Thanks for your patience! I've been giving this one some time, because it's such an important chapter I wanted to make sure I'm happy with it. I think it paid off. I also thought this and the next chapter would all be one, but it ended up being ~9000 words, so I'm separating it into two. Good news is, chapter 92 will be out in only a few days. (Please leave a review if you liked it I am starving)
Lilly fought for her breath as she sprinted down the empty highway along the docks. She looked down to the Holoband she flicked on. Moka's distress ping still came from the same place, across the footbridge she approached and into the city a couple of blocks. Her steps pounded the stairs, she found energy she didn't know was hers, and the white dot that indicated herself drew closer to the one pulsing red.
She crossed into the city, down a four-lane road. She looked at her Holoband, then back up to the stairs that rose parallel to the left sidewalk. They reached a small overlook with a Mistrali bakery, then more stairs rose to another terrace. She took a second to catch her breath, and glance around the area. Her brow furrowed, and she held a hand to her nose. "Moka?" she called. She started up the next set of stairs. "Moka, are you–"
Her eyes landed on a form splayed across the pavement, unmoving under a spray of crimson. After uneasy steps toward the Red Claw's Head she looked him over and grimaced. Shallow breaths told her he was alive– likely unconscious. His knee was black, bent sickeningly out of shape, but no wounds could have produced the volume of blood splattered across the wall, onto the pavement. She followed its trail around the corner, up the stairs.
When she saw the blood that drenched the front of Moka's shirt, how it pooled beneath her before cascading down the stairs in a series of horrible crimson waterfalls, she couldn't suppress her shriek. She ran up the stairs, and dove to Moka's side.
"Lilly…" she whispered. Leaning her shoulder against the wall, she turned her eyes toward the arrival. "You're here."
"That's right. That's right, I'm here," Lilly assured. She unstrapped her Holoband and pulled it flat, then set it on the next stair up. She tapped the 'call' icon and unraveled Moka's scarf, fixing it back in place over the gash that ran from the middle of her neck to her clavicle. "This is Lilliane Corvis-Braun of Team CRLN. I'm requesting an immediate medical transport to my location." She tied the scarf beneath Moka's opposing arm and continued. "Also requesting police transport. The suspect's incapacitated now, but still armed and extremely dangerous."
"Am I gonna die?"
"You're not…" Lilly trailed off before she could make a promise. "I-I'm here, and the medical transport is on its way. Just stay awake, and–"
She heard a low, guttural growl over her shoulder. Canine, but deep. Hungry. Below her, an Ursa rounded the corner and lumbered up the stairs. Three more Beowolves followed.
"Not now… please, not now," she hissed. She forced a smile when she turned to Moka, and squeezed her hand gently. This won't take long. Stay awake for me, okay?"
"...Okay."
Lilly stood to face the Beowolves behind her first. She pointed left foot toward them, right foot behind. Elysian Bloom rested parallel to her leg, cover folded as the pack approached. The first two leapt in tandem, and Lilly whipped her weapon between them. In a flash and a roar of flame it opened, rendering the beasts two charred husks that shattered down the stairs behind her. She pulled the open cover from her blade and blocked a third, then shoved her white-hot rapier down the throat of another. Fire dust surged, and everything above its jaw burned away.
A Nevermore's scream drew her attention over her shoulder, where wings twice the span of an eagle's descended upon Moka. Lilly whipped Elysian Bloom, and with a flash and a screech cut short, black feathers were left to float on the breeze before burning away.
She turned toward the Grimm making their way up the stairs, and sparks danced upon Elysian Bloom's folded cover. Before they could reach Moka she set upon them, swiping her needle-fine rapier across their chests and across their throats. Continuing through them, onto the terrace below, her cover blocked the Ursa's claws. She nearly crumpled beneath its force, but ice burst from within to impale its arm in four places. More swirled around her as she spun, then slammed the tip of Elysian Bloom into the ground with folded hands.
