Things are heating up!

~Angel and Hel

Chapter Seventeen: Promethium

-.-.-

Rooftops. It had to be rooftops. The cat - Krypton - was running ahead of her, Avos swinging ahead of them. Panting. Ignoring the noises from behind. The light. The smell of burning Grimm flesh.

The roaring. She couldn't tell which came from woman, beast, nor demon. They all blurred into a single cacophony of rage and pain. Human and monster, together as one. Like they thought Faunus were.

Like she'd helped them think.

Their thoughts didn't matter. Right? Irrelevant to the overall development of the Faunus people. What mattered was the truth, that such myths were incorrect. That Faunus couldn't become ravenous monsters, weren't mindless herdbeasts or slavering predators.

That's what they thought about Faunus. Faunus thoughts didn't matter.

She looked back for half a second. Something moving in the fire, something else firing blasts and screaming beams of blue and yellow into the air. A clawed red arm slamming out of view, hitting something on the ground.

A face, wreathed in horns and fire, grinning and looming out of the smoke. Teeth bared in a primeval shriek.

- "Someone's watching us. Deal with them." -

Titian ran, head down, arms and legs pumping like she hadn't since she was a little girl.

The ground was shaking with every strike of the hellspawn. She could feel it thrumming in her veins, almost stronger than the heat on her back, or the cries of pain from the Grimm. Rage given form, breath, strength.

The shaking grew stronger, more consistent. Memories of the Wyrm carving its way through Atlas Academy surged in her mind as the trio lost their footing and were forced to hold on to the nearest thing they could find. In Titian's case this was Rasaat, which she'd plunged into what she thought was a stable section of rooftop - at least, until it began to crack, the passage of something massive beneath it distorting the building.

The wave of broken ground, pushed upwards like root-displaced tarmac, stopped, collapsed. The Wyrm had dived. And that meant -

Titian was thrown away as the Wyrm surfaced, bursting from the ground with a skull-shattering roar and a seemingly endless flow of boiling hot debris flaking from its immense body. Titian tried to reangle her body, to use her aura and gauntlet to allow herself to land safely, but the wave of debris was blocking out the sun's thin light, the shockwave of its roar palpable, enough to smack her into a falling piece of wall.

It was one of the ancient ones, its length flanged and ridged, spikes rippling with every motion, its mouth vast, rotating, drillike.

How could they ever fight something like that. It wasn't a monster, it was a part of the landscape, a mountain in motion.

It seemed to arc through the air, its claw-like mouth reaching out to pierce whatever got in its way as it fell towards - towards Vivian and Yolona. Titian didn't see any more, because at that point another collapsing building blocked her sight and she launched herself at it, using the momentum of its fall to swing herself into a still intact office, crashing through the window in a burst from her aura and a stumbling roll. The glass had been thick - reinforced against attack?

She looked up and saw the snowflake logo, the motto. The Finest of them All.

Of course she was in an SDC building.

Her whole world seemed to jump, slamming her into a wall - a floor - she couldn't tell. The sheer sounds assaulting her from all angles were disorientating enough. The smell of the deceased and the dying the burning the broken infrastructure the -

Enough. She was a wolf. A hunter in the dark. She slammed her weapons into the structure, anchoring herself for a moment, letting her senses reorient. She adopted a sprinter's crouch, using Rasaat and her gauntlet as handholds, ready to start.

A thunderous boom shook the floor, making her growl. She was getting quite sick of this.

She released, sprinting along the wall, the floor, letting her aura and strength propel her forwards. Sideways through a door, leaping over a collapsed desk. She would not let this beat her. She would survive.

A body. Heavy armour gouged and cracked and scorched. Hanging from sparking cables through floors. Sword and shield on her back, blocking her way. Yolona's… corpse. That second boom. Her body landing. She smelled of blood and ash. Titian slowed, resting one hand on her shoulder.

She'd died like any huntress should. Fighting. Winning. Titian reached up to her helmet to remove it, to close her eyes -

"Rrrr… hand's off…" A pained, yet still menacing growl emanated from the armour. "Not…" The body moved slightly, groaning as the fresh scent of oxygenated blood assaulted Titian's senses. "Not dead yet."

Titian blinked. "So it would seem."

