They ran, following the Faunus down deserted side streets, leaving the sounds of city traffic behind them. The tall brick apartment buildings trapped nearby air currents, and the fierce winds whistled about the group as they moved between them, bringing the bitter chill of a late winter afternoon. Cyan ground her teeth and pushed forward. She was fast, but long runs weren't exactly her strength, and she had hoped to overtake him with her initial burst. When that failed, she tried to focus her attention on regulating her breathing, but was finding it difficult to think of anything but her anger. As they ran, and the gap between her and the Faunus began to slowly widen, she felt the anger start to boil over.
Movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned her head to see Lyohniy starting to move past her. His body churned in practiced motions, and his breath came out in a furious rhythm. The seconds ticked by, and he steadily closed the gap between himself and their rescuee. The Faunus flicked a glance over his shoulder, and pushed himself harder. But, try as he might, he could not increase his lead. His frantically searching eyes settled on a gap between the buildings on his left.
"Vermilion, the alley!" Cyan shouted in warning.
Lyohniy surged forward with another burst of speed, "I got him!"
He leapt forward, spreading his arms wide. Cyan locked her gaze on the Faunus again, and saw a flicker of movement.
When Lyohniy reached the Faunus, he wrapped his arms around... nothing.
His mouth fell open from shock, and unfurled his grasp just in time to plant his palms on the corner of the building he was headed towards, preventing himself from smacking headlong into it. The three of them stopped and whirled around.
"What the—" Lyohniy started to say in confusion, "I had him!"
"Where did he go?" Cyan exclaimed, more from surprise than anger.
"Up there!"
The two of them spun and followed Vermilion's pointed arm up to the fire escape attached to the building. The Faunus sat on on the rungs of the third story ladder, gripping tightly onto the railing, and gasping for breath. He then pulled himself up, and started his slow ascent.
"How the—" Lyohniy began again.
Cyan quickly interrupted, "Head down that way and get ready to cut him off."
He responded with a curt nod, his brow furrowing in determination, and started down the alley.
She turned back towards her brother, "Can you shake him loose?"
"I think so." he nodded in reply, "Stand back."
She did, and Vermilion lowered himself into a fighting stance at the bottom of the fire escape. He took a few steadying breaths and pulled his right arm to his side again, palm facing outward. He then took aim, circled his arms into a wild flourish, and thrust a closed fist into the wrought iron metal. The fire escape thundered from the impact sending a tremendous clang echoing down the alley, and Cyan was at once glad that the building seemed to be abandoned. The Faunus lost his footing as the metal frame shuddered violently underneath him, and tumbled backwards over the edge. His grasping hand found the railing, stopping him from falling directly to the ground, but he seemed unable to pull himself up with only one good arm. As he started to look around, Vermilion whirled and struck the railing again even harder. The Faunus was unable to keep his grip and began to plummet towards the ground. He twisted his body in the air, taking a split second to note the positions of the three below him, and promptly vanished from sight.
Cyan's eyes widened, but before she could speak the sound of an impact in front of her drew her attention. The Faunus was crouched on the ground, gasping for breath and seemingly struggling to stand. The same time Cyan and Vermilion started in his direction, he dragged himself up from the ground and ran away from them towards the other end of the alley. Lyohniy shifted his weight back and forth and waited. Cyan smirked.
Alright, she thought, let's see you get out of this one.
If the Faunus hesitated at all when he saw Lyohniy standing there waiting for him, it didn't know in his stride. Lyohniy widened his stance in preparation, slowly curling the fingers of his right hand into a fist. The Faunus ran faster, apparently heedless of what was waiting in front of him, or simply not caring enough to consider him an obstacle. Lyohniy waited until he was less than a meter away before he made his move. He swung his right arm in a high arc over his head, and crouched to one knee, smashing the fist into the ground at his feet. A thin, translucent circular bubble form around him rapidly spreading outwards until it encompassed the width of the alley, and an equal distance overhead. The walls on either side began to buckle slightly where the shield pressed into them, and the whole area glowed with a greenish tint.
If the Faunus noticed it, he wasn't deterred. In the same instant that Lyohniy had created his shield, the Faunus leapt through the air at him and disappeared once again.
"Woah!"