One stone spire impaled the Ursa in front of her. She rose with the second, over the claws of another Ursa that had come from her flank. She flipped with an acrobat's grace, and her rapier landed handle-deep in the back of its neck. It returned to its sheath.
Three more Nevermore circled like vultures waiting for their prey to expire. As Lilly caught a single breath they began to dive, one after another, at Moka's still form. Lilly lashed her weapon three times. With each, a bolt of lightning. And with each, a Nevermore's scream.
The streets fell back into silence, and Lilly found herself again next to Sable's form. Next to the pool of her friend's blood. Her rapier scraped against the inside of its sheath as it emerged slowly– the whisper of a threat. Her breaths were heavy from her fight, heavy from her run. She swallowed, her fingers clasped the hilt tighter, and she looked again at Sable.
The last specks of her lightning dust sparked around the tip of her rapier. Just enough to stop a heart.
She took a step toward the Red Claw Head. She took a step back. Another, and she peeked back up the stairs.
"Moka?"
The faunus slumped into the wall at her side. Her hand had fallen away from her neck, and crimson splattered from her fingertips to the concrete. She was still.
"Moka!?" and Lilly forgot Sable. She ran up the stairs, dove to Moka's side. Two fingers slid to the side of her neck and she paused. Panic washed across her face as she tried Moka's limp wrist instead. She stood up. Backed away, with a hand forcing back her silent scream. Elysian Bloom nearly fell to the blood-soaked stairs, but Lilly renewed her grasp.
The last specks of her lightning dust sparked around the tip of her rapier. Just enough to stop a heart. Or just enough to start one.
She stepped forward, knelt, and pulled Moka's collar aside. The tip of her rapier stuck the left side of Moka's chest– not enough to draw more blood. Elysian Bloom's folded cover rested on her left, and sparks flicked between the two and met. Moka returned. As if shaken from the depths of sleep, her eyes wobbled around the area before settling on Lilly. Tears sprung from them.
"What happened?" she asked. "Lilly? What happened?"
Lilly exhaled, and the haze of her semblance surrounded the wounded huntress. "You fell asleep for a second. Don't worry– I took care of the Grimm." She pointed out over the water, at two shapes silhouetted against sunset. "Look. I think those are for us."
The elevator opened to the highest floor of Vale's CCTS Tower. Its layout, again, was a matter of sheer practicality. Consoles in clusters of three made concentric rings to the far wall– a window that granted a panoramic view of the shadows choking the sky. The room's only adornment was a band of gold, running through the floor, onto the wall next to the elevator, and around to the back side. In the six-inch divisions between each window, it continued.
Next to the elevator, a plaque noted it as an acknowledgement of Beacon's Fall. An homage to the tower's destruction, a memorial of lives lost, a pledge to keep moving forward. It was always odd, Caspian thought, hearing of atrocities that happened years before his birth. He knew of the loss of life, the way the world never quite returned to the "normal" of years past. And yet there was always a strange disconnect. Even now, when diving head-first into the new wave of atrocities had become his job.
Two beeps and a pulse of vibration came from his wrist. "The main console should be around the back of the elevator shaft," The Headmaster instructed, pulling Caspian's gaze away from the window. "You're clear to insert your Holoband into the master port. I'll handle the rest from my end."
"Okay."
Caspian followed the band of gold to the back side of the central pillar, where it dove into the floor again before popping back up to mingle with the black surface of a desk about ten feet across. It was empty, as was everything else. The vacant Holoscreen hovering above a slit in black and gold simply read "COMM: ONLINE. STATUS: NORMAL."
He took the band from his wrist, straightened it, and plugged it into the slot. Mission accomplished, apparently.
"Looks like you've made it with time to spare. Nicely done."
Caspian stepped toward the window again, toward the docks. Toward Moka's distress ping. He lost his view behind the outermost ring of consoles, because he had fallen to his knees.