Yolona struggled to move. "Free me," she ordered, gripping at the cables suspending her, unable to pull herself out. The world shuddered slightly, Yolona's armour creaking dangerously as the berserker was put through a fresh wave of pain.

Her gauntlet dagger was sharp, but the cables were thick enough that she had to saw at them. A set of sparks sent shocks up her wrist, but she shook them off. She was far less injured than the giantess before her.

She could hear Yolona grinding her teeth with every spark, before finally falling to the ground with a roar of pain. The scent was overwhelming now, flooding her senses. "Not… going to last long…" Yolona grunted, straightening up before hissing and holding her arm protectively around her rib area. With her free hand she grabbed her sword, used it as an aid. "Lead. I will follow."

"I won't let you fall. Nor will your aura." Titian grabbed her hand. "I - never thought I'd do this to a human. But you are the strongest of us. And I will not let you die in the mud. Your Promethium will wait, because there is still work on Remnant to be done." In her minds eye, against the darkness, she called on her fire, warping her aura, willing it into Yolona's. Like she was activating it again.

Her body glowed. "Now stand up and fight."

-.-.-

He leaned against the doorframe, watching the streets. No Grimm. No Grimm for as far as the eye could see. He Blinked, reappeared on the roof. Still no Grimm.

It was funny, almost.

Endless Grimm had entered the city. Literally a sea of black, dotted with white and red. And yet, he'd personally only taken out somewhere in the middle double digits, viewed maybe triple digits close enough to identify species.

He Blinked, reappeared between the shattered display cases in the Heart of Dust. Some of them still had Dust in them. Air, water. Some lightning. Glass crunched under his boots with every step.

Deathstroke and Ash were still curled up against the till. They both looked - well, not peaceful. But a word like it. Innocent, maybe? Like in sleep they didn't know what was going on outside.

An oasis in a nightmare. He grimaced. Sighed. Rockstar was dangerous. Dust required Aura as a catalyst to become self-sustaining or otherwise, Semblance, by nature, was charged with Aura in its use. To let her, inebriated as she was, loose inside a Dust shop of all places was asking for trouble.

And of-fucking-course the Ice Queen wanted them to bunker down in the storeroom for their final stand. He knew that as a Schnee she'd lived a sheltered life but he hadn't known that meant a lack of self-preservation skills.

"Any sign of anything?"

Speak of the devil, and she doth appear. If only Vivian was here.

"Nothing." Maverick replied evenly. "Literally, nothing. No Grimm, no civvies, even the wind has mysteriously died."

The dirty cloud of ash and debris hanging in the sky, turning the early noon light into an orange halo of hellfire, it really did a bunch of good for his expectations of getting through this.

Winter frowned, brushing that really awkward half fringe she had out of her face. "Quiet before the storm. It seems the Grimm have a sense of drama."

Maverick snorted. "You sound like you're speaking from experience."

That rifle had to have come from somewhere and that somewhere was Blue. The annoying little brat wasn't around so either the high-and-mighty Schnee was a lowly thief like the 'faunus criminals' she despised or looted a corpse.

So much for royalty.

"Yes." Winter pursed her lips a little, then continued. "I - do see your point about the Dust. But surely you can see mine. We aren't going to survive. So let's make the biggest noise we can. Go out like - like hunters and huntresses, creating a diversion. Doing something."

"Y'know, I've been thinking." Maverick leveled a glare at her. Not a condescending one, just a flat glare. "If you wanted us to attract every Grimm in the area and then explode them, we'd fire off a flare, light a fuse, and run. We wouldn't sit here like ducks and call ourselves heroes."

Heroes. What a funny notion. To even be remembered would require a witness. Even the conquerors of old knew that; word of your actions and might would not spread if there were no voices to spread it.

Winter glared at him. "We aren't calling ourselves heroes. Doing this, taking out as many as we can, drawing them to one spot, fighting them, then blowing this place up - that's effective. Leaving as soon as possible to, what, keep trying again in some futile gesture of perseverance, that's funny. Of course some of us will die. That's going to happen anyway. All I'm saying is… let's make that mean something." She frowned. "And didn't you agree to this plan anyway?"

"What, I'm not allowed to change my mind?" He leaned against one of the ruined display cases, folded his arms. "And what happened to the Ice Queen up on the mountain who said something along the lines of 'As long as we live their fates aren't sealed'?" he asked. "You look at a fight you can't win and you throw yourself in. Then halfway through you say 'alright, I've done enough.' and call it quits."

