Author's Note
First of all, thanks for reading! I'd like to start this chapter off by apologizing for not keeping up with my usual pace of updates. I'm kind of a huge hockey fan, and the NHL Playoffs have started, which absorbs most of my time (Let's Go Pens!) I'm also kind of a huge Destiny fan on the XB1 side, and the most recent update has given everyone new reasons to play. Then, there's work, and all of the usual stuff that requires most of my attention. This is kind of a long chapter, but I want to get this part of the backstory out of the way so that I can continue my main narrative. So without further ado...
Chapter 31: Opposites Attract
Mercury spent the night alone. After his less than pleasant interaction with Neopolitan, he had stormed off towards the building that was home to all of the lecture halls and choice was not made for any reason in particular, other than that it was far away from the rest of his partners in crime. For a moment, he considered walking right past it and off of the campus entirely. But as he stood at the edge of the river that served as a natural boundary, he thought better of it.
He wasn't stupid. He knew that he had a tendency to overstep his bounds, and that doing so could make him more of a liability than an asset. On top of that, his willingness to do more than what was asked of him clashed with Emerald's desire to do exactly what was asked of her, and often put him at odds with both of his female colleagues. If he was honest with himself, he was at odds with everyone, most of the time. It was not a desirable situation by any means, but it was the only lot he had left in life.
When he first met Cinder and Emerald, he had nothing left. His father lay face down in the dirt on the side of the road, and his home was engulfed in flames. Now that he thought about it, Emerald never had been fond of him. Behind his back, she always questioned why his services were necessary, despite the risk of incurring the scorn of Cinder. To his face, she had called him a psychopathic murderer, which he might have agreed with if it wasn't part of his job to be excessively violent. A murderer, sure. A psychopath… debatable. He was, after all, the son of an assassin. Cold blood ran in the family.
As he continued contemplating just leaving everything behind, he thought back to the way he had seen Cinder lead them. She knew so much about the world that no normal person would have any reason to know. Mercury had always assumed that there was someone above her in the chain of command. There had to be, and the thought of this person was one of the only things that kept him from making his own fate.
Since he first met Cinder, she had given him nothing but opportunities to prove himself, which he could only assume he had done. It was mutually beneficial, like most of the arrangements she had with her allies. His biggest grievance with her leadership was that she only informed her subordinates of the bare essential details of their mission. The grand strategy always remained a great secret, as did the means to arrive at their final goal.
He hated having to throw his match against Yang. When she activated her semblance, the smile on his face was enough to convey his utter disgust with having to intentionally lose a fight he could have won with his eyes closed by that point. He knew not to turn his back on her until he heard the final buzzer, and under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have. Everything was done in accordance with the plan.
And just like the rest of Cinder's plans, Mercury wasn't privy to all of the details. When Yang turned back towards him after her victory, he never expected her to fire her gauntlet into his leg. Sure, it was a prosthetic, but the pain he felt was very real. The only illusion was of damaged flesh. It was just another tiny thing that she forgot to mention to him before sending him into the field.
The same misconception had lead them into their current predicament. Cinder's insistence on only telling him what he needed to know left them without direction. There were no backup plans. There was no delegation in their chain of command. The bright flash of light must have had something to do with Cinder's current state, and as long as she was out of commission, so was the plan.
Mercury sighed as he looked out over the two narrow rivers that flowed a short distance ahead of him. He knew that he wasn't going anywhere, even though he wanted to. For now, he turned back towards the main lecture building, and began walking towards an access door on the side of the structure that faced away from the campus. It was unlocked, so he decided to go in. As he passed through the doorway, he realized that he was still holding the umbrella that had previously speared his foot. He had just one question for himself, Why does everybody go after my legs?
His interactions with Neopolitan had been very limited in the past. She was a friend of... well... Roman did not count as a friend. She was more like an associate of an associate… or maybe an associate of an ass. Either way, her normally quiet demeanor was only trumped by her all business, all the time work ethic. The way she had reacted to Mercury's remarks, which were admittedly in poor taste, was very unlike anything she had done before. He could only assume that whatever happened to her to separate her from Roman must have deeply affected her.
In any case, he decided that he did not owe her any favors based on her recent behavior. Mercury opened the first door he saw once inside, which was the first on his left and read 'Break Room'. A quick flick of his arm saw him toss her umbrella inside. It was done mostly out of spite, but also because she was very unpredictable, and as far as he was concerned, not entirely trustworthy.
