When Ozpin had come out to fetch Weiss, Nora had lost patience altogether and poked her head into Ren's room, "Can we come in yet?"
Both Ren and Professor Port started, turning to look at the impatient hammer-wielder. With a glance back at each other, the professor nodded and took a step back. Ren offered a small smile to his partner, stretching a hand out to her. "Nora, come here."
Professor Port raised a bushy eyebrow at the request. "Young man, you do realize your barrier is still active."
Ren kept his hand outstretched.
Nora took one look at her semi-reclined partner, her face breaking out into that trademark, manic grin, and took a running leap. She turned in the air, landing flat on the pink, now-pliable surface of Ren's barrier. It caught her like a net.
"Eeeeeee," she said as it sagged down till she was within a few inches of her partner. Then, all at once, she was through, falling briefly and heavily right on top of Ren.
Without even giving him a chance to recover, Nora laughed, throwing her arms around his shoulders, "Wow! That was fun. We should do this every time your aura starts acting all funny."
Jaune stood in the doorway. He glanced at Pyrrha, feeling suddenly that his entire distract-Nora-by-taking-her-to-get-the-laundry mission had been a colossal waste of time. "Why didn't we try that?"
Pyrrha glanced back at Jaune, both eyebrows raised. "When the medical staff and I tried to push through, that barrier was as solid as stone," she replied, hesitating at the doorway as well and only moving forward when the professor motioned for them to enter. She pulled Jaune along with her to stand in the corner, offering a small encouraging smile and a wave to her ailing teammate currently being crushed by his partner.
Looking somewhat pained, Ren still managed to offer a small wave back to his teammates before turning his attention to Nora. In a rare display of affection, he placed an arm around her, pulling her close. "Nora," he called, bringing his partner's bright teal eyes up to meet his own. A look of understanding passed between them. Ren's small smile returned. "After this, let's make pancakes."
"With tons of syrup," Nora rested her forehead on his.
Her aura hovered close to her skin, strong, electric pink. She closed her eyes, extending it to her childhood friend.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing on a lake of glass. Gray clouds hung low and close overhead, blending with the heavy mist that blanketed her surroundings.
A single tree crouched low on a hillock in the center of the smooth surface. Dark suggestions of hills and mountains loomed, shadows in the distance. An oppressive silence reigned.
Nora blinked, surveying the lifeless, colorless landscape.
Then she took a deep breath, cupping her hands around her mouth to yell at the top of her lungs, "REN~! Come out come out wherever you are!"
The placid surface of the glass rippled slightly from Nora's call, infinitesimal waves radiating outwards from her feet. Gradually, the focal point of the ripples drifted away, stopping after just a few feet. A small point of white emerged from the ripples, slowly rising out of the water to reveal a lotus flower, drifting aimlessly about on the once again placid surface.
A few feet away, another flower emerged, this one slightly more wilted. Another appeared after that, and another, and then another, the trail of wilting flora leading directly to that solitary tree in the distance.
Nora circled around the first lotus, fascinated. The ripples subsided at once wherever she stepped.
"Is this follow the leader? I love this game!" she trailed after the emerging flowers, humming contentedly, but casting glances to either shore just in case.
Bright green lightning suddenly tore across the sky, snapping downwards not unlike a coiled snake, over and over, striking the lotus flowers one by one and setting them alight, peals of thunder following close after.
The emerald flashes of light illuminated the area in staccato bursts of visibility, bringing the tree in the distance into better focus - gnarled, dripping blackness, and completely out of place. The now-glowing lotus flowers kept the newly-broken gloom at bay, offering a crystal clear view of a mirror-image world beneath the surface of the lake.
Though the tree on the hillock, the flowers leading up to it, the lakeside in the distance, and the flowered hills and mountains beyond were all identical, the colors in the world below were vivid, sporting bright greens, pinks, yellows, blues, and even reds in the case of the tree.
The main difference however, was Ren himself, standing right beneath Nora. He knelt down, leaning forward to place one hand to the surface, the bright blue skies below clearly visible through the gaping black hole in his chest.
"Nora..." His voice sounded distant, as if he were miles away rather than inches. "can you hear me...?"
Nora blinked down at the world of colors, then up at the trail leading to the dark tree, then back at the Ren beneath her feet. The hole in her friend's chest gave her pause. She shot him a casual salute, "Hey Dream-Ren. Wow, your side looks like more fun than mine. Is that creepy oozing tree over there the problem?"
