The deluge tumbling past the window in The Roots couldn't decide on rain or snow. Either way, Caspian was glad he wasn't outside in it. The steam from Moka's second coffee of the morning rose in time with the sleepy bossa nova playing softly through the ceiling's speakers. Light as warm as the cafe's heating system bathed the mess of notebooks and laptops covering their table. The world in their booth decorated in an abstract muddle of autumn colors and the odd dash of blue was so comfortable, so warm, Caspian couldn't stand the thought of leaving it for the training exercise that afternoon.
"Okay. I think I got the answer," Moka declared, dropping her pencil in favor of her coffee. "What did you get?"
"For how far the Beowolf would travel, I got 32.75 feet. 32 feet, 9 inches since it's asking in that format." Moka's look of mild terror told him her answer didn't match. He stifled a chuckle as he continued. "Interception would happen after 1.2 seconds. What'd you get?"
Moka pointedly placed her eraser flat across her answer. "Not that."
"What did you get?"
She tousled the hair behind her right ear– the movement Caspian noticed was a trademark of her embarrassment. "Can you maybe show me how to do it again and I can just start over?"
Caspian accepted and started running through the problem. He showed how, given their velocities and the angle of approach, the brave huntsman would intercept the Beowolf a little over seven feet before it reached a helpless child. Moka cocked her head to each side, brow furrowing deeper as she tried to follow along. She pulled straight back with a thump that probably rattled the couple eating breakfast at the booth behind her.
"It's hard to read from here. I'mma sit next to you."
She shoved her books to the far side of the table, picked up her coffee, and brought it with her as she slid in next to Caspian. Closer than he expected, and she leaned over his non-writing arm to get a better look as he continued to explain. She backed off only a bit as he improvised a second problem with slightly tweaked numbers– and the important distinction of an Ursa over a Beowolf– then handed it to her.
She took a few minutes longer than he did, but she eventually presented her work. It was a bit all over the place, with several failed attempts scratched out and replaced with better math. At the end of it all, Moka's answer matched Caspian's. Off by a few decimal points, but close enough.
"Yeah. That's more or less what I got," he noted, handing the paper back to her.
"Sweet! I got one!" She sat back, and was about to take another sip of coffee. "Wait, 'more or less?'"
"That's what I got."
"Yes!" She finally took her sip, shaking her head and pursing her lips as she swallowed. "You have no idea how stressed I am about finals. I bet you aren't though, right?"
"They're a couple of weeks away, so not yet at least," Caspian returned. He took a sip of his own– something so sweet he couldn't taste the bite of espresso. "I'm opting into the weapon upgrade in GS2, though. So I really should get started on that soon."
"You're doing the upgrade?" she questioned. "Didn't the professor say it was like, really hard and nobody ever did it?"
"Yeah. But my armguard is broken," Caspian reminded. "And that training exercise last week gave me an idea. Might do something with hard-light, too. Still thinking on that."
"You're gonna upgrade your weapon with hard-light in two weeks?"
"Ideally. I have access to it, and I could maybe take a look at Snow's weapon to get an idea on how to shape it."
"Well jeez, good luck," Moka offered. She tapped her fingers together, giving a troubled look to the weather outside. The rain seemed to be winning. "By the way, how are you? After Cat, and all that. I feel like I haven't asked in a while."
"Oh, I'm…" he looked for his answer somewhere inside the mug he turned with index and thumb. "Better, I think. Maybe even better than before all of it. But it's also made me realize I can't remember ever being 'good.'" He looked past Moka, to the Winter Holiday decorations strung up along the far wall. "Sorry. Maybe that was too much."
"No, not at all," Moka returned. "I'm just glad you're doing better."
"Thanks. I am too." He wondered, again, whether what was on his mind was too much for polite conversation in The Roots. "The whole thing also made me realize I shouldn't need to be in a relationship to make me happy. Of course if I'm in one it should make me happy. But it shouldn't be the thing to do it, you know?"
Moka paused for a second or two, a brief flick of her tail the only motion from his side. She settled on a slight smile. "I think that's a good thing to realize. Until then we'll keep working out together to get you some more of them endolphins!"
They shared a laugh, and returned to studying. Only a couple of minutes later Moka was distracted by something on her Holoband. He was just about to remind her to stay on track when she leapt in her seat with a pump of her fist.
"YES!"
"Yes?"
"My application for the Nikos Tournament got approved! I'm in!"
"Really?! I'll be rooting for you!"
"Fifty thousand lien…" Moka marveled. "If I win, that's my mom's treatment for a year!"
The weather improved little over the next hour or two of studying. Upon finishing a rough essay outline for Applied Combat Strategies, Caspian and Moka dropped their backpacks off at their dorms and headed to the SFC together to suit up. He appreciated how dry his combat uniform was, and savored the precious few minutes before they were back outside.
"Jeez… Winter is nasty here, isn't it?" Moka noted as the SFC's glass doors opened to a wall of water. "I can't wait until it warms up again."
"That makes two of us, then. The rain's a nice change of pace for the first couple weeks of October maybe, but I'm over it."
"Right? I want to go on hikes and stuff. A lot less fun when it's all cold and muddy– wait, I feel like I've talked about this before. Have I?"
"I think so," Caspian returned with a light chuckle. "I can tell you really want to go." He lowered his head against the wind. "You know, sometimes I wish I was more outdoorsy."
"We should go on a hike then! In Spring or Summer, I mean. Obviously not now."
"Sure. I'll go. Not sure I can keep up with you though," Caspian responded. "Where are the good hikes around here?"
"I'm sure you can keep up by then!" she assured. "And huh. I used to live closer to the mountains, so I'd always hike there. But last Summer I went on a couple near– Cole!"
"Where's Cole?"
Moka answered his question by running up to the lanky dark-haired boy from Sparring Team and surprising him with a hug that nearly knocked him off his feet.
"Oh! Hi! Thought training was starting early for a second there," he greeted. Then, almost as an afterthought; "Hi, Caspian."
Moka and Cole fell deep into conversation– deep enough Caspian had a hard time finding a way in. He was an awkward third wheel, rattling off to the side of a perfectly functional bicycle. As they approached the crowd at the mouth of the bridge, Caspian scanned it for Rowan, Ichigo, Snow– anyone else he knew. He kept half an ear on their conversation until Cole's question caught him entirely off guard.
"Oh yeah. Been seeing this guy for a few weeks now. Do you think he's cute?"
Caspian glanced over to see Moka leaning into Cole's Holoband. "Ooh. Yeah, I'd say so!"
"Cas, what do you think?"
Caspian looked over the picture of the suitor smiling into the sunshine, with a backdrop of Seacrest Bridge. "Uh… yeah. Yes. Definitely cute."
"You are one hundred percent straight, aren't you?"
Caspian nodded, fiddling with the sleeve of his coat. "I think so. Well, maybe ninety? Ninety-five. That's about right."
"Got it. I'm a big fat zero if you haven't noticed yet." Cole's mischievous look hardened over Caspian's shoulder. "Oh. She's got a lot of nerve coming out today."
Moka followed his eyes, and looked back at him. "It's okay. Really."
Lazula was used to the murmur of a crowd as they parted before her. What she wasn't used to were all the venomous, spiteful whispers she dredged as she passed, like stirring up sludge from the bottom of a stagnant pond. They couldn't bother her. She could tune them out with her headphones. What she couldn't tune out were their eyes– their anxious, resentful, condemning eyes.
She arrived at the edge of the group with Lilly and Snow, two of precious few who didn't yet put her on par with the Red Claw. She kept her music on, her mouth shut. They risked questioning enough by standