Looking through the opening West gate, Caspian remembered the time he tagged along with Rowan to a football game, just to see what all the excitement was about. It was sunset then, too. Live music and the smells of all the overpriced food stands filled the air. The footbridge over the road to the bay was packed so heavily that no matter where he walked, he knew he was in someone's way. Now, flashing lights and sirens. And red eyes, all turning his way at the same time.
Rowan opened the fight with an energy blast from Sanguine Storm, blasting a hole in the chest of the young Nevermore perched on the railing before it had a chance to open its wings.
A small pack of Beowolves were first to reach Caspian's team. Considered among Huntsmen to be one of the easiest of the Grimm to kill. But that spoke more to the Creatures of Grimm than the Beowolves themselves. It wasn't uncommon for one to break nine feet tall, with three times the strength of an average man and claws that could rend steel. Even their eerie howls and skeletal jaws were enough to send Caspian's racing heart into his throat.
Three shots to the chest from Undertow took one down. Too slow, considering how many raced toward them. Caspian lowered his aim, firing through the knee of the next and sending it to the ground with a whimper. The crippled wolf and the next were eliminated by a fireball born from Lilly's Elysian Bloom, before Caspian transformed his weapon into a blade and severed the swipe of claws coming for his neck.
Rowan heaved his weapon around himself, cleaving the Beowolf in two before holding his splitting blade steady and readying another death ray. Lilly raised a jagged wall of ice to defend Rowan from a leaping beast before he fired, taking out three more on their approach. Caspian managed to duck and slash his way around the final pair, leaving the pack to fade away.
"Get ready," Caspian announced, more to himself than either of his teammates. He nodded ahead. "More are coming."
"What are those things?" Rowan questioned, resting the hunk of steel he called a blade beside himself.
Caspian adjusted his glasses until the black and white quartet came into focus. At the far end of the footbridge were four great raptors, each the size of a draft horse with manes of white and robust hooked beaks. They ran on stout legs that shook the bridge with each pounding step, three massive claws to each foot. One stopped as the other three continued forward, raising the bundle of bony spines that took the place of wings. With the screech of a hawk, dozens of white missiles fired at the three.
"Lilly!"
"Right!" Lilly hopped in front of Caspian and Rowan, whipping Elysian Bloom's open cover up from the ground. She twirled the umbrella between her fingers, adding more ice in response to the hefty cracks forming with each new feather. Through the wall, Caspian saw a blurred black shape barrelling toward them.
The raptor sprung through the air and kicked through Lilly's wall, dragging her to the ground with it. She screamed and raised her frigid umbrella toward the monster's beak, discouraging it for just long enough for Rowan to fling himself around with a semblance-boosted swing that cleared head from neck. Its feet wandered for a spare couple seconds before the monster realized it had died, and fell to its side.
"Let's call 'em Daggerwings!" Rowan proposed.
Caspian sprinted to avoid the hail let loose by one of the birds, the bony spears, each the length of his arm, fracturing the glass rail to the side of the footbridge. They caught up with him. He ducked behind his armguard to block one, then hardly swiped a second out of the air. A stab to his gut took a good chunk of his aura, and he dove out of the way of a second Daggerwing's springing talons.
"Is that what's important to you right now?!"
Lilly opened Elysian Bloom with a burst of flame to discourage a peck from her own Daggerwing, stepping to its side and sinking steel into flesh with two precise jabs and a third swipe. The monstrous bird screamed and lashed her back with a raking of claws, using the moment she took to clutch her arm to bore down on her with an open beak.
Lilly shook herself back into the fight, smacking the bird's head aside with the surprising force of her folded umbrella, then driving the tip into the ground. A pillar of flame ruptured the concrete between the Daggerwing's legs, leaving a smoldering hole through its body.
Caspian and Rowan took on the last two Daggerwings side by side, Sanguine Storm admittedly playing a bigger role at chipping away at one as they bounced it between their two blades. Watching its last ally fade into smoke, the last of the four raised its wings, letting loose another hail of spears. Rowan raised the broad edge of his own blade to the assault, wincing as a couple tore the fabric at his shoulder and thigh. Jumping from his refuge behind Rowan, Caspian aimed a fully charged shot from Undertow.
The Daggerwing- Caspian had to admit it had a nice ring to it- stumbled back, shaking its cracked head and pausing its assault. Rowan sprung forward with weapon raised above his back. He brute forced his way through layers of head armor and split the last Grimm's head on the ground.
A scream tearing through the sky above pulled Caspian from his moment of celebration. He ducked out of instinct and raised his gun toward the sound, but the Nevermore hit the three with nothing more but a gust of wind as its wings beat, lifting it toward the stadium. Caspian looked in horror at the darkness swirling in the sky, like hundreds of vultures circling one mass carcass.
"We have to get back in there!"
"Lazula, what's going on with your eyes?"
"Yeah, they're like... full of different colors. It's like a rainbow in there."
"Doesn't matter. Keep going."
"My son! NOT MY SON!"
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"
Just voices. They're not real. Get outside. Kill the Grimm, and they go away.
Their arena was a five-way intersection that held little of the luster of Nautilus Stadium, or the city beyond it. The Creatures of Grimm ran on crumbling grey asphalt, under old brick buildings a few stores each. It didn't feel like Lazula's city, the double-decker metropolis of skyscrapers and holograms, androids and affluence.
Not that it mattered. She raised her shield against the Boarbatusk foolish enough to careen toward her, planting her boots against the impact and spiking her blade, splitting the beast in half and cratering the concrete further beyond repair.
Lazula caught Moka's alarmed glance at her before what she recognized as a Sabyr- a tusked lion as tall as herself at the shoulder- sprung at her like prey. She ducked beneath Aegis, sinking the spikes atop the shield into black flesh and suplexing the beast over herself with more than enough force to leave it dead on the pavement. She twisted around to tear her sword through another. Then a third and a fourth with a swing and half a thought for each.
A spray of dust from Ichigo's gun burned the hide of another, weakening it before Laurel could bring her axe down on its head. She pulled her weapon up and transformed it, slit pupil narrowing in her sniper's scope. She brought down an Anzuraze before it could belch flame over the group, then a Sabyr that sprung at Moka just as she finished punching out a pair of Ursa.
"Thanks, love your outfit by the way!" the squirrel faunus commended.
"Thanks. I like your pants," Laurel returned.
"Thank you! Thrifted 'em, they were only seven lien!"
"Nice."
Another sniper blast signalled the end of their conversation, and another Anzuraze fell from the sky.
"Hey... there's a big homeless camp that way, under that overpass!" Moka recalled, pointing down one of the adjoining streets. "They have nowhere to go, we need to check on them!"
"We were told to keep Grimm out of the stadium." Lazula ducked under an Ursa's swing, channeling the second into a slash across its throat and cleaving its belly for good measure. "We need to stay close."
"Well I'm going," Moka decided. "Nobody else has to come."
"You're not going alone, that's for damn sure," Laurel added.
"Fine. Ichigo, you go too."
"Will you be okay alone?"
"Of course I will."
"R-Right. Dumb question. Sorry."
Laurel, Ichigo, and Moka stayed close to each other down the street; Moka in the lead, Ichigo in the middle, Laurel a few feet back dropping Grimm before they had a chance to come close. They crossed a first overpass, not the one Moka remembered, and continued deeper into the dregs of the city. As the encampment neared, Moka's steps hastened. They stopped at the chain link fence next to the road and her hand raised to rest on its links, still wet from the afternoon rain.
Rows of tents sat untouched on the dim, cluttered hill down to another street below. Beowolves ran through the camp, ignoring its inhabitants much like Port Cyrreine itself had. The vagrants gathered together at the middle of their camp in a wary standoff with the beasts, clutching knives, steel bars, any makeshift weapons they could find. Laurel raised her gun as a Beowolf stopped and sniffed at a man who sat motionless against a support pillar, but she didn't need to pull the trigger. It continued on its way.
"They're... ignoring them?" Moka marvelled.
"That doesn't make sense!" Ichigo exclaimed, shaking his head at the sight. "In class they said the Grimm will kill any living thing they happen to run into!"
"Maybe these ones are picky," Laurel figured. She suddenly pulled back in alarm, turning down the street. "Someone's coming. I feel their heat."
Behind a wall lost to graffiti, a black, bear-like behemoth lumbered into the road flanked by another pack of Sabyrs. It had to be fifteen feet tall at the shoulder and almost as wide as the street, fiery eyes to each side of its conical head flicking wildly around in tune with its whiplike tongue, from which gooey black drool sloughed to the ground. But more alarming was what- or who- was atop it. A man who looked like he could wrestle a Beringel bare-handed. His Red Claw jacket was open at the middle, with an animal skull mask covering the bottom half of his face and mechanical gauntlets of dark steel on his forearms.
"He has a mask like Python did," Moka noticed. She stepped into the middle of the road. "You! Are you the one behind all this?"
The only indication the man heard her were his dark, narrow eyes lowering her direction.
"Oh, I'm not even worth a reply, huh?" Moka continued. "Why don't you get down here, and I can show you what I'm worth?"
The hulking form raised his hand behind his head, cracking his neck to each side before jumping down, shaking the ground on his arrival. Moka raised her fists, ducking her head behind them. Her tail bristled, held rigid and twitching every couple of seconds. Her eyes were furiously intent, but didn't quite belie the budding apprehension behind them. Goliath stepped slowly toward her in mute, the only sound coming from the steam escaping his shifting gauntlets.
