Rogue Huntsman
Impaled
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"Hard to have a party when the host hides away in her lonely bedroom," Anoel countered.
"Oh, but it's so much fun playing cat and mouse. Surely someone of your career choice would understand?" Quinn asked pointedly.
"I agree with that statement," Anoel replied with a shift in her stance, tilting her soaked hat up to rest her daggered hand on her hip, "but I'm also not a one-tracked sociopathic killer."
"Killer? Yes. One-tracked? Perhaps. But a sociopath?" Quinn paused as her smirk slowly fell. "That's not the word I would use to describe someone who's waited as long as I have to take back what belongs to them."
The woman then let her hands drift toward the two metal coils resting on her hips.
"I've spent an awfully long time trying to get what I want, and I won't be lectured by a hypocrite who knows very little about a very big situation."
Anoel's gaze carefully watched the woman's hands as she quirked her own brow, caution dripping from her eyes as quickly as streams of water fell from her hat. "Then why don't you enlighten me instead of play the vague game you keep hiding behind? You need Ray for a reason. Whether that's to kill him or use him, nobody knows why but you."
"That's exactly the point, sweetheart. Why risk compromising my objective to settle the curiosity of someone who lives and breathes information? I find that a little counterproductive."
Quinn had dropped the playful approach to this as seriousness swept into the atmosphere. The gravity of the situation fell into place as soon as the mood changed.
"You brought this curiosity upon yourself when you spent weeks forcing us into slavery," Ray retaliated aggressively instead. "You brought this curiosity when we had to suffer through long nights of sneaking and hiding from authorities. You brought this when you manipulated us into killing innocents."
Ray threw his arms to his sides as he took a step closer to her, breaking droplets of water falling around him before they could pool at his feet. Inching his way forward as anger boiled inside him.
"And for what?! Dare I ask?! For some hidden objective that you play close to the chest because you fail in every regard to put an ounce of trust into two scared kids running from a daunting responsibility?!"
Anoel held out her own arm, stopping his slow advance with the pommel of her dagger to keep him in place. They needed to fight together, or die separately trying to fight in turns.
"I'll kill you for what you did to Lylac! Being forced to bear witness to you torturing her for the stupidest of mistakes, mistakes that weren't even her own!"
Anoel's grip on her dagger began to nearly sear through the heated metal, but her eyes never moved anywhere away from Quinn's face as she forced herself to stay in place.
God she wanted to take that woman's head off with hearing that…
"I will kill you again and again for what you did! Driving her to the point of suicide because she was forced into thinking that she was worthless!" Ray was growing increasingly unstable as the grip around his pistols tightened. "I'm not sorry for killing you then, and I won't be sorry for doing it now, because when you're nothing but a red smear across the concrete beneath your feet, no one is going to miss you."
Anoel pushed Ray back a bit with the hand she had pressing her pommel against his chest, hoping his infectious rage wasn't blinding him…
Or her.
Even though she could feel her own rage seething behind clenched teeth.
She wanted her dead. But Quinn's manipulation of those around them played others into her hands… And it certainly felt like they were playing back into them here and now.
Ano brought down the building knowing that. But they didn't escape certain death inside just to stroll back into it outside.
"I hope you can channel that hate into unbridled skill, otherwise calm the hell down," Anoel muttered, slowly taking her dagger away from his chest.
A hot breath left Ray's nose as he closed his eyes. "This isn't hatred yet…"
Ray's tone dripped with venom as the light in his opening eyes flared and violet hardlight surged out of his hand, immediately snaking its way toward stacked shipping containers and grabbing hold of them before he threw his arm forward and launched them at Quinn.
They were done talking.
Anoel dipped down in the same moment of the violet surge and darted forward, skipping lightly over the rubble between them to meet Quinn as those containers were landing.
Three shots rang out behind her as she ran, bullets narrowly grazing her shoulders and head to slip by and burrow through the air toward Quinn as well.
When Quinn's hands finally grasped the metal coils by her hips they immediately shifted into a pair of thin, light swords.
She leapt into a flip toward the bullets and Anoel's dash, rapier-like blades effortlessly cutting the rounds out of the air just as one of the thrown crates crashed into the ground behind her.
Anoel's own body lit up in a hazy, fiery light in the rain of the storm, tilting herself up in her run to meet Quinn on her way down, dragging her dagger to grind up the side of one of the woman's swords to force it into the other.
Eight more shots rang out as Anoel invaded Quinn's guard, lodging her dagger's blade into the hilt of Quinn's outermost weapon to try to twist it out of her grasp in an overhead flip.
