Beta reader/editor: Wyncrer the Sage
Jaune raised his shield and just in time as one of the robot's guns fired a blast that slammed into his shield, lifting him off his feet and throwing him across the room. Jaune tumbled heavily across the ground, losing his grip on his sword and shield before coming to a stop.
His ears rang, his left arm felt like it had been trampled by an Ursa and his head swam as he struggled to his feet, before one of Pyrrha's first lessons resurfacing in his mind. Never stay still in a fight. Looking back at the robot confirmed that it was once again aiming at him. If he needed any confirmation that Merlot wanted him dead, this was it.
Just before the guns could fire, Yang tackled Jaune out of the way, the two of them narrowly avoiding the blast.
Jaune tried to stand back up, but Yang was faster and pulled him up by his hood, screaming at him to move as she dragged him after her as she ran to avoid the energy projectiles that rained down behind them. The blonde shot a continuous stream of fire at the robot's head as she ran, hoping to blind whatever cameras or sensors it had.
Her plan technically worked, except their mechanical opponent dealt with this handicap by firing wildly around the room. The blind fire took out the floor to ceiling windows, letting in a rush of air and light.
The burst of wind momentarily pushed Yang's fire away from the machine, and that was all it took as the robot aimed and fired at the wizards. Jaune summoned a shield to protect them, but the force was still enough to throw them off their feat. Yang slammed into the wall near where they came in, where she could only watch as Jaune was thrown towards the shattered windows, hitting the ground near the edge before bouncing over.
Ruby aimed Crescent Rose at the Beowolf rushing up the stairs and not a moment later it's head exploded the moment after she fired a round.
With no time to relax, Ruby turned to dispatch another Beowolf that was trying to break through the ice barricade she had made in the passageway. The monster fell only for its place to be taken by another. Ruby pulled the trigger on her rifle, only for the gun to make a dry click that marked an empty magazine.
Ruby ejected the spent magazine and reached back to grab a full clip, feeling dread pool in her stomach as she realized the magazine she was grabbing was her last one. Steeling her resolve she loaded the clip and took aim, only for the Beowolf to be taken out by a slightly quicker gunshot.
Ruby looked to the origin of the gunshot to see, to her amazement, Pyrrha sitting against the wall with Miló in its rifle form. Ruby's relief at seeing Pyrrha awake was immediately overshadowed by concern as she took note of the blood running down her face and the way she winced as she tried to adjust her position.
"Don't try to move," Ruby commanded as she knelt down in front of her injured friend, taking Miló from her weak grip and laying it down next to them.
"I'm fine, I can still-"
"No."
Pyrrha seemed momentarily taken back by Ruby's refusal. "Ruby, I-"
"I said no!" Ruby's refusal came more forceful than before. "You didn't see the wreckage, you're lucky to be alive right now. I'm not letting you get yourself in even more trouble by trying to fight as you are."
Their argument was interrupted by the sound of more Beowolves rushing up the stairs. Pyrrha reached for her weapon, only for Ruby to snatch it up first, her speed being great enough to outpace Pyrrha on a good day.
Miló in hand, Ruby spun and fired on the oncoming Grimm, felling them with precision headshots. Looking up at Ruby standing with her weapon still aimed at the stairs, Pyrrha released an exasperated and slightly pained sigh.
"There really is no chance of you letting me fight is there?"
"Nope."
Down in the basement Weiss wiped beads of sweat from her forehead as the heat in the reactor room steadily increased. Once she had begun helping Dr Oobleck with the reactor, it had quickly become clear what Merlot had done. The additional wires and connections that the mad scientist had attached had been placed to side-step safety features and fail-safes built into the reactor.
As a result, the reactor was using up increasing amounts of lightning dust and if they couldn't stop it, then the amount of dust in the reactor would surpass the threshold of what the reactor could harness.
"Dr Oobleck, if we can't stop this, what's going to happen?" Weiss asked tentatively as she adjusted a set of dials.
Oobleck paused his work for a moment to ponder the question, before stating matter-of-factly. "First the dust in the reactor will detonate violently, vaporising everything in this room and destroying the tower's foundations, leading to a chain reaction facilitated by Merlot's adjustments, that will cause the entirety of the tower's dust reserves to catastrophically explode.
'The tower will then collapse, crushing anyone not killed by the reserves exploding and most likely falling into the undercity. Until then the temperature will keep increasing to dangerous levels." With that, the bespectacled wizard went back to preventing the overload as Weiss was left regretting her question.
