Noxis's eyes told little. They held no contempt, no shock at his discovery. His mask was unlike the bandanas and black cloth of typical Red Claw members- a solid, structured black half-face mask adorned with a set of skeletal wolf jaws, their silver catching the flashing red lights from above. Caspian had only seen a mask like that once, on the Red Claw's 'Python.'
"Guess Moka didn't tell any of you after all," he finally spoke. "I'm surprised. Guess she can keep her mouth shut."
"...She knew? Since when?" Caspian probed.
"When you sent her to our meeting. That was one of your schemes, wasn't it? She got lucky. Had any of the other Heads been there, we'd have killed her."
"Gee. Thanks for not murdering our friend," Rowan spat. He took a step forward, and Noxis matched it. "What, you want a pat on the back for it? A nice big 'thank you?'"
"I want you to get out of my way."
"We're not letting you out of here," Caspian challenged with a quiver in his throat, Undertow finally leaving its sheath. He flicked on his Holoband to eye his team's aura. One on one, he knew Noxis could beat any of them. He didn't stand a chance during their fight the year prior. As a team, it was possible, but the Grimm had done a number on them. He and Rowan sat at about two-thirds aura, and Lilly was even worse for wear, hovering just over half.
Half a chuckle escaped Noxis's curled lips. "You think you can stop me?"
"You think you can take all three of us?" Rowan returned.
A trio of metallic clicks marked the last of Renegade's transformation into a bat, and the tension hanging in the air split open into chaos.
Noxis reached Rowan first, swatting his hulking blade aside with his bat to knock him off center, and open him up to a backhanded swing across the jaw and a shotgun blast that sent him reeling back. As a shot from Undertow marked his side, Noxis turned his gun on Caspian, who found his armguard inadequate protection. The pellets burned as they bounced off his side, drawing a thin mist of cobalt aura. Caspian kept Noxis's attention by standing his ground against the deafening blasts and staying adamant on his trigger, but Rowan's surprise attack was deflected and matched with another hit to the gut.
You didn't move up in the Red Claw without being damn good at fighting, after all.
An emphatic blast of flame from Elysian Bloom's cover was the first attack to stagger Noxis. He curled his arms over his face and stumbled back as he cursed under his breath, swatting away another of Rowan's attacks before honing in on the dust wielder. Lilly at first offered a rapier, but the weight behind Renegade threatened to snap her dainty blade. Elysian Bloom's cover offered little resistance, and Noxis found an opening between her two weapons to whack once across her cheek, and again downward.
"Lilly!" Caspian cried, jumping at Noxis before half a chance to think. He knew how it felt to be whipped across the face by Noxis's bat- a throbbing, sickening, head-spinning pain. Little to his surprise, Undertow clashed with Renegade's shaft. He pulled his weapon back to strike again and the two were locked in combat for several seconds. It was less a fight for Caspian, more a desperate attempt at deflecting Noxis's savage blows- each delivered with at least twice the force of his own. Behind the two, Lilly summoned a frigid cloud and began to rain on Noxis a hail of icicles.
Taking the distraction to his advantage, Caspian went on the offensive. Three more quick slashes met Renegade's shaft before he finally landed one at the Red Claw Head's ribs. Caspian ducked under a responding swing, feeling the wind behind the blow tousle his hair before he reversed his momentum and drove his weapon at Noxis. His stab was swatted aside with a smirk, and Noxis's attack smashed into Caspian's armguard, threatening to split both armor and bone. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Caspian flicked his wrist around to grapple Renegade, securing Noxis for just enough time to lash twice across his chest.
He had to admit it was a little bit cathartic.
Noxis wrenched Renegade back, and shook Caspian back to the reality of the fight with a kick to the gut. Robbed of his breath and wracked in dull pain that worked its way further into his chest and legs on each heartbeat, he hunched over with arms crossing his stomach.
"I've got him!" Rowan offered, leaping him from Noxis's side. He met Renegade with a semblance enhanced swing. Usually, Caspian noticed, Rowan would let his semblance cool off for a bit before swinging again. But each strike came with more reckless fury than the last. For once his attacks outweighed Noxis's and drove him back, but the faunus was faster. He found an opening between Rowan's strikes to swing at the torrent of aura flowing from his chest to his arm, drawing a shout of agony and sending him staggering back.