But Quinn smirked and flipped with her, drawing herself back to slash through Ray's shots before forcing the tip of her sword back down to lodge Ano's dagger in place.
Rain and containers smashed down in curtains around them as Anoel let go of her dagger and swiftly drew her other out of its sheath in a low crouch, driving its edge toward Quinn's stomach, but its tip slammed into Quinn's body with a resounding vibration running through the phoenix's arm.
It felt like she struck metal-
A swift knee struck her harder than her dagger drove home, knocking Ano's head back with something that definitely felt like an unbreakable bone as the info-broker was thrown backward, her first dagger getting tossed aside into the rubble.
Dazed eyes grew wide through the pain as one of Quinn's blades segmented and drew into her whip, silver steel snapping forward to catch Anoel's falling form by the waist and yank her back, constricting edges cutting into her.
Ano's body bled and stung as she was drawn in, the woman drawing her arm back to meet Anoel's form with a brutal punch, but her strike was slammed aside just as quickly as Quinn's body was careened into one of the containers behind her.
Ray's leg lowered to the ground after its brutal encounter with Quinn's ribcage, arm reaching up to swat aside a heavily falling shipping container as he waited for the woman to come back out.
His kick tore Quinn's grip from her weapon, yanking Anoel into the ground but disarming her in the process.
The info-broker's eyes were met with a gloved hand as Ray offered to help her up. "I warned you about getting comfortable up close. Her semblance negates your attacks like they are nothing."
Really? She hadn't noticed.
Ano coughed up a slight splatter of blood as her body shimmered with aura, taking Ray's hand as she stood. Her other soon reached down to yank the tip of Quinn's whip out of her body with a grimace, doing the same with the rest of the entwining metal once the end was out.
"W-Would've been nice to know before the fight," Anoel muttered, tugging the last shard out of its embedded place in her skin to drop it with a clatter to the floor, along with the rest of the whip.
Anoel quickly slammed her boot down onto the base of the blade itself with a heated heel, superheating the metal of the coiled sword before overloading its fine-tuned structure just far enough to shatter the entire weapon.
Before either of them had any time to revel in their small victory, the weapon's twin shot out of the hole in the container, striking Ray in his right shoulder and forcing the boy back a bit as he grabbed the blade. He quickly wrapped it around his forearm just before wrenching it backward.
He pulled its wielder toward them, who in the midst of her flight, planted a hand on his shoulder and flipped over him, yanking her weapon in return and pulling it out from Ray's grasp.
The tip of the blade caught him in the cheek, cutting effortlessly into his skin and drawing a little blood.
Ray didn't even flinch, his aura patching him up moments after.
Quinn's landing was covered by a sweep of Anoel's legs, putting as much force into the movement as she could, knowing the woman had an unnatural amount of resilience to anything she tried to do to her.
Her dagger wouldn't be much use anymore, its only function now deflection… considering it couldn't even pierce the woman's skin.
Quinn hit the ground on her back before rolling backward into a crouched position, holding her sword up and behind her in a defensive stance as she placed her fingers on the ground and her momentum ceased.
"This is a pretty disappointing performance for two well-established fighters like yourselves, I was expecting a more fiery offense," Quinn mocked as she raised herself and flicked her sword down.
Anoel watched a drop of blood strike the ground in a small splatter, the tip of her own dagger slightly blunted from its earlier collision. "Sorry honey, I don't get hot for just about anyone."
The small blade of her dagger glinted for a moment in the moonlight as she considered sheathing it, her gaze flicking to her sword's handle. But a hard blink brought her gaze back away from it as she met Quinn's own again.
She had some sort of cancellation force… or something similar to that. If she brought out her fire, she doubted Quinn would even feel it.
"And here I was expecting a little fireworks…" She sounded disappointed, but it went without saying that Quinn didn't care as her gaze turned to Ray. "Hopefully you'll be more inclined to entertain."
Ray's eyes narrowed in response as he moved into a canted stance. He was reluctant to answer anything she said.
"Oh, come now, you both can't expect to win if you don't pull out your strongest tools," Quinn returned, shifting in her own stance as Anoel walked herself up to Ray's side.
Tools aren't what defines someone's strength, though.
Anoel knew that better than most…
She grew up with Niro, after all.
The phoenix shared a sparing look at Ray for just a second, before turning back to Quinn's smirk, eyeing her for a few long seconds after.