The circular shield rippled from sudden impact, and Cyan tried to peer through it to see what caused Lyohniy's startled reaction. She could him seem to stumble and lose his footing. As he did, the shield flickered and quickly dissolved from sight. Vermilion and Cyan closed the distance to his position and found Lyohniy propping himself up over the unconscious form of the Faunus.
"What happened?" Cyan asked.
"I don't know." Lyohniy huffed out, his effort with the shield seemingly taking more of a toll than he thought it would, "It was like, I blinked and suddenly he was in here, right behind me."
"It must be his Semblance." Vermilion said, "Some kind of teleportation."
Cyan nodded. That would seem to explain things.
"That's something different." she said in disbelief.
"It's rare, but not unprecedented." Vermilion replied, "It looks like he tried to go around your barrier, but misjudged the distance and collided with it from the inside."
Lyohniy managed to catch his breath, and glanced down at the Faunus below him, "He doesn't look so good."
Cyan knelt down, and touched two of her fingers gently to his neck, "He's exhausted. He must have overexerted himself trying to get away from the gang. With a Semblance like that it's the only way they would catch him."
Her eye's moved down to the arm still held at his chest. Vermilion helped her upturn his body, and she saw the chain of her pendant still clutched in his hand. His fingers loosened reflexively when she touched them, and the pendent fell easily from his grasp. She breathed a sigh of relief and refastened it around her neck as she stood. She frowned down at him as Lyohniy and Vermilion watched her carefully, saying nothing.
She met her brother's gaze with a look of guilt, "What?"
"He still needs help." Vermilion said sternly.
"Fine." she said with a curl of her lip, "Let's bring him with us."
Lyohniy got to his feet and knelt back down between them, facing the alley exit to the street, "I'll carry him."
Vermilion and Cyan lifted the unconscious Faunus, taking care not to put any pressure on his injured arm. They lifted him onto Lyohniy's back, and he leaned forward wrapping his arms around the Faunus's legs. He was heavier than he looked, and Cyan had exerted more than a little effort to move him. If Lyohniy had noticed the weight at all, it didn't show. He stood up smoothly, carried the Faunus piggyback-style out of the alley, and the three of them headed home. Cyan kept her eyes glued to his unconscious form the whole time.
It was about ten minutes later that Vermilion finally said something to her about it, "If he did overextend his Semblance, he's going to be unconscious for hours."
Cyan didn't look at him as she responded, "No point in taking any chances."
"Chances?" he said, "Bringing him with us was your idea."
"Well, I'm full of bad ideas." she snapped back, "Besides, that was before..."
She trailed off, and Vermilion turned to look at her more closely. She turned her head to the side, hoping to hide her expression from him.
Vermilion kept his tone cautiously neutral, "I don't know why he did that either." he said, "But he must have had a reason."
"Like being an opportunistic thief?" she said, not really looking for an answer.
"Is that what you saw back there?" Lyohniy inquired, doubtless referring to the gang of five Faunus surrounding him.
Cyan chewed on the thought. She was the first to get a real good look at him after the gang had been dealt with. Despite what just happened, her instincts told her he wasn't a bad person. And they hadn't let her down before. Slowly, she shook her head in reply, "No."
"Maybe we should hear his side of things then." Lyohniy said.
Vermilion nodded in assent, "I'm sure any of us would want the same..."
His words cut off, and he swayed on his feet. Cyan caught him by the shoulder before he lost his balance.
"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly.
He placed a hand on his forehead, and steadied himself against the building with his other, then closed his eyes and nodded, "Just a little tired. I'll be okay."
Lyohniy glanced over his shoulder with a triumphant grin, "Told you so."
Vermilion looked indignant, "It's a work in progress."
Cyan gave the two of them a questioning look, "What?"
Lyohniy started snickering, which earned him a scornful gaze from Vermilion, "He said I would pass out the first time I tried to use my Semblance in actual combat."
"Oh." Cyan replied, and looked at the ground dejectedly.
"Close enough, anyway." Lyohniy said, still grinning.
"Well some of us haven't had almost a year to practice." Vermilion said.
Lyohniy continued laughing, but made no further comment. Cyan sighed loud enough for both of the others to noticed. Vermilion regarded her thoughtfully, then nodded in understanding.
"Don't worry about it." he said to her, "I'm sure you'll figure out your Semblance soon."
