RWBY is property of Roosterteeth! I only own my characters.
CHAPTER 45
"Who... am I?" Enigma asked, staring at Elise and Eve. At blast of red flame and ice erupted from the ground in the distance. The trio of blood-haired girls had stood in silence since Enigma arrived and had requested that Eve and Elise answer the many questions she had. They'd agreed, but it had taken Enigma many minutes to think of what she wanted to know first. In order to make the small Lord more comfortable around them, Elise had set her lance and buckler at her feet and sat down on the rooftop. At her sister's request, Eve had reluctantly done the same. Enigma, seeming to understand the general meaning of the actions, had eventually followed suit, tossing her claws and helmet off to the side.
"Well..." Elise spoke calmly and softly, ignoring the explosions, gunfire, and falling debris from the battle raging in the streets and the skies above Mistral. "I guess the best way to explain it is that you're our sister."
"'Sis...ter?" Enigma tilted her head in confusion.
"Have you ever met someone who had the same parents as another?" Elise asked with a warm smile. Eve's eyes traced a burning wreckage of a small EDC strike craft as it crashed into the streets nearby with a shattering crash. Enigma appeared unfazed by the noise, and remained lost in thought. After a moment, the small Lord shook her head.
"Lord Agony... said not to... talk... with others... off the field..." Enigma answered.
"Well, the point is, you're our sister," Eve said as calmly as she could with debris falling like rain around them. An EDC dreadnaught unleashed a full broadside volley on the Order ships, causing their shields to flare to life brilliantly for several seconds.
"How can... we be 'sisters'..." Enigma held her head in confusion, "Lord Agony... said... I was made... not born..."
"Well, neither were we," Eve answered gently, shifting in her seated spot on the roof. "I'm sorry..." She bowed her head. "Agony treated you like an object because of me..."
"I don't... understand..." Enigma muttered and looked down at the dust-covered rooftop. "Do I... still have to... fight you?"
"Not if you don't want to," Elise smiled. "We can keep talking for as long as you like."
"Okay..." the small Lord blinked. The trio fell into silence again, the sounds of battles across the city echoing around them. Enigma let out a shuddering cough.
"Are you okay?" Elise asked, edging slightly closer.
"Hurts..." Enigma replied shakily.
"Shouldn't her regenerative ability have fixed anything that was wrong with her?" Eve inquired.
"Enigma," Elise said softly, "can you show me where you're in pain?" Slowly, the small Lord nodded, and placed a hand to her abdomen, just below her heart. Elise reached out, but stopped short.
"Is it alright if I touch you?" the Bloodline of Light asked with a disarming smile. Enigma appeared a bit uneasy at the prospect. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." The small Lord nodded almost imperceptibly, lowering her arms. Elise came closer, and began to help Enigma undo the straps on her armor.
As Elise helped her remove the black plating, Enigma found herself wondering what she was even doing. She was disobeying Lord Agony's commands in the most spectacular of fashions with every passing second. Still, despite how... odd... the other girls with blood-red hair were, Enigma felt... calm... and comfortable... with them. When they claimed that they had no intention of harming her, or that they didn't want to fight, she felt like she could believe them.
Enigma felt Elise gently lift the edge of her undershirt to look for the source of her pain. The small Lord flinched slightly as the older Bloodline's hand traced worriedly over a raised black bump clearly visible against her pale skin. The lump's dark coloration had spread into the surrounding veins, creating a network of blackened lines tracing several inches out across Enigma's skin in all directions.
"What is that?" Eve's eyes widened. Elise looked at Enigma in shock, but the small Lord simply shook her head in response.
"Do you know how long you've had this?" Elise asked urgently.
"As long... as I can remember..." Enigma answered shakily. She could see that her 'sisters' were greatly worried about her. It was strange, but the Faceless Bloodline suddenly began to understand the true meaning of the word. Elise pressed the lump gently, and to her horror and disgust, it shifted at her touch.
"Eve..." Elise turned to her sister, "I think it's a Shade..."
"I have... a Shade... inside me?" Enigma asked.
"Agony probably put it there to keep you under his control if he needed..." Eve stated. "But... those things don't mix too well with Human bodies..."
"Like how... Corrupters... take over... corpses?" the small Lord coughed.
"Yeah," Eve replied solemnly, "that thing in your chest probably is a Corrupter, or at least a modified version that wouldn't kill you outright..." The Bloodline of Sorrow grit her teeth in a mixture of concern and rage. "But, that's probably why you're always in pain."
"Could you..." Enigma paused, knowing what she was about to ask was likely the same thing as betraying the Order. "Could you... take it... out?"
"Of course!" Elise stated slightly louder than she had intended. "We need to get that thing out of you right away, but it's probably going to hurt at least a little, okay?" Enigma slowly nodded. "Okay... Eve, we're going to need to take her back to the Tether..."
"Are you sure that's a good idea? We-" Eve stopped as Enigma rose her hand.