Black eyes alight with fury, Noxis lunged at him, abandoning his gun for the sparking claws of obsidian aura that surrounded his arm.
Just before Noxis reached his prey, Lilly shot a blast of ice beneath his foot. He slipped up and soared over his target, straight into a fully-charged blast from Undertow.
Noxis lay face up, gasping for breath and losing his semblance to black smoke. He rolled over, grunting in strained effort as he pushed back onto his knees.
A jolt of electricity sent him back to the ground. Lilly continued with ice, sealing him on the pavement.
"D-Don't get back up!" Caspian threatened, Undertow's trigger at a half-pull.
"I tried my hardest to see the best in you," Lilly said, sheathing her rapier and folding in her weapon's cover. "We tried our best to be around for you, even when you pushed us away. And this is what comes of it?"
"You didn't do shit. I know you hate me."
"No shit?" Rowan returned. He raised his hands to the black wings still circling above. "I wonder why!"
Lilly sighed with a hand lifted his way. "Rowan, please."
"Please what? Dude's a terrorist. Let's get the cops here, and let's get inside. We don't have time for him."
"...You don't want to go in there," Noxis mumbled.
"Is that a threat?"
"No. It's a fact."
"But... why?" Caspian questioned. "You're going to Sentinel. This is exactly what you're supposed to be fighting against! So why... why are you doing this?"
Noxis shook his head. "You wouldn't understand," he growled. "You don't know what it's like to have to fight to survive. You- all the people of this city, with their perfect lives, getting everything they ever wanted spoonfed to them by these computers! You all deserve it!"
Dark steam began to rise from his body.
"You don't really think that," Lilly accused. "All the Grimm running through the streets, and whatever happened in there," she continued, pointing at the stadium. "You don't actually think this is right, do you?"
Body held still and head pressed to the ground, an uncanny snarling sound drew from Noxis's throat. "Shut up!" he shouted. "I'm doing this because it's right! The Red Claw is this city's retribution!"
"You're terrorists and murderers," Rowan contested.
"The people the Red Claw have killed had nothing to do with you. Or your life," Caspian argued. He put away his weapon, and knelt down as near to Noxis as he felt comfortable. "I'm... sorry those things happened to you. And, well- you're right. Maybe, I guess, I don't understand, but-"
"I said shut UP!" Noxis spat back. The ice began to crack, and the steam thickened. "Don't tell me... what's right. Don't tell me to stop. There's NO GOING BACK." The last of the ice holding him down shattered, and he slouched on uneasy legs as the haze began to obscure him. Lilly opened her cover, but a burst of aura dissipated the new shackles of ice forming at his ankles.
"Get off your gods-damned high horse. And GET OUT OF MY WAY!"
"Damn, are we gonna have to fight again?" Rowan asked.
Lilly folded her hands on her umbrella, closing her eyes and letting off a potent cloud of her semblance. It had little effect, even on Caspian. Screams of rage filled his ears, and his coattails rippled in the wind born from Noxis's form. He once again found Undertow's handle. Noxis's hazy silhouette, cast by a bloody red glow, grew bulk and jagged spines across his chest and down his arms as his semblance encased him. But then, somewhere within the smoke, his screams began to change. Rage gave way to agony as his body contorted with each new sheet and spine of armor, throwing bolts of wild crimson into the chilled air. The haze cleared just enough to make out two piercing red eyes and a steely black werewolf little resembling the boy trapped within.
"Oh, what the hell..." Rowan mumbled.
Lilly's brow furrowed. "I've heard of this before. Sometimes, when an awakened faunus loses control of their negative emotions, the semblance will take over them." She drew her rapier, and held its cover on standby at her side. "If this is anything like what happened to my mother, he's no longer in control."
Caspian eyed his team's aura again. Had they been in a tournament, each was just a scratch away from elimination. And something told him an out of control awakened faunus wasn't going to adhere to tournament standard. They might as well be fighting a pissed off alpha Beowolf- one covered head to toe in impenetrable armor.
Lilly washed the armor with another burst of flame. The wolf raised his arms against it, simply bracing himself at first, then lowering his head and running into it. He lunged from the glowing heat with a snarl of unrestrained aggression, ripping her to the concrete. The clatter of her rapier across the ground was drowned out by her screams, and Noxis tore into her with a series of scratches each more vicious than the last.