Cyan glared up at her brother, "That's not what I was thinking."
"Of course not." Vermilion said, but she could see he was working hard to keep a grin off of his face.
"...I hate it when you do that." she said with a slight growl.
They walked in silence until they left the city behind and reached the suburbs. The paved streets and sidewalks gradually gave way to grass fields and tree-lined roads, and the sounds of bustling traffic fell away to chirping birds and the gentle caress of wind billowing through treetops. Cyan had spent the time preparing a reasonable explanation for where they had been, and was soon ready to field any questions from the neighbors as to why they were carrying an unconscious Faunus home with them.
Much to her surprise, the roads leading up to her neighborhood were void of activity. No one walking the fields, no cars passing them by, and even the traffic from the nearby Atlesian airstrip seemed surprisingly sparse. It didn't take her long to realize something was seriously wrong.
"Where is everyone?" she asked.
Vermilion blinked as if suddenly becoming aware of his surroundings, and made a concerted effort to take them in, "I'm not sure."
"What's that?" Lyohniy asked, nodding in the direction he was facing.
Up ahead, they could see what appeared to be faint wisps of smoke trailing up over the horizon. The twins exchanged nervous glances, and began to quicken their pace. When they crested the final hill, they at last saw the reason for the deserted streets. Several dozen people, accounting for nearly every house within walking distance, were surrounding her home. They were waiting just behind a perimeter that had been established by a score of police officials and emergency response vehicles. The house itself was almost entirely engulfed in flames.
The three of them stopped. Cyan's breathing grew shallow, and she felt her throat tighten, strangling off any attempt to vocalize what she was seeing.
"Oh no." she heard Vermilion start to say behind her, "What—"
He didn't have a chance to finish before Cyan dashed down the hill towards the house. Vermilion didn't waste any more words, instead following closely on her heels.
"Wait up!" Lyohniy shouted, and struggled to keep pace with the weight of his passenger.
At their top speed, it didn't take the two of them long to reach the edge of the crowd. Cyan desperately pushed her way through the throng of people until she ran headlong into one of the police officers trying to keep the crowd out of harm's way. He placed both hands on her shoulders and stopped her forward movement, pushing her back so he could look her in the eyes.
"Woah, behind the line." he said, in a rough authoritative voice.
Vermilion reached her side and she she looked up at the officer, her eyes full of fear, "Dad. Where— where's my dad?"
"Dad?" he inquired, "Is this your house?"
Vermilion took a step forward and put one hand on the officer's forearm to get his was fear in his voice as well, but it was far more subdued than her own, "Yes. Is Dr. Athelward okay?"
The officer frowned deeply and glanced over his shoulder. Cyan felt her insides twist into knots.
"We think he's still inside." the officer replied with dismay, "But we—"
Cyan didn't wait for him to finish. She slipped free from his grasp and ducked around him. Before he could even shout a warning to the nearest officer, she was past the perimeter and more than halfway to the patio.
"Hey!" the officer shouted in vain, "You can't—"
His momentary lapse in focus allowed Vermilion to slip by him on the other side. The officer managed to get a hand around his arm, but the boy easily wrenched himself free.
"Hey! Don't go in there! The Dust could blow at any time!"
A look of terror crossed Vermilion's features, and he raced even harder to catch up with his sister.
Cyan reached the patio and bounded up the steps. Flames licked the interior walls, lashing outward from the downstairs windows. Nearby emergency responders propelled water at the blaze in a largely futile attempt to keep it under control. From the looks on their faces they seemed mostly content to let the fire burn itself out. The front door was still standing, almost entirely ablaze. She quickly slipped out of the jacket that she wore as part of her school uniform, and balled the heavy fabric over her forearms. When she reached the door, she raised her arms in front of her and dove headfirst into it, shattering the weakened wood to splinters. Immediately, she was greeted by the conflagration that raged just beyond it. The fire surged around her, crackling in an almost deafening roar. The heat was incredible, and made her dizzy enough to want to pass out. She tucked her body, and turned the dive into a forward shoulder roll, ending in a crouch in the middle of the living room.
"Dad! Dad, where are you?" she frantically called out, and was almost immediately brought to her knees by the smoke that coiled about the room.