The shattered entrance to the Central Line Station was Lazula's first clue her hunch was correct. The black mist rolling out of it was her second. Her hand came to rest on Impetus's hilt, and she heard the cracking of glass beneath her boots. The ceiling reached its apex one hundred and fifty feet above the center of the upper platform, and the glass cascading in ridges down to each side still showed blue beyond it. But inside, it was night. The black mist hung in the air, thick and sour to breathe. She could feel it on her skin, too, like a cold buzz of static electricity.
The upper platform was mostly a waiting and distribution area. A second hub for international travelers fresh from the airport. It was a fair bit shorter than the lower, so that toward each end one could look down on Line trains as they arrived and departed. To each side of the entrance, ticket booths manned by inert Organds. Beyond that, self-serve consoles and a waiting area. A row of food kiosks lined the far wall. Their menus glowed, oven alarms droned on faintly, and half-eaten meals sat on tables nearby.
And in the middle of it all, black wings. A black mask.
The haze slipped into his mask, and on exhale he opened his eyes to Lazula. They were black at first– all black, with silver wisps stirring within. The darkness pulled away from the edges of his eyes, and coalesced into his irises. They took on their usual gaze, the gaze even Lazula could hardly bring herself to return. That uncanny, visceral feeling would start behind her eyes, creep to the back of her neck leaving her uneasy and wanting to squirm out of her own skin.
"Miss Skye," Condor greeted. "I'm pleased to see you've found me."
"It's just common sense you'd be here."
He took a single step toward her. "Which has, unfortunately, become somewhat of a luxury lately."
"Okay, so we agree on something."
"Last we spoke, we found we had much in common– to your dismay, and to my interest." His wings shuffled, settled to his back. "I'm sure you remember, Miss Skye, I warned our next meeting would likely be as mortal enemies. And it seems that has come to pass. Have you thought through the meaning of my words? Have you decided what it is you fight for?"
"Well, I hate to admit that you're right about a lot," Lazula acknowledged. "A lot of this world has forgotten how to think for themselves. How to fight for themselves. They turn to whoever makes the best case for how they should live. Or maybe they take the easy route, I don't know. But it never sat right with me." Her contemplation burst forth in sudden animation. "And I'd rather die than submit to the whims of some 'god.' Whether that's Frontline, or you, or my own father or the world itself, I don't care. Above all, I fight for myself. I live for myself."
"Good," Condor acknowledged. He raised a hand behind his neck, and Lazula grasped for her blade. Instead he undid his mask, and a smile laid bare across thin lips. Like the skin of a corpse, pulled tight by the worms beneath it. "Very good."
"Don't you dare give me your approval," Lazula spat. "People like me– people like us– should do our part to remind others they have a choice. They have agency. Everyone has a place in this world, and the right to find it. Find where they belong, and find who they are." Impetus came slowly from its sheath. "I'll fight to protect that. And you– anyone like you, who uses their place to tear down others– are the only ones with no place in this world."
Condor nodded, and drew his weapon as well. The shaft of black steel spread to twice its length, and a hunk of iron at the end of it unfurled into a blade, curved and gleaming in the sparing light. "Then let us test the resolve behind your blade. The one left standing is the one who deserves to impose that resolve upon this world."
"I told you before," Lazula reminded. "I don't think I could ever kill. I don't plan on changing that here."
"So you intend to let me rot in confinement for the rest of my life. Do you see that as mercy?" He shook his head, and the final workings of his scythe clicked into place. "No, Miss Skye. One of us is going to die here. And if you intend to survive, I suggest you fight for your life."
His scythe split and stirred the mist as he whipped it aside, held it so its blade curved behind his back. "Like any other fight," Lazula told herself. She felt the familiar, comforting grooves of Impetus's hilt beneath her fingers, the slight give of its leather. She breathed in. And before she could exhale, Condor shot toward her on a burst of night.
