HELLO!
Good day! How has everyone been! Been awhile since we've been here but glad you are still tuning in despite the long break between chapters!
So, you might have noticed some strange things going on with the chapter naming conventions prior to this update and there is a reason!
The original plan for this story was to go through the events of Library of Ruina but through Powder's POV and be attached as a new Patron Librarian with her own Floor before going on to the actual cross part of this crossover.
Now, on paper, this sounds like a good enough plan, right. But there was one issue:
LoR is a behemoth of a story to go through. We took a look at plenty of other Fics that attempted to retell LC or LoR's storylines, and they all take a very, very long time to actually get through them. Even through our internal streamlined and shortened vision for how we'd present LoR's events, we recognised that it would take us tons of time without even getting to the whole point of why we wrote this story- the Piltover-Zaun parts.
As you saw at the rate we were going, it was going to take FOREVER to get that done, not to mention what we planned for when we actually got to Piltover and Zaun. That's not even getting to real life shit happening with me and my partner - who I cannot and will not write this story without - it was clear we were never going to reach the end.
So, we agreed to a change: make the titled chapters from before and here on outside stories that add onto Powder's time in the Library but keep the numbered chapters the "main" story that is where you all really need with the rest extra stuff.
Treat this chapter as "Chapter 3" proper of the story - so just really need to read the first two chapters to really follow things going forward
Hope we are able to pull it off!
Onto the story friends!
Seven Years Later…
The situation was well and truly fucked, if Roland had to say so himself.
It wasn't as if living in the Library for the past few months didn't expose him to some particularly wicked and vile individuals. It introduced him to some of the most unique people he ever had the pleasure of knowing, helped remind him of some of the aspects he loved most and hated most about the City, and it also happened to be somewhat of a supernatural entity that somehow managed to occasionally draw out the repressed sentiments both he and Angela held within their hearts, manifesting them into a physical form and forcing the two of them to fight against the Librarians in a duel of passions…or rather, as Malkuth had once eloquently put it, they had to endure 'physical therapy'.
Real riot, that Malkuth…And this time, he wasn't even sure if he was being sarcastic when thinking such a comment. It almost scared him, in some nonsensical yet fundamental dimension; he was always able to find a logical reason for the actions his mind insisted on undertaking in some form. Now, after spending so much time in the Library, he found that he could no longer be quite as certain as he once was.
Was it because he no longer trusted the limits of reality after seeing his brother-in-law desecrate Angelica's remnants in a manner that mere words could not describe? Was it maybe the exhaustion that currently coursed through his muscles and mind after the seven consecutive days he spent fighting the Distorted remains of his once-adversary after Argalia and his Ensemble fell to the same Distortion they wanted to spread? Maybe it was the stupefaction that refused to leave him after he was shown mercy by the same woman he was planning to brutally torment using all of the horrible knowledge he accumulated thanks to years of working within the City and its confines.
Maybe it was all of that. Maybe it was none of it. He could no longer be quite as sure of the conclusions his mind would come up with when he could no longer control it as precisely as he once assumed he could, seeing how the Library managed to exploit the silent rage within him, making him break down no less than four times and having to endure this 'physical therapy' Malkuth talked about. Who knew beating people senseless apparently managed to give them epiphanies, somehow?
He couldn't even trust his lifelong motto anymore. 'That's that, this is this' used to serve him so many times in the past. Got him through so many complicated situations and helped him shrug off many of his own deeds as simply being part of the City; if he didn't commit them, someone else would've. Now, thinking that way seemed so redundant and counterintuitive when, in a way, it was the reason the City was the way it is, with billions of others adopting the motto he and his wife used to love so much, even if they didn't know it.
Another part of his simple life made more complex thanks to his stay in the Library…Well, what he saw in the Library, rather, and how it changed the way he thought. Maybe it changed him for the worse, all things considered; all of these mushy emotions and sentiments…they were bound to make him a far less 'logical' person now. In the City, these emotions could lead to hasty decisions that eventually doom entire Offices to ruthless, uncaring opponents that do not even appreciate their acts of heroism or sacrifice. Roland even used to mock such emotional people ruthlessly himself, vowing to never stoop so low…
…which is why it was particularly ironic that he was the one to drag Angela out of the Light as she began to fade away, unable to let her die as he originally intended when he took Iori up on her offer to be sent into the Library. Cunning old hag probably knew most of what he'd go through here. Maybe she knew that she'd die in the Library by his hands before being revived by Angela as well. It would explain why she seemed so at ease with the notion of dying without accomplishing her goal of seeing her son again…
…Which would also mean that she hired - enslaved, if one were to be more cynically honest - Roland as her assistant for all this time before she sent him into the Library, knowing full-well that he would never be able to bring himself to kill Angela after the journey the AI and the Fixer would go through together, meaning that he did all that work only to not fulfill his original goal in the first place. If the situation were any lighter, he'd have shaked an angry fist at the sky, cursing the Purple Tear's elusive planning and her devilish schemes.
Alas, he didn't have time for that at the moment, much like he didn't really have much time for anything during the week of constant battles he had to endure against Argalia and his Ensemble. Frankly, the amount of events that he went through was almost disorienting at this rate…
While Angela was safe, the Librarians were alive, Argalia and his cronies were reduced to nothingness, and the Light itself was re-released again (even with how the plan still seemed rather dubious to Roland; how were they supposed to prevent Distortions?), there was still one aspect that they had neglected to forget. A tiny one, really, minuscule in nature, unnoticeable by any stretch of the imagination:
Angela was, technically speaking, still a machine.
Now, again, this was a non-issue for almost everyone involved. She acted like a human, had human-like sapience, human emotions, practically nobody felt particularly unnerved by her, especially not after she sacrificed everything she worked for in order to better humanity. Who could've possibly blamed her or even wanted to pick any bone with her when she changed her entire reason for living, even wanting to help the humans she'd once wanted to destroy?
None other than The Head, of course.
'Just when I thought things were actually looking brighter for a bit there.' The man formerly known as the Black Silence thought as he forced himself to stay up straight, taking a second to adjust the black tie of his black suit over a white long-sleeved undershirt with matching pants and shoes, 'Serves me right, considering the shit hand life likes to deal me.'
Having to deal with the Head's constant neck stomping tends to do that, doesn't it?
An example of such stomping was currently in the form of the endlessly smug and condescending agent of A Corp, Zena, and the barely emoting single-eyed agent of C Corp, Baral. Behind the two was a strange, white, and holographic figure that seemed to be fading in and out of reality itself, Luda
Boy, they must have really pissed off the Head for them to go so far in making sure they became a non-threat.
'And they damn well are about to succeed at it.' Roland hissed in his thoughts, taking a small side glance at the two behind him, unfortunately looking just as worse for wear as he did.
On his left, was a woman about a good head taller than him. Gebura was leaning her and breathing heavily on her sword, a deep and stubborn scowl on her face.
Turning his usually cold, yellow eyes to the right was a woman around his height. Binah, former agent of A Corp turned Sephirot turned Library Paron was hunched over, her usual know-it-all smirk nowhere to be found.
Not that anyone could blame her at the moment given the situation at hand. Though with how eerily similar she and Zena were in almost every possible way, Roland couldn't help but wonder if they were related beyond being former colleagues of the same branch. The two seemed to have some history, seeing how their attacks were mostly aimed at one another after Binah made her way to the battlefield, too…Despite his best efforts, Roland could feel his Fixer intuition flaring up, which probably meant that-
'No, now was not the time for such speculation, you damned fool! Not when we're being cornered by sharks and leaking blood all over the place!' Roland refocused his attention on his two deadly enemies, attempting to get his eyes to focus, but it seemed that even with the Light's unending support throughout these seven days, his mind couldn't keep up with the constant days of battling. His mind was barely hanging on, and while Gebura and Binah had only recently joined, it seemed that even their strength was not enough to whittle down the Head agents in front of them. No wonder they held onto the City without being challenged for so long…
Seeing the Black Silence's attention return to their group only made Zena's already haughty smile grow ever larger, if slightly so, "Even after all of this time, you are still quite capable of holding your ground to this extent? Truly, your capabilities as fighters run deeper than most."
Gebura responded with a loud spit that landed quite close to the black haired woman's feet, "Bah, spare us the damn faint praise! I already have gotten enough condescending crap for a lifetime from this one over here!"
Binah lets out a low, though strained, chuckle, "I must agree with my current peer's assessment, as expectedly crude as it is. Do you truly feel the need to rub it in when you clearly have the upper hand in this particular battle?"
Zena raised an amused yet still very much condescending eyebrow, "I do believe that such bragging rights belong to the victors, do they not? Still, even if they were not rightfully mine to utilize, I do not believe you can tell me otherwise, hm?"
Roland couldn't hold back a scoff, "Aren't you being a bit premature declaring game just like that? You came and attacked when we were at our lowest, I wouldn't call that by any means a fair victory." His tone dripped venom, although it didn't seem to faze his shorter opponent in the slightest.
"Given the current state you all are in, I feel safe to presume such."
While he knew he could not deny it, Roland refused to show any visible sign of agreeing with her, lest that smug smirk of hers grow big enough to start falling off of her pale face. Even if they weren't running on fumes as a result of putting those mutated forms of his insane brother-in-law and his band of freaks to rest, this battle would be no picnic to win in the best of circumstances. As it stood now, however, the Head couldn't have chosen a worse time to make their move against the Library, with their forces depleted, exhausted, and frankly speaking on their last legs.
Roland suspected that if they truly wanted to, the foes before them could have wiped them out without too much trouble if they were not trying to do something else, which was a possibility that was as horrifying as it was baffling. What else could they have in mind beyond downright murder…?
His suspicions were confirmed when Luba began to glow eerily, her hologram-like figure flickering in and out of existence faster than before.
"It seems that your time is running ever-so-faster Library Patrons." Zena stated, acknowledging the change in her ally's presence, "And thus, the curtain on your little show shall fall soon. Beget not fear; you are merely being returned to where you and all that you represent belong. I assure you, you will find yourself quite at home." She calmly assured her opponents, an invisible current of wind toying with her imposing coat.
Roland let out a silent curse as Zena began to glow a sinister golden light once more.
"Shall you continue your futile resistance? If so, shall we see how long you can hold out-?!"
BANG!
As swift as a ghost, the A Corp agent slid away from the spot that was hit with blue lightning, her head moving vaguely to the source of the explosion, her eyes slightly narrowed at the newly arrived figure.
"And not a moment too soon, the one and only hero of the day… HAS ARRIVED!"
An exaggerated voice so grand, so booming, so confident sounded throughout the arena the Head's agents currently battled on, showing no immediate culprit. Zena's eyes met with Roland for a moment, who shrugged awkwardly before his mind clicked, the voice registering in his tired, unfocused mind and making him turn his head back, immediately spotting the source of the voice. Zena did the same, her facial expressions unchanged, apparently not all that intimidated by the so-called 'hero of the day':
Standing right across from Zena on the other side of the room-turned battle arena was a teenager who looked around seventeen years old.
Well, Zena couldn't say that she had ever seen such a sight as this cavalry before. At least she was going to be interested while she completed her mission at the Library.
Lowering her smoking gun, the Patron Librarian of the Psychology Floor, Powder, let loose a wild grin, baring her teeth for all to see.
"Am I on time or am I on time? Looks like I still got it when it comes to making entrances!"
"You're late." Roland replied bluntly, causing Powder to pout.
"Aww! No need to ruin my big moment!" Powder practically whined while stomping her foot, "This kind of thing isn't easy to pull off you know! I have to plan it out, and then execute it, and don't get me started on making sure things work out with all the shockwaves flying about!", she counted on her fingers, looking up to see a clearly unimpressed and exasperated Roland.
"Considering how much shit has hit the fan on our part, I think I'm entitled to it." He pointedly ignored the raspberry blown his way as he followed up with, "Where exactly have you been? Really could have used some of your help against these particularly troublesome guests." He jabbed with a thumb at Zena, who was shooting a few lazy shockwaves at the group while they got countered by Binah.
