Jaune took a deep, gasping breath, then immediately hacked it back out as smoke flooded his lungs. He pried his eyes open— immediately regretting it as smoke stung them. He blinked away tears, his surroundings slowly clarifying.

Fire and smoke. Timbers, embers, debris, all thrown about like a flaming Goliath had charged through. He tried to move, to get low like he had been trained, but a blinding flare of pain shot up in his left leg. He looked down.

A 50-pound disc lay on his knee, where the limb bent almost fully backwards to wrap around the weight.

He bit back a scream, knowing it wouldn't do him any good. Fuzzy scenes trickled back into his mind— he remembered where he was. The gym. He'd been stretching when he saw the far side explode, sending Yang straight through the wall, and then… nothing. He felt at his head, finding a huge bump just an inch past the front of his hairline. Something had shattered his Aura, probably debris from the blast, followed by something striking his head and the plate smashing his knee simultaneously.

Jaune scanned over the gym, or what remained of it. It was completely unrecognizable. Heavy metal discs were thrown about the room, split in two, or partially bent around other pieces of charred workout equipment. A pile of smoking timbers glowed with bright orange embers in the center of the room. Smoke choked every inch. He needed to breathe. He needed to move— duck low, get his head out of the smoke, but the weight on his leg begged to differ. He bit his lip, knowing what he would have to do.

Both hands wrapped around the weight as he pooled what little Aura he could in his arms, and with a strain of effort, he managed to slide the disc off. The useless limb flopped back to the floor. He couldn't suppress the squeal that time. Leg freed, he let himself collapse fully to the floor, hissing and crying through his teeth as the screaming pain wracked him. His hands clenched, nails digging into his palms— the pain helped ground him. Well, not really, but he tried to convince himself that it did.

He tried to focus; he needed to escape, regardless of the pain. The room was choked with bright flames and thick, dark smoke, but he had a good sense of the room's layout, at least from before it exploded. Unfortunately, that meant he knew perfectly well that he was on the opposite side of the gym from the exit.

He crawled forward on his stomach, painfully dragging his broken leg as he pulled himself forward. His Aura would kick in any moment now. He bared the pain with grit teeth, gulping down hot air with every other pull.

"J-Jaune?"

Jaune remembered something painfully obvious: he and Yang hadn't been the only people in the gym.

"Dude— fuckin' help me." It was Cardin, buried under a pile of timber, broken equipment, weights, and his own cumbersome armor, only a few feet to his right. If he hadn't spoken, Jaune wouldn't have even seen him.

Jaune turned, pulling himself towards his fellow student with great pain. He looked over Cardin's tomb of debris with despair.

"Hey, dickhead!" Cardin grunted, shifting the debris slightly as he stirred. "A little help here!"

Jaune pried away debris from the immobilized student, one hot piece at a time.

"Hurry the fuck up!" He shouted. Jaune ignored him.

Uncovering his arms allowed Cardin to help himself. He aggressively threw the pieces off of himself, forcing Jaune to scramble backwards with a yelp as a dumbbell flew by his cheek. Landing on his rear, his yelp turned into a pained cry.

Cardin ignored the shouting boy in favor of flinging pieces of rubble off of himself, gradually uncovering his irrevocably warped, but undeniably life-saving suit of armor. He didn't deny himself a grin. 'Dude, you look like a dumbass working out in your armor.' Ha. Suck it, Russel. With some effort, he managed to pull himself out of the debris pile and join Jaune on the floor, slightly less burdened by the smoky atmosphere. Vomit boy cradled his fucked leg, clearly trying his best to bite back tears.

"Dude, can't you just heal yourself?" Cardin asked, as if Jaune had never considered the idea.

Jaune bit his lip as a stinging wave of pain wracked his leg, but this was more bearable than the last. He gave Cardin a withering glare and hissed through his teeth. "Oh, yeah! Why didn't I think of that!"

Cardin rolled his eyes. "Whatever, like I give a shit. How do we get out of here?" He poked his head up and looked around, only to be greeted by a thick blanket of smoke and no discernable escape. Under his breath, he muttered, "shit, you'd think the fire exit would be more clearly labeled. This school blows."

Jaune, having just barely come to grips with his pain, set about moving his leg again. He could feel his Aura welling up, and knew that placing the limb in the correct position would make the healing process considerably less risky and painful, even if it made him wail like a baby— so wail he did, then collapsed onto his back, waiting in relative safety below the smoke for his Aura to heal him.