"You're completely misrepresenting my position to make your own argument."

"I'm calling it as I see it."

"Then you see wrong, you ignorant little shit. I'm trying to make the fight last as long as possible. One fight. The big one. The biggest possible one. Not ten or twenty tiny fights where we kill nothing, do nothing."

Maverick grinned. "Really? You call me ignorant?" he Blinked over, grabbed her by the jacket, and Blinked again, depositing them on the roof, then another, and another, until finally they were on top of a six story. "Look around, Ice Queen." He let her go, watched her fall. "Tell me what I've missed."

Winter stumbled. "You've missed nothing, you - wait." Winter frowned. "I didn't feel sick."

He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Observe. You might not learn a thing or two but you'll sure as fuck notice something." He swept his arms wide, spun on the spot, taking in the view of the broken, burning city. "See down there?" he pointed at the Heart of Dust, "How big an explosion do you think one dinky little home-run Dust store can make?"

"You keep. Missing. The. Point!" Winter drew her sword. "We aren't just blowing it up. We're fighting them in, a retreating battle, like the ancients did at the fall of Zakar. We're killing as many as we can with our weapons and our fists and our fucking teeth, then we're blowing them up."

Maverick laughed. He fucking laughed. "Good one, Ice Queen, real good joke. First off, two things. Zakar was enclosed. They had an army. They had one front to fight on. See that? We are in the middle of a city block filled with rooftops and alleyways and half-wrecked infrastructure."

"We can have an army in seconds. Aphoth. We can fucking make it a single front with enough planning and effort."

"Any barrier we can make they can destroy just as quickly." Maverick countered. "An army? An army that is about as useful as a meatshield as it is a fighter. Why are you so determined to die here?"

Winter snarled in frustration - and she was lunging at him, sword sweeping round in a short arc to bash at him with the pommel.

He Blinked, standing on the other side of the rooftop. "I can play keep-away all day, Princess." It wasn't a taunt, wasn't a brag, just as much a bored statement as any.

"Oh can you." Her voice was smug. Too smug. Wait -

A whizz as a set of sparking somethings launched at him from the sides.

Blink. Down on the last rooftop. "Last I knew you weren't capable of that," he called up to her.

"I didn't show it off before." Her sabre flicked open, deploying a dagger into her hand.

"Do you even know how to use that thing?"

"Do you know how to shut your mouth?"

Maverick made an exaggerated motion of zipping his lips shut, smiling at the Ice Queen's look of infuriation before Blinking, appearing behind her to slam his elbow into the back of her neck, and Blinking away again, in the room under her. Attack from all directions.

Even those you can't see.

Mobility. Mobility was key to his strategy, of course. With a Semblance like his and an Aura of… his… he couldn't afford to take a hit. He wasn't a tank like Yolona, he wasn't a brute like Slade, he wasn't a caster like the ice cold bitch herself, he was unpredictable in place and tactics. Or at least, he thought so.

He could hear the whirring of her glyphs above him. The thing about the Schnees was their Semblance was public, known - the disadvantage of it being so hereditary. But it was also very versatile.

Unpredictable.

He got ready to run, and Blinked twice. New rooftop, above her. Hadn't even drawn a gun yet. The ground around her was a halo of white and green - traps. He couldn't get in close. More appearing in the air around the building, a circle of circles.

Blink. Downstairs, grab a chair, Blink. Throw it at the Ice Queen. Blink again. Circle her. Flank her. She's the one trying to have a last immobile stand. There were plenty of rooftops, plenty of rooms for him to use. She couldn't monitor all at once.

She'd ducked the chair. More of those half diamonds were hovering in the air around her, spewing that homing blue bullshit.

He thought about Blinking in, grabbing her, and dropping her. Two problems; she had that air-jump Glyph, and if it worked he'd be down an ally. Or meatshield. Whichever she fancied herself to be.

Flares, bad idea. It was actually loaded with Screamers. He'd had suspicions but that had given him a surprise.

HE Gauss, also a bad idea. Too powerful - also with Slade. Fuck. His Spiker was with the brute too. That just left him his pistol, the explosive one.

The Weapon makes the Man. And he'd found himself disarmed.

Another peculiarity. His arsenal, one that never left his side, was inexplicably half-missing.