Powder rolled her eyes at the less-than-enthusiastic welcome, clearing her throat and straightening her coat's collar. While the Fixer and the Zaunite grew closer over the past few months, mostly thanks to their shared amicable attitudes towards Angela to some degree, there were still plenty of aspects of their relationship that weren't quite as certain, such as her appreciation for humor in the strangest of times…
In a way, Roland understood her. He knew a coping method when he saw one, and seeing the slightly crumpled parts of her blue coat, the messiness of her pink under-coat's buttons, with some buttoned in the wrong holes, and even her blue tie seemingly forced into place, it didn't take his intelligence gathering skills to tell him that she went through a helluva situation with Angela just a few moments ago, seeing how she immediately rushed to her after he pulled her from the Light. Or maybe those were simply the effects of her guarding her caretaker for seven consecutive days, thus making her Patron Librarian outfit look little better than a raggedy Fixer getup.
"WWWeeelll, you know how it is with Angela and me," She began to shoulder her gun - Zapper, as she insisted on everyone around her to refer it as - and casually crossed one foot over the other like they all weren't in a literal do-or-die situation, "We were chopping it up like we usually do at the core, talking about recent events, mind-blowing revelations, and all that. Did you know that the Library was Angela's E.G.O. the entire time? Crazy stuff!" Powder then began to scratch her head using her gun, her single braided hair flipping about, "Though that does explain why the hell this place is super, extra weird. Anyways! During our small talk, Angela told me about our esteemed guests sent from the Head itself," She then pointed her gun toward a truly amused-looking Zena, "And just insisted that I help greet them! And you know me; being the kind, selfless, and loyal underling I am, I-!"
"You wanted to stay with Angela and protect her as you did during our week-long bout with the Reverb Ensemble, so she had to personally eject you here in order to grant us proper aid, did she not?"
The loud choking sounds Powder made at Binah's all-too-happy interjection said it all.
"What has the world come to? Binah is the one making snarky-yet-true commentary?!", Roland turned to the former Arbiter, who was a bit busy blocking another shockwave that could've obliterated the Library's fighters, not commenting on Powder's faint blush of embarrassment.
The blue haired teen coughed into her fist before continuing on, "A-Anyways, I am here now and ready to put in some work!" She then turned to fully face Zena, "Hope you don't mind little old me taking over as your dance partner, now do ya?"
"Oi! Kid, don't be going and doing something stupid like picking a fight with someone like her by yourself!" Gebura shouted, the worry in her voice clear for everyone in the room to hear, even if it was masked with an authoritative tone. She tended to be extra protective of the younger Patrons such as Hod and Tiphereth, and given that Powder was without a doubt the youngest of them, this instinct came in full force, "She's cut from the same cloth as this one! She's nothing like anyone you fought before!"
"Fufufu, it truly does touch the deepest depths of my heart to know that you still hold me in such high regard after all of this time, Red Mist." Binah chuckled with a low tone, managing to straighten herself so she was standing at full height, delighting in the terror her past occupation still instilled in people's hearts and minds, even if she wasn't particularly attached to that position anymore. Strange how that turned out for her, huh? "But while I do understand how worried you are for her, our dear Powder currently stands the best shot at getting through to my former sister-in-arms so to speak, and stopping our unwanted ejection into the Outskirts, either by force or tongue."
All of the Patron Librarians knew it to be nothing but the truth. During the final battle against the Ensemble, Powder was the only one who didn't directly participate in the seven-day fight, standing vigilantly as Angela's guard against all who would try to harm the Library's Director as she went about the process of releasing the Light back into the City. At the moment, her condition made her by far the best qualified to deal with the Arbiter or at the very least serve as a very effective distraction for one of them to actually get to Luba.
Whether or not that would be enough though, remained to be seen.
"See! Binah agrees with me and you know how she tends to be!" Powder assured redhead cheerfully without taking her eyes off of Zena for even one moment, "So you guys deal with the weird one-eyed guy and leave her creepy knockoff to me!"
"...You truly think that someone like you can handle someone of my status and caliber? It is almost adorable to see…" Zena grinned, almost baring her teeth as her ringed fingers clenched in a clear warning, "Let's see the ignorant little bird fly up the vulture hill, then, shall we?" The black haired Head agent hummed before turning her head towards Baral, "Executioner, you focus on the other three Patron Librarians, I shall handle this one on my own."