Jaune had thought looking down from the top of the atrium was bad, the view from outside Merlot's office was much worse, made even more so by the howling wind that threatened to pull him off the hard-light sword stabbed in just below the broken window.
Over the sound of the wind he could hear the sound of the Spider Droid's guns firing and Yang's shouting. I can't leave her to fight that thing alone, Jaune thought as he grabbed onto the edge of the broken window. He could feel pieces of glass poking into his palm through his glove but he ignored it as he grabbed on with his other hand and let the sword disappear.
It was then, as he started to pull himself up that he saw the unmistakeable form of Blake swinging around the building, from what he could only assume was another window, and in through the broken windows.
When she swung in, she did so with both legs stretched out in front of her, and both arms outstretched above her head grasping the ribbon she swung in on. To Jaune, she looked like something straight off the pages of a comic book, and that was before she somehow slammed the robot with enough force to make it stumble back.
Jaune had now pulled his shoulders over the edge, and from where he was he could see how the fight had been changed by Blake's entrance.
The two wizards worked in perfect tandem, when one struck high the other would strike low, all ways from different sides. The machine struggled to keep track of either of the wizards as Yang would launch herself across the room with shots from her gauntlets, and Blake would disappear into shadows only to leap out from somewhere else.
But Jaune quickly realized a problem in the fight. Despite the repeated strikes from the two girls, the robot was showing no serious damage. It only took Jaune a few more seconds to realize why. Due to the firepower of the robot and how fast it could aim, Yang didn't have the time she needed to use one of her more powerful attacks.
This gave Jaune an idea, and although it wasn't a good one it was all he could come up with. As he finished climbing in through the window, he stood tall and focused his mind on the image Weiss had shown him during training.
"Light Make: Armor!"
As the words came out, white light coalesced around his body before taking shape. Greaves formed over his shoes and lower legs, then came a layered cuisse over his thighs, after that was an ornate breastplate, followed by armour over his upper arm and a vambrace layered similarly to the cuisse. Finally, the light gathered around his head forming a helmet that covered all but a slit for his eyes.
Jaune's spell hadn't gone unnoticed by the others in the room with Yang glancing at him as she dodged back from an attack. Even with all that had happened, she struggled to believe what she saw.
It wasn't the fact that Jaune was somehow back after going over the edge or that he had created armour, but the design of the armour itself was one Yang had seen once before. Weiss had shown team RWBY the image of that when telling them the story behind her scar.
Before she could think more on it, she noticed that the Spider Droid had noticed him as well, although it was hard not to when he was standing there like a six-foot bright white glow-stick. Deciding to go for the target that wasn't moving, the robot fired at Jaune with its four cannons.
Yang watched as, instead of dodging, Jaune braced himself and summoned a shield, one that seemed much more defined than it had before. The image of Jaune disappeared in a cloud of dust, smoke and rubble as the bright-blue energy projectiles slammed into where Jaune was standing.
Yang stood frozen as she watched the dust settle, praying to whoever might hear her that her friend would still be alive, when a voice called from the cloud.
"I've got its attention, now hit it Yang!"
Yang acted on Jaune's words and launched herself onto the back of the Spider Droid, landing with her hands on its head.
"Fire Magic: Dragon's Roar!"
The stream of fire washed over the robot's head and Yang's hands, her magic protected her from the heat but her clothes started to scorch from the proximity to the fire. When the flames subsided, Yang was left staring at the slightly blackened but otherwise unharmed robot head. The head then spun one-hundred and eighty degrees, causing Yang to lose her grip and flail around for a new handhold.
When she finally righted herself, she was left staring into a line of dinted glass, resembling an eye slit, that Yang guessed housed the cameras and sensors it used to see. Pulling her right arm back and clenching her fist, Yang prepared to attack.
"Fire Magic: Blazing Strike!"
Realizing its sight was at risk, the robot started spinning its body around and moving its gun arms around wildly to shake its attacker. A flailing arm struck Yang in the head and knocked her clear of the Spider Droid. The machine quickly moved to crush the wizard that had shown herself as the greatest threat.
"Shadow Trap!"
Blake's voice rang out across the office and as it did, hands of pitch black reached out from the machine's shadow and grabbed hold of it. Jaune, seeing an opportunity, summoned out Crocea Mors and charged at the restrained robot.