"Dude." Cardin crawled to him, frustration clear from his scowl and furrowed brow. "We gotta go, fuck your busted leg."

Jaune shook his head, biting his lip to keep him from crying, or perhaps vomiting, as his Aura sparked to life, pulling his ligaments, muscles, and bones back into place. After what felt like an eternity of whimpers, tears, and extremely uncomfortable squelching and snapping noises, his broken limb had returned to a state of relative function, albeit bearing a huge, misshapen lump of purple, bruised skin and muscle. Much better than a twisted, useless leg.

Cardin's eyes were wide and his mouth agape. "Holy shit, that quickly? God damn!" He marveled.

Jaune ignored him in favor of massaging the new flesh, panting as he tried to fight the ensuing wave of exhaustion. Hot air burned its way down his throat. After a long stretch of huffing and puffing, he addressed Cardin with a surprisingly hard look. "How strong are you?"

Cardin, dumbfounded, stuttered. "H-how strong? Uh, shit, I dunno, pretty damn strong."

Jaune nodded, as if that was a helpful answer. "Good. Take a deep breath and clear the way to the entrance. It should be that way," he pointed across the room, on the other side of a pile of smoldering debris. "I'll find the others."

Cardin tried to speak up, but Jaune's tone indicated there was no room for negotiation. Not like he had a better idea, anyways.


Blake rounded the corner first, Gambol Shroud pointing down the hallway. Her ears were stiff, straining to hear anything over the drowning din of the gym fire. That girl should be here, the one who almost killed Yang, but she wasn't, and there was no sign as to where she'd run off to. She bit her lip.

Blake turned back around the corner, where her team was waiting for her.

Ruby's eyebrows rose, expecting her report.

Blake shook her head. She'd told Ruby that they'd fought that girl from the train here, but she hadn't deemed now to be the right time to tell her how she'd almost become an only child, just like how Ruby hadn't explained what happened to her eye. Or what happened to her face. Or her shoulder, which was clearly causing her pain. Or Weiss— who cuts their partner's arm off and doesn't tell anybody, not even her sister?

Ruby nodded and waved the rest of her team into the hallway. They advanced quickly, trusting Blake's assessment as they made their way to the gym.

The trip was short and heralded by tell-tale craters on the ceiling and wall, along with the giant hole belching smoke from the gym.

They approached the breach, only for a body to flop out of it. Bronze hair swept over a pale, plain face. Dove Bronzewing, unconscious. He hit the ground with a thud, chest rising with worryingly shallow breaths.

Another body followed before the team could see the culprit: Cardin Winchester, panting heavily and covered in black soot as he dropped the human lump from his shoulders. It was another male, so covered in soot and ash that further identification was impossible. They couldn't tell if he was breathing.

Cardin half-turned back to the gym, then did a double-take when he actually noticed the team surrounding the hole. He opened his mouth to shout something back into the room, only for Weiss to yank him from the room by the collar, and none too gently— the dick always deserved it. She nodded to her partner, who disappeared into the room as a cloud of rose petals.

The red swirl returned a moment later, panting as three students materialized and tumbled unceremoniously to the floor. Jaune was among them, covered head-to-toe in soot, and looking very green.

Weiss reacted quickly, yanking her witless partner away from vomit boy by the front of her cloak. The girl let out an adorable 'eep' as she pulled her out of the spewer's notorious range, causing her to trip and plummet directly towards the heiress.

Ruby's nose smashed against Weiss' painfully prominent collarbone. Her hands flailed wildly, landing on the warm, exposed waist of her partner. Ruby froze, eyes wide at everybody watching them— save for Jaune, who she heard evacuating his stomach behind her. Cardin was sneering and confused. Blake was… holy crap, Blake was blushing. Yang's hair had begun blazing gold, and her eyes were a glowing crimson.

She looked up at Weiss, her chin brushing against the skin of her collar as she turned her head.

Oh, Dust. Oh, Dust— Weiss was bright red, her lips slightly parted, and her pupils were blown way out. She could feel her partner's heart slamming against her chest like it wanted to break past the girl's rib cage and smother her. Ruby's mouth went dry— this was her chance. This had to be it. Even Ruby could feel the bond, and it was on fire. She pushed up from her tiptoes. Screw everything else, this was her chance!

Her Scroll buzzed and chirped.

Weiss gasped sharply and pulled away, making Ruby stumble forwards as her warm, soft support disappeared. The heiress cast an embarrassed glance at the crowd of her peers before her gaze dropped to the floor, arm crossing over her chest.