There had to be a real reason behind that mask… there had to be something Quinn wanted in all this. She wouldn't have spent a year of her life investing in the abilities of two children if she didn't.
And it had to be something out of reach from her that she still needed Ray for some proportional part of her goal.
That part alone bothered her… But what sickened Anoel more than that was the possibility of this woman turning back on Ly and deciding to take care of a possible loose end.
One of the few people who knew about her existence.
"You've done enough to the two of them," Anoel spoke quietly, slowly lowering her dagger back down to her side as she lowered her other hand down to the pommel of her sword.
A sword she held a lot of sentiment with…
The weapon she only ever drew when another life was going to stain its steel with more tainted red.
She'd hoped there was some small part of Quinn she'd be able to read in the fight before this, anything that'd convince her that she didn't need to die, but nothing slipped except the willingness to kill in pursuit of a single goal.
And that goal was still kept hidden. Anoel couldn't reach it through normal means, nobody could. Quinn safe-guarded it for some reason.
Anoel hated that.
"You should be more worried about what I'll do to you if you continue this little charade…" Quinn's sinister tone was more indicative of her intent to kill as her smirk faded.
Ray's arm shot out to the side in Anoel's peripheral vision, followed quickly by the mechanical shifting of something else hidden beneath his sleeve.
With a solid snap, the handle of a sword shot into his hand, leather-bound and unused. Four surrounding plates moved to extend outward from its hilt, expanding into a blade with no edges.
"You expect to kill me with a hollow sword?" Quinn questioned, almost amusedly. "You're quite the arrogant one, aren't you?"
A vibrant light illuminated the entire sword, its violet, burning glow rapidly filling the core of the blade and generating a razor-sharp edge.
An action Ray smirked at when Quinn said nothing more.
"Not quite."
"Cute. But you and I both know how well your hardlight's worked out in the past."
The snap of sweeping metal cut into the surroundings like a sudden strike of lightning in the rain, and Anoel was the first to throw herself down into a dodging bend as the cutting edge of Quinn's whip cut through the air.
Ray's newly formed blade snapped down to counter, his frame stepping into it as he slammed Quinn's whip into the floor with the edge of his own sword.
An attack that quickly receded as soon as it was deflected.
"I'd ask for ideas against an invincible woman," Anoel muttered, standing back up from the soaked ground, "but we'd just be wasting our breath. Instead, just give me something sharp to land on."
"I'll keep her entertained, you just wait for an opening."
Anoel watched as Ray stepped in front of her and slowly moved forward, her own eyes watching Quinn for a moment before she started her slow pace around them and to the side.
Quinn's eyes flicked to her for a moment, but a hardlight spine shooting out of the ground brought her brandishing blade back to her front to cut its razor tip down its center.
She was beginning to circle him in return, but Anoel knew the woman's peripheral's and senses were still partially on her.
She needed them to be elsewhere, just for a moment.
Metal clashed as Ray deflected a swift jab for his torso, Anoel's gaze catching the sparks of hardlight slamming into Quinn's blade as he batted the attack to the side.
Anoel started to dip down as Ray brought his sword back with a horizontal swing, a counterattack that Anoel barely saw save for the streak of light burning behind his glowing blade.
Quinn saw it though, and it almost looked like she was expecting it, dropping herself to the floor, his hardlight blade just shy of grazing off a layer of her skin before she sprang back up and kicked him in the stomach.
Something he just tanked through as Anoel continued her slow circling, trying to get behind Quinn and out of sight as another streak of light blazed through the air to force Quinn into a momentary dodge.
She was fast… but she was also careful not to get hit. Anoel's blade was one thing, but that was just normal steel.
Ray's hardlight was a different story altogether.
The fact that it could cut cleanly through a steel wall gave it that kind of backing… but Anoel had no idea what that could do to someone like Quinn.
For all Anoel knew, the woman could still take a full stab from his hardlight and shake it off like it was nothing. But seeing how hard the woman was keeping to avoiding the hits, it was starting to give Anoel just that tiny bit of confidence that her plan would actually do something.
Still...
She watched as something started to boil in Ray's eyes.
The more Quinn dodged, the more rage and anger started to burn and fester in his irises, his focus narrowing in on Quinn's every action as his own attacks quickly sped up their momentum.
He was being precise with his aim, more than Anoel knew he usually did, all of his jabs narrowing in on some kind of nerve intersection or pressure point on her body, trying to stun her as his aggression rose.
Cuts were forming on his body when Anoel finally got into position, Ray ignoring every bleeding opening she stabbed into him and through him as he kept up his relentless assault.