As he got close, the robot managed to point one of its gun arms in Blake's general direction and fire. Unable to move while her spell was in effect, Blake wasn't able to dodge in time and was blown of her feet, breaking the spell. The Spider Droid was free again, and just as Jaune had got within striking distance, the body spun and Jaune was smacked away by one of the arms, his magic armour being the only thing stopping the hit from shattering bones.
With the other two down the robot turned its attention back to Yang, just as she finished gathering her magic. "Fire Magic: Solar Flare!"
Ruby fired a trio of shots as a couple of Creeps tried to get through her failing ice barricade before hearing a sound behind her. She turned quickly, ready to deal death to any Grimm coming up the stairs, only for a hand to take a hold of Miló's barrel part way through the turn.
Panic momentarily overtook the young wizard's mind, until she saw that the one holding the barrel was Ren. Ruby released a sigh of relief. Help had arrived.
While Nora knelt next to Pyrrha and started barraging her with questions, most of which were related to her injuries, Ren strode past Ruby towards the barricade, raising his weapon as he did so.
While Ruby's Crescent Rose suffered in close, tight spaces, Ren's StormFlower came into its own. A few controlled bursts of rapid gunfire cut down another group of Grimm before they could even make it to Ruby's barricade.
"Nora, can you carry Pyrrha?" Ren asked.
"On it," Nora replied, sounding far more serious than Ruby could ever remember hearing her.
"Good, then let's get moving back down."
"But Ren, we were meant to warn everyone that went to the top," Nora reminded him, worry evident in her voice.
"We can't warn them and help these two at the same time, and right now Pyrrha's injuries make her the priority," Ren countered. "We just have to hope Weiss succeeds."
"What are you talking about Ren? Why do you need to warn the others?" Ruby asked, fear creeping into her voice.
Ren took a breath before he explained. "Merlot is jamming our communications, has rigged the dust reactor in the basement to explode, and it is very likely that there was another trap prepared for those that made it to the top."
Ruby's eyes went wide with shock "We need to get up there and tell them. They could be in trouble, we need to help them."
"I already explained why we can't. Even if you went by yourself they would've already sprung whatever traps up there or be on their way down with Merlot. Either way there's not much you could do and you would only be making things more dangerous for Pyrrha." Ren countered, unnervingly calm despite all that was going on.
"I'll be fine," Pyrrha said weakly, her words however went ignored as Ruby and Ren squared off.
"That's my sister up there I can't just leave her!"
"Blake also went up. Those two can take care of themselves."
"Sure, they can take care of themselves, but what about Jaune!"
"What about Pyrrha."
Ruby opened her mouth to continue, but was interrupted as Nora's scroll rang, instantly gaining the attention of the whole group.
The girl, who had been silently watching the tense exchange, opened her scroll to be greeted with the sight of Weiss's face. It was obvious from a glance that Weiss had been working hard, the sweat running down her face and that she was no longer wearing her jacket being the clearest indicators.
"Nora, it was close, but Dr Oobleck and I were able to stop the overload and shut off the reactor. Have you made it to the top yet?"
"Hey Weiss! We aren't at the top yet. We did run into Ruby and Pyrrha though. Pyrrha's pretty banged up and I think Ruby almost shot Renny when we got here," Nora debriefed, the relief of being free from the threat of a reactor explosion lulling her back into her usual, cheerful self.
Weiss stared at Nora through the screen in a mix of shock and confusion. "Nora, could you please hand the scroll to someone else?"
"Okie-dokie," Nora said as she made to pass to Ren, only for Ruby to snatch it.
"Weiss! What's all this about a reactor exploding? What happened down there?" Ruby asked, gripping the scroll tightly.
"Never-mind that, it's all dealt with now. Why aren't you and Pyrrha at the top?" Weiss replied.
Ruby went to answer, but she stopped dead in her tracks as a piece of rubble far larger than any of them fell past them, from what could only have been the top of the atrium.
The fire of Yang's spell washed over the machine, its heat so intense that even in his armour, Jaune had to turn away from the blaze while Blake retreated into her shadow form. When the flames died away Yang was left exhausted, swaying on her feet where she stood.
As for the robot, it had steam coming off it in waves as it moved its gun arms away from where they had protected its head. Jaune felt his stomach drop at the sight as fear gripped his soul. The Spider Droid had taken such a strong attack from Yang and was still standing. If it could take an attack like that and keep going, then what chance do we have? Jaune couldn't help but think.
