"Lazula," the sound of a girl's voice called to her, barely audible above the rumbling murmur of countless ethereal words. "Lazula," it attempted once more. Even and calm, even through the cries of Grimm and hallucinatory screams. Soft and whispery, almost weak. It must have been Snow.
"Lazula. Are you alright?"
Laurel stepped forward to join her. "Hey, what's going on?"
The voices inside subsided, until there was near-silence. Every few seconds, a voice would ring out with a seemingly random half-sentence, as if Lazula heard a few spare words of a conversation in passing. Her eyes hung open, unblinking. She felt a warm, sticky stream run down her forehead and onto the bridge of her nose. She disregarded it, and crimson splattered on her wrist.
"I killed them," She finally muttered. On her knees, she had fallen into a catatonic trance. "I killed them."
"You haven't killed anyone," Snow refuted.
"I killed them."
Laurel's head swiveled back and forth between Lazula and the Beithyr that watched Team LSLI, circling them slowly like prey. "Shit, she hit her head, didn't she?"
Ichigo backtracked until he too stood with Laurel and Snow. Four Beowolves had closed in followed by a fifth which crawled over the hood of an SUV with manic bloodlust in its eye. A trio of Ursa flanked them. A nevermore perched on a streetlight, clicking its beak and ruffling its great black wings. At the far sidewalk, two Boarbatusks, both bigger than the sedan they stood next to, rolled to a stop.
The Beithyr began to slink forward. Laurel eyed the black boars as she stepped out from the group, and fired into the cavity where an eye should have been. Laurel's bullet flew into the blackness, clanking once against bone and rattling around with the slightest twitch of the monstrosity's head. It looked to the faunus, opening its jaw to let her round fall harmlessly to the pavement, still smoking.
Its breathy wheeze began again. Over and over, in an unsettling imitation of laughter.
Ichigo looked on the verge of passing out as he stared down the approaching shadows "A-Are we going to die here?"
Snow stood up from her kneel at Lazula's side, pulling Absolute Zero from its spot at her hip. "No. Both of you, take care of the smaller Grimm. Keep them off Lazula. She's drawing them in, and her aura is gone."
"You can't take that thing alone!" Laurel contested.
Snow's eyes met with the abysses on each side of the Beithyr's skull, and her weapon's light flashed across the pale skin of her cheek. "This is the best option. I'll come up with something."
Before Laurel could protest, Snow ran ahead. The shots from her rifle bounced off its bony plates, and it lashed at her with its whip of a tail. It whistled past as she tumbled to the side, shattering the windshield of a nearby car. She barely dodged a second time as the wail whipped around, obliterating a Beowolf. Absolute Zero glowed in the night as Snow strode forward to slash across the beast's arm twice. Both strikes glanced off its armor, and the Beithyr replied with two lunging claw strikes. Snow dove under the first, but the second caught her midair and sent her tumbling across the street.
Mid-tumble, she planted a hand on the ground and sprung back to her feet, clutching where the claws met her chest and eyeing the aura bar on her Holoband. Another tail whip, lashed back by Absolute Zero. She swung back around, looping her barbed whip around the Beithyr's neck and wrenched it down toward the pyre that once was a van.
The Beithyr wheezed with effort as it buried its front foot in the concrete and resisted Snow. The soles of her boots ground on the pavement as it pulled her back. When she finally lost her footing, Snow's eyes widened for a split second. She hardly had time to plant a foot before the flame to spring over it, shoving aside the Beithyr's incoming horn strike with a blow from her axe. Concrete shrapnel rained over the street as its head pulled up from the cracked asphalt, and it followed up with a smashing blow with one of its claws.
Snow shuddered with effort under the weight of the Beithyr's arm, eyes glowing an ardent blue under her stitched brow as they watched where her axe met the Grimm's hand. She leapt back as she disengaged her weapon, letting the beast's hand shatter the ground. She sidestepped a horn strike that would have pinned her to the street, and another lunging claw.
Absolute Zero flashed with life once again, and she lassoed one of the fins protruding from the monster's shoulder. Its pull away accomplished Snow's goal of lifting into the air, and mounting its craggy back. The huntress's eyes flitted between the various clefts and protrusions between and upon its armored plates, finally settling on the sliver of black behind its underarm.
Then, her eyes flicked wider. Its tail had wrapped her waist.