He covered the distance faster than her eyes could register– but not faster than instinct. Aegis came up to block the strike, and the sound of the impact rang through the empty station. Before she could even right her feet from the unexpected force, steel twisted and he tried again. She counted six hits on Aegis's face in the span of a second and a half– damn near impossible for a weapon of that size. The blade alone pushed six feet along its curve, and was reinforced at its sides and back edge by plates of black metal. It couldn't have been light, but Condor swung it just as easily as Lazula wielded Impetus– a hefty blade made dainty in comparison.
She ducked beneath one aimed for her neck, blocked a follow-up from the blunt edge of his weapon, and finally went on the offensive. Her first swing carried the force of his strike, focused, intensified, by her semblance. It whipped his hair back, tore the air itself and overturned half a dozen tables fifty feet away. He caught it with the shaft of his scythe, on the name 'Crescent Talon' etched into its edge, and pushed it back.
No time to ponder what should have been impossible. Her next two attempts met his blade, and another clattered against its haft. She channeled the force of the last impact into her boots, skipping back a dozen feet to allow herself a quarter second to breathe. Scythes were awkward to fight. So few people wielded them that Lazula never bothered to prepare herself for one. He swept in an arc each time, and the blade would come from an angle to her side– or almost behind her– she wasn't used to defending. It didn't help that between his weapon and height, he had an easy two and half feet of reach on her. And, though she hated to admit it, the weapon was wielded masterfully, and each strike held more power than her own.
He shot toward her again. She ducked and dodged around three more arcs of cold steel, took one into her shield, and let it free through Impetus. In a flash of sparks, Condor deflected it. His follow-up came from her left. From the floor, toward her hip. Aegis rang and she magnified the force into a swing that finally met its target across Condor's shoulder. His response to her ribs was nowhere near a full swing– just a shove from the blunt haft of his weapon– but still it forced the breath from her lungs and wracked her side in dull pain. She felt the wind rip through her hair as she ducked beneath another slash, set her feet, and raised Aegis into what may as well have been a Deathstalker's stinger. The strike threatened to pull her shoulder from its socket, but she pushed it away. She magnified its force seven times over, used it to shove forward and bury Impetus's tip into Condor's stomach.
He shot back fifteen, twenty feet, a shockwave disrupting the haze. He rolled, ended up on his knees and clutching his stomach. "Good, good!" he marveled.
A sudden wind disturbed his hair and feathers, and in the darkness below, whispers began to grow into a roar. Lazula knew the sound. A Line train approached.
They met each other once more. Lazula kept an inch out of Condor's reach, and the clatter of steel pierced into her ears as she swatted a series of strikes aside with Impetus. The last came from above. She blocked it and shifted forward, under her blade, and in a savage pirouette expelled its force through Aegis. Condor blocked much of the blow but faltered a few steps toward the edge of the platform, and was open for a slash across the chest. He pushed his scythe's shaft forward, guided Impetus away from himself, but reversed his momentum and whipped it across Lazula's cheek. His scythe whirled around and she felt its cold edge strike the aura behind her knee. He pulled it with one hand, and clutched her collar with the other when she faltered.
He heaved her over the railing, and she fell ten, twenty, thirty feet toward the tracks below.
All she knew in that instant was an explosion of noise, blinding white, and an unfathomable, incomparable agony. Glass shattered, the Line train's horn blared and echoed a mile down every tunnel. Aura of a hundred different hues stripped from her back on a hit that would have liquified anyone else. She splayed flat across the sloping front face, flipped over backward, and came to her senses three cars down. No stops today, apparently.
She opened her eyes as the train emerged under the other side of the platform, and saw black wings spread above her. Her eyes flashed wider and she tumbled back to her feet as Condor's scythe buried three feet deep where she lay. The steel of the car's ceiling screamed and tore as Condor slowed to a stop, finally pulling his scythe from within when half the ceiling had ripped down the middle. They faced each other again on the back of the runaway train. It left the Line Station, and curved toward Downtown Port Cyrreine.
