A mounting choir of screams and cries heralded the rare survivors of the Red Claw's attack. Laurel was first to turn to her gap in the wall, then Moka with a twitching tail, and Ichigo's furrowed brow. A young man escaped first. Tall, handsome, clean shaven and dressed neatly in button-down and pressed khakis. Clutching a bloody stump of an arm with wild eyes and screaming incoherently. He took a handful of steps forward before stumbling to the ground and writhing at Laurel's feet.
"...What the hell happened in there?" she muttered.
More arrived. The lucky ones left with tears staining their cheeks, lamenting the horrors inside. Others exited in stunned silence, eyes frozen in utter shock and mouths agape, their minds rejecting all they had just witnessed. The stenches of smoke and blood clung to clothes covering charred skin. An elderly couple was last to join the crowd of maybe forty or fifty at the gate, supporting between them a badly burned woman missing her leg below the knee.
"There's... there's no way that's everyone, right?" Moka remarked. "I'm sure more are coming!"
Laurel stared into the wall for a few seconds with glowing eyes, then turned to Moka with a grimace. "I don't think so. I think this is it."
"No..."
Out in the parking lot, the professionals continued to clear the waves of Grimm on approach. Ms. De Sultana dropped three Creeps with an arrow to each one's head, then ducked under an oncoming Beowolf and performed a pirouette before jabbing each of its weakest points with her rapier. "Damn, there's no end to them, is there?"
Mrs. Kurayami's blade left a full size Ursa in halves with just one swing. She glanced at the South gate. "The survivors must be drawing more in. Perhaps we should prioritize arranging a transport."
A thunderous whooshing noise like the wind of a hurricane pulled both their heads toward the East. A torrent of distorted air ripped chunks from the road and shifted cars, shredding half a pack of Beowolves in one astonishing second. The professionals readied their weapons. Cascara's eyes narrowed, and under her mask, Mrs. Kurayami's did the same.
Lazula appeared from around a street corner, Impetus in one hand, Aegis on the other.
A howl drew Lazula's attention to the rooftop. A Beringel three times her size beat its chest, and howled again as it leapt from its perch. A pair of black fists each the side of a barrel fell upon her from six stories high.
She raised Aegis.
The Beringel wasn't too much for her. Nothing was. Her shield glowed blue and gold and she wrenched her blade around to let the energy swirling inside her free. A flash of light vaporized most of the gorilla's arm and torso, leaving the rest of its body to flop to the ground behind her. The wicked gale let free from her blade screamed forward and split a King Taijitu straight down the middle. A handful of Beowolves were next up. Her blade met one's claws and she flipped it free, skewering its chest and ripping her blade out of it to behead another. After blocking another claw with Aegis a kick to the chest was enough to kill a third. She swiped through two more before staring down another.
With shrunken shoulders it withdrew, turning to run deeper into the city.
Lazula spun out her wrist with a glance at Impetus, before throwing it end over end and square between the cowardly beast's shoulders. An Ursa caught her on her way to her weapon, and Lazula took its weight into her shield. Her responding punch snapped its neck clean to the side. She retrieved her blade and in one motion struck down a pair of Sabyrs.
The Grimm kept coming, like lemmings off a cliff. Two Ursa tore toward her. A Deathstalker the width of the street was behind them, its giant golden stinger hanging level with the powerlines at the roadside. The Ursa to her left pounced at her, and Lazula held her position, taking the beast's weight in her shield and slashing parallel to the street to bisect it. She leapt at the second, slashing off an arm before ducking under a vicious swipe of claws. She slashed at its gut back and forth, finishing it off with a blade through its neck.
She panted as the Deathstalker neared, mandibles dribbling tar across the street and claws clicking out of rhythm.
"Run! We'll hold them off!"
"Get out of here, go!"
"Shut up!" Lazula snapped, tightening her grip on Impetus with one hand, clutching her forehead and a lock of hair in the other. The Grimm set off the voices in her head. She didn't know how, but they did. And if she killed every last one infesting the city, the voices would leave her alone.