Ren nodded, standing and motioning for her to follow as he continued along the path of lotus flowers to the hillock. "I sealed off as much as I could," his voice drifted up through the lake's surface, "but it's breaking through."
He pointed to the vibrant cherry tree on his side of the world, enormous, elegant, but slowly being suffocated by obsidian roots jutting through the ground and wrapping around its trunk.
"That's not so good," Nora leaned her face close to the surface of the glass lake to get a better view. "Hm... guess I'd better knock it out then, huh?"
She rose and held her hands out, and Magnhild appeared. Not with a flicker, not with a bang- just one second there was nothing, and the next Nora's sleek, silver and pink hammer was there, fully extended and ready for action. She hadn't even bothered to note that she was in her full combat gear- white shirt, pink skirt, armored vest.
It was all old-hat, almost. At least, she knew how dreamscapes worked, even if this one was a little creepier than the ones she typically found herself in. Her hands gripped the familiar shaft of her war hammer and she hefted the weapon over her shoulder. She gave Dream-Ren a thumbs-up, "Just give me a sec, okay?" and started towards the tree, glancing up and around in case anything decided to jump out of the mist.
Ren followed along beneath the surface a few paces behind, steps heavy with fatigue. Movement caught the corner of his eye. The gnarled roots twisted around the trunk of his tree had sprouted a flower. Ren stopped in his tracks, examining the strange bud from a distance - bone-white, basketball sized, but otherwise unremarkable.
His eyes left it for only a moment, glancing away to see if there was a copy of it in the other world, when he heard a sharp POP. Time seemed to slow down as he felt thousands of pencil-sized needles pierce every inch of his body. As he pitched forward, landing hard on his side, he caught sight of the flower again. It had bloomed, its interior a pulsing, swirling void of black and red, framed by jagged teeth-like petals.
Ren stretched out a hand, reaching for his partner who was still headed towards the gnarled black tree above.
"N...o..."
His eyes shut.
All at once the world rebelled. A violent howling wind tore through the air and across the lake, instantly snuffing out the light from the lotus flowers as it whisked them away entirely, erasing the world below from view and dropping the area back into gloom. The ground shook as the skies broke open, throwing the lake into roiling upheaval from the vicious torrent of hail and lightning raining down on the once placid surface.
Nora dropped to one knee, pulling a cupped slab of glass free from the surface of the roiling lake. Handles formed on the concave side and she slid her arm through, hoisting it over her head to use as a shield from the rain and hail. She waited out the storm a second, eyes wide as the tree before her began to shift.
Sitting directly in the center of the storm, the gnarled oozing tree pulsed and grew, stretching towards the sky and extending its crooked branches out over the water, stopping just before they reached Nora. The tree jerked and shuddered, a gaping hole suddenly opening up in its trunk.
A familiar figure emerged from the tree, illuminated in brief bursts by the relentless lightning.
Ren.
He stood silently with his back to Nora.
Nora steadied herself as a wave caused the glass to roll under her feet.
"Aw, man, and I thought this would be easy," she was hesitant to make a move towards her friend. He stood there, unmoving. A dark statue. For the first time, uncertainty crept into her voice, "Ren?"
The figure remained completely motionless, unaffected even by the raging winds, not a single hair or piece of fabric flying out of place.
A low desperate whisper echoed through air, beneath the din of the storm.
"H...e...l...p..."
Summoning a glyph, Weiss launched herself and a significant amount of muck partway back up the slope as Ruby lunged forward, her weapon a blur. The strike scattered the trail of black falling away from the heiress.
Time slowed down. Weiss watched as her partner carried through with her swing in slow motion, bringing the scythe around and bracing to leap after her.
This was Ruby.
Ruby. Her face a snarl, half-Grimm or more, attacking her.
Weiss stared, speechless. What was she going to do?
Time sped back up; the heiress threw herself into a back handspring and Ruby's blade sliced through empty space.
Think.
Weiss ducked another lightning-quick sweep of the scythe, using her semblance to dart away through a patch of water-tree saplings. The leaves cascaded around her, then splattered as Ruby shot through, hot on her heels.