Come on…
Just give me something to work with.
Anoel closed her eyes for a moment as she took a breath, sliding her dagger back into its sheath as a hard, jagged clang vibrated into the air.
Her sharp gaze opened again when Ray stumbled back, her slim hand wrapping hesitant digits around the handle of her own sword as she started to tip forward in her low position on the ruined ground.
She hated drawing it…
She despised drawing it.
The last time it saw any real action was when she cut through every last bandit of the group that traumatized Arex and took everything away from her.
It was made for that purpose alone.
But for this…?
Blood dripped to the ground as it slipped through the cuts in Ray's jacket, streams of it sliding down his arms beneath his sleeves as she watched.
She saw him. But… all she could imagine was Ly standing there in her own blood, being put through her own pain under the ire of Quinn's blade.
Pain Ray was soaking up so Ly didn't have to bear it anymore.
Anoel's breath left her in a shaky, quivering mess for just a moment. Her eyes watching as Ray struck the ground and forced shining violet lights out of its breaching cracks.
She'd always teased Arex for how emotional she got about the ones she deeply cared about… but that was because it ran in the family.
It always did.
It was a feeling Anoel grew to hate. Whether that was seeing it in Arex's eyes, or feeling it inside herself.
She learned to hate it.
Because it always meant someone was hurt.
Or worse.
The cascade of rainfall around her quieted down to a slow, softly beating rhythm as she grit her teeth. The hand she tightly wrapped around her sword's handle squeezed down as her other came to rest on the throat of her blade's scabbard.
Ly may not heal… she may never heal from what happened.
But…
Crimson metal peered through the crack of Anoel's hesitantly drawing hand, a longsword that hadn't breathed in the free, open air in a long time starting to glint in the falling rain.
She can put a stop to Ly having something to heal from.
Or try to.
"You just had to show up and ruin everything…" Anoel muttered under her breath, the sound of the rain picking back up around her as her tight knuckles grasping her crimson weapon's handle drew white.
The ground beneath Quinn's feet ruptured, violet hardlight surging from beneath her to throw her into the air.
Anoel tipped herself forward before closing the distance between herself and Quinn in a fraction of a second, the air and the droplets of rain around her getting torn apart by the concussive push of her extending wings.
Fire blazed around her arms, shooting into the steel of her weapon as she ripped it out of its sheath and got beneath Quinn's slowly turning form in the air.
She couldn't use fire to blast the woman upward, but a billowing orange column of flame surged into the ground as Anoel throw herself upward and lodged the edge of her blade around Quinn's central mass.
Hot metal seared the air around it as she brought them both straight into the air, evaporating the immediate area almost entirely from its drenched rainfall as she punched through the dark clouds above and dragged the edge of her molten blade across Quinn's skin.
Anoel threw the woman ahead of her with the swing, but all it cut through was the woman's clothes.
She knew it wasn't going to be enough, but it was never supposed to.
Quinn seemed to smirk as she righted herself in the air, but only one person had any real advantage in the openness of the sky.
Anoel surged forward with a curve and shove of her wings, beating Quinn's blade aside with an overwhelming difference in actual leverage before driving the tip of her sword against the woman's gut, forcing the both of them even higher.
"Why?" Anoel asked, driving her stab up to lock her edge and guard against Quinn's moving hilt to stop its retaliation.
Black wings pushed them further, but it only drew them closer to a balancing apex now that their momentum was cut off.
"Why do you still need him?"
She hadn't even realized her vision was blurring, stinging from the hot tears trailing from the corners of her eyes.
She knew what she said, but she knew what she was feeling was stronger than the question she was asking.
Why did you hurt her?
Quinn stared into Anoel's gaze, a burning orange ring in her own irises as she frowned. "Because desperation pushes us to do what's necessary, Anoel. Regardless of who gets caught in the crossfire."
"Desperation for what?!" Anoel spat, twisting her sword to try to pry Quinn's weapon out of her grasp, but the two only started to roll in the air and fall back toward the ground.
"To find who I'm looking for," Quinn's reply was low and growled through grit teeth. There was a sentiment in her voice, one that drove her.
Something flashed in Anoel's eyes as they fought, spiraling down toward the brewing clouds far below.
Quinn finally let something slip.
But the click of a pressed button on the woman's hilt sounded in Anoel's ears, something she couldn't have reacted to even if she tried as a burst of lightning ripped through the muscles of her body.