She pressed the jacket over her mouth, wiped the sting away from her eyes, and scanned the room. He wasn't here. Off to her right, she could see the table collapsed in the dining room, and behind it the stairs leading to the second floor. She turned her attention forward to the kitchen, took several rapid steps forward and prayed he was in there. If he was upstairs, she might not have time to find him, and almost certainly wouldn't have enough time to get him out.
She turned the corner past the arch leading into the kitchen and felt her heart sink again. Her father was lying on the ground, face down, just to the right of the wall stove, with an overturned chair sprawled on his back.
"Dad!" she shouted over the roaring flames.
He didn't move. She bolted to his side, fell to both knees, grasped him by the shoulder and shook violently, but again elicited no response. She grabbed at his shirt sleeve, turned him over onto his back, and began pulling him away from the table. It was then that she noticed the lack of rise and fall from his chest. Hysteria began to grip her, and she desperately felt around his chest to see if anything might be broken. When she felt a warm sensation she pulled her hand back, and it came away stained red with blood.
Oh no, no, no…
"Cyan!"
She looked up from the floor, shielding her eyes from the impossibly bright glare of the flames, and saw Vermilion in the living room headed her way. He moved quickly across the floor to reach her, but with another roar of flames the doorway to the kitchen suddenly fell to the ground in front of him. He cursed, and slid to a halt, allowing himself to deliberately fall backwards so as to not to run into the debris.
"Vermilion!" she shrieked, her voice reaching a fever pitch, "He's not breathing!"
"Take him out the back!"
Cyan whirled from her position on the ground towards the direction of the back door. The door had collapsed from it's frame, and beyond it she could see the outside awning had fallen into a pile of burning timbers. There was no way through it.
"It's blocked!" she tried to call back, but the flames had intensified so much that she barely heard herself over them.
"You have to get out of there!" she heard him shout again, "The Dust!"
Her eyes widened in fear, and her gaze fell upon the stove sitting against the wall. While the fire consuming the house maintained a distinct orange hue, the flames spewing out of the oven door were a bright yellow. The Dust lines hadn't been closed off, and the particles that provided heat for the stove were igniting from the intense flames. Any more instability and they might…
Her brother's panicked voice rose over the endless roar of the inferno, "Cyan! CYAN!"
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Cyan rose from the ground. She looked at the room around her, looked down at her father lying motionless on the ground, and looked at her brother nearly eclipsed by the flaming debris that blocked the doorway leading out from the kitchen. She closed her eyes tightly, and a cry of rage and frustration escaped from deep inside of her.
The sickly yellow flames in the oven suddenly burst outwards into a devastating plume of fire and energy. The impact lanced across her chest, blowing the breath from her lungs. The debris from the fallen ceiling was thrust out of the room, and Vermilion dove away from the blast, rolling to the side once he hit the ground to avoid the potentially deadly fragmentations. Though much of the fire had been extinguished from the force of the shockwave, the Dust that had just been ignited would provide more than enough fuel to bring the house down around them.
But it didn't.
Vermilion struggled back to his feet and made his way to the now-cleared entrance to the kitchen. He saw their father lying on the ground, and he saw Cyan standing over him. No, that wasn't right. She wasn't just standing, she was straining; raised up on the tips of her toes, her arms stretched as far out to her side as far she could manage. Her body was surrounded by a translucent blue aura, as the fires around her rapidly burned down to cinders. Her eyes were forced closed as the blast flowed steadily over her, the yellow flames shifting in color to match her aura. The flames were soon dissipated entirely, and the aura that surrounded her glowed brightly for several more seconds before fading. When it was gone, so was any trace of the explosion. Like it hadn't even happened.
At last, she released the tension in her limbs, drawing in several long, labored breaths. Slowly, she turned her head to look in her brother's direction. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she was struggling to keep them open.
"Cyan…" he said in disbelief, and took a few steps towards her.
She bowed her head, seemingly looking down at her father again. Then she dropped her arms to her sides and collapsed to the ground. Vermilion hurtled across the kitchen in time to catch her before she landed on the hard ceramic floor. He fell to the ground with her, cradling her limp body gently in his arms. She could hear the sounds of the police running into the house, and was determined to stay awake, locking her gaze on her father. But it was hard. She was so tired…
Her brother's voice echoed in the back of her mind as she surrendered herself to the blissful peace of darkness.