Weiss cleared the grove of trees and summoned another glyph, changing direction. She was unarmed. She needed space; to breathe, to think. She sprang off of trees, through thickets, tracing an erratic path through the overgrown streets as Ruby dogged her; unflinching, relentless, she chased her up the hill and into an open street, her blade only ever inches behind the heiress. Then, all at once, Ruby vanished in a blur of blackened rose petals.
Weiss whirled breathing hard, knowing she'd come from behind- Ruby always came from behind- and summoned a blue glyph.
Ruby smacked into the glyph head first; it flared white-blue and repelled the girl with enough force to send her sprawling backwards, scythe skidding across the bricks.
The blackness writhed across Ruby's skin like living ink. She levered herself up, throwing her hand out. The scythe appeared in the air as if summoned. The eye behind the bone mask glowed pure crimson as her hand closed around the weapon's shaft.
Weiss stood, shaky, wary, ready to call forth her semblance at the first sign of her partner's movement.
Her mind raced. She needed time. A sword. Something.
Something, because Ruby was a Grimm.
The thought repeated, unbidden: she was a Grimm, or fast becoming one.
Ruby Rose. Soulless.
The darkness to humanity's light.
Was she too late to even help? Weiss gritted her teeth, giving ground as Ruby swung her scythe hard. The blade scored the earth before and behind her so a long stripe of it bled black and green.
Weiss crouched, ready to move. If her partner was a Grimm, that meant that she would have to... have to...
Her gaze strayed to the unmasked side of her partner's face. She'd never seen her look so angry, but the expression, the skin was hers. Maybe she was still in there somewhere. "Ruby, if you can hear me-"
The red lines in the mask of bone glowed hot and red as she dragged the scythe, its tip embedded in the brick, tearing open the ground as she began her slow approach. The trees jutting from the brick pavement nearby began to wither and die.
"-stop this," Weiss backed off, maintaining eye contact. She held one hand behind herself to avoid any trees or debris she hadn't noticed. "Stop and let me-"
She had to throw herself to the side as Ruby blinked out of sight in a flurry of black petals. Weiss threw up a glyph even as she rolled to her feet, but this time Ruby hit it so hard it shattered, showering Weiss's coat and leg with burning splinters of blue. Another glyph, white this time, and the fencer was shooting through an alley, leaping off the sides of buildings and up into the trees in some half-formed hope of the branches slowing her partner down.
Weiss knew that she couldn't keep running for long-she didn't have the stamina, and Ruby's semblance was speed. Really, the only thing currently preventing her from being sliced in half was her heavy glyph usage and ability to read and predict her partner's attacks.
Abruptly, her thoughts checked, skipping back and latching onto one thing: Ruby's semblance.
Grimm didn't have souls. They lacked semblances, but Ruby still had hers.
Weiss turned mid-air to snatch a glance at Ruby's position and got a black glyph up just in time to prevent her head being taken off. She stuck a landing backwards on the railing of a fire escape that gripped a blank-walled building. The thin metal groaned under even her slight weight.
Grimm Ruby hung suspended with her scythe, caught in the glyph's staying power. A wild sound tore from the girl's throat as she fought to get through it.
"Ruby, I'm going to figure out how to help you," Weiss clenched her free fist, her other hand shaking with the effort of keeping her glyph up.
How could she have even thought it was too late? This was Ruby- not twelve hours ago she'd been eating pancakes and asking for bedtime stories.
Wherever this place was, however far gone she might be, Weiss was going to get her back.
She leaned in to yell over her partner's snarls, "Do you hear me, you stupid, useless, idiot?! I'm going to help you!"
The red lines across Ruby's bone half-mask flared, livid. She screamed with rage. Patterns of black drew in close to the mask, and to Weiss's horror, the bone crept a little farther across her partner's face. The lines burned hotter. Trees nearby withered and blackened; stone crumbled. The fire escape Weiss was perched on began to corrode rapidly.
The fencer braced, preparing to release her glyph. Her eyes stung, but she ignored that and sprang away again as the railing collapsed altogether.
Ruby, free of the glyph, shot forward, lashing out with her scythe and carving an enormous wedge out of the building. It slid out of place slowly, bleeding the oily substance that followed her blade's strikes. Ruby landed on the orange-bricked street, face twisted with hatred. The crimson flickered in her eyes.
She gripped the dark scythe, teeth bared, red streaks blazing against bone. The bricks cracked and split as she kicked off, once more in pursuit.