Ruby's lips flapped wordlessly for a moment before she ripped the Scroll from her pocket with a growl. "What!" She shouted into the device.

"Oh, you're okay." It was Qrow, panting heavily over the line. "Thank Dust."

Ruby's anger immediately turned to guilt. "U-uncle Qrow? Where are you?"

He grunted, like he was lifting something. "The Arena— where the hell are you?"

Ruby gulped. The Arena? Halfway across the school again. Would they have time to meet Winter in the forest? "I've got my team, Jaune, Cardin, and four unconscious students at the gym."

"The gym!" She winced away from the shouting Scroll. "The gym exploded, Ruby! Get out of there!"

Ruby fumbled for words. Qrow was hard to talk to when he was stressed. "There are wounded here, we had to help!" After another moment, she added, "Winter's going to be here soon, she said she was going to evacuate us."

"Winter!" He shouted again over the line, but Ruby could hear a strained grunt after that. He took a sharp, audible inhale, then sighed. "Okay, that's not terrible, actually. I've got the rest of JNPR here with me, you can leave your wounded there and run for the forest, we'll follow and pick them up. Pyrrha's got this crazy trick for moving the wounded."

Ruby scowled. Amphitheater to gym, that route would run them straight into CFVY and Adam. "You can't. There's someone chasing us, and he's really strong. I think he wants Weiss— or me, I really don't know, but he was crazy, all huge horns and huge sword and claws, and he heals super fast. We barely got away from him. CFVY ran off to fight him, even though I warned them not to." Realizing she had spoken all the air from her lungs, she took a deep breath before continuing. "He should be between us, if CFVY actually found him. He said he knew my mom, that he killed my mom— and he broke my scythe!" She bit the last words out with more anger than intended, punctuated by slamming her glorified metal stick into the ground.

Qrow grunted. "That sucks. Get out of here. We'll grab your wounded."

Ruby growled. Was nobody listening to her today? "No! You don't want to fight that guy!"

"Ruby," Qrow's voice became hard and sternly paternal, "you need to go. If CFVY's there then it'll be them and me and Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora— you know, the guys that beat you in the Vytal Tournament? Yeah, we'll be fine. Get outta here."

She noticed Jaune perk up at hearing his partner's name over the Scroll. He watched her expectantly. Everybody was, she realized, save for Weiss, who seemed to find the floor more interesting. Her hair hung around her face, hiding her expression. Ruby felt an odd mixture of frustration and melancholy bubble up in her chest.

She wished she would look at her. She was so tired of the back-and-forth. The up and down. Kissing her scars, telling her she felt nothing, taking her on a date after Ruby had chopped her arm off, totally distancing herself from her own partner, telling her she did like her like that, but she was terrified of her! Then kissing her! Too much— too many thoughts flooded Ruby's mind. It's like an entire life's worth of experience had crammed itself into the span of weeks. And now her school was exploding, her peers— her friends— were being murdered, and she was running away from the one that did it! The one who killed her mom and broke her freaking scythe!

A wave of pain pulsed in Ruby's head, dull against her brain but sharp behind her eyes. Her mind struck her with an image: Weiss looming over her, horrified, one shaking hand flesh, the other metal. Ruby's eyes throbbed— both of them. An unfamiliar feeling crawled over her skin— pine needles against the snow, red blooming in the white, a ticking tower torn asunder, her eyes throbbed, cold metal over her arm, an inky black limb, a cliff made of gravestones, Harbinger in her shaking hands.

"Ruby?" Qrow's voice rang in her ear, shaking the girl out of her reverie. Her eyes had become frozen on her partner, who now looked at her with concern, or guilt, or fear— both of her hands gripped her staff, her knuckles white.

She smacked her temple, dismissing the all-too-vivid sensations that had flashed in her mind. "Y-yeah." Her voice shook, her conviction gone. "You're right. We'll do that." She hung up the phone, cutting her uncle off.

"What'd he say?" Jaune asked, his voice desperate.

Ruby sighed, forcing herself to focus again. "He's with the rest of your team."

Jaune smiled, eager to see them, even as he wiped vomit from his mouth.

"Weiss." Ruby's tone was hard, making the heiress jump. "Do you still have Ice Dust?"

She blinked a few times, then hurriedly checked Myrtenaster's revolving cylinder. "About a quarter of a canister."

Ruby nodded, then pointed to the burning gym. "Unload all of it into the gym, make as much ice as you can. We need to look for survivors before we leave." Her tone left no room for argument, but Weiss could hear the slight waver. The bond was a mess.