By this time, Mercury knew that he would not be leaving the campus, but he still had no desire to be with his allies. He was angry with them… with a lot of things, actually. He had gone over most of them in his head by now. Since he had settled on staying around, he decided to lock the door that he had used to enter. With that done, he decided to make his way to the roof. The dark corridors and lecture halls were very dull. At least from outside, he could observe the chaos engulfing Beacon. The journey took a few minutes, mostly due to the fact that he was not entirely familiar with the arrangement of the building.
As he finally opened the door that would grant him access to the roof, Mercury heard a commotion coming from the main courtyard. He quickly made his way to the edge of the building, where he had a view from several stories off of the ground. He saw the same huntsman that had barely escaped him earlier that night. He was with the heiress, who had also managed to escape. The thought of being zero for two, with regard to targets eliminated that night, was deeply upsetting. The other thing that was mildly distressing was the fact that the huntsman was carrying Ruby, and she seemed to be badly hurt, or otherwise unconscious.
He tried to consider how that was even possible. Sure, there were a lot of Grimm around, but she was definitely fast enough to evade them if she wasn't capable of destroying them outright. The entire situation seemed strange to him, but there was nothing he could do at this stage, so he just continued to watch. The trio made their way to the ship that waited for them a safe distance from Beacon Tower, climbed aboard, and flew off toward Vale. As he watched them go, Mercury felt a certain satisfaction for the first time since arriving at the school.
He had won... They… had won. Whether or not he knew what his next move would be seemed irrelevant. The things he had been asked to do, and subsequently done, had lead to he and his allies emerging victorious. It was something he had not considered until right now, as he saw his foes retreat from the place they had previously called home. This revelation brought a smile to his face. It also marked the departure of the last human threat to his own well being. As such, Mercury decided to slump down inside the structure that housed the staircase which he had used to access the roof, and drift off to sleep.
On the opposite side of Beacon, Emerald, Neo and Cinder occupied the same dormitory that they had used for the previous weeks leading up to the Vytal Festival Tournament. Despite the fact that there were three of them, one was unconscious, one sulked silently on a bed, and the last one was not exactly sure what their next move should be. Could she leave Neo alone with Cinder to go look for their renegade teammate? Was it worth looking for Mercury at all? Was he even still on the campus?
Emerald had tried to establish some sort of communication with Neo during their short journey back to the room. Normally, the chances of squeezing a word out of her were slim, but in her current state of disconnect from the outside world, it was impossible. At first, Emerald tried to console her using conventional methods, but without knowing exactly what the source of her distress was, it proved pointless. So, they sat quietly for a time.
The window in their room did not overlook the courtyard that Mercury had observed, but the audible rumble of an airship lifting off could still be heard. It was the last major event of the night at Beacon, and it meant that now they were alone... or at least Emerald assumed as much when she decided to close her eyes for a short time. The last thing she remembered before falling into a light sleep was telling Neo to keep an eye on Cinder, and to wake her if there was any change in her status.
She awoke many hours later to a combination of bright lights and tremors that seemed to shake everything. After a split second of waiting for her brain to begin to process the data that had been suspended by her sleep, Emerald nearly shot out of her lying position on the bed. She ran through the checklist of things that were of at least some modicum of importance to her. Cinder… was still asleep, right where she had been. Neo… had moved, but only as far as the window. The same hauntingly blank expression seemed to consume her.
Mercury… had not come back. Emerald considered her own disposition with respect to him. Despite their disagreements during the course of the night, she still assumed that he would return. Rightly or wrongly, her natural instincts told her that Mercury did not serve any real purpose in Vale on his own. What place did he have if not fighting alongside his team? He was more than capable of striking out on his own and surviving, but to what end? He was a rebel without a cause.
Based on the angle of the light coming into the room, Emerald assumed it was some time in the mid to late afternoon, meaning that she had slept much longer than originally intended. It didn't bother her, considering that nothing about the situation had changed. She wasn't sure what to make of the intermittent rumbling, though.
Back on the other side of the campus, neither was Mercury. He had been awoken by the same tremors. His sleep had been significantly less restful, considering that he had chosen to take up residence in a stairway, leaned against a wall. His back ached from it, and climbing to his feet was a less than pleasant undertaking. When he finally got himself upright, he came to the realization that he had no idea how long he had slept. In his hazy state of mind, he fumbled with his hands trying to find the handle to the door, which he eventually did.
Opening it turned out to be another unpleasant experience for him. The blinding sunlight forced him to shield his eyes with his forearm. It was a momentarily disorienting sensation, but after a minute or so he finally built up enough of a tolerance to the brightness that he was able to stumble back out onto the roof, still squinting.
Mercury lowered his forearm, substituting his hand as a makeshift awning to cast a shadow over his eyes while they slowly adjusted to the brightness of this new environment. He still couldn't look directly out into the courtyard, so with his head down, he walked to the same ledge where he had watched his adversaries retreat during the previous night. As he neared the edge of the building, the sun became obscured by something that shaded him completely from its blinding light. He lowered his hand, and looked up for the first time since coming outside.
The Goliath stared at the puny human with a curiosity akin to that of a frog watching a fly. Mercury's mind took a few seconds to process the implications of the elephantine monstrosity in front of him. He simply stood for a moment, while the gravity of the situation began to become apparent to him. "Hmmm…" he grumbled. When it finally clicked in his mind, the massive threat that was posed by the giant Grimm created a sudden desire to be in almost any other geographical location. Without even thinking about it, he turned and began running in the other direction, refusing to grant the Goliath the satisfaction of killing him. All the while, he just kept shouting, "Nope… nope… nope… nope...nope…" Mercury knew that the presence of the massive beast was bad news for him, and he didn't want to look back, for fear that it would smash through the building to come after him.
Fortunately for him, the giant Grimm was intelligent enough to recognize that it was in no danger. Mercury's previous assumption that his makeshift alliance had achieved victory was premature in retrospect. Certain human forces had been driven from Beacon, but in their wake, the Grimm had come. The White Fang had initially been responsible for bringing an assortment of Ursai and Beowolves, mostly in an effort to cause chaos. Now, Grimm of all shapes and sizes had come from far and wide, all drawn by the misery and pain that had befallen so many lives at the school and in the surrounding areas.
He stood as he had before in the dark hallway, now with widened eyes and taking short, nervous breaths. Mercury had slammed the door behind him, and put all of his weight against it, as if his comparatively small mass was enough that the Goliath would even notice. He thought to himself now, in the aftermath of his abrupt wake up call, that he should have been more observant. He and Emerald had both seen all of the Griffons that called Beacon Tower their home. Even the Dragon that was still in some sort of stasis at the top was a cause for some amount of concern. Finally, the arrival of the Goliaths ushered in the largest, most intelligent of the creatures. If there was ever a need to clear the school of Grimm activity, they would make it a massively difficult undertaking.
When he had calmed down enough to think straight, Mercury descended the stairs on his way back down to the ground floor, making every attempt to avoid windows to the outside. It was a subtle acknowledgement to a paranoia that the creatures of Grimm might be watching. He didn't remember ever being scared of them before. They had always operated in small packs or, if their numbers were greater, it was often against a team of his colleagues. In both cases, they were not a major threat. Now the population of Grimm had swelled to the point that they were the masters of the campus that many huntsmen and huntresses had once called their home.
Mercury decided that it was in his best interest to bide his time. He knew that at some point, he would need to link up with Emerald and Cinder again. His mind hadn't been made up about Neo just yet. She had damaged one of his absurdly complex, and not to mention expensive, robotic legs. It wasn't safe to be alone any more, but at the same time, too risky to be moving around outside in broad daylight. His reunion would have to wait until dusk. For now, and at least until dark, he would continue to lay low.
Since there were still several hours before nightfall, he decided to try to scavenge for some food. It had been quite some time since the last time he had eaten anything substantial. Although he did not expect a full course meal to be prepared for him, he did remember seeing a break room somewhere near where he entered the building. If he was lucky, maybe some poor soul would have left their lunch in the refrigerator during the expedited retreat from Beacon. He decided that it was worth a shot, and headed off in that direction.
The building was not nearly as deserted as he remembered. Around every corner, in every hall, the Grimm lurked. He couldn't discern their intentions, but he did not need to. Whether he was looking for food or a fight, they were there. If something noticed him, he was quick to engage and destroy it as quietly as he could manage. It seemed as though only the smaller creatures had taken to moving indoors. Mercury hadn't seen anything larger than a Creep, the awkward, two legged monsters that were quite fast, but lacked agility. For someone like him, who prided himself in his fleet footedness, these were easy prey.