A firm kick struck her in the stomach and forced her downward, two bodies finally piercing the clouds as the bottoms of their brewing, dark sea glowed with a faint, violet light from somewhere below her.
Who…
There was a who…
Anoel's wings were still dead, shocked into paralysis, but her gaze grew narrowed as another flash of gold struck down toward her and Quinn's whip clamped down around her, digging back into her body as the two fell.
More Dust flooded into her as Quinn kept her weapon lodged in place, keeping Anoel between herself and the tip of the towering, razor-sharp hardlight spire she asked Ray to build on the ground.
Its light flooded across the buildings and danced through the falling rain, numb fingers feeling her sword slowly leave her hand as she redirected all of her aura into her arm.
The re-channeled shield sent the rest of her body into a painful lock, the biting edges of Quinn's whip suddenly grinding into her flesh as she let out a pained scream.
She just needed the smallest bit of movement in her hand to grasp her fingers around the sharp reaches of Quinn's whip to take a bloody hold of it.
As soon as she clamped her hand down, Anoel twisted the hard edges around her wrist before ripping it down toward her, throwing herself upward and Quinn downward as she crashed herself into the woman's falling frame.
The lightning passed from herself and into Quinn for a moment in shared agony, forcing her to shut off the electricity coursing through the metal in the last few seconds of their fall.
And it was just enough time to twist Quinn's back down toward the ground, Anoel forcing the woman's body to contact the tip of Ray's massive hardlight spire first at their terminal velocity plummeting into the ground.
But even with all that, Quinn's body crushed through the sharp tip and broke through the rest of the risen spear, the force knocking Anoel off from on top of Quinn's own falling body to plummet off to the side.
Quinn kept her grip of her weapon, pulling it up as Anoel fell to tear her embedded blades from around Anoel's waist in a vicious twist, dropping the phoenix from her weapon's grasp as she broke through the rest of Ray's spire at a slower speed than Anoel's drop.
Hardlight from the spire itself broke off and rushed toward Anoel's falling frame, accumulating on her landing trajectory and bundling together to form a secondary, much smaller spire that rapidly climbed to meet her halfway and eventually catch her to break her fall.
Anoel's gaze squeezed closed as she expected a hard collision, but the hardlight wasn't as hard and sharp as she thought it'd be.
It acted more like a pillow and warped to cushion her body, rather than shatter under her velocity.
It didn't save her from complete harm, but it negated a lot of the damage she would've received if she struck the ground with its collection of rubble from the collapsed building.
Anoel could hear the sound of her own sword striking the ground somewhere far off, hiding itself away on the other side of the spire as she groaned and opened her eyes.
Quinn managed to turn herself around in the spire somehow, her arm moving with her before rearing back then crashing downward at the rest of the structure.
The entire construct shattered into violet embers and sparks, each little illumination fading as they slowly fell and settled on the cold, soaking ground with the rest of the collected raindrops.
The woman herself landed with a hard thud of her boots, the linked blades of her sword coiling to the ground before she stood up slowly.
Unharmed, save for a silvery shimmer of aura.
"Is… that all… you've got?" her breathing was labored, even as she stood it was evident in her chest that she was exhausted from plowing all the way through the spear of hardlight.
Anoel's vision grew blurry as the rain came down around her, every muscle in her body aching and numb. But some parts of it felt warm, soaked with the water she lied in.
Or… was it blood...
A shadow stepped in front of her, and it took her a second to recognize Ray's defensive silhouette, her aura-less body suddenly feeling vulnerable as the last shimmer of her energy died away.
"Oh no, we're not done…" Ray replied grittily, holding his sword to the side. "So long as I'm still breathing, I won't ever be done. Especially not with you."
The boy held a protective stance before turning his head to the side, Anoel drowsily looking up to see a glance pointed down at her.
"Catch your breath, I'll take it from here."
"Y-yeah…" Anoel let her head fall back against the cold ground as she struggled to get oxygen into her system, the numbness spreading into her wings now, "j-just don't die."
Ray sighed. "That's the plan…"
Anoel's eyes slowly closed when he said that.
Sounds of metal clashing and movements breaking through the rain filled her ears as Ray engaged Quinn again, the intensity behind the two blades striking against one another growing as the phoenix's consciousness wavered.
Arex was pacing around the room now. Another hour had passed by with no kind of response from her sister.
Her black scroll still rested tightly in her clasped hand as she moved about, ebony hair bouncing and swaying as she padded around in her socked feet.
Kit's eyes stayed on her throughout the whole ordeal, probably because Arex caved and filled the kitsune in on what was worrying her so much.