Weiss complied nonetheless, fully drawing her rapier and pointing it into the smoke-filled room. None of them could see it, but she could feel the glyph forming, the Dust powering it, and the massive hunk of ice that rose from the glyph's center. Before long, the smoke thinned, mixing with pale steam. Sizzling could be heard from inside the room.

Ruby nodded at her team. "Weiss, Blake, stay out here and let us know if anyone comes. Everybody else, with me."

Without further ado, she marched into the gym.


Adam blocked the bladed tonfa with the side of Rite, the two weapons screeching as they met. The brute came up behind him, hooked greatsword overhead, but Adam leapt back with a spin before the massive blade could fall, smacking the sword's flat with Rite. Stored energy transferred into the blow, knocking the weapon out of the giant's hands. Adam sent him reeling with a spinning kick to the face, then turned to continue his pursuit. He couldn't let them escape. His patron demanded it.

Unfortunately for him, the blue outline of a familiar scythe wrapped around his waist, yanking him backwards. He leapt into the pull, spinning to bring Rite to bear against the new scythe-wielder.

The girl before him had hard, determined eyes, and a pair of tall rabbit ears atop her brunette head. He felt himself falter, something deep inside of him twisting as he struck against his own kind.

The girl wasted no time as the scythe's blue outline shrunk and morphed around her hands, becoming a pair of gauntlets that met Rite in the air. Before he could activate his Semblance, a handbag, of all things, crashed against his shoulder with impossible force for such a dainty object. He flew down the hall, Aura flickering.

Adam twisted in the air, hooves skidding against the floor before he immediately bolted, ignoring the dark-skinned human's feeble attempts to distract him with a peppering of puny bullets. They could not have gotten far, but they would be getting further with every second he wasted playing with these insects.

The floor cracked under his pounding hooves. The weaklings gave chase, much too slowly to have any hope of catching him. He rounded the corner, hooves skidding, nearly free of the pests.

There was a thud behind him, and he felt himself being tugged violently backwards. Growling, he spun, sword lashing out blindly. Surprisingly, he actually hit something: the small, circular bronze shield of one famous Pyrrha Nikos, whose javelin had pinned his robes to the floor. He could see who had launched her, too: a ginger girl with a huge hammer, seemingly holding a bubbly expression by force of will alone. A tall man with jade robes and two small pistols stood next to her, along with an older man, skinny and grizzled— probably a professor— hunched forward with his hands in his pockets. He affixed Adam with his bright scarlet eyes and sneered.

The voice in his head— his queen— rang clear over his thoughts. "He knows."

Adam's grip around Rite tightened. He had no clue what she meant.

"He knows what you are. He knows about me." Adam shuffled backwards, inching towards retreat. "No!" She roared into his head, making his ears ring. "You will have to stay and fight. For now."

Adam ceased his movement and pivoted, making his stance wide to accommodate as much of the hallway as possible. Eight against one. He would have to use the corridor to his advantage, mitigate the angles of attack his enemies could take.

Pyrrha advanced alone, javelin shooting out like a snake to test his defense. He batted each strike away with ease, absorbing their meager energy into Rite. The others advanced cautiously behind her. Pyrrha took a step forward— Adam took a step back. She poked at him— he batted it away.

She suddenly pushed off of one foot, lunging shield-first towards him. He tried to block her advance with Rite, but the sword pulled up against his will, missing the Vytal champion by an inch. She ducked under his whiffed blow, pushing up with her shield to bash his sternum with the bronze disc. He reeled backwards, barely managing to force her back with a hooved kick.

She peered over that shield, piercing green eyes locked onto his own. A shallow jab shot forward, which he reflexively batted away with Rite. Why did the sword only obey him now, and not when it had really mattered? Had he just made a mistake? She lunged forward once more, javelin sweeping low to knock him off his legs. He leapt over the weapon, using his fall to power an overhead slash with Rite, but the girl brought her shield overhead, her waist pivoting to completely deflect the blow.

She brought the short spear up again, point driving towards his throat. Rite came up quickly, catching the weapon on the flat of his blade. Rite vibrated with stored energy, ready and desperate to lash out.

Adam would oblige. He barged into her with his shoulder, knocking her off balance and leaving her open for an attack. Finally seeing his opportunity, he lunged, Rite slashing in a mad flurry. She managed to deflect most of the strikes with her shield, but one blow managed to knock it upwards, leaving her torso totally exposed. He slashed back down with the nodachi, ready to cleave the girl in two as he allowed his Semblance to use every ounce of stored energy.

