may draw upon. He closed his eyes and sighed: his machines caught no signs of Cinder's group, either. A blessing and a curse: interference with this match in particular was unlikely, but that was still another minute, another second, that Salem was planning. The White Fang were mobilizing. Salem's pawns were loose. Pyrrha Nikos was not yet safe. Despite having all the knowledge they needed, it still felt like they were losing.
"Smoke and Dust detectors in Hangar 6 have gone off," someone called out. Ironwood's gaze shot to its camera feed. Nothing. He raised a hand to his ear.
"Sergeant Blau, report." Nothing. "Have you entered Hangar 6?" Nothing. The feed remained silent. He took a deep breath.
"If anything goes wrong, be prepared to take everything down," Ironwood ordered a nearby technician.
"The feed?"
"The power." At this point, he didn't know what systems weren't infected. But you couldn't control a system that wasn't on in the first place. "Disconnect Vale from the CCT if necessary. I'll check in on this." Ironwood placed a hand onto his holster and, with a steel gaze, turned and marched from the security room, where so many screens showed angle after angle of the battle between woman and machine.
"I've never seen anything like this!"
Penny marched forward, blades spiraling and twirling in erratic patterns all around her. Pyrrha raised her shield. Over it and beyond her opponent, she could see their auras displayed. She was at half. She hadn't gotten a scratch on Penny in what felt like an eternity. In unison, a thought crossed her mind and was shouted out by the announcers from speakers all around.
"Just where has this girl been hiding all this time?"
Black scars marred the arena, and the edges of her shield still glowed red from the last array of glowing bolts she had to guard. Yet Pyrrha found herself smiling. This wasn't a battle to the death. This wasn't spoiled by foul play. This wasn't a sparring match. This was what she'd always wanted to experience: a real challenge.
The swords descended like darts, and Pyrrha turned, slid and sprung above each, only the slightest nudge of her Semblance pushing them aside. In moments, she was on Penny, slamming her back with her shield. Pyrrha could feel heat burning behind one of her eyes. Power coursing throughout her body. Her aura. Her soul. She wasn't going to give Penny another chance to push her again: every swing of her spear sent out waves of force, every stab narrowly dodged by Penny full of the intent to even the score. This close, Penny's blades couldn't risk coming down on her. She had her entirely on the backfoot. Over her shield, she grinned. Penny grinned back.
Then all at once, her own soul screamed in warning. A blade rocketed out for Pyrrha's eye, and Pyrrha ducked down only to find nothing hitting her shield. Penny swept her legs out from her, and when Pyrrha looked up, she found as many blades above her as stars in the night, all glowing green with gathering energy. Her heart pounded at a mile a minute. Something felt familiar about this. Something felt wrong.
She reached deep inside for the power she'd called upon, and it came pouring out in a blast of magnetism that blasted back not just the blades but Penny herself to the edge of the arena. Pyrrha scrambled to her feet and watched as Penny gripped at her head, but with a thought that wasn't her own, her eyes instead passed over the crowd of their own accord. She was searching. Where was the girl with the green hair? Where was the woman in the red dress?
Her vision swam. Why? Why now?
Emerald tilted her cap down and leaned back, smiling. Her time was almost done here. She brushed a hand over her toolbox and the weapons within.
Just a little further, Adam thought. Silhouettes rushed ahead in the cramped hallway, each swinging out from the next with slashes to Mercury's neck, his legs, his torso. Lines of shredded metal were left across the walls, but every strike was blocked with a single, precise kick. A last strike slammed every aura clone back into Adam, but even as he fell back, he snapped a shot that lit the entire hallway in red. Mercury kicked out a shot to intercept it in the blink of an eye. The corridor between them echoed with the sound of shrieking metal from the clash of shots.
Mercury grunted. When he brought his foot back down, wilting petals trailed from a hole in his boot.
A click of Blush's trigger and Adam cleared the distance, laying into Mercury with a flurry of electrified stabs. Mercury dipped and bobbed out of the way of each, some getting close to leave a trail of electricity leaping from the edge across his neck.
"Wow, so a Schnee can teach an old dog new tricks after all, huh?" Mercury taunted even as he was pushed back, step by step.
"Enough talk." Adam forced him back with a shot from Blush, then sheathed and drew Wilt out once more in an instant. The aura around his blade turned dark, and every swing carved and crushed steel in its wake. "Your plans end here!" He slapped a kick from Mercury down like it wasn't there, spun Blush in his grip and cracked it across Mercury's jaw in a blur. Yet, Mercury laughed.
"You don't even know what you're stopping!" Mercury turned in an instant and swung his leg down with the force of a wrecking ball. The hall blazed crimson as Adam swept Wilt up to meet it. The lights burst, and the hall with it into gnarled metal and shrapnel. Adam and Mercury were both sent sliding back, the space between them now leading down into a barely-lit mess of structural supports never meant to be seen. Both halves of the corridor slowly sank, a quiet but growing whine building from both sides.
A dull, red glow still lit Adam's side. Mercury's silhouette was momentarily given light by his now sparking, whirring prosthetic.