Mercury did, occasionally pass some windows to the outside, at which points he allowed himself a moment to indulge his curiosity about the Grimm infestation. He saw that there were several Goliaths now. Even considering the conflux of negativity that Beacon had become, it was surprising to see even one of them near a man made settlement, much less several. Packs of many other species of Grimm had also assembled, and seemed to be wandering aimlessly at present. Although their presence seemed very deliberate, their purpose did not. Having gotten a glimpse of the hordes, Mercury retreated from the window, and continued along his way toward what he hoped would be supper.
The food that he found would barely have qualified as a snack. His hopes were raised, but quickly dashed when he found a paper bag inside of a refrigerator. Inside were some stalks of celery and carrot sticks. Great. Vegetables. Just what a growing boy needs. He wasn't sure what he had hoped to find, but the assortment of legumes would have to satisfy his appetite. Now, it was just a matter of waiting for dark.
Emerald had considered the possibility of using the shroud of darkness to search for her partner. It was tempting, but in her estimation, not entirely necessary. The concentration of Grimm she had seen during the previous night was nothing she couldn't handle on her own, so she assumed the same of Mercury. Unfortunately for her, the fact that she had stayed with Cinder for the entirety of her time spent in their room meant that she had no inkling of the massive buildup of Grimm on the campus. How could she?
The past few hours had been full of self reflection. She was still upset with Mercury, and he had been out of contact for the better part of an entire day. Emerald would not admit that she was worried, but there was an empty feeling inside of her. She wondered, If Cinder woke up at this exact moment, would she be more vitriolic towards Mercury, or to me... for failing to keep him in line? The thought began to consume her, until she finally made the decision to go look for him.
After pausing to force herself to leave Cinder behind, she left the relative comfort of her bed, and walked out into the communal area of their dorm room. From one of the desks positioned along the wall, she gathered her weapons, and tucked them into their holsters on her back. It was while she did this that it occurred to her, Neo was nowhere to be found. She had not been in her bed, or even staring blankly out the window in the sleeping quarters. Now, she was not present in the living area either.
This development complicated her decision to go searching for Mercury, because now there was no one to stay behind with Cinder. She paced for several minutes trying to break the chains that bound the two of them so closely. It wasn't long before Emerald decided that with Neo apparently gone, she would need the help of her missing teammate going forward. Whether they stayed at Beacon or not, they would be better off as a group. She managed to convince herself that Cinder would be fine on her own for just a little while.
She opened the door to the hallway, trying to be as efficient as possible in her movements. If she was forced to leave her incapacitated leader alone, Emerald wanted to make sure that it was not for a second longer than it needed to be. When she closed the door behind her, the noise caused it to draw the attention of a small Grimm. She could not recall the proper name for it, and honestly did not care much either. It looked like a boar, and posed little or no threat to her. She drew one of her hand cannons and with a precision that was a testament to her skill with the weapons, ended the creature's miserable existence with a single shot. It felt nice to release some of her pent up aggravation, even on such a meaningless target.
Immediately, she wondered why she used her gun to do it. Although efficient, the sound of the bullet discharging caused more growls and roars to echo from all directions. It was not her intention to draw an army of evil directly to Cinder, so she moved as quickly as she could to the elevators at the end of the hall. They did not seem to be in service, but the staircase was close enough to be a viable alternative. On her way down, she could hear the cries of what seemed to be a substantial number of Grimm, which seemed to be wandering through the building randomly. Their presence was inconsequential to her, as they were not actively trying to obstruct her progress, and she remembered what had happened the last time she engaged one for no real reason.
When she finally arrived at the ground floor, she peered through the narrow rectangular window built into the door. What she saw was far from the walk in the park she had experienced in the staircase. A whole pack of Ursai had congregated near the reception counter. Although increasing numbers of Grimm was not a totally unexpected turn of events, Emerald did recognize that she should use a bit more caution in her encounters. With that in mind, she opened the heavy, windowed door just far enough to fit through it, then maintained a steady grip on it to make sure that it closed as quietly as possible.
From her new position in the lobby, Emerald was able to more accurately survey the room. The Ursai were gathered near the center of the width of the room, towards the back of the building. They weren't moving much, but every so often, one would separate from the pack for what seemed like no reason at all. She played the situation very patiently, waiting until their attention was turned in another direction before darting from cover to cover. She used everything from couches to large plants to decorative support beams. For as much trouble as this escape had become for her, Emerald began to wonder why she had not chosen to rappel down the side of the building.