Rite was on a perfect course to split the girl from collar to hip, but the blade suddenly made a sharp and awkward turn, driving itself into the floor. Tiles shattered and flew into the air as the ground cracked, the immense kinetic force generating a plume of debris.

Pyrrha leapt backwards, the ghost of a smirk on her face. Her allies joined her side as she made a bold announcement. "I figured out his Semblance."

Adam's lips pursed tightly.

"He absorbs energy from blocked attacks with his weapon," The redhead declared confidently, "then can transfer that energy into his own attacks, allowing for extremely strong strikes."

Adam grit his teeth, but the ginger with a hammer asked the question for him. "Wow! How'd ya figure that out?"

Pyrrha locked gazes with Adam, eyes belying her pride. "He never dodges, he needs to block with his sword to build his Semblance, he'll block every strike, even if it's going to miss. And that," she nodded towards the crater Rite had created, "is too much damage for one sword blow."

Adam took a step back, scowling at the pesky insects. Pyrrha took a step forward, her group bristling as they readied their weapons. Tension sucked all the background noise away. Adam's heart thumped in his ears, slow but hard. He held Rite tightly in both clawed hands, the sword held defensively before him.

The man with the jade tunic turned suddenly, voice raising as he leveled his guns at the other end of the hallway. "Behind us!"

Everybody looked over their shoulder, unable to fight the instincts of their stupid monkey-brains. A momentary distraction. Adam lunged forward, hips twisting as he brought Rite to bear with a swift and powerful slash across the entire group, the blade elongating as it flew.

The girl with rabbit ears was the first to receive his blow. He could see her ears twitched as he moved, allowing her to duck, but not quickly enough to leave her unscathed. Her Aura shattered, a chunk of rabbit ear flew. The giant's Aura wavered as his blade passed over it, but did not shatter. The blind one brought a tonfa up and managed to keep Rite from bisecting him, merely being pushed back instead. The one with dark glasses did not fare so well— her Aura buckling quickly, unable to stop his blade from drawing a deep line across her chest.

Pyrrha was lucky to be in a low stance, but she made the crucial mistake of keeping her face above the rim of her shield. He could see her realizing her mistake in real-time, her eyes widening as she turned back to him, then realizing her second mistake of not immediately ducking behind her shield. The blade swept across her face, piercing her Aura and slicing a deep line from ear to ear.

The man who had distracted them— the one with the head of swept black hair and a jade tunic— was lucky enough to be slightly past Rite's extended range, but his ginger partner was not so fortunate. She had not even begun to turn back his way, allowing Rite to easily part her Aura and slice deeply into her shoulder.

The last man, the professor with red eyes and a dark countenance, moved with unmatched speed, quickly drawing his short, square blade from behind his waist and bracing it against his forearm to absorb Adam's inhumanly heavy blow.

Four bodies recoiled at once, crying out as blood spurted simultaneously from an ear, a chest, a face, and a shoulder. Mercury and Emerald stood at the other end of the hallway, the latter reaching a hand out towards the student who had distracted them. Ah. She had bewitched him.

A blessed voice slipped into his mind again. "Push."

Adam grinned, eager to obey his queen.


Jaune rose to his feet, panting. "Alright, that's it."

He had extended his Semblance to the five individuals they had collectively pulled from the burning gym. Stretching his Aura so thin ran him ragged, but saving lives was always worth it. Smoke now just trickled out of the breach in the gym, the worst of the fires having been quenched or suppressed by the giant, steaming block of melting ice that Weiss had summoned in the room's center. As a downside, the sweltering temperature was now also extremely humid.

Everybody looked to Ruby, who was tapping her foot and her staff in a nervous rhythm. "Okay, Qrow will be here with the rest of your team," she said, addressing Jaune, "but we need to leave ASAP. We don't have that much time left if we want to get to the Emerald Forest before Winter arrives."

Jaune nodded, the two leaders making an unsaid understanding. "You want him?" Jaune 'subtly' jerked his chin towards Cardin.

Ruby looked back to her teammates, who shared a repulsed look. "Yeah, no, I think we're good," she answered, "and who would look after Dove?"

Jaune sighed, resigning himself to the presence of his former bully. "Be safe." He said as he approached Ruby with an outstretched hand, tone shifting from 'leader' to 'friend'. "I mean it."