No, he was thinking too much. Giving Winter too much time to react. He Blinked in rapid succession, slamming his fist into Ice Queen's infuriating face and leaving in the blink of an eye - heh, a Blink - onto another roof top. Another Blink. Another. A series of teleports tracing his footsteps back to the shop.

Had to check on the sleepers, after all.

A sound from above, a crash of ice and air. The trap going off after he'd gone. She'd set the fuses too short then.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged, walking back inside. Let her stew. Hopefully her trap had only drawn attention from the air, if at all. They couldn't afford a major assault on this position right now. Not with two sleepers.

"Hey, Necrocutie?" he called out, trying to get her attention and simultaneously not wake up the duo.

Which was the moment when he heard the glimmer of a glyph and turned to see a very angry Winter charging at him. Launched at him. Her other hand was flicking, more glyphs shooting from it in sprays of Dust.

There was a very nice brick wall across the road. Maverick Blinked behind her, grabbing her by the hair and Blinking again before letting her go, displacing her right in front of that wall. Inches from her face.

And he Blinked again.

She slammed straight through it, hit the next one, sprang up and off, still calling in glyphs, a storm of them. She had to have almost no Dust left, doing this. Whatever she was planning was a final move, something to try and take him out at once.

What a waste of resources.

Schnee Semblances were the most Dust-intensive ones he knew. Probably the cause of the family's impressive mining history.

His hands were shaking in his pockets. He felt jittery. Like he was going to have a heart attack at any moment. Heh… he had been using his Semblance a lot more than usual.

He smiled, lifted his head, looked down at the Schnee as he held his arms out. "Go ahead." He taunted her with the rebellious glimmer in his eyes. "Kill me."

"As you wish." Her voice was quiet. The glyphs shone and suddenly she was a blur, zipping between them towards him -

A black hand grabbed her throat, another grabbed him. The Alpha Beowulf snarled in their faces.

"Stop this at once, you fucking childish idiots." Aphoth's voice echoed, redoubled. "You selfish brats. You - god, what were you two thinking? You, manchild, upset that she didn't do exactly what you wanted. And you, upset that he wasn't following orders like a good little drone. Sit the fuck down. Neither of you are going to be in charge of anything from here on out. Are. We. Clear?"

The legions of shades behind her glared too. It was, overall, pretty menacing.

Maverick glared at her, and stood his ground… albeit as non-threateningly as possible. "If you're willing to talk about this, sure. If not, I'm gone."

Winter gritted her teeth. "Fine. What are we talking about."

"First off, I'm not upset that she didn't do exactly as I wanted. I never said what I wanted. I never even started this fight." Maverick said, looking Winter right in the eyes and daring her to prove him wrong. "She's determined to go down fighting here. I can see a way to do the same damage to the Grimm, if not more, and live to tell the tale." He would have added and the bitch happens to be fairly shit when it comes to listening skills but that was just as good as poking a Vespyr hive with a stick when it came to good ends.

"And you keep on not listening to me. I want to live too but I'm not opposed to dying if it means we kill more Grimm. There's a difference between accepting the fact that if I'm going to die it'd better mean something and saying 'well, I'm going to die no matter what.' Fatalism is not Nihilism."

"Meanwhile I can totally see a way for us to do the same thing for every SDC shop in this godforsaken city." Maverick shot back. "You haven't even considered alternative options. Just like that fucking bullshit hallway Ironwood 'forced' us through. There's always another way."

"You keep on not listening to me! I'm fine with that! But let's make each damn one count in case we don't make it out. In fact - you know what, forget it. Leave. Go do your own thing. You're a fragile, useless - "

The Beowulf picked the two of them up again.

"What did I say about you two not being in charge?" Aphoth poked them both with her staff.

"Hey, I'm fine not being in charge. I just want a chance to share my plan," Maverick said, Blinking away. "But fine, I'll leave. But before I go, doesn't it strike either of you as odd that despite following the trail of a Wyrm, we've yet to see a single one ravaging the city?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

Everything fell over. A wall of sound shattered the street beneath him and sent him tumbling - he could see Aphoth's shades being ripped apart, and Winter flying off into a wall, aura failing as she did so.

When he could finally stand again, he could see a giant Wyrm, head looming over the buildings in the distance.

"I shouldn't have opened my fucking mouth."

-.-.-

~R&R?~