Lazula tumbled away from a glistening yellow stinger longer and thicker than herself just before it skewered her gorget. The stinger pulled up and stabbed at her again, but this time she raised her blade. Aura coursed from chest to arms, and into her weapon as she met the Deathstalker above her head, cleaving its stinger and half its tail wide open. The scorpion's legs scratched at the concrete and its tail hung limp over its head in two pieces as it skittered back with an ear-rending screech that made Lazula want to kill it even more.
A claw the size of a moving van rammed into Lazula's glowing shield, but she didn't falter. A golden flash burst forth, cracking the claw enough for her sword's slash to leave it in fragments. She hurdled a second claw strike, riding Aegis down the far side and driving Impetus through an eye. The scorpion tried another claw strike, one that again met Aegis.
The force of the blow traveled into one of Lazula's arms and out of Impetus's tip, still embedded in the monstrosity's eye. The Deathstalker seized up with the force of the blow and its legs gave out, tail slumping across the street and caving in the roof of an abandoned pickup truck.
Lazula had become an army of one, a lone rampage clearing out the Creatures of Darkness with more ferocity than even they could muster. But no matter how many she killed, more would take their place. And the voices just grew louder.
Snow's updated combat outfit looked much the same as before, white neoprene-like vest and skirt layered over a sleek long sleeve and inner skirt, made of a thinner layer of the same material. The snowflake patterned overskirt was gone. Now a simpler one opened in a V at front, and separated at her back like trailing coattails. What used to be eggshell blue underneath, and on each sleeve, now matched perfectly the dark bluish-grey of Caspian's own coat.
"Careful!" Caspian warned. "He's out of control!"
"AND...ROID..." Noxis snarled. Hot breaths clouded the air. The beginning of another word was lost to a frenzied howl.
A voice spoke within Snow's mind, muting the wolf's fury. "Warning: target possesses high offensive and extreme defensive capabilities. Proposal: increase combat capability and eliminate target."
"I see." Snow bowed her head, closing her eyes for a second. She looked to the side, at Caspian's uneasy gaze. "I've set combat capability to ninety percent. Please step back."
A combat overlay framed Snow's vision. A gauge to the bottom of the frame measured the strength of her Electromagnetic Repulsion Field, the static shield androids used in place of aura, generated by their core. At the lower right corner, core temperature. The numbers at lower left informed her of her weapon's configuration and hard-light supply.
A violent convulsion sprouted spines from Noxis's back. More of the peculiar calcium compound vaguely resembling bone that encased the rest of his body. He lurched onto all fours, barrelling toward the android. A square crosshair honed in on his head and chest, and a hail of hard-light bullets pelted the area within it. Each shot flung a shard from his armor, but he slowed little. The armored wolf leapt the remaining ten feet between the two with a wild swipe of his claws. Snow modeled the attack's projected trajectory; a direct hit to her neck.
Snow sprung backward over a hand to dodge him, using her other hand to lasso a leg with her weapon's whip configuration and slam him to the ground behind her. A flash lit the night around Absolute Zero as it took on Configuration E, a new upgrade the weapon received during repairs. A narrow shaft of hard-light configured to each side of the weapon's handle, capped at one end by a barbed speartip. Snow thrusted twice, forcing Noxis back with each jab to the stomach. She followed with a spinning slash over his shoulder, which opened a weak spot for an axe strike from the opposite direction.
Extraneous noise from forty degrees to her left.
"Hell yeah!" Rowan cheered. "Kick his ass, Snow!"
Black smoke poured from each of the wolf's wounds, and Snow was back upon him before his semblance could regenerate. Her three downward sword strikes had little effect on his arms, and the robotic narrator in her head spoke again.
"Warning: aural energy spike detected within target."