Ruby beamed a smile at him, regardless of the burning pain in her face. She met his hand with her own gloved one, clasping palms with her friend before he pulled her close and muttered into her ear. "Glad ya finally got her."

Weiss watched the two, fist tightening. She knew she shouldn't be jealous— the two were like brother and sister— but seeing Ruby so freely happy, with no sense of shame or regret behind her eyes… she wished she could give that to her.

Ruby stiffened at his words, but managed to separate with a smile. She nodded, waving her teammates to follow. They had a lot of ground to cover.


Adam skidded backwards, grinning as Rite drank the heavy blow from the extended greatsword. He swept the nodachi in front of him, forcing the professor to leap back.

Pyrrha, her entire lower face covered in a red veil of blood, replaced him, jabbing up with her javelin. Adam chose to eat the blows, allowing him to advance as three pokes glanced off his Aura, then a fourth lodged in his pectoral muscle. Close now, the girl tried to retreat, but Adam hounded her with his claws. They scored her shield with an awful screech, but wouldn't hit flesh.

The giant human tried to attack him in tandem with his white-eyed teammate, but Mercury peppered his back with shots from his boots, delivered with a flashy spin-kick. His Aura, significantly thinned by Rite, wavered and flashed, forcing him to pull back and block the fourth spray of shot with his broad blade.

That left the dark-skinned human to bear the brunt of Adam's attack, and the poor creature was simply not up to snuff. Rite crashed against his arm-blades in a flurry, each blow causing orange chips of metal to fly as the nodachi left divots in the steel. He brought the sword up in a diagonal slash, then thrust forward from his shoulder, aiming perfectly between the human's raised arms. Kinetic energy flooded Rite as it slipped through his guard, his Aura the moment it contacted the empowered blade. It continued forward, driving into the man's chest, halfway to the hilt. Adam whipped the sword out quickly, blood spraying like a fountain as he brought the nodachi overhead, absorbing a massive blow from the rabbit's giant wireframe hammer.

Adam felt a part of himself scoff at how attached the Faunus was to the humans who kept her as a pet, even as they led her to her own death. Her face was a mask of despair, her lips tight against her bared teeth. Adam pushed her off, reveling in the feeling of stored energy roiling within Rite, causing the sword to vibrate once more. He expected them to be a little more cautious now that they knew his Semblance, but apparently a little blood was all it took to rile them up again.

"He has raised such bloodthirsty creatures," his patron confirmed, her warm voice brushing against his mind, "you are doing them a great kindness."

Truthfully, Adam didn't understand the concept. He was just abiding by his queen's wishes, but if she saw it as kindness, then kindness it was. He would be very kind to these children.

Something slammed into his back, sending him toppling directly into the man he had just stabbed through the chest. The two collided, sending the human to the floor with a shriek of pain. A huge foot, probably from that giant with the sword, kicked him off the human and sent him flying into the rabbit's hammer, which knocked him into the ceiling.

"You piece of shit!" The girl with a lacerated chest screamed, her handbag shifting impossibly into a giant, golden rotary machine gun. Rounds ripped out of it at a blistering pace, each one hitting Adam like a truck. It only took a couple hits to shatter what was left of his Aura, and every subsequent shot parted the flesh of his chest with ease, blowing out chunks of muscle and thick black blood. His robe, reduced to mere tatters about his waist, could no longer cover his torso, revealing a labyrinthine pattern of black markings.

The girl's shooting stopped as Adam's chest began to resemble a crater.

Adam fell from the ceiling, flopping face-down to the floor with a wet thud. Black ooze pooled around him, but not for long. The markings roared to life, somehow becoming darker than black as the pool sucked back towards Adam's body. Black and red sparks flew off him, the telltale sign of Aura healing, but more intense, more aggressive than was standard. The machine gun revved up again, barrel spinning.

Mercury crossed the hallway, his legs blasting out air mid-jump and allowing him to land directly in the group's center. He spun wildly, legs flailing and spraying lead in every direction. Those without an intact Aura covered their heads and dropped. Those few with one took a step back, covering their faces.

Shots pinged off of the golden machine gun, but the girl to whom it belonged couldn't drop quickly enough with her weeping chest wound. A spray of pellets ripped the rest of her once-fashionable turtleneck apart and sunk into her torso. She tumbled backwards, shrieking as she gripped at her perforated chest.

A raised shield came sprinting his way, but Mercury had no intentions of sticking around for this fight. With two kicks, he launched himself back across the hallway. He and Emerald ran.

The group turned back to the body of Adam.

The hall was empty. Adam was gone.