"W-why can't you... remove it... here?" the small Lord asked shakily.
"This place is filthy, we couldn't possibly-" Elise started.
"I can... heal myself... once it's gone..." Enigma stated. "S-so... please..."
"But, we don't have the proper tools, anesthetic, or anything we need out here," Eve shook her head. "We just can't-" the Bloodline of Light froze mid-sentence as Enigma reached over and detached one of the claws from her gauntlets. "No, absolutely not. I couldn't-" Elise looked over at her sister in shock as Eve took the blade from the small Lord. "What are you-"
"Elise, I don't like it either," Eve answered. "Enigma, there's a much easier way to do this, you don't have to go through this amount of pain to-" The small Bloodline shook her head.
"Please... I just... want it gone... I don't care... how-" Enigma tensed and let out a strangled choke of pain as the Corrupter in her chest shifted under her skin. It was as if it could sense that Enigma had made up her mind.
"Okay..." Eve nodded slowly. "Elise, please keep talking to her. It'll help keep her mind off of what's happening..."
"Alright," Elise affirmed uneasily. The Bloodline of Light took her youngest "sister" and sat her head across her lap, gently brushing the younger girl's long bangs out of her eyes. "Just keep asking your questions, okay? Everything will be fine." Enigma felt a strange sensation tug at her lips. Without knowing it, the small Lord had a calm smile on her face.
"Y'know, I'd usually be a bit more annoyed at having clones hurled at me," Ryland commented loudly as Europa worked on holding off the engineer, Yang, and Ryan, "but shooting copies of you in the face is kinda cathartic." To punctuate the statement, the orange-haired soldier fired a five-round burst into an icy effigy that had wandered too close to him.
"Why don't you say that to my face you-" Europa suddenly found herself rolling along the ground as Yang's fist smashed into the side of her head. The Lord responded with a shower of sharpened icicles which slashed by the blonde student like a shotgun blast. Yang jumped back to avoid the brunt of the attack.
"You alright, Xiao Long?" Ryan asked, forcing Europa to give the Ruby's sister some distance with a wide swing of his molten whip-blade.
"My aura took most of it, I'm good," Yang replied readily. She shook her hands out in front of herself before resuming her stance. An ice clone suddenly lost the upper half of its body as Yang blasted it with her weaponized gauntlets. "I'm starting to run a bit low on shots for Ember Celica though."
"Well, unless your friend Ignis takes his head out of his ass," Europa quipped, "you're going to run out of ammunition long before I run out of energy. What's the matter Ignis?" The Bloodline of Ice's face changed into an arrogant smirk. "Are you afraid of letting your new buddies see what kind of monster you really are?"
"Shut your mouth," Ryan snarled, leveling his weapon at the Lord.
"Don't you want to avenge your precious wife?" Europa taunted. "Oh, or did you move on already?"
"Wait, what is she talking about?" Ryland asked, raising an eyebrow. "Ryan, I thought you said your wife died in childbirth."
"Is that what he told you?!" Europa suddenly broke out into laughter. "Yeah, I guess that's right in a way, but I'm fairly sure the icicle I put through her heart was more of a contributing factor than having a kid!" The Lord held her stomach as she continued to laugh. Ryan's expression darkened. Ryland noticed molten metal starting to crawl up the Bloodline of Flame's neck. "In case your friends are wondering, Lord Agony sent me and a handful of others out to track down the families of our friends in the EDC and Guardians a while back. I happened to get assigned to Ignis' home. If I'd known at the time that she was carrying your kid, I'd have aimed lower-"
Europa's sentence cut off as Ryan let out a roar of fury and charged forward. The Lord smiled to herself, ducking underneath an arcing swing of the enraged Bloodline's weapon. The Lord placed her hand along the ground, and suddenly an explosion of icicles erupted from the ground. Ryan's form was lifted slightly into the air as a structure of jagged ice stabbed through his body in multiple locations across his chest and limbs. The fiery light of his ability suddenly faded as the pain set in.
"Anger is a very predictable emotion," Europa patted Ryan's head with her mechanical hand. The Bloodline of Flame simply growled angrily at her. The Lord shrugged, breaking the structure holding the other Bloodline in the air, and dropping him to the ground, where he lay bleeding into the pavement. Ryan coughed and breathed quickly as his body poured adrenaline into his system in response to his wounds. He attempted to move, but could only manage to slightly raise his arm with a strangled groan.
"So," Europa stated idly, stepping over Ryan's prone form towards Yang and Ryland, "that's the big problem out of the way for me. You two can run or fight, but either way, you're dead." With a wave of her hand, Europa created a shield of ice in front of her, deflecting a burst from Ryland's rifle and a pair of shotgun blasts from Yang. "Fighting it is."
Yang stepped between Ryland and Europa as the Lord rushed forward with an icy saber in her right hand. The blonde student braced herself, deflecting a swing from the frozen blade with her left gauntlet and following through with a strike from her right. Europa staggered back as Yang's fist crashed into her nose, breaking it with a loud crack.