"Still not a talker?" Moka goaded.
A steam-powered lunge was his response, and he heaved an arm over his head toward Moka's shoulder. She raised her arms to block it at first, but zipped out of the way as a brown spark, leaving the concrete at her feet shattered. He swung around, following up with a spinning hook Moka again attempted to block. She raised a forearm, flinching as four daggers sprung from within his knuckles and slashed her aura. She grit her teeth and lunged forward through the pain, aiming a semblance-boosted jab at her foe's gut. He caught it with her other hand, twisting her arm in an attempt to grapple her.
Moka's semblance coursed through her body and she flipped through the air to follow her arm, landing on her opponent's shoulder and blasting him into the sidewalk with a double-legged kick. She followed him with a flaming fist, but the Red Claw head's gauntlet crushed it, throwing the faunus over himself to give her a turn on the concrete.
She gasped as her back smacked the ground, just barely managing to flip onto her feet and duck below a sweeping kick. Her responding jab hit an eight pack of abs with a satisfying thud, but her second was brushed aside to make way for a pneumatic uppercut that sent Moka staggering backward and feeling her lip for blood. She ducked around another and traded blows for a few seconds, before a roundhouse kick returned her to the ground.
"Do you even know what you're fighting for?" the goliath grunted.
"So you can talk!"
His reply was another lunge forward, and the two resumed their brawl.
Laurel and Ichigo left the Red Claw's silent head to Moka, engaging his behemoth mount before it could interrupt the two. Two deafening blasts from Snake Eyes rang out into the approaching night, but they sunk into the colossal anteater's shoulder with little reaction. The beast focused its raging eyes on Laurel. The tongue that shot forth glowed with heat, bouncing off the side of the weapon Laurel didn't have time to transform. She stumbled back with the impact, leaving her open to be wrapped at the ankle and flung to the far side of the road.
She pushed herself back up, eyes widening at the giant that thundered toward her. The monster leapt at her with a pawful of sickles, giving her just enough time to fling herself out of the way before it carved cement from the road, flinging it into the nearby storefront and shattering every window.
"Laurel!" Ichigo shouted. He whirled Hack n' Slash around until he held a gun, and sprayed into the beast's side. Gleaming eyes burned into him, and he let out a slight, panicked cry. Another tongue lash wrapped Ichigo at the waist and he screamed in horror or pain, trying to shake the burning cord that bound him.
Laurel sprinted forward with her axe over her shoulder, bringing it down on the tongue like a guillotine. Ichigo was freed, but the tongue bounced her weapon back like rubber and pulled back to lash at her ankles and trip her up.
"Ichi?" she called. "Not lookin' like we can beat this thing!"
Two beeps from Ichigo's Holoband, and his mother's face appeared. "Ichigo!" she greeted through his wrist. "What's your status?"
"Well, we went off course to check on this homeless camp... they're fine but we found this huge dude with like, short black hair? Some kind of fluffy tail? He has these clawed gauntlet things, Moka thinks he might be some higher up in the Red Claw!"
Ms. Kurayami let a slight gasp escape. "Do not engage that man!"
"Uh, we already engaged."
"Disengage!"
"Moka! Disengage!"
Moka grappled the Red Claw's Head, her chest and arms sparking furiously with the light of her semblance in their violent embrace. She chanced a glance over her shoulder. "What?"
Sable smashed his forehead into her temple, drawing out a shriek and shattering the last of her aura before kicking her free. She punched twice at a fire hydrant, one jolt of electricity to burst it, and a blast of flame to raise a thick steam over the road.
The anteater's eyes tinted the haze an eerie red, and the three began to run.
"Moka, you good?" Laurel asked. "That looked nasty."
"I should be okay," Moka returned, feeling the side of her head. "But I hardly touched that guy, who was that?"
"My mom wanted us out of there," Ichigo said. "She probably knows he's a threat."
Ichigo's mother called again. "Please, return to the entrance. Grimm have attacked the inside of the stadium, and the Red Claw has overridden the locking controls. Headmaster Skye has a network key, but we need you to unlock it."
"Nice. That sounds more my speed. We're right next to the overpass, almost to the East ent-"
The scream of an Anzuraze cut him off. Black wings swooped over the road, and the beast drenched the bridge in flame.
"So the bridge isn't an option, plan B?" Moka asked, glancing behind the group. The gleam of red eyes scanned the haze like a lighthouse.
"Take an immediate left, then right at the twelfth street plaza," Mrs. Kurayami recommended. "The South entrance will work."