Thin branches whipped Weiss's clothes and face as she dove into the cover of a tangle of both trees and... lampposts? Their long, iron stalks stretched up stories high, twining with the limbs of the trees.
There had to be a way to save Ruby. As long as she hadn't stopped using her semblance, or that mask... What would happen if it finished covering her face? Somehow Weiss knew that would be the end. Ruby wouldn't be Ruby anymore.
At least she had a way to gauge her chances of success, or at least tell if they were above zero.
A shot rang out and sparks jumped from a lamppost next to her head. Weiss flung herself down, flitting between obstacles till her boots hit the ground and she was running, ducking through tangles of roots and vines in an effort to buy herself some time.
How did you fight a poison in someone's soul? The professors' idea to use their auras to try and expel it had seemed like a good one, but now Weiss was here. Wherever 'here' was.
She continued to dodge and weave through the undergrowth, breathing hard, untouchable as Ruby fired shots after her. But for how long? Her arms burned, her lungs burned; she would have to finish this quickly.
She thought of the mask again for a second. Maybe she could get it off of Ruby somehow, but how was it even attached? Did it grow through the skin, fusing into her skull? What happened to a Grimm when you removed its mask? It would doubtless take skin with it, if not more. The mere thought of it made her own scar twinge. Maybe she'd file that idea away as a plan B. Or C, if she could think of a plan B.
If she could just... incapacitate Ruby for a short amount of time, maybe she could try using her aura again. It hadn't worked before, and she couldn't see any reason it would be likely to work now. Unless she'd done something wrong the last time, which was entirely possible. It seemed sensible to try, though. Plus, she really didn't have an overabundance of time to figure anything else out.
Weiss drew up short as Ruby appeared in front of her, seeming to flicker into existence by the use of her semblance. She didn't get a glyph up in time and barely managed to throw herself to the ground as the dark scythe sheered through trees and iron posts alike, cutting a diagonal swath that would have left Weiss's head, left shoulder, and arm separate from the rest of her body if she hadn't dropped.
So much for slowing Ruby down. The half-Grimm girl used the momentum of her swing and another shot- had the scythe been a rifle before?- to leap into a whirling arc through the falling trees towards her partner.
Weiss pushed off the dirt, throwing her arm up just in time to take a vicious kick meant for her head. She dodged another sweep of the dark blade.
Iron clanged and water rushed as the lampposts and trees began to fall. Weiss was too busy evading Ruby's ferocious advances to pay them much mind; the scythe laid waste to everything in its path.
Part one of the plan: incapacitate Ruby. Weiss gritted her teeth, diving under Grimm Ruby's swing to come up on her other side. She could use a trap glyph-
A deluge of liquid leaves struck her full force, showering from above, momentarily blinding her. Panic spiked, and Weiss flung up a blue glyph with one hand, guessing where Ruby might come from even as she stumbled back, swiping water from her eyes.
Her guess was wrong.
Through her blurred vision she saw it- maybe if she hadn't been fatigued from such heavy use of her semblance, she could have dodged, or moved. But as it was she only registered Ruby's hate-filled face, the muscle of her entire form behind the swing of her scythe.
The sweep that would have shorn Weiss in half was deflected by a falling lamppost. It screeched against the blade, and a second iron post crashed down on the startled Ruby's head and shoulders, knocking her off her feet and pinning her among the other debris.
Weiss staggered backwards, still coughing and spluttering, cringing to avoid the branches and iron poles toppling around her in the wake of Ruby's crazed attacks. A white glyph sent her stumbling out of harm's way, where she braced herself against what appeared to be a post office box with no slot for mail. She wiped her hair out of her face, dripping, hands shaking after the near-miss. She inhaled deeply, trying to regulate her breathing.
Where was Ruby?
Water from the downed trees' destroyed leaves mixed with the sludge weeping from the cut trunks and trickled underfoot as Weiss climbed over the mess of fallen trees and posts. She spotted her partner on the ground, still pinned on her stomach beneath a hefty iron lamppost. The younger girl's eyes were closed. Aside from the soft rise and fall of her chest, she wasn't moving.
Well. That hadn't exactly gone according to plan, but Weiss wasn't going to complain.
She crept towards her partner, right hand raised to summon another glyph should she need to make a quick retreat.