"If you say so," Baral obeyed without protest, "Just remember what we came here to do in the first place, Lady Zena."
Gold and black light began to emit sinisterly off of Zena's person, her smirk growing bigger and becoming all the more malicious as a result.
"Do not fret: she won't last too long as she is."
Powder was already beginning to breathe slightly heavier due to the suffocating force of power that engulfed the surrounding area. Deep within her heart, she felt the sort of primal, animalistic fear that emerges when staring down an apex predator.
And it exhilarated her beyond anything before.
It almost reminded her of her life back in Zaun. She was always outnumbered, outgunned, and occasionally outsmarted. But she made it out, she fought back, and she adored those moments of being able to fight back and not having to run away with her tail between her legs like she usually had to do, feeling the adrenaline shoot through her veins as she snarled and bit at her enemy. That was what a real battle was to her, a stronger enemy having the tar beaten out of them by a smaller one, dishing out the same amount of punishment as she took.
It was the same situation, different context here. Except, the only doubt in her mind was whether or not she'd be able to take said punishment this time around…
Zena took note of this unorthodox reaction to her powers flaring up, tilting her head in curiosity.
"Curious. I sense no fear or self-preservation instincts on your end. Tell me, young one, are you actually excited for what's to come, perhaps?" Or maybe she was pumped full of drugs like some of the unwise folks who seemed to get their thrills from the futility of attempting to resist an attack by the Head's soldiers, but considering the Library's seemingly moralistic behavior, she doubted they pumped a teenager full of drugs so she can fight.
"What can I say? I get all tingly on the inside when I'm about to dance with a pretty lady."
Zena actually laughed at that - loudly and openly for all to hear.
"How refreshing; I always do enjoy it when they resist so very hard. It's a uniquely developed taste to partake in and savor the way life crawls out of the eyes of the brave ones, one that I learned from the best." Zena's eyes moved to Binah momentarily, her grin unwavering. She did not expect to be facing such a cheeky girl such as this girl on this day, but she would by no means look a gift horse in the mouth; she treated all of her enemies with the same disdain and prejudice. "Very well, then. Prepare…"
Zena raised an arm.
"...If you truly are insistent on dancing with me, mind if I take the lead?"
In response, Powder gave a slight bow along with an improper version of courtesy, giving a reply in an exaggerated tone of voice and accent inspired by her various encounters with the many snobbish Topsiders back at her home.
"If would be my honor, m'lday."
"...Cityfolk are getting stranger and stranger by the day." The cutesy-looking Arbiter huffed in indignation, almost revolted by the thought, running a cool breeze through her hair and cracking her neck, feeling a gust of wind fly past her as Baral clashed at top-speed with the Roland-Gebura-Binah trifecta, his claws clashing against the metal of swords and the pillars of his once-colleague. "No matter; I shall enjoy this little bout all the same." she took a few steps forward, provoking the second pout from Powder in the span of ten minutes.
"No returning the courtesy? Straight to the main event?" The pout transformed into a wide grin that wouldn't look out of place on a hyena, "You're definitely my kind of girl!" Powder retaliated, her smile as wide as ever even as she was forced to roll away from a shockwave that could've decimated her had it connected. The stakes were high, her heartbeat was erratic, and the wrong move could spell certain doom for her and her body wouldn't even be recoverable.
Powder had rarely before felt so alive.
Okay, that sounded a bit too much like crazy talk…but she was always a little crazy anyway! And why did you care anyway, prodding voice in her head? Were you going to sue her or something? Back when she was in Zaun, she was always meeker and less dominant than she currently was, always taking a step behind them…behind her, but she did know that whenever she was in a fight, a life-or-death scenario, she felt like she was born for this. Action movies and magazines were, admittedly, massive itch-scratchers for her, but nothing compared to the real deal.