She was at the Beithyr's mercy as it wrapped her arms to her stomach, flinging her back like a ragdoll, then forward into the street. Her back slammed into the ground some fifteen feet below, and she recovered a foot or two of the height with her bounce. She cried out in pain when she hit the first time, then again as she landed back on the concrete face-down.
"You okay?!" Laurel questioned, pulling away from Snake Eyes's scope.
Snow was shaky to her feet. "My aura's holding," she replied. Her eyes flicked up from her Holoband to the Grimm. "I've come up with something."
"Go ahead."
"The Beithyr is armored over most of its body, but there's a small gap where its front leg meets its shoulder. The gap should grow if I hold its arm off at a certain angle, which I can do for roughly four and a half seconds, in which time you will fire into this gap."
"So... we kill it by blasting into its armpit?" Laurel checked.
"Fire once. Twice, if you can. Just to weaken it. Then, I pull it into the fire. With an injured arm it won't be able to fight me off as it did before."
Laurel nodded, and slung Snake Eyes over her back. "I'll try."
Snow charged in on the beast again, Absolute Zero's axe configuration at her side. Her eyes flicked to Laurel, who was busy bringing her own axe over the neck of a Beowolf, and not yet in position. Claws whistled past Snow's head as she tumbled under its strike, and focused the Beithyr's attention with an axe-swing to its arm. The Grimm ripped Snow's attack back before bringing down another hand, each claw a cutlass.
Snow spun with the momentum of the Beithyr's attack, bending her knees and bracing herself for impact. The claw slammed down and threatened to crunch Snow underneath, but she resisted.
After an eternity of pure exertion, a booming shot shook the bridge. The Beithyr's arm gave out and Snow swatted it away with her axe, before flipping over backward surrounded by the hard-light of her configuring whip. As soon as it flashed a solid light blue, she flung her weapon around the Beithyr's neck and heaved.
It attempted to resist, but the leg nearest Snow, the one in which Laurel's shot met its mark, crumpled. Apparently finding another opening, a second shot blasted the monstrosity's hip, and one of its back legs went limp as well.
The gangly skeleton of a Grimm thrashed and heaved against the flame, its one good arm raking shards from the street, its tail reeling violently across all four lanes. After its tail blew out the streetlights above in its reckless thrashing, the still-ablaze van and a few stray headlights were the only illumination. Within the flame, the Beithyr fought less and less wickedly, until its black essence joined the smoke rising above the road.
Snow panted, watching the beast disappear. Her weapon went limp, and she disabled it.
"It worked," Laurel reflected. Her surprised look brightened. "It worked!"
Snow suddenly snapped back to animation. "We're not safe yet. We need to get Lazula away from here."
Lazula remained on her knees, as if the fight against the Beithyr had never happened. Her breaths were ragged, uneven pleads for air. Her heart beat in her throat, making it near impossible to swallow or speak. Every stray couple of seconds, an ethereal shout or a voice she knew wasn't true would echo through her mind.
A display flashed in the air in front of Lazula. In a window that expanded from the old-fashioned phone icon, the Headmaster's face appeared.
"Your aura's dropped. What happened?" he questioned.
"...I killed them."
The Headmaster's brow furrowed. "What? What are you talking about?"
Another scream shook Lazula. Then, a woman's voice. "She's killed them! Oh, Gods! She's killed them!"
Lazula broke down with a gasp, clenching the hair at the sides of her head and huddling down like a feeble child. A sob shook her. "I told them... to stay in the car," she whimpered. "They're dead. I killed them."
"Lazula's been injured," Snow answered for her. "We've eliminated a powerful Creature of Grimm, but Lazula is no longer in any state to fight."
The Headmaster swore. "Well, since you've freed up the anti-aircraft guns, I can send an airship. Stay there. I'll have Caspian's team meet you."
Back in the Stadium's suite, Headmaster Skye looked beyond the Holographic screens reflected in his glasses and to the stands below. The situation had calmed little. There were fewer Grimm in the sky, sure. But spectators had fallen into one of two crowds; those who stood in masses at the exits, pounding and begging to be let free, and the resigned, who stayed in their seats, weeping and clutching the ones they had come in with.
"What happened to Lazula?" Mrs. Skye asked. The edges of her dress had been wrinkled by her fidgeting, and stained by her sweat.
"I don't know. Her aura is depleted, so I'm finding someone to retrieve her."
"She didn't have the chance to recover from her match. She shouldn't have been out there in the first place!"
"She's the best huntress at Sentinel Academy by far, maybe even on Remnant right now. Even at fifteen percent, she has more aura than anyone else we have out there."