Red sparks danced around Sanguine Storm's barrel, bursting forth just as the last of Lilly's aura gave way. Piercing eyes turned Rowan's way as the crimson blast of focused energy smashed into the wolf's side, flinging him well away from the faunus in a cloud of smoke. Caspian eyed the snapping black jaws as he ran to Lilly's side and helped her to her feet. Rowan transformed his weapon to meet Noxis just as he rose, keeping him occupied.
"You alright?" Caspian assessed.
"I... think so," Lilly replied, looking over her arms. Luckily, her semblance held out just long enough.
"Let's get you out of here. He- his semblance is trying to kill us."
Caspian heard another shout, and the heavy crash of steel on concrete. Sanguine Storm, too, was loose. Rowan's neck was locked in obsidian jaws that slammed him to the ground like a ragdoll. As he bounced off the pavement with a guttural squawk, claws raked his side and hurled him again to the pavement, taking the rest of his aura.
Caspian let out a deep breath. "Alright. Get back, but don't go far. There are still Grimm out here."
Time to be a hero. He couldn't chance Rowan and Lilly fighting any more- not against the rampaging monstrosity that compelled Noxis. He was the only one left with a chance. An admittedly slim one, but a chance. Caspian aimed his gun at the hulking beast Noxis had become, jaws locked around one of Rowan's ankles. His kicks and protests had no effect, but Caspian hoped a charged blast from Undertow would do something. Anything.
It was at least enough to pull Noxis off with a shaking head, and draw his glowing eyes his way. Caspian aimed another blast, only charging it halfway before the wolf was upon him. The second did little, taking a single black chip off Noxis's chest.
A cloud of smoke and blood-colored sparks tore past Caspian. He stumbled back, and took off in the opposite direction to force some distance between himself and the beast. He dodged another lunge, only serving to make it angrier. It landed just a few spare feet behind him, digging claws into the pavement to swing around and leverage itself for another chance at Caspian's neck.
Caspian shouted. He thought it a war cry, instead of a shriek indicative of the panic coursing through his veins. He drove Undertow into the gap between jaws, stabbing the snarl that arose in back of the beast's throat. It clamped down on the weapon, tearing at Caspian's ribs with its daggers for claws. The beast let him free just long enough to allow a couple of slashes that glanced off its armor, then regain a grip on Caspian's arm.
He was wrong. It was nothing like fighting a pissed off Beowolf. It was much, much worse.
"Stop! N-Noxi- STOP!" Caspian protested, trying in vain to wrench himself free of the crystalline jaws that used his arm as a chew toy. His feet left the pavement and he was flung twice headfirst into the concrete, finally losing the last of his own aura when Noxis's claws pinned him to it.
His head spun, pain increasing with each heartbeat. His mouth felt wet, but he didn't have the time to check whether it meant a split lip or a broken nose. He struggled to make out the dark form above him. It came closer.
A hollow whistling noise filled Caspian's ears, burgeoning as its source appeared from behind the roof of Nautilus Stadium. A Tuna-Class airship's glowing halo of dust and steel hovered no more than forty feet above, its sleek, magnetically-linked body just below it. A spotlight cast harsh shadows as it shone on the two of them, and another shadow twirled in the air, landing beyond Noxis.
Noxis's growl rattled Caspian's ribcage. "YOU..." Noxis's weight shifted off him, allowing Caspian's breath to return. His grip tightened on Undertow as he crawled away, just enough to see Snow standing twenty feet back, Absolute Zero's handle in hand. Noxis curled his arms at his side, possessed by a howl of acute vitriol. "I HATE YOU!"
The pale blue light of hard-light dust shone on Snow's cheek. Her eyes were just a shade darker.
"I know."
Ichigo and Moka let the professionals handle the constant trickle of Grimm toward the South gate. Ichigo had traversed entirely into a world of his own, populated by the glowing strings of code flying past his lenses, and the keys subordinate to his swift hands. Laurel fired shot after shot into the sky, pausing only to load a new clip from her belt, and rub the eye straining in her scope. Cascara bound the creatures with cords of steel, leaving them to be cleaved in two by her superior before they had the chance to break free.
"Done. Easy," Ichigo announced. His focus finally broke from the screen in front of him. "You sure you needed me for this?"
His mother cut through a baby Ursa that had escaped notice, finishing her swing a handful of feet away. "Good. Have you undone the locks on the gates as well?"
"The gates too?" Ichigo repeated, tapping a couple of times at his keys. "Alright, I'll just be a couple minutes more."
As the following minutes wore on beneath the swooping gable at the stadium's South gate, Ichigo's self-assured smirk faded and his under-the-breath mutterings became more frequent.
"Still going okay?" Moka asked, still holding ice to the lump halfway hidden in a wavy lock of chestnut.
Ichigo shook his head with a stitched brow, not yet daring to look from his screen. "I can't undo the lock on any of the gates, no matter what I try. It's like the security system's updating itself as I try to crack in!"
"Need another one of those network key things your mom was talking about?" Laurel guessed. "I mean, not that I know much about computers."
"Nope. It already booted me out, had to make another one that would get me back in."
Snake Eyes flipped in Laurel's hands as it transformed into an axe. "Well we can always make an exit, yeah? Think you can get them all to come out of this side?"
"Yeah, if the PA system is on the same network, I could probably-"
He flinched at the sound of Laurel's axe leaving a hefty crack in the translucent glass of the South gate.
"Yep, there it is," Ichigo announced. "Moka, could you-"
The glass gave way, and Laurel hacked away at the jagged edges until a hole was made big enough for several to exit shoulder to shoulder.
"Could you do the announcement?"
"Oh, sure!" Moka accepted. "Everyone, please make your way to the South gate. This is the only open exit at this time." She repeated herself before turning to Ichigo and Laurel. "How was that? Did it sound official?"
Ichigo gave a thumbs-up. "Nailed it."
Lazula felt a layer of sweat between her trembling hand and Impetus's hilt. The abomination had no eyes. Just pits to each side of its head from which no trace of light could escape. But Lazula knew it stared back. Her breath struggled to come. She could feel her heart pounding against her armor, but she had difficulty giving a name to what she felt. Fear. The feeling was out of place. Why feel that fear, with a sword in her hand and a shield on her arm?
Lazula pushed it aside, and charged ahead.
On a wheezing breath, the great serpent dug its talons into the pavement and whipped its tail along the ground, shredding concrete and leveling everything in a twenty foot radius. Lazula impaled the bricks at her feet with her blade, feeling a jolt of hot energy spark up her arm, into her core. She forced it down her legs, firing herself from the ground and flying at the Beithyr with Impetus whirling around her body.
The Beithyr's clawed hand came to meet her swing. Her blade left a cleft in its armored hand, but she was flung back just as fast as she had come. The sound of crunching steel filled her ears as her shoulder hit first and she flipped over backward, then onto her feet with Impetus's tip buried to steady herself as she skid backward. She'd have to sharpen it later.
The Beithyr's body slithered behind its clawed legs, and Lazula ran forward again to meet it. It lurched aside and its tail glinted in the city's light, whistling through the air toward her. Lazula raised Aegis and again took the force into herself, twisting in the air to fire a blast of focused air forth from Impetus's tip. The arc of wind rammed into the Beithyr with the sound of cannon fire, staggering it back with a shaking head and clicking jaw.
She sidestepped a crushing blow on her advance, slashing the arm before reversing her blade's direction and striking the monster's chest. Her weapon had disappointingly little effect. She tucked left leg behind right and sidestepped the needle tip of the Beithyr's tail, glancing it off Aegis before she doubled-handed her weapon's haft and spiked her weapon through a gap in its armor.
The Beithyr's tail reeled back with a pained wheeze, hacked sideways but still hanging on. Lazula took the chance to slash and jab at the black clefts between the bony plates that made up chest and arm, removing her blade before the Beithyr could pinch it from her grip.
With little warning the monster hoisted itself into the air and flipped over its own shoulder with startling agility. Lazula raised Aegis. Yet as the tail came closer, she hopped aside. There were some hits even she couldn't take, after all. And guessing by the sinkhole opened by the attack, she made the right choice.
Lazula ran parallel with the tail, swatting it aside with Aegis when it came up to lash her. Her sword met a clawed hand, one all her strength could barely hold off. She angled Impetus down to let the hand free and instead left a trivial slash down its arm before the Beithyr's horn strike forced her back, and drove three feet under the cracked road.