Dodging pillars that could crush her like a puny insect, shockwaves that could tear her from limb to limb, debris that could shred her into swiss cheese…This was what she longed for. A real threat, death only being mere centimeters away from each dodge, going up against an unabashedly arrogant foe that was by all means far stronger, far smarter, and far more experienced than her and still holding her ground and even inflicting some damage onto said foe…What more could she have asked for? This was one of the greatest pleasures of life, alongside actually staying alive.
Powder almost felt secluded from the world as she avoided the attacks directed towards her, occasionally feeling some shrapnel skidding across her skin and hoping that the cuts inflicted wouldn't be too painful when the adrenaline stopped pumping through every vein and artery in her circulatory system. She didn't hear the battle between Baral and the other Librarians, she didn't hear Zena's unending gloating and mockery, which was already evident in those black eyes of hers, and she didn't even hear the attacks that blasted towards her as she evaded them with all of her athletic prowesses that she obtained and honed across the many years she stayed in the Library.
It was like a sort of dance for her, managing to avoid the attacks directed towards her with a sort of rhythm, and yet at the same time she knew that she was being toyed with. Her situation would've been significantly worse had Zena wanted to eliminate her at the moment, but it wouldn't be long before the Arbiter would pick up her slack and stop playing with her prey, although that wasn't really an issue for Powder; she knew she'd never be able to overpower an Arbiter at full strength, it was simply impossible. But what she did know was that Arbiters all suffered from a singular debilitating flaw: hubris.
She knew from interacting with the best source on a near daily basis since the plan to go after the One True Book went underway after seven years after all: Binah. While overpowering an Arbiter might've been a far-fetched dream, catching one off-guard was not, and although she knew not how much damage her secret weapon could cause to one of the strongest beings in the City, she had to give it a shot at least, right?
She just had to hold out until the right moment.
[WARNING: EXPULSION PROCESS IN PROGRESS. THREE MINUTES REMAIN]
And she also had to hope that said right moment was within less than three minutes.
"Tired already?"
Ah, there it was!
Zena's smug arrogance shone once more as the Head's soldier lazily avoided a zap from Zapper, brushing it off with an equally unbothered wrist movement. "How curious, seeing how you were oh-so-willing to begin this dance. It's only been a few minutes since we started, have you overestimated your powers so much?" A sick chuckle left the maybe-shorter-maybe-not woman's mouth, letting Powder grit her teeth together even as her mad smile remained plastered on her lips.
She had to get a little closer. She couldn't allow her enemy's goading to ruin the opportunity she'd been working toward.
[EXPULSION PROCESS IN PROGRESS. TWO AND A HALF MINUTES REMAIN.]
"Lady Zena." Like a flash from the midst of nowhere, Baral appeared besides his superior, looking particularly worn as he had to go against two Colors and a former Arbiter at once. "It's time we leave this place. Our mission here is done."
"Not yet, Baral." Luda's static-infused voice sounded, sounding quite concentrated. "We must make sure that there are no accidental escapees. They must all be sent to their final lodging."
"Worry not; it does not appear as if they'll be going anywhere anytime soon." Zena confirmed, aiming a particularly large shockwave at Powder, who only barely managed to slide under it. If this shockwave were any lower, she might've been missing all of her frontal skin right about now, although the thrill of the battle and the adrenaline helped the Zaunite casually gloss over such a terrifying fact.
"Oi! Leaving our tussle already?" Powder cried out, panting, her face red from all of the exertion, and yet not willing to let the Head's trio part without at least attempting to put her plan into action. She knew her plans failed before. A failed plan of hers killed her family, estranged her from her sister, and sent her away from her home, the place she used to love so much. She couldn't afford to fail again.
She couldn't afford to fail another family.
"Leave her to me." Thank Janna above. Zena apparently took their bout more seriously than she was willing to admit, approaching the blue-haired teenager with a pompous air, her boots heavy against the ground as another shockwave, this one larger than all of those that preceded, began forming in her hands. "Concentrate on our mission, Luda."
"Powder!" Another voice cried out into the chaos, this one being Gebura's. "Get out of there, she's about to blast you with something bigger than we've seen all day!" No response. That girl…she wasn't really willing to do such a thing, right…? "Powder, listen to me! It's not worth it, you don't know what she's capable of doing!"