"And we've still never told her why," Mrs. Skye snapped. "She didn't look like she was in her right mind. It could be why."
"There's no use in speculation." The Headmaster concluded. He swept a screen aside with his fingers, poked an icon, and a second. A picture of Midas's face appeared onscreen, replaced in a few seconds by a live image.
"Headmaster! What's up?"
"We've run into some unexpected obstacles on the bridge. Can you spare any teammates?"
Midas grimaced. "...Actually, I was just about to ask if any of them can help out on the ship," he answered. "We ran into Python a bit ago, she was able to hold off and now she's holed up somewhere below deck."
"I see. I'll send someone else," Headmaster Skye stated. He bowed his head for a few seconds, staring blankly at the desk between his hands. He looked back to the screen. "You've taken over the bridge of the ship, right?"
"Yep! Red Claw was holding some of the crew hostage up there. We've taken care of it," Midas reported.
"Good. Pull back, and get back to the crew. I'll have the ship steered to the bridge, and drop in a few reinforcements." The Headmaster looked over a projected map of the bridge and bay, four blinking dots on the bridge nearing four more. He tapped the four still dots, and blue light rippled like disturbed water. "I've sent you the drop location. They should be there any minute now."
Snow knelt next to Lazula, gently taking her arm over her shoulder and helping her to her feet. Lazula slumped against her struggling partner, knees weak. Then she realized. Lilly, Caspian, and the rest would be coming soon. It was bad enough her team saw her like this. No one else would. After the day, all she wanted was to be alone, far away from eyes and expectations.
Yet, with the countless voices speaking out within her mind, she wasn't sure being alone was possible anymore.
Lazula shrugged off Snow's arm, and dropped back to the street. She couldn't meet Snow's gaze.
"Leave me here."
"It's far too dangerous. You're still attracting Grimm."
"I don't want them to see me."
Lazula felt Snow's eyes upon her, narrowing in what must have been concern. Blue. Snow's eyes were white when they first met. Since when were they so blue? She looked around to the night-black wings still circling the bridge, then back down to Lazula. "I... I'm sorry. I don't understand," she finally admitted. "But I can't leave you alone here. I'll stay with you."
Caspian thinned out the night sky considerably, until the gun's barrels glowed with heat, and the weapon ran dry of dust. He couldn't figure out how to change it, and even if he did, the reserve ammunition was nowhere to be found. He took down a handful more Grimm with Rowan, Moka, and Lilly, and continued recording people and plate numbers on his way down the bridge, until he saw Laurel and Ichigo between the lanes of stopped traffic.
Lilly looked between Laurel and Ichigo, then between the lines of stalled vehicles as she jogged forward. "Where's Lazula?"
"We ran into this... thing," Laurel began. "It's only thanks to Snow we're all okay. It hit Lazula pretty hard-"
"Is she okay?!" Lilly interrupted.
"She's out of aura, so the Headmaster sent someone to get her."
"And what about Snow?" Caspian continued.
"Back with Lazula. She's staying with her until the airship shows up."
"Does this mean we're done?" Caspian questioned, looking up to the sky. "We met up, but there are still plenty of Grimm..."
His Holoband blinked to life, and the Headmaster projected into the middle of the crowd. "Not quite yet," he advised. "Team MDLN ran into trouble trying to apprehend the Red Claw's leader. I'm having Midas pull the ship toward the bridge, and I'm sending a few of you in as reinforcements."
Caspian sighed, but nodded. Unease settled into his gut. If Midas's team was having trouble with the Red Claw's leader, what good would he be? He swallowed hard, and looked to his father's projection.
"Alright. Are we all going?"
The Headmaster's holographic head shook. "Only a few. Lilly's semblance will be useful on the bridge, and Laurel's stronger at long range. Ichigo will stay above as well, and work on intel."
Ichigo breathed a sigh of relief.
"So me, Rowan, Moka, and Snow?" Caspian guessed, looking to his allies.
"Not Snow."
Caspian grimaced. Snow was one of the strongest left, despite the fact she had little formal training before coming to Sentinel. Or, maybe she did. Everything before she showed up on the Skye Manor doorstep was still one big question mark. But all Team MDLN would get was him, Moka, and Rowan. He hoped it would be enough.
The cargo ship began to coast underneath Seacrest Bridge. Its bow had already passed underneath, and the lights of the ship's staggeringly wide bridge neared. Inside the row of windows, Caspian could see a silhouette waving.
It was too late to turn back.