When she was finally close enough to the entrance to sneak through the double doors leading outside, she was very careful to wait for just the right moment to make her move. There was nothing to conceal her once she committed to leaving the last piece of cover. Conveniently for her, there was a half empty cup of coffee on an end table near where she was hidden. It would make a good distraction. She lifted it, and proceeded to slowly dump the coffee into one of the plants.
She quickly peered out of her hiding place, finding that there was no immediate threat of detection. Emerald threw the ceramic mug as far into the opposite corner of the room as she could. Its flight time seemed like it lasted for an eternity, which was convenient because it gave her time to consider that when it hit the ground, she would have no choice but to make a move.
The shattering sound created by the mug's impact on the floor caused the pack to snap their heads towards the origin of the sound. Two of them immediately ran in that direction, expecting a fight. Emerald observed this while in transit to the supposed safety of the exit. She turned her head away from the Ursai long enough to find the handle to the door, and pull it open. It did not squeak, or make any other unanticipated sounds, so she quickly checked on the Grimm behind her, making sure that they had not noticed. They hadn't.
When she turned back to the exit, she was shocked to see that she now stood face to face with a Beowolf. Emerald knew that they were prone to howling, and that she had no more than a few seconds to either eliminate it, or face a pack of Ursai, along with an incalculable number of other Grimm that would be drawn by the sound. It must have been just as surprised to see her as she was to see it. For a moment, there was an abbreviated staring contest, but In a flash, she reached for both pistols, using her foot to hold the door to prevent the it from slamming behind her. She shifted her weapons into their blade form, and in a blur of motion, Emerald cut right through the creature's neck.
As she watched the beast die, her immediate reaction was to be very happy with the way the encounter had gone, considering its abrupt nature. The Beowolf began to turn to a black dust, but before being completely vanquished, it defiantly forced a short yelp from its mouth. All of the elation that stemmed from her previous successes was ripped away, and replaced with the sudden, unshakable feeling that she was now the center of attention for a few dozen feet in all directions. The growls from behind her confirmed her suspicions.
A quick look over her shoulder confirmed that at least one Ursa had heard the final cry of its comrade. With the few seconds that she had, Emerald surveyed the area outside. She was met with the same horrors that Mercury had observed earlier in the day. Goliaths. Several of them. And hundreds of smaller Grimm scattered in and around every building in every direction. And now, a significant number of them had been alerted to her presence.
Rolling her eyes in disgust was not enough to convey her true feelings for the predicament she was now faced with. The time for stealth had passed, and she would now need to rely on her speed, experience and reflexes to see her through the hordes of Grimm. Without knowing exactly where Mercury had gone, she could only assume that based on the general direction she had seen him walking, he must be somewhere on the northern edge of the campus. There's no way he would have been stupid enough to go back inside the tower, not while that huntsman was still in there… Unfortunately, the dormitory buildings were all located on the southern side of Beacon Tower. She would need to cross the entire courtyard which, all things considered, would be quite the endeavor.
She took off into a full sprint. With her cover blown, it no longer made any difference what noticed her. The Goliaths and Ursai would likely be too slow to catch her, and she hoped that the Grimm fast enough to try would not take well to the harassment of small arms fire that she could unleash on them.
The courtyard turned into a flurry of activity as the Grimm began to give chase to a girl alone in a place that was no longer welcoming to her. Emerald had been correct to assume that the Goliaths would not be able to catch her, if only because they were smart enough to know not to even bother trying. The average Ursa, not so much. Several of them attempted to follow her, but the acrobatics she was able to demonstrate easily broke the pursuit. Towards the center of the courtyard, she lept between the columns and trees to add an element of unpredictability to her movement.
Everything was going much better than expected for her. She had cleared the center of the courtyard, and now headed for the closest building she could reach, which was home to all of the classrooms and lecture halls. She smiled, content with her elusive prowess. A quick peek over her shoulder was enough to confirm that the Grimm were not keeping up with her well at all. It was also enough to take her eyes off of the path in front of her.