"...Sorry, Gebura." The Patron Librarian of the Floor of Psychology turned to her redheaded colleague with an apologetic smile. "But I have to try."
"Powder, wait-!" Before she could chase after her, the former Color Fixer had to block a strike from the B Corp agent, preventing her from interfering in the fight, "One-eyed bastard!"
Without another second of hesitation, the blue haired librarian dashed forward, pushing aside the protests of her fellow Patron Librarian, rushing directly at the stupid smirking face of her black haired opponent, attempting to ride out the adrenaline waves to their fullest to not allow her burning inner flame to die out in face of the fears that she felt either subconsciously or outwardly.
"So eager to throw your life away for a pointless cause." The Head agent practically crooned as gold and black flared around her in stark contrast to the serene pride her presence exuded, her smirk growing as Powder reached ever so closer to her personal space, "Far be it from me to deny you the end you so clearly desire, foolish little Libra- Eh?"
The stoic expression broke as Zena's eyebrows raised in a rare genuine surprise as she witnessed her opponent skid to a stop right as they were about within arms length before leaping to the side on what seemed to be a whim.
Normally, in such a case, Zena would be far from bamboozled or worried; why would she be? Call her arrogant, but she was equipped with the best equipment the City had to offer. She was, quite literally, the City's strongest soldier accompanied with two of her equals in strength against a teenager. What could possibly worry her?
However, the Arbiter had no time to even ask what the hell she was doing when she suddenly found herself restrained, her arms tightly restrained against her sides as she found herself suddenly surrounded by a sticky, spider-web-like string, gazing into her opponent's eyes with furor.
"Ha ha! That's a real good look on ya! Spider Bud really came through! " Powder guffawed holding both of her sides in both triumph and mirth, honestly viewing the sight of normal high and mighty Zena bound up and helpless as one of the funniest things she has ever seen in her life, or so the adrenaline made her think anyway. Maybe she'd have to downgrade it to the top 50 after all was said and done. "Serves you right for being so up your own ass and huffing those farts everyday!"
Some might call this a cowardly way to handle an issue, but so what? Who the hell expected her to actually beat an Arbiter by herself in a straight fight?! She heard about what Binah did to L. Corp when she still worked for the Head and someone expected her to actually fight such a force of nature?
She was touched in the head, not stupid thank you very much!
Thankfully, she never came into this whole clustermess with the intention of actually fighting, but to take the Head agent off of the board long enough to stop whatever the hell her puppetmasters were trying to pull with the Library. Or at least delay them long enough to try and do something, anything instead of helplessly awaiting the inevitable, and so she could only thank the E.G.O., Red Eyes, she just used on Zena for how useful it turned out to be. Luckily, it seemed that the tales about how Gebura slayed Garion back when she was Kali thanks to the use of that very same E.G.O. were still applicable to some extent here, as Zena was struggling to break out of the E.G.O.-made webs, though that was only thanks to the surprise and the novelty of such a technique being used against her. Powder had no doubt that she would break out fast, and when she did…well, Powder could only hope that her plan would have worked by then.
If not, well, it seemed that Zena's attacks weren't particularly slow when it came to killing their target. She hoped her prayers were short enough to not be cut off by a sudden shockwave shot with the rage of a thousand suns.
[EXPULSION PROCESS IN PROGRESS. FIFTEEN SECONDS REMAIN.]
"And that's my cue!"
"And you think I will allow it?!" Baral growled out before blocking a strike from Roland, "Why you-!"
"Powder, whatever you're trying to do, get to it already!" The former Color Fixer roared out as he struggled to push back his opponent. He didn't know what she was trying to do, he didn't know if it was going to work, Hell, he by no means trusted her enough to think it would be a decent plan.
But you know what? He was willing to throw the dice this time around. It's not like he had any better plans as of right now while Gebura and Binah were both going to only marginally slow down Zena's inevitable outburst. If they had any sort of plan, regardless of how bad, how nonsensical, how impossibly stupendous it could possibly be, it was still better than nothing. And most importantly, Powder was willing to risk herself entirely for their sake. If he were a better man, Roland would've stopped her. Maybe he would've even taken her place, but alas, he was not the man he once wished to be, and so, clashing against Baral again and pinning him, he could only muster one clear non-combat-focused thought as he watched the blue-haired teenager:
'Godspeed, you insufferable little gremlin. Godspeed.'