Ruby remained where she lay, the human side of her face showing. Her expression was peaceful, as if she were sleeping. The longer pieces of her hair trailed in the water that used to be leaves.
"Alright," the heiress breathed, her sodden clothes still dripping. She knelt cautiously, taking one of her partner's hands, blue eyes cutting to her face and back.
Ruby's hand was streaked with black, like someone had smeared it with paint. The smears sort of followed the lines of her veins and arteries; down her wrist and the back of her hand, spreading toward her knuckles. Grimm-black.
Weiss took a steadying breath. The sounds of the wind in the water-leaves faded. The pain in her forearm from Ruby's kick earlier diminished under the cleansing focus of her aura.
The younger girl didn't move.
Weiss had to concentrate. So far so good. She watched as the discoloration staining Ruby's skin receded, slowly retreating beneath her sleeve. Weiss relaxed a little. It was working. Why or how, she didn't have any idea- she wasn't doing anything different from before that she knew of- but she wasn't above letting the technical details go unquestioned till later. For now, she took measured breaths, directing her aura's healing abilities towards her partner and hoping against hope that it would keep working.
Then Ruby's eyes opened.
They were red.
Her hand locked around Weiss's, dragging her forward. The heiress tried to jerk away, but Ruby was already sinking her teeth into her wrist.
Weiss shrieked, striking out at Ruby and scrambling away as soon as the girl released her.
"You- you bit me!" she clutched at her wrist in disbelief as Grimm Ruby spat into the dirty water pooling on the bricks. "What-"
Suddenly, her vision blurred. Weiss blinked to clear it and looked down at the blood seeping between her fingers.
It was black.
The blinding white light faded as quickly as it came, and Blake found herself blinking rapidly, wrapped once more in a seemingly endless void of unnatural darkness. Fortunately, her other senses picked up the slack. She was standing now, alone, the roar of flames replaced with the light tones of water droplets hitting steel, almost melodic in nature.
The sound at least partially explained the acrid metallic scent assaulting her nose, carried by a gentle heated wind that tousled her hair. Blake raised an eyebrow, lifting her hands to touch her face, her exposed Faunus ears, her arms. The fireproof suit had been replaced by what felt like her usual combat gear, sans weapon.
Slowly, carefully, still trying to piece together what exactly was happening, Blake turned on her heel, straining her eyes to see something, anything to give her a sense of direction. Finally - directly behind her and impossibly far away, she spotted the choppy, fragmented image of what looked like a golden mountain.
Blake squinted at the outlandish sight. It was as if someone had sliced the mountain into a million tiny separate pieces and left them to lie in the shape of its former self. When she tilted her head, the small golden pieces shifted about, some growing larger, some shrinking, others appearing and disappearing altogether. Her eyes widened a fraction. The mountain wasn't fragmented - something was blocking her view. A whole lot of something.
For a long while, the vigilant Faunus stood motionless, all senses on high alert, quietly trying to make sense of the world around her. Tentatively she reached her arms out, feeling for anything nearby, but she found nothing.
She was definitely standing on a solid surface - the resounding clink that sounded when she tapped it with the toe of her boots revealing it to be some form of metal - but the drafts of wind passing her at an upwards angle told her it was likely not the ground.
Blake took a chance and called for her missing partner. "Yang?..." She listened as her voice echoed into nothingness. Her ears flattened slightly when no reply came, though unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, she could have sworn the mountain in the distance had started to shimmer.
Frustration and worry began to set in, drawing a scowl across Blake's features. Nothing made sense, she had no idea where she was, where her partner was, or what she was even supposed to do - she couldn't even see. The lone mountain in the distance was her only lead, but caution kept her from moving towards it.
Blake clenched her teeth. Yang might be out there somewhere, hurting, waiting, and standing still wasn't going to solve anything. Hands tightening into fists, Blake threw caution to the wind and took a purposeful step forward.
She plummeted into emptiness.
Wind whipped past Blake's face for only a moment before something clipped her, hard, on the right side. The impact sent her spiraling, slamming her into something else solid, and then into another, and another. Biting back the pain, Blake blindly grabbed at the next solid object that checked her in the shoulder, clinging to it for dear life. At the touch of her hands, the object in her grasp flickered to life, glowing a soft gold. A pipe.