It only got worse as the Spider Droid joined its four arms together to make one massive cannon that it then trained on Yang. As the gun charged, Yang planted her feet and raised her arms into a block as though she planned on taking the brunt of blast on her forearms.
Jaune made to run forward, intent on tackling Yang out of the way as she had done for him, only to be held back by Blake.
"What are you doing?!" he yelled. "That thing's going to kill Yang!"
"No, it won't," Blake intoned, her voice calm and sure. "She's got this."
It was then that the robot fired and a beam of bright blue slammed into Yang and pushed her back, before she lost her footing and was thrown across to the far end of the room. Jaune watched in horror as his friend was sent flying by the blast, but then his horror turned to shock and awe as Yang stood back up with her hair aflame and her eyes shining a bright red.
"What the-?" Jaune asked in shock.
"That's Yang's unique magic, a counter spell called the Flames of Vengeance. It allows her to turn an enemy's attack in to magical energy she can use in an all or nothing attack," Blake explained.
With a furious roar, Yang leapt though the air towards the Spider Droid and as she did Jaune had an idea.
"Yang! Hit the ground under it!" Jaune yelled.
Yang must have heard him as she changed targets, and as she came down she struck the ground between the Spider Droids two front legs with all of her might.
"Fire Magic: Super Blazing Strike!"
As Jaune expected, the ground, already weakened from the robot's constant bombardment, cracked and started to fall away. Blake raced forward, grabbed Yang and pulled her away from the rapidly spreading hole in the floor.
As the robot fell through the hole, unable to out race the collapse, Yang and Blake made a final leap to safety, the two of them tumbling along the ground together until they came to a stop with Blake lying on top of Yang.
Yang looked up at Blake with a tired grin and said. "This is pretty bold of you. You know Jaune's still in the room, right?" Her statement earned her a light-hearted punch in the arm.
Down on the ground floor, Weiss looked away from her scroll to see a massive robot falling from the top of the atrium. She did a quick calculation in her head and realised in horror that the robot was going to slam through the ground floor and into the reactor in the basement.
"Ruby! Get out of the tower now!" she yelled with as much urgency as she could.
At the same time, the blast doors over the building's entrance were blown in and standing there was one pissed off Coco.
"Now, which one of you ass-hats thought it would be a good idea to lock us outside?"
Instead of an answer, she got Weiss and Dr Oobleck bolting out the hole she made with a quick shout of "Run!" Trusting the urgency in their voice, Coco collapsed her minigun and chased after the fleeing wizards back into the ruined city. They barely made it across the street when the ground started to shake.
As Weiss had predicted, the large mass of the Spider Droid carried it through the ground floor and into the reactor room, where it exploded and, in doing, so set off the dust in the reactor. As Oobleck had anticipated, the ensuing explosion of several kilograms of lightning dust annihilated everything in the room, including the Spider Droid. The explosion was fierce enough to reach the Merlot Industries Tower dust reserves, a store holding enough dust to power the entire tower for a year, all igniting in an instant. The explosion ripped through the first ten levels of the tower and reached high into the atrium.
Rather than trying to navigate the passageways to the edge of tower, Nora blew apart every wall in her way as the four wizards raced to escape the building. Ren kept any Grimm at bay as Ruby struggled to assist the much taller Pyrrha.
With Nora's destructive path-finding, they managed to find and quickly destroy a window, clearing an exit for the group. Nora leaped out first with Ren diving after, both with their own landing strategies.
Ruby however, paused when she got to the edge, looking for somewhere to land. Quickly deciding on a landing zone, she called on her magic and Pyrrha and Ruby became a torpedo of red and bronze that flew across the street to the roof of a nearby building.
The trio of wizards up at the top, unaware of the reactor, were slower to react, only realising the extent of the danger as the whole room seemed to fall a meter. Without needing to say a word, the three ran to the shattered windows, being careful to avoid the once again growing hole in the floor.
Blake reached the window first and threw herself clear of the collapse. Jaune got to the window second and he stopped to check on Yang only to see the exhausted fire wizard just a few meters away when the floor dropped out from under her.
Jaune dived across the ground and managed to catch Yang's hand, only for the ground to collapse beneath him and drop them both into the atrium. Jaune couldn't stop the terrified cry that escaped his lips as they fell into the atrium.