And to make matters worse, GHOST was still absen-
A small blue flash from the table by the bed caught Arex's attention as soon as it appeared, GHOST's robed form standing on her projector as her small head stared at a notification in front of her.
"Y-you're back!" Arex quickly made her way over and around the bed, marigold eyes still watching her in their own silent worry as Arex sat on the side of the bed closest to the hologram.
"I am. I had to watch over a system-wide update that could have broken a lot of things if something went wrong while unmonitored," GHOST replied courteously, her brows furrowing when she took a momentary glance at Arex. "Is something wrong?"
"That… sort of justifies it, I guess," Arex's grip grew tighter around her scroll as she lowered her gaze. "Anoel's been gone since all of yesterday. And she's been unresponsive too, which isn't like her."
"I wasn't sure whether to warn you or not, but if you're worried about your sister, I can try tracing her location for you," GHOST suggested. "If that's what you'd want, of course."
"P-please," Arex spoke softly with a small nod. She didn't have the skills yet to track a scroll of Anoel's caliber, and that always scared her whenever her sister disappeared.
GHOST nodded before a map of Remnant displayed behind her from the projector, the AI turning around to face it before her avatar flashed purple for a moment.
Two red lines, one from the top and the other from the left slowly scanned along the map before it pinged and they intersected on the Kingdom of Vale.
The map then zoomed into the kingdom, before the scanning process restarted.
"She's in the kingdom at least," GHOST spoke softly. "Not too far away either."
As she said that, the lines intersected again, this time on the docks in the industrial area.
"I found her, she's at the docks, but she's wi-"
An angry red notification flashed into existence in front of GHOST and the AI's expression immediately went from neutral to one of concern.
"Oh no…"
GHOST… never said that before, and that skyrocketed Arex's worries. "W-What? Who's she with?"
"No… no no…" GHOST opened the notification and her eyes went wide as she read it.
The text was illegible as the AI skimmed through the data, her head slowly shaking as her avatar flared green three times.
Colors Arex hadn't seen on her either.
"G-GHOST…" Arex's hand fell to the bed, fingers tightly gripping the blanket she sat on as her concerned gaze narrowed. "J-just say something. What is it? What's wrong?"
GHOST turned to face her, her body still flashing green as she stared into Arex's eyes with serious worry. "Your sister's in trouble, big trouble..."
Arex's breath locked as the AI's head turned to face the map, small hand dismissing the warning and starting another scan.
The scanning lines were golden this time, and as they crossed over the map, 5 gold dots appeared, each tied to a name.
Two dots were together by the upper-class district, labeled 'Prophet' and 'Snow'.
Two others were in the industrial district too, 'Pyro' and 'Knox'.
But the fifth…
It was at the docks.
Arex's eyes read the name next to the dot.
'Alpha'.
Alpha… they were with Anoel right now. But, why?
"W-Who's Alpha?" Arex muttered. Alpha was either there to hurt Anoel… or they were working together.
"The only Sentinel member you know…" GHOST replied in a whisper.
Ray...
"And he's badly hurt…"
Arex's grip on her sheets tightened further, only loosening just slightly when a soft weight pressed into her back and two slender arms wrapped around her from behind.
Kit's chin found its way onto her shoulder, but she didn't feel all too comforted.
Not like this…
The grip the phoenix held grew lax enough for her to let go of the bed, eyes slowly drawing back to the map to see Prophet's dot start to sporadically move across the map toward Ray and Anoel's location.
The blip disappeared and reappeared in rapid intervals, almost like it was lagging, but it was moving faster than the rest of the dots.
All other members were on their way too…
All but Snow's. Their dot stayed in place.
She… she needed to go too.
Arex reached a hand up to pat Kit between the ears, ushering her head off her shoulder before quickly standing, sliding a long military box out from under her bed.
The only one that contained a fully functional weapon, the same one she finished forging earlier when she came to Beacon.
"Stay where you are, Arex."
Arex's eyes flicked to where GHOST was standing to meet a hardened gaze.
Her avatar was fully green now, but flashed with two other colors too.
Orange and red.
"For your safety, I cannot let you leave this room… I'm sorry."
Arex's body froze as she stared down at her weapon's case, hands closing into fists before the sound of a lock clicking into place filtered into her hearing.
Her gaze transitioned up to their door, then to the window, only to see Beacon's emergency shutters lock down over the glass and shut out the night sky outside.
That blank gaze finally found its way to GHOST, the AI's gaze apologetic before her small avatar's head went back to the digital map.