"Yes sir!" With a two finger salute, Powder hopped over and around the thrashing and enraged Zena, rushing toward Luda with the highest speed her feet could grant her, her eyes focused and her hand ready to aim her coup-de-grace at the perfect moment.
[EXPULSION PROCESS IN PROGRESS. FIVE SECONDS REMAIN.]
On instinct, Powder aimed Zapper and shot at Luda, whose light was emitting brighter than ever, a desperate measure to disrupt the process that the Head operative was clearly responsible for carrying out, unable to notice the electric spark that drifted just a little too close to her pocket, igniting a fateful little crystal she'd been carrying with her for the most desperate of times and knocking it out of her pocket, rolling on the ground and going unnoticed thanks to the chaos that engulfed the air around it…
[EXPULSION PROCESS IN PROGRESS. ONE SECOND REMAINS.]
Just as the lighting hit its target, disrupting Luda's focus for just a split-second that was too critical to be interrupted, the Hextech crystal on the floor that left her pocket burned as bright as the shining sun, emitting a shrill, screech-like sound as all the heads on the Floor turned it, only catching it as it emitted a blinding aquamarine light, engulfing everything in sight. In the split-second she noticed it, the memories clicked for Powder, and her trigger-happy expression dropped as she felt time slow down, but to no avail, only allowing her enough time for one coherent thought before she, too, was engulfed by the blinding explosion.
'Oh shit.'
Those were the last thoughts of Powder before blue turned into black.
"Have we gathered enough information to understand what happened?"
"Unfortunately, we have not."
"Then can we use the information we have to at the very least come up with some explanation?
"Well, from what we have managed to discern thus far, Agent Luda from was about to complete the process of expelling the Library into the the Outskirts before an energy source of unknown origin came into contact with the teleportation technology Agent Luba was activating, leading to the entire process getting completely derailed as a result and causing the entire structure of the Library to be transported into an unknown location."
"So the end result was still achieved. Do we have any clue on where Agent Zena, Agent Baral, and Agent Luba, have been sent to?"
"Their current location is unknown to us."
"And the energy source that led to this derailing of the operation?"
"Also unknown. However, it bears similarities to the energy sources found in the Ruins of the Outskirts. Shall we invest more resources in that area in response to this unexpected development?"
"Do so as soon as possible. Have you activated the tracking technology on Agents Zena, Baral, and Luda?"
"We've lost all connection with them, sir."
"...Lost all connection? With each and every one of them?"
"Yes, sir."
"The tracking technology we have installed on the three Agents works from a distance of ten-thousand kilometers in any direction in a circle starting from the center of A-Corp. Agent Beria, are you suggesting that they were sent a further distance than that?"
"Our tracking technology has not failed prior, sir, nor has it given us any signal that it has failed. All evidence points towards the fact that they are beyond our conceivable reach."
"Then they're lost. There's nothing beyond the wastes of the Outskirts besides the endless monsters and the Ruins. We cannot dedicate resources to a new taskforce to map more useless lands-"
"However, sir, there was at least one distress signal launched from their tracking devices with their emergency battery before all contacts were lost."
"...But you just said they were sent more than ten-thousand kilometers into the Outskirts. The distress signal technology we have installed co-opts any present signal and sends it to our trackers at the HQ, and there's no suitable signals in the Outskirts."
"Unless they aren't in the Outskirts, sir."
"..."
"Sir?"
"Hold off all operations for today and call an urgent field-officer meeting. We have a task force to build."
"Yes sir."
So! Thoughts? Likes? Dislikes? Do tell!
Moving onward, we will now focus on the real 'meat' of this story through the upcoming parts, however, if we feel there is enough demand for certain scenes to explain certain things we might've glossed over or forgot to properly explain from the City segment, we may add them as more 'side stories' in order to try and keep a good coherence within TaT.
PS: The new cover image was made by chonky_cat6/ A Instagram.
Until next time!