"You- You bitch!" Europa snarled. "I'm going to hang you and your powerless boyfriend up by your guts!" Yang wasted no time in kicking Europa in the stomach, sending the Lord sprawling back across the concrete. The Bloodline of Ice reeled her arm back in preparation to throw her sword at the blonde student, but the blade of the weapon shattered as bullet's from Ryland's assault rifle tore it to pieces. "No, you know what?!"
Europa suddenly lifted both of her arms, and both Yang and Ryland's feet no longer touched the ground. Yang attempted to spin herself around as she was lifted into the air by the Bloodline's Kinesis, but found herself being rotated so she couldn't line up a shot. Ryland's rifle was ripped from his grasp by the invisible force.
"Okay, enough of that..." Europa muttered, blood dripping from her nose. "With Ignis' help, you two might have been able to keep me from using my Kinesis, but now that it's just the two of you, you don't stand a chance." The Lord sat and pondered to herself while Ryland and Yang flailed about uselessly in the air. "Hmm. Tell you what, Blondie," Europa said while staring at Yang, "let's start with evening the score." Yang was suddenly yanked down out of the air, her head crashing into Europa's mechanical hand. For a moment, the student's feet were on the ground again, but in an instant, ice covered both of her arms up to the elbow and she was tossed by into the air. "Can't be too safe with you."
"You fuggin' bith," Yang spoke angrily through the blood that had erupted from her nose and mouth.
"Oh, you say that now," Europa winked, "wait until I'm done with your boyfriend." Ryland glared at the Lord as she strode towards him. "You know what the best thing about Normals is, Blondie? They don't heal as quickly as Auras." With an idle flick of her hand, Europa sent an icicle straight into Ryland's abdomen. "Did I get you where I did last time?
"Ry!" Yang coughed.
"Shut it, Blondie, or I'll freeze your mouth next," Europa growled. "God, I'll never understand how Agony gets off on screaming. Anyhow, how about an answer there, Normie?"
"Why don't you check for yourself?" Ryland spat through his teeth, grinding them together in pain. For a brief moment, Ryland's eyes met Yang's. The blond student nodded once, knowing the look Ryland had on his face. He had an idea, a crazy one, but an idea.
"I think I will, thanks," Europa dropped the engineer onto the ground hard, pressing the icicle stuck in his body deeper into his flesh. Ryland let out a strangled cry of pain. "Whoops," Europa shrugged. The Lord kicked Ryland over onto his back and froze his four limbs to the ground. She knelt down to inspect her handiwork. "Hmm, guess I was a little off."
"Hey, bitch..." Ryland coughed. "You might know the best thing about us "Normals", but can you guess the best thing about me?"
"You're a complete pain in the ass?" Europa replied, pressing her knee down on the soldier's chest and summoning a new icy blade.
"Nah," Ryland smirked. Europa suddenly flinched in shock as Ryland's left arm ripped free from the ice and leveled itself at her head. "It's that I make better arms than Agony does." The Lord's pupils grew to a huge size in an instant as she realized the fatal mistake she had made. A look of shock crossed her face and vanished as Ryland fired his mounted railgun at point-blank range. Yang was dropped to the ground as the Lord's head vanished in a shower of red mist, brain-matter, and bone fragments. Europa's body stood on its own in a half-crouch for several seconds before flopping uselessly onto the cement. Ryland let his arm drop to the pavement. "Eat it, bitch."
Chess and the Maidens stopped and looked over their shoulders as a wave of powerful energy passed over them. Melody, Cherri, and Amber stared into the distance in confusion, but Chess shuddered.
"What is that?" Melody asked. "It's sending shivers down my spine..."
"I think we may be feeling the effects of the battle in Mistral," Cherri answered. "There was energy like this around the time Vale was breached two years ago... But this feels different."
"That's not all there is to it," Chess explained. "That is the energy you get when a lot of Bloodlines gather and fight in one place."
"I guess the process of retaking Mistral is well underway, then," Amber noted.
"I hope they're alright," Cherri placed her hands over her heart.
"I'm sure they'll be just fine," Melody reassured the Maiden of Spring with a soft pat on her back.
"They can handle themselves," Chess stated firmly, "you don't need to worry about them. However... I believe we have something to be concerned about. I'm sure you can all feel it if I can." For a moment, the Maidens concentrated silently, closing their eyes to feel the energies around them. One by one, they reopened their eyes, adopting expressions of grim determination.
"She's close," Melody muttered softly, "Shiro."
A/N: Not a bad start to a battle, I'd say.
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REVIEW REPLIES
Cipher96: Yes, indeed, we are off to blood and slaughter.
Skaana: Man, the Senate's really been going cheap out on construction standards then.
Hirshja: Rei is an Inheritor of Rage, Bloodline of Wrath. So he's Rei-ge, if you want to remember it that way.
ItzABlueWulf: He caught the Final Boss disease. Though in all seriousness, he can only keep that up for so long.
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