Even within the range of her blade and under a streetlight, Lazula couldn't see into the Beithyr's skull. Both hands wringing Impetus's hilt, she drove her blade into its abyssal eye.
She felt nothing inside, until the tip of her blade met the back of its skull.
The demon whipped its head violently, flinging shards of concrete into Lazula's eyes and freeing Aegis from her hands.
"Shit!"
The air beside the colossal whip wailed as it swirled above, leaving Lazula to do little but watch, and scan the street for her weapon through gravel-filled eyes. When it finally bore down, Lazula again raised Aegis, widened her stance, and braced for impact.
One hit.
The tail whirled back around, and Lazula made a dash for the glint of gold on the sidewalk, diving to secure it and rolling onto her knees.
A second hit, then a third and fourth. Each threatened to pull her shoulder from its socket, marking Aegis with a deafening ring. And each came far too fast to follow up.
Then a fifth, again from straight above. Aegis swallowed the impact, and in her signature strike Lazula pivoted and let loose an arc of energized air from her blade. Her attack split armor and bowled over the screaming atrocity, but a flick of the tail and a shaking of its head let her know she hadn't yet finished it off.
She had to admit, not many Creatures of Grimm could last this long against her. But with her semblance available, it wasn't so hard after all. Maybe all along, it was Sterling's fault. Had he never locked her semblance that night, she would have won the tournament. And that family, they wouldn't...
An abyss opened between the Beithyr's jaws. A red flash was all the warning Lazula received before an acute ray of stygian energy burst forth, air beside it screaming with heat. She didn't realize what had hit her at first- just that what felt like the force of a train concentrated into a six-inch diameter had rammed into her chest dead center, firing her across the street and over the sidewalk into a mural of spraypaint.
She heaved for breath and clutched desperately at her chest, feeling the searing heat of the blow coursing through her body.
"It can do that?"
She flicked on her Holoband behind Aegis. The hit had taken over half her aura. Easily enough to kill any other huntsman, and if she took another like that, the same would be true for her. She gasped as she rolled back onto her feet. Each muscle in her legs felt torn, but she had to move. The Beithyr slithered her way again.
It hoisted itself up, and the image of the van broke back into her mind. In that second, she was back in June. Back on Seacrest Bridge. Snapping back to life just before clawed fingers the length of her arm crushed her neck, she took refuge under Aegis. Yet her burning muscles gave way and she crumpled beneath the Beithyr's claw.
Aegis was the last thing between Lazula and the Beithyr's immense weight. Her head was crammed sideways against the pavement, into her shoulder. Her arm shook, and though it was still wracked with pain, she was without the luxury of thinking about it. Aegis's edge lowered further, pressing her head into the jagged ground. The voices returned. At first, snippets of seemingly random conversation. Then, on repeat, words like "death," and "freedom." More voices joined in until she could no longer make out an individual.
She didn't want them to be the last thing she ever heard. And she didn't want the edge of her shield and neglected asphalt to be the last thing she ever saw. She had plans. She was coming back, and taking back her place on top. And nothing would stop her- especially not a monster that had no business being in her city.
Lazula pushed harder than she knew she could against the weight atop her, managing to free up enough space to fit another hand behind her shield. She felt herself gaining an inch at a time, just enough to face forward. Energy welled in her chest and the indistinct cacophony became louder. She curled up, planting one boot behind Aegis, then both. A brilliant torrent of gold and indigo was born from the energy within, coursing into her shield until it became a beacon in the night.
With a final scream, Lazula heaved the monstrosity off herself. Her left hand found Aegis on the ground before she sprung up to expel the rest of the budding force inside her. Impetus met little resistance before breaking through, into the Beithyr's heart with a burst of blue and gold that split the armor on its back, splintering a bony fin. The monstrosity peeled away and fell to its side, writhing and lashing wildly, taking out a stoplight with a shower of sparks and felling a tree.
Lazula screamed, driving her glowing weapon again into the wound she made. And again. She hacked and jabbed with reckless savagery until all had faded but half a shell of bone, and even then she stabbed until it too had gone.
Finally, Impetus fell to the ground. Tears broke from her eyes, and Lazula sunk to her knees.