Ruby placed Pyrrha down gently before calling out to Weiss, who was arriving on the rooftop with CFVY and Dr Oobleck.
"Weiss, there still up there!"
She didn't need to say anymore, after working together as much as they had, Weiss already knew what Ruby had in mind.
"Gravity Cannon!" the heiress called out as three glyphs appeared above Ruby pointing up and towards the tower.
Ruby gathered her power before jumping into the first glyph as she engaged her magic. The result was Ruby shooting towards the tower faster than a speeding bullet. The wind blasted her face, but she ignored it as she saw an opening as the tower fell to pieces.
Diving through a shattered window, Ruby ran as hard as she could through the passageways to get to the atrium as the ground alternated between shaking and dropping as walls buckled and broke around her. As she got to the atrium, she looked up to see rubble raining down through the space and in the middle of it all, was Jaune and Yang holding hands as they fell.
Without a second thought, Ruby shot up, using the falling rubble to push herself in different directions as she desperately tried to reach her falling friends. As she climbed a revelation hit her so hard she almost stopped. She could only carry one of them out. She simply didn't have the magical power necessary to carry two people out of a place like this at high speeds.
She could only assume that Jaune somehow knew or thought this as well, for as she got close, he pushed Yang down and towards Ruby. The young wizard could only manage a whispered "sorry," before she grabbed hold of her sister and made for an exit.
As Jaune fell, his head was a mess. Half of him wanted nothing more than to scream in terror as he hurtled towards certain doom, while the other half had calmly accepted his fate, knowing that if he had the chance to make the decision again, he would always push Yang towards her sister.
Just as he was ready to fully accept his fate, a clear path through one side of the building opened up, letting a tunnel of light shine into the atrium. As he fell through the light, he looked through the hole and saw Weiss and Pyrrha astride a glyph floating outside the building. In the second he saw them, he figured Pyrrha must have created the tunnel as she was on her knees with her hands stretched out, and seeing Pyrrha not just alive but awake filled him with relief.
Just as he was about to fall past the window of light, a white glyph appeared under him. He immediately felt his fall slow immensely before he changed direction so that he was now going towards one of the viewing balconies around the atrium.
He shot over the railing and landed on the ground, managing to roll with the impact. As he lay on his back with the building falling apart around him, he marvelled at what had just happened.
Weiss, with a narrow view through which to aim, and less than a second to react, had managed to catch his falling form and redirect it away from the atrium in the middle of a rain of debris. Jaune couldn't help but laugh. Whether it was from relief or something else he didn't know.
"I have the best magic teacher in the world!" he cheered loudly. Then the ground once again collapsed under him.
He hit the floor painfully as what had once been ground dropped a level. Struggling to his feet, he heard the section of balcony he was on start to groan. Not waiting to see what it would do, Jaune ran forward, leaping over a missing section of balcony to land on the relative safety of the other side as the section he had just been on collapsed.
The balcony above him started to groan with strain before giving out at an angle. Deciding to take the quickest path away from partially collapsed balcony, he ran into one of the passageways, past offices and cubicles and hurdling debris as he tried to get to a window, a small part of his mind reminding him he was heading in the opposite direction to where he had seen Pyrrha and Weiss.
The window was in sight when a chunk of the floor above fell into his path. Quickly backtracking to find another way out, he found his exit in the form of a corner office. He ran in as he heard crashing sounds from above.
Coming to an abrupt halt he summoned his armour once more as a metal safe bigger than he was crashed through the roof and continued through the floor of the office. Jaune fruitlessly scrambled for a handhold as the rest of the office floor followed the safe in its journey down, and brought Jaune with it.
From there it was one fall after another as Jaune was bounced around unceremoniously, his armour saving him from having his bones repeatedly shattered.
Whenever he found himself on a piece of flat ground, he was rolling out the way of debris from above moments later. The frequent jarring impacts made it hard to sustain his armour and straight up impossible to create anything else.
He eventually found himself flat on his back, battered and bruised, in what he could only assume was once someone's office. He could see the roof above him weakening, but he could no longer bring himself to get up. As it fell he brought his arms up to shield his face in a last pitiful attempt at saving himself, before the roof collapsed on him.
Outside, the others could only watch as the building collapsed upon itself as a cloud of dust and debris filled the streets. Any glimmer of hope that their friend could have survived was dashed against the rocks as the tower's foundations gave out and the ruin that was once the Merlot Industries Tower, fell into labyrinth of Mount Glenn's undercity.