Arex felt helpless all over again.
"P-Please… just let me fly to her…" Arex's voice was short of its usual breath, falling into a mutter as the fists she tightly closed up fell open.
"I can't… Protocol 1 dictates the protection of innocents must be followed," GHOST replied, eyes glued to the map. "Going there could get you hurt, or worse, considering I don't know what's going on."
"Anoel could already be hurt… o-or worse," Arex retaliated back, but her voice lost the power she was trying to convey through it, just breaking instead. "S-She's an innocent, isn't she?"
"She is, which is why I've dispatched other members of Sentinel to find her," GHOST responded. "But until I can determine whether it's safe for you to go to her, you must remain here."
GHOST turned her body to face Arex fully, something that forced an already difficult resignation down on Arex even further.
"Please, trust me Arex, I wouldn't be doing this if there was a better alternative. I was entrusted to keep you safe, and for that reason alone, I need you to be in a place where I can watch over you."
Arex's lips drew into a thin line as she turned her shaky gaze back to the floor, her pale white irises starting to glisten before she could reach a hand up to wipe away the blurriness. "C-Can you promise me… that they can save her…?"
"Prophet is one of our best. If he can't save her, nobody can. I'm trying to establish a video feed now, to see what's going on," GHOST spoke calmly, her voice softer than before, but there was still concern laced in her speech.
Arex… had to believe that.
She turned her gaze back to the map, watching as Prophet's dot still shot across it in intervals, already closing in on her sister's location.
It was already too late for her to go too, even if she could've.
Her soft gaze traced back to the bed as her legs let her fall back onto its edge, her partner immediately tucking into her side as soon as she was sitting down.
Kit slipped Arex's scroll out of her loose grip, setting it aside as Arex's other hand dropped back against the bed, trying to find some comforting perch by gripping the soft fabric the two rested on.
"J-just… do whatever you have to, GHOST," she murmured, her eyes drifting back to the map as well while GHOST tried to pull up the feed on a separate screen.
"The feed is connecting now," GHOST responded. "Prophet is 15 seconds away, it won't be long until I have confirmation."
Static filled the screen until it finished connecting. When it cleared, it was blank, save for generated images.
It… looked like a heads-up display, with an aura meter, various other bars and a 2D image of a masculine body. Several areas of the body were flashing red, particularly the chest, and a warning flashed in the middle.
'Critical damage: Seek medical attention!'
GHOST's face contorted into a scared look when she read the warning, her body continuously flashing a multitude of colors.
What looked like eyelids suddenly opened, staring at the floor as their focus dipped, the individual in sight soaked with blood as they brought their hands up slowly.
Droplets of crimson liquid dripped from them, falling down and splashing against the wet ground.
To the left of the screen a cylindrical object came into view…
Blood seeped from where the object was embedded in his chest, its long shaft sticking out of his body like a peg.
H-He was… impaled…
GHOST's body started to twitch, still infrequently blinking and flickering as she stared, wide-eyed, at the feed.
"Ray, no…" she murmured, a hint of fear in her voice, "Get up Ray…"
His eyes lost their focus and closed again, blacking out the screen for a few seconds before reopening.
"Ray get up!"
GHOST pleaded at the screen, but something told Arex that Ray couldn't hear her as his eyes looked ahead of him, trying to focus.
"Come on Ray!"
A woman wearing an officer's cap and a black leather suit could be seen in Ray's vision, slowly making her way over to the downed form of someone else.
"Get UP!"
Anoel…
Something was happening on the feed that Arex didn't understand as she watched Ray's eyes slowly focus on her sister, her body being highlighted in the augmented reality overlay.
He kept staring at her as a box appeared on the right of the screen, slowly loading a list of medical data.
Her aura was depleted, she had multiple severe cuts on her body, and her heart rate was beginning to slow as the unidentified woman kept walking toward her.
"Get up Ray!" GHOST yelled at the screen, her eyes struck with fear.
G-GHOST…
"You have to get up and fight!"
Arex and Kitsuki watched as Ray looked down at the foreign object embedded in his chest, hands slowly moving toward its shaft to grip it tightly.
His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened around it before he began to pull it out, blood coating every inch as he steadily removed it from his body. Agonized grunting could be heard as he re-adjusted his grip, grasping at the bloodied shaft as it slowly came out.
The object fell to the ground with a clatter as soon as the tip was dislodged from his chest, water and blood splashing as he fell heavily to his knees and clutched at the hole in his body.