Snow sprung backward, evading an explosion of darkness with the agility of a professional gymnast. Red eyes shot out from the fog. Another leaping attack neared just as she returned to default stance, its projected trajectory again a hit to her neck. She dodged the attack by inches, and raised her blade to parry a swipe of claws at her side. Sparks flew from her weapon, enough to momentarily overload her visual circuitry.
Noxis clamped down on Snow's shoulder, reducing the integrity of her EMRF by nearly 20%. Her EMRF lost another 7.5% when he flung her to the concrete dangerously close to the edge of the footbridge, but she rolled back to her feet and continued the assault on the wolf without further assessment.
She launched her spear like a missile, shattering layers of armor at the incoming werewolf's neck and forcing a guttural choke. Light extended behind her spear and linked to her wrist, drawing it back to its owner's hand. She sprung at him and followed through on her internal targeting reticule's suggestion, landing three more spear strikes that left Noxis stumbling.
His jaws snapped shut on the fourth, inhibiting offensive motion. He wrenched Snow's weapon aside and raked twice at her front before she could transform Absolute Zero to Configuration D and ensnare him in its barbed links.
Snow planted a foot and heaved at maximum force output, slamming Noxis into the ground. She brought her weapon back around and bore down on him with her glimmering axehead. He rolled aside just in time, showering in hard-light sparks as he lurched forward to clamp down on the android's ankle. He disrupted her balance and wrenched her to the ground. Her internal positioning meter had trouble keeping up with the assault. She lost track of all direction as he whipped her violently across the pavement.
EMRF integrity: 52.9%. 45.6%. 35.7%.
Snow found a four and a half inch gap between Noxis's jaws, just big enough for her to twist her spear into. Her thumb slid on her weapon's handle and the shaft of light behind it disappeared. Making up for it was the light sprouting from the other end of her weapon in regular geometric form, splitting his ghastly jaws agape with her growing axehead. She vaulted over it once her ankle was freed, firing a spear into his back. It bounced back to her hand as she landed, and she transformed her weapon again into a whip to swirl the weaponized light upon her weakened enemy. Noxis, almost visible behind the obsidian plates growing desperately to reconceal him, had little response for the following assault, each strike of Snow's whip whirling to lash him three times over.
Finally, another missile of a spear struck him in the middle of his chest, precisely where his armor was thinnest. He flew to the pavement and his shape was nearly lost amid the rising haze. Snow hunched over with heavy breaths and reddened cheeks, finally showing the labor of combat. External temperature was just below average for a night in early October. Yet her core's temperature approached dangerous levels.
"Did... did you beat him?" Caspian assessed.
"I think so."
Heavy breaths were punctuated by what sounded like glass falling to the ground and shattering. "I won't... be defeated... BY YOU!" the shape inside the haze screamed. He was on hands and knees, thinning darkness forcing his puppet body back to its feet.
A jolt of electricity and a cover of ice from Elysian Bloom secured him to the ground.
"I'm sorry..." Lilly whispered.
Noxis's hand laid on the pavement next to his cheek, willing one last feeble attempt at righting himself. The last of the armor fell from his face, splintering on the pavement in a cloud of black and revealing his dark eyes, sunken with exhaustion and horror.
"It's over..."
"Bullshit!" Rowan spat, using his weapon as a crutch. We've got a whole lot of questions for you."
"I... I'm..." Noxis grumbled. His eyes closed, and his head slumped.
Caspian's eyes did the opposite, widening to twice normal. "W-Wait, is he-"
"Unconscious," Snow assessed, standing over him. She turned to Caspian. "None of you have aura to spare. You need to leave."
Headmaster Skye's voice broke from Caspian's Holoband. "Snow's right. I'm sending an airship to your location now."
"But there are still Grimm! And the people inside, we need to rescue them!" Caspian insisted.
"It's too dangerous. Laurel, Ichigo, and Moka in the South have a makeshift exit set up. Once you're out, I'm sending in a team of androids for recovery."
"Recovery?" Caspian sputtered.
The Headmaster had no more words.
From the city's center, Caspian could see the lights of an airship approaching.