"A girl with the power of polarity," Mercury grunted, "against a robot." Through gritted teeth, he chuckled. "Do you think that was a coincidence?"
This wasn't a good time for her opponent to be distracted, Penny thought. Whatever inner strength Pyrrha had tapped into to put her on the defensive had long faded, but sadly it still had lasting effects on her.
Pyrrha refused to let her get distance, bombarding her with a flurry of stabs from her spear. Her blades came to her aid, deflecting each with ease. Pyrrha swung wide. The air compressed around the spear's edge. Penny stepped in: she could see a weakne—
She tumbled across the arena floor, side burning with the pain of the spear's impact. She had the mind to curse in her head: ever since that pulse, she'd been losing milliseconds of sensation. Her mind was blanking out. Limbs wouldn't respond properly. These were brief enough to keep her in the fight, but it just kept getting in her way. Penny knew she was shielded against electromagnetic pulses, and she also knew that was exactly what Pyrrha had used against her, but was Pyrrha really that powerful?
What else was she hiding?
An internal debate measured in milliseconds ended as Penny's sensors picked up Pyrrha's rapid approach. An energy blast from her swords scattered around shoved Penny to her feet just in time to catch Pyrrha's spear and rip it from her grip. Yet as she ducked and dodged between strikes, her sensors picked up something odd: Pyrrha's aura readings were strange. Unstable, even. They'd suddenly spike to well over double what they should be, only to drop to nearly nothing in an instant. The averages equaled out—which explained why the less accurate readings from the stadium hadn't picked up on it—but it was almost like Pyrrha had two entirely different auras.
In fact, Penny thought as she tore Pyrrha's shield away only for Pyrrha to lay into her with swift, brutal punches, it was like she was fighting a completely different person.
Pyrrha's aura spiked again, and Penny's swords zipped from all around to make a wall. A single punch from Pyrrha sent a shockwave through the arena. Between the rattling blades, she caught Pyrrha glancing around. She must've been looking for her weapons: now was her chance!
Pyrrha's head throbbed. Her vision was swimming. She could rely on experience to carry her, but for how long? For a moment, as the other side of her soul pulled her once again to search the crowd, Pyrrha was certain she caught 'her' gaze. The trickster with red eyes. But who was that?
That was a mistake to think: her head felt like it would split open now, flooded with thoughts that weren't her own. Like being shouted at in a foreign language that she could almost understand, she could feel out the idea of danger, but the specifics kept slipping through her fingers. What brought this all on, Pyrrha thought?
Then there was light.
A full-force beam of energy and electricity sent Pyrrha shredding the arena as she skid towards its edge. Blades, cherry-red and smoking with heat, clattered to the ground all around Penny. Only four blades weren't left to recharge. Only four blades would work, Penny thought to herself.
It was time to finish this.
Black smoke and glowing embers choked the air of Hangar 6. The flaming, gnarled wreckage of the booby-trapped Bullhead Torchwick had used to get rid of Little Red left an uncomfortable, stifling heat to claim the hangar.
In the pilot's seat of his own Bullhead, Torchwick wasn't bothered. His eyes were glued to the stream of the battle coming to its conclusion. Pyrrha on her knees, slowly trying to stand. Four blades raising behind Penny, aimed at Pyrrha like scorpion tails.
He opened his message. A final shot into the dark.
Mercury was trying to waste his time. That much was obvious. Adam had thrown caution to the wind: pieces of the hallway crumbled and fell into the abyss below with every glowing swing aimed at Mercury's neck, but he refused to engage. The only time Mercury would so much as step closer was whenever he'd try to push past to Amity's core or, more concerningly, any time he'd try to make the jump back and escape to Amity's pavilions. How much time did he have left?
Did he have any at all?
Weiss stood over Blake, gaze dispassionate. Blake tried her hardest to fight, but the simple fact of the matter was that Weiss had a weapon. Blake didn't. She never stood a chance to do anything more than stall.
Blake stayed on her knees, not meeting her eyes.
"Even if I wanted to stop it, it's too late now," Blake said.
Weiss narrowed her eyes. "And what do you mean by that?"
Pyrrha caught the lip of the stage and clambered back on. Her chest burned, and she didn't know if it was fatigue or the blast she took. That pain was the only thing that kept her mind from tearing itself apart. She forced herself to look up.
Four blades were poised above Penny. Four became eight. Eight split into sixteen. Sixteen became a swarm. One side of her mind shouted that it was a trick. The other side shouted that it was meant to kill her. She gripped her head as the pressure grew. Was this the process General Ironwood warned of? She regretted this. Who wouldn't? Who would've taken this offer, knowing what it meant?
What destiny was worth this?
The blades plunged down.
Then there was darkness.
Darkness surrounded Torchwick. The only lights came from dim, red bulbs never meant to see use around the exit to the hangar. Those, and the sky-blue screen of his Scroll, almost blinding in the black. They'd cut the power.
[Message sent.]
Torchwick smiled. Too late.