Blake could feel the object gently pulling something from her, draining her even as she clambered to kneel on top of it. She watched, fascinated, as the light sped away through the pipe beneath her, illuminating a broken, jagged path straight for the mountain in the distance. Light branched off from the pipe everywhere it connected with another, slowly bringing the world before her to light.
Pipes of all sizes and lengths stretched endlessly into the distance, set at nearly every angle, branching out from one another and connecting again. The soft glow originating from Blake's position spidered through the chaotic latticework of steel all around her, lighting the entire structure within seconds.
There was no sky. No ground. Nothing but the surrounding darkness, the pipes, and the mountain they all connected to. Blake's vision began to swim, and she quickly stood, yanking her hands away from the glowing pipe beneath her. The gentle pulling sensation stopped.
A shiver ran through her. Aura. These things were trying to drain her aura. Whether this was something normal or not, collapsing here wouldn't do anyone any good. She made a mental note to be extremely careful to avoid touching them directly.
On the bright side, she now had a visible route to the mountain. After taking a moment to scope the easiest path, Blake set off, pausing occasionally to call for Yang on the off chance she might be nearby.
Time lost all meaning as she trekked through the alien landscape, allowing herself to break into a run once she'd recovered some from the initial shock of being drained. As the mountain loomed ever closer, she noticed the shimmering she had seen was actually smoke.
Billowing clouds of white poured from the very top, as well as from countless caverns riddling the sides. One column of smoke however stood out like a sore thumb, right near the heart of the mountain, pitch black against a golden backdrop. Blake's eyes narrowed at her new target.
When she finally arrived where her steel path stabbed into the mountainside, she found the terrain surprisingly gentle - soft fields of yellow grass peppered with dandelions, even the outcrops of sandy-colored rock were smooth and unimposing.
She only had to scale a few steep switchbacks before reaching the cave she sought after. Streaks of soot stretched out from the cave entrance, wilting everything it touched. Senses on high alert, Blake entered the cavern.
It was only in the darkness of the cave that she realized the rocks of this mountain had a slight glow to them. Even a human would have been able to see in this place. The caves branched off countless times, but tracing the path into the center of the mountain was simply a matter of following the smoke creeping along overhead, streaking the ceiling and parts of the walls with an oily black substance.
The deeper she traveled, the thicker the smoke became, until it was nearly level with her head. Finally, just as she was sure she would have to start crawling, the tunnel opened up into what was probably once a grand cavern, now partially caved in.
The smoking bones of dead Grimm littered the floor in a pile that nearly reached the blackened stalactites hanging from ceiling like obsidian teeth. A speck of bright yellow lying near the bottom of the pile caught Blake's eye.
"Yang!"
She rushed towards her fallen partner, dread gripping her the closer she came to the half-buried brawler. Suddenly, Yang moved, holding up a hand. The simple motion immediately halted Blake in her tracks, just a few feet away. Moving slower than molasses, her partner lifted herself onto her elbows, a cascade of bones falling away from on top of her as she shifted, revealing her back. Blake's blood ran cold. White bony spires protruded from Yang's spine, oily blackness spreading from their bases, slowly wrapping around the brawler's torso and spiraling around her arms.
Even at this distance, Blake could see Yang's eyes flashing desperately between amethyst and crimson, her partner's usually-smiling face contorted in anguish.
"Yang..."
The brawler's eyes snapped up to meet her own, one final flicker of amethyst fading to red as she mouthed a single phrase.
I'm sorry.
A desperate cry tore from the struggling blonde seconds later as her back arched and she erupted into bright red flames. Blake darted backwards out of instinct, eyes widening. The cry assaulting her ears deepened, distorting into a roar as the flames darkened to black and continued to spread, ultimately engulfing the entire pile of bones and forcing Blake back to the cavern entrance.
All at once the flames dispersed, leaving a smoldering white and red pile of bones in their wake. Bones that... began to move. Blake stood rooted to her spot in equal parts fascination and horror as a distinct form rose up from the pile. A Grimm dragon - its long serpentine form clicking and clacking as the bones that comprised its body shifted about whenever it moved. Two glowing red eyes locked onto Blake. The dragon's gaping maw opened wide, black sparks jumping deep in the back of its throat.
Blake fled. She rounded the nearest corner just in time as a pillar a black fire shot through the path she'd just been on. Breathing hard, she pushed herself to run faster, racing for the surface, one thought repeating itself over and over in her head.
Yang is gone.
Yang is gone.