Far away on Merlot's island, Dr Merlot found himself once again on the floor cowering away from a wizard.
He had thought those that came to rescue his test subject had got through his defences easily. The man in front of him may as well have walked through them. Not just that, he had no problem accessing his terminals, now equipped with a password, and tracking him to the control room where they now where.
The well-dressed wizard in front of him didn't need to make any threats, his entrance had done that for him.
"I-I know who you are!" Merlot exclaimed in disbelief as he took in the appearance of the man before him. "You're Roman Torchwick!"
Roman smiled cruelly. "Glad to see you've heard of me."
He then leaned forward on his cane and spoke in a soft, business-like tone. "You know, I actually meant to come visit here a lot sooner. Unfortunately, I've got a new boss at work, and she has really been keeping me busy the last few weeks. But none of that matters cause I'm here now, and since I'm here, I don't suppose you could be so kind as to give me everything you have on Jaune Arc."
Merlot rushed to his feet and hurried to comply, and as he did the wizard pulled a cigar from his white coat and lit it with a flame from his palm. In less than half a minute Merlot tracked down the files on his computer and had them printed out for the infamous criminal.
As he passed the documents to the wizard he spoke tentatively. "T-those documents w-won't do you much good." The wizard didn't seem to even notice he had spoken. Instead a blood red panel, that Merlot recognised as archive magic, had appeared over the printed pages and Torchwick seemed to be scanning each page before throwing it aside.
With a bit more confidence Merlot spoke again. "I was only able to do an initial assessment, and even that is worthless now that the boy is dead."
This got Roman's attention. "What makes you think he's dead, Doctor?"
"I-I set a trap in the Merlot Industries Tower. The chances of him surviving are miniscule at best."
"You know, I would have thought a man as smart as you would know the phrase, 'don't count your chickens before they hatch'. From what I hear the boy is a member of Beacon, and underestimating Beacon wizards is never a good idea."
Merlot remained silent, lest he say something that angered the dark wizard. Having finished scanning the pages, Roman dispersed the red panel and turned his gaze back to Merlot.
"Anything else relating to the boy?" After a second's hesitation Merlot moved to a safe in the wall. After entering a code and opening it, he removed a syringe gun loaded with a bright blue-green liquid.
"This is what I was planning on injecting the boy with."
Roman inspected the syringe gun with a raised eyebrow before storing it under his coat.
"Well I think that just about settles my business here," Roman said cheerily, as Merlot looked down and breathed a sigh of relief. "I just have one more question."
Merlot looked back up and his blood froze in his veins in spite of the room's raising temperature. Arrayed behind Torchwick were flames shaped into the burning eyes and blazing grin of a jack-o-lantern.
"Are you a man of faith?"
The sight had Merlot tripping over his own feat as he tried desperately to distance himself from the wizard.
"W-wait! Y-you don't have to do this. W-we can m-make a deal," Merlot begged desperately, tears spilling from his one normal eye. "I don't want to die!"
Guild Master Ozpin and Peter Port approached the entrance to Merlot's island facility, only to stop as they saw another figure exiting.
"What are you doing here, Roman?" Ozpin called out.
The dark wizard stopped and stared at the two guild wizards before him. "Oh, hey Ozzy. How's that guild of yours going? And while we're at it, what brings you to this little slice of paradise?" Before Ozpin could answer, Roman continued. "Oh that's right, Merlot said something about a death trap he had set up for some of your kids. You're probably here about that right?"
"Mount Glenn was a trap?!" Port exclaimed, as Ozpin stared impassively at the criminal and said nothing.
Roman laughed. "You didn't even know? That's just hilarious. You're only now realising you sent your guildmates to their deaths. You know, you should really take a lesson from the Guild Master and work on your poker-face fat man."
"Is Merlot still alive?" Ozpin asked, ignoring what Roman had said.
"Do you even need to ask?" Roman shook his head in disappointment. "You know I've never been one to leave loose ends. Speaking of ends, I think it's time I left."
Port stepped forward and brandished his blunderbuss-axe "We're not letting you leave," he declared.
Roman gave the two wizards a mocking grin. "What makes you think I'm giving you a choice?"
As though on cue, a small girl wearing white, pink and brown and wielding a parasol appeared at Roman's side, grabbed onto his sleeve, and then the two disappeared, leaving the guild wizards alone on the island.