"You really are unlike anyone else, Miss Skye," Condor commented. "Even after that, you stand and hold your blade."
"Well, I'm not sure I have a choice." And they closed in again.
Condor landed toward the back of the car, relative to Lazula. So as he whirled black steel toward her neck it carried with it the speed of the train. Toward the front, raising her shield, Lazula felt as if she fought on a treadmill. Condor's scythe flung back as she returned the full extent of her semblance, and had time for a slash before he blocked two more. She kept pushing. She added the energy born from the clashing of blades to her own strike and pushed back even harder– a trick that ended any other match quickly. But Condor repelled each with cold, infuriating composure.
They continued into the city, where the train glided a hundred feet above silent walkways, between high-rise apartments and corporate buildings. She wondered, in a second between clashes of steel, if anyone glanced out their window to see a celebrity huntress locked in combat with Remnant's most notorious villain in thirty years. As Condor whipped her blade aside and the haft crashed into her temple, she lost the luxury of thought. She faltered, teetered too close to the edge for her comfort, and ducked under another swing.
She felt the ground beneath her feet shift. The tracks had begun to descend toward the Downtown Line Station– and only a foot and a half of clearance separated the roof from the tunnel. Lazula took a strike into Aegis, channeled it to her feet, and dove toward the tear Condor created in the ceiling. Half a second later, he followed her in.
Inside a Line car was far from Lazula's preferred arena. The center aisle allowed only about a foot on either side of her, hardly enough room to maneuver a two and a half foot blade. It did little to impede Condor, as each of his vicious swings shredded seats like paper without a second thought. She couldn't do much besides raise her shield and blow his attacks back. They dropped in the middle of the car, but within half a minute she was pressed to the back wall.
That wouldn't do.
She took one swipe into Impetus's flat edge, drove forward and brute-forced Condor back with Aegis. She struck twice, one down his chest, but the other locked with the workings between his blade and his haft. Something felt off. Something in her chest, or something in her head, or both. A vibration, like black static electricity. The taste of blood at the tip of her tongue. Condor wrenched his weapon free.
The tip of his blade tore at her wrist, and pulled Impetus from her grasp. The blunt edge knocked Aegis aside. His black scythe whirled and reaped, and cold steel tore through her chestplate, through the tough fabric beneath it. Through skin, and through bone. She stumbled back, vision greying, knees weak. She fell to them. Then as she fell to her side and darkness began to take her, a stream of four hundred and sixty souls poured from her chest. It encircled the cabin, and disappeared into Condor's core.
All went dark.
A flash of light, a burst of heat and of noise, and the vision shattered in her mind. Impetus still locked with Crescent Talon. Condor's head whipped over his shoulder, where thick black smoke rose from a hole in the front of the car. He looked uncertain– uncertain enough Lazula freed her blade and scored his side. From inside stirring smoke, a silhouette emerged.
All black. SWAT-style combat gear, and armed to the teeth. A golden knight visor.
"Can't you see we're in the middle of something?" Condor growled.
That eerie, metallic timbre rattled off the walls of the cabin. "I have a mission, and I will see it through."
He pulled one of six rigid shapes from his back, twirled it and aimed the heavy assault rifle. Three shots per second clattered around the car, rattled and shattered windows, nearly burst Lazula's eardrums. Condor's scythe became his shield, whirling around fast enough no bullets could pass through. The Ambassador tossed his rifle aside with apparent frustration and pulled a pill-shaped capsule from his belt, around four inches long and two wide. Lazula raised her shield as he heaved it, in case it was responsible for the twelve-foot hole smoldering at the front of the cabin.
She instead heard a buzz, like a pair of hornet nests freshly kicked. The pill had separated into two halves, each vibrating in mid-air and pulsing with the purple glow of gravity dust. As they neared, Condor severed the steel cord between them. They reconnected in the air before him, split cord fizzling wildly without direction. Condor batted the grav-cuffs back, and with a burst of blacklight energy the Ambassador caught and crushed them.
"We don't have time for your party tricks," Condor grumbled. "When two great opposing forces meet, you would be wise to not step between them."
The Ambassador's answer was another weapon from his back. A black and silver rectangle at first, it telescoped out and locked in place as a seven-foot glaive. Its blade glowed with hard-light, and the lightning that sparked around it.
The Ambassador jabbed twice, and Condor was either immune to the sparks or strong enough to shrug them off. Lazula buried her own blade in his back then crossed his shoulder, hopping onto the back of a seat before he could respond. She skipped along the back of five rows, past the Ambassador, before landing with a blade in his back. His yelp of pain overwhelmed his voice modulator, and he locked Impetus with one side of his weapon, Crescent Talon with the other.
"Stop. I'm on your side," the Ambassador claimed.
"Like hell you are," Lazula spat. She rammed Aegis into the side of his weapon, drove him into a scythe swipe and freed Impetus.
The Line train plunged into the traffic-clogged catacombs beneath Downtown Port Cyrreine. The streets were clogged yet abandoned, rush hour frozen in time. The rails screeched, sparks flashed as The Ambassador whipped between Impetus and Crescent Talon. He steadied himself, ducked aside one of Condor's strikes and drove his glaive behind his back, toward Lazula. Aegis caught it, but lightning flickered across her shield, into her arm and into her chest. The blade drove forward, slashed upward, tearing aura off her chest and neck until it knocked her chin aside. From the other direction, his weapon's shaft cracked across her temple. He swatted away one of Condor's strikes, buried one end of his weapon in the hard rubber floor, and sprung backward over Lazula.
She felt trapped, suffocated, with Condor and The Ambassador at each side. She at first held back Condor's ruthless onslaught with only Impetus, and The Ambassador's persistent maelstrom of steel and sparks with Aegis. But ten thousand searing pins and needles began to seize that arm, and a fifty pound scythe guided by superhuman strength threatened to pull Impetus from her grip. It tore across her side, pierced her thigh and nearly brought her to the ground. She held off, took another blade in her shoulder as she waited for a split second of pause. And when it came she pivoted where she stood, skinnied up between attacks from both sides, and swapped.
Aegis rang against Condor's attempt, and she felt its force rush into her arm, into her chest. It burst forth from Impetus, and The Ambassador stumbled away from the blade in his gut. Then, like water sloshing around in a barrel the force of that strike flowed back into Aegis and crashed into Condor's arm. She threw him off balance, threw his weapon aside, and had time for a pair of slashes to meet their mark before the Ambassador flipped back to his feet and interrupted.
Aegis fared better against Condor– still the biggest threat. And Impetus didn't clash with The Ambassador's glaive long enough for it to register as more than a tingle in her fingertips. They remained like that for a minute, three warriors fighting first for their lives, and second for any allegiance they happened to claim. Until, as wind screamed through the car, they came next to the hole left by the Ambassador's entrance.
Condor's scythe bore down from above, and like a Nevermore's talon it grasped the spokes atop her shield. Lazula's head snapped over her shoulder, and she drove her blade into a notch in her other foe's weapon. All three locked in place for a second. Lazula looked back to Condor. Met his ghastly stare. Nodded.
She twisted his blade free of The Ambassador, Condor pulled his blade free of her shield. She leapt, he swung Crescent Talon. As it caught The Ambassador behind the knee and pulled him from the ground, Aegis smashed into him. The hole he created welcomed his exit.
The Ambassador struck the ground once, crumpled awkwardly, and flipped over his shoulder at the mercy of physics. He carried all the train's velocity as he met the ground again headfirst. He came to a stop against a traffic light, bending its pole on impact. The only two that could have survived an impact like that were still on the train, Lazula thought. But as he lay on his chest, head cocked aside to watch the Line abandon him, a palm pressed to the ground and he lurched up like a revenant.
His cracked helmet fell before him in two pieces, and a lock of golden hair spilled out from under it.