Blood seeped from between his fingers as he steadied himself with his other hand and his vision turned upwards at Anoel's limp form again, keeping her vitals in his heads-up display.
His gaze then returned to the spear he removed, reaching for it with the hand he planted against the ground.
A designated targeting system appeared in the middle of his vision, slowly marking the unnamed individual whose arm was lifting Anoel in the air by her throat.
Arex's fingers immediately tightened on her bedding, hands straining against the comforters as she stared blankly at the screen.
C-Come on, Ray...
He grabbed the spear by its shaft and slowly rose to his feet, taking a single staggered step toward them as he raised it above his head, preparing to throw it.
The targeting was all over the place, but he was aiming for just one area.
P-Please… don't miss...
He reeled back slowly, the targeting system locking onto the middle of the woman's chest, or as close to it as he could get…
With a yell, he launched the spear at the woman, before stumbling over and falling to his knees again.
The spear flew through the air, but missed the woman's chest, embedding itself in her right thigh instead.
She dropped Anoel as her gaze and hands snapped straight toward her leg, right before she collapsed on her knee and removed it with her aura shimmering around the wounded area.
"You just don't know when to quit, do you?!" the woman shouted in pain as she looked at him with rage-filled eyes.
"He doesn't… h-he never does…" Arex muttered under her breath, eyes still staying locked on Anoel's crumpled and limp form on the ground.
Despite the situation, a small, weak chuckle could be heard from Ray, followed by choking.
Ray picked himself up again, left hand still tightly gripping his chest as he coughed out blood.
"You always have to get back up!"
The woman paced her way toward him as he continued to chuckle.
Laughing in the face of death.
"You think you're going to be able to kill me with those injuries?! You're basically dead already!"
"B-better dead than exposed…" Ray wheezed defiantly, his voice breathless. "I'm not trying to kill you anyway…"
The woman stopped her advance, standing in front of Ray with a look of confusion crossing over her face.
"I'm trying to stall you…" his aura shimmered consistently around his wounded chest, despite the aura meter at the top of his heads-up display showing that he had 12 percent left.
Make that 11 percent…
Something hazy started to fill the screen though.
White, illuminated smoke silently lifted behind the woman, seeping into the air around her before the glint of a silver barrel appeared in the white cover at the back of her head.
Her gaze widened in alarm just before a loud, concussive blast blew the smoke away from behind her head, knocking her over as whoever was responsible disappeared and reappeared next to Anoel.
They lifted her in both arms and turned to face Ray, the smoke opening just enough to reveal Prophet's appearance in the display.
His eyes were hidden beneath a pair of wayfarer glasses, their dark glint only darker in the night sky. He was also wearing a black leather jacket with black jeans, no body armor of any kind…
Ray visibly nodded to him before his eyes returned to the woman.
"Game over…" he muttered, just loud enough for Arex and Kitsuki to hear him, before his knees buckled once more and he collapsed onto the ground.
The woman held her hands against the back of her head before her eyes snapped to the boy on the ground, slowly picking herself back up and taking a single step toward him.
But her body came to a halt as the stone in front of her cracked, cut off by a white longsword with black detailing, its blade stabbed into the ground between them.
A hand reached out from the brief, flashing streak of white and black, gripping the blade firmly to draw it from the broken concrete.
"Well well… Looks like you've been busy without me, guys…"
"Dante… he found her," Arex realized, eyes flicking to him through Ray's display.
He didn't just wait around until he bumped into her. He went out of his way to go after her.
He had to have known something was wrong too...
Prophet then teleported behind Dante, grabbing Ray by the arm as he held Anoel in the other.
"Get them out of here and send me their location after."
Prophet turned to nod at him before Ray's vision began to lose all focus and he closed his eyes.
"As for you… Why don't you and I have some fun instead?"
Sorry for the longer chapter. I didn't want to break up the fight scene or stall the conclusion of it until next chapter.
Figured it'd be nice to see it all up front.
Seeing as the chapter was long, I'll save you the displeasure of reading a long AN at the end of it. Or just skipping it altogether, which I do as well.
On a completely unrelated not from the story altogether though...
Anyone here read Citrus? I think I have a new addiction.
If you haven't heard of it, I would look it up. But it's not for everyone.
*totally hasn't been scavenging for good Citrus fics to read* Considering writing one.
For now, Favorite and Follow.
I look forward to seeing REVIEWS for this. You'll be introduced to a LOT of concepts of mine. Feel free to give me your thoughts.
Cya XP