The three obliged, taking out a small pack of Beowolves that milled about aimlessly in the South parking lot before reaching the entrance. Moka started on their approach, semblance-boosting her legs to pull ahead of the two and look over the bodies piled up at the entrance. Androids. Must have been disabled along with the rest before the attack began. As Laurel and Ichigo caught up with her and Ichigo found a bench to set up his laptop, Moka stood next to him holding a block of ice her gloves had created to the side of her head, wincing slightly with each shot from Laurel's rifle.
"Not good," Laurel muttered. The anteater Grimm trudged forward. "Thought we lost that thing."
It began to gallop toward the three, and the ground shook with the cadence of a hastening heartbeat. Laurel wrenched the lever repeatedly, shot after shot sinking without slowing the monster a stride.
Yet when it came within three rows of parked cars, it stopped at the sound of shattering glass, shaking its head in a cloud of black haze. A shadow bore toward it, taking an arm on its first pass. The shadow slowed just enough as it turned to reveal a woman's form, before streaking into the beast once again and leaving it dead with a flash of darkness.
Mrs. Kurayami faced the group, face concealed by the mask of a white fox. The beast's essence flowed into her sword before she sheathed it, and approached the three. Finally visible behind the fading monster, Ms. De Sultana approached as well.
"Damn it," she panted. "You're like twice my age, and I still can't keep up."
"Mom!" Ichigo cheered.
"We will protect you," Mrs. Kurayami pledged. "You have the network key, yes?"
"Yeah. Let's get crackin'."
Noxis's head bowed, dull eyes transfixed on the bloodstained glass. The stadium was still. Silent.
The squid faunus beside him pulled up a holoscreen and scoffed at the image of Midas stepping down the hallway with his teammates in tow. "Uh-oh. Looks like Griswold Baine's little pet is onto us. Showing his face this time, too." His tentacles moved independently of his arms, clicking at the alert that popped up on a second computer. "Shit, that kid's onto us too. Working at the locking controls already. Great timing, kid."
"Let's split up," Condor decided. "I've already done what I came to do. It would be pointless to complicate things further."
"You got it," the squid confirmed, using his tentacles to pack his gear into a bag while his human arms closed a laptop.
"Kraken. I assume you have the schematics. Slip out the staff exit on the North side, a black van will be waiting. Wolf, leave from the West. I'll tell Sable we're finished here."
"Yes, sir."
Lazula took deep breaths and balanced herself against Impetus, watching the black haze of the five Ursa that closed in all at once fade away. She raised her weapon once again and swallowed as she watched black sludge gurgle up between the cracks in the pavement just feet away. The blackened pool spread to almost the width of the street before movement shifted the thick, inky fluid.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes widened to reveal the rainbow they had become. She stepped back, her desperate breaths intensifying and becoming jagged and uneven. Two white, spindly arms clawed their way out of the abyss. Then a horn, belonging to the skull of the Beithyr that slithered onto the street. The last of the Blackened Pool formed the tip of its twenty foot long whip of a tail. Its jaw clicked into place, more crunching and clicking as its spine shifted to align itself.
"One more thing, Wolf. Ms. Lazula Skye, the celebrity. She's the one you advised we avoid, correct?"
"Right. I hate to admit it, but she's on an entirely different level."
Lazula eyed the abomination as the two circled one another, and amid the storm of ethereal voices, she once again heard its wheezing mimicry of laughter.
"Interesting. For now, I've prepared a diversion, just for her."
Caspian jogged back to the sealed West gate, sculpted from translucent cream-colored glass similar to a seashell in its iridescence. The handle wouldn't budge, and Lilly and Rowan together couldn't convince the lever beside the door. A shot from Undertow into the blinking metal strip just above the doors had no effect, either. Caspian just hoped he didn't manage to make things even worse.
"There's another door here!" Lilly announced, pointing behind a ridge of white steel to their left.
Caspian followed her to a plain-looking beige door and the handle plunged down just as his hand reached it, giving way before he could put an effort in. His stumbling head missed Noxis by a few spare inches.
Caspian could do little in his surprise but stare.
"Dude, what are you doing here?" Rowan questioned.
Noxis's jaw hung open for a second before fixing itself. Caspian could feel the tense silence on his skin.
"Oh... his jacket..." Lilly mumbled.
Noxis wore a leather jacket. At left breast, three jagged gashes in the fabric to reveal the crimson beneath. The same jacket Caspian had seen on those Red Claw goons on the bridge months earlier.
"Come on, this can't be true," Caspian sputtered. Despite his words, his fingers found Undertow's hilt.
"We knew you were an asshole, but a terrorist too?" Rowan yelled.
Noxis's silence persisted. Out of his pocket, he produced a black half-face mask with the silver teeth of a wolf. With his other hand, he pulled Renegade from his back.