It felt like she was hit by a truck. A large, feathery, winged truck with talons. Whether she temporarily blacked out, or simply did not remember the time between the impact and hitting the ground, she now found herself on her side, all of her senses blurred. Emerald was dazed, and therefore slow to swing her head around to see what she had hit. Her instincts kicked in as she simultaneously reached for one of her pistols and identified a Griffon as the guilty party in her collision. She knew that she had to get back to her feet, or risk being overrun by the Grimm that were very likely to be closing in on her quickly from behind.
Propping herself up on one arm, she used the other to take a haphazard shot at the Griffon, which missed wildly. She attempted to follow her shot with a quick roll away from her opponent, back to an upright position. It worked, but she was off balance somehow, despite her feet being firmly planted on the ground. Emerald decided it was irrelevant, and drew her other pistol. She opened fire on the Griffon as she ran, or more accurately staggered quickly, toward it.
In a whirlwind of feathers and dust, the Griffon evaded most of the bullets, but in doing so moved itself out of Emerald's path, giving her a clear lane to her destination. She tried to concentrate on running and firing, which proved to be problematic in her current state. Her legs felt clunky and foreign to her, and she tripped on her own feet no more than a few steps from the relative safety of the entrance to the lecture halls. Her disgust with her poor performance was palpable, and also audible, as she released her frustration by shouting, "Dammit!"
She double checked the distance to the door, and attempted once more to rise to her feet, while evaluating the status of the convoy of evil behind her. She made it as far as one knee. Before she could inspect her pursuers, a claw blasted her midsection, sending her flying towards the building. Evidently, they had caught up to her. The good news was that she had been flung half of the distance toward her goal by an Alpha Beowolf. Coincidentally, that was also the bad news.
From her back, Emerald tried to land a few shots on this new threat. Only one of her weapons responded with actual gunfire. The other simply clicked. She was not counting, but either three or four shots later, the first pistol joined the second in a mechanical cacophony that did nothing but force her to draw her blades. A few of the rounds she had fired did connect with the Alpha, which simply shrugged off the light damage it had sustained. In short order, it was joined by the rest of its pack.
Once more, Emerald forced herself back to her feet, a task that she completed successfully this time. Slowly, she took one step at a time away from the pack of Beowolves that was no more than ten feet away, being careful not to break eye contact. It was effective to the point that the Alpha must have considered her a worthy opponent. An unfortunate side effect was the lack of situational awareness that a staring contest created. A Griffon with several bullet holes in it swooped down from her left. She was aware enough to detect it just in time to roll under the diving attack, which created an opening that the Alpha exploited.
At the conclusion of her evasive roll, Emerald was met with another claw. This time, she was able to parry it somewhat successfully with her blade. A loud roar indicated that she had apparently wounded the paw of her attacker. A second, more reckless claw followed from the other side, as the Alpha slashed at her aggressively. Her second attempt to block failed mostly due to her partial disorientation, forcing her to absorb the blow with her shoulder. She shrugged off the pain as much as she could, despite being thrown into the side of the building by this most recent hit.
She lifted her head, and saw the Alpha approaching her, victoriously. Emerald wondered how it had come to this so quickly. She had been in control at every turn up until she left the safety of her dorm building. The concentration of Grimm had grown over the previous day without her knowledge. It was one oversight, something she had not even recognized as a consequence of the events of the last few days, although in hindsight it seemed obvious.
Suddenly, the Alpha stopped in its tracks. Its prey had disappeared. Emerald's semblance bought her enough time to get back to her feet, and desperately slide along the stone wall of the lecture building in search of the door that might give her a chance to escape what seemed like certain death. The other Beowolves did not take long to resume the temporarily suspended assault. Emerald was met with a swipe, this time to her head. She fell to the ground helplessly, putting an end to the illusion that she had created for the most threatening of her assailants.
She could not even see straight after the head trauma she had endured. The sound of weapon fire, then, was puzzling. Several shots rang out from somewhere, but Emerald couldn't tell where. Then suddenly, she was upright again. Everything that was happening was a blur, and almost seemed to be unfolding in slow motion. The dim light that had illuminated the sky over Beacon suddenly faded into total darkness. Still, she was in motion. This sensation persisted for a few minutes until she was laying on something soft.
A familiarly smug voice addressed her in what was the single most relieving moment of her life, "I was wrong, Em. You don't want me. You need me." If she had been able to move, she would have probably slapped him. But all things considered, she probably owed her life to him, so she would have to let it slide, just this once.
Mercury did his best to be nothing less than his normal, sarcastic self. "You look like you need a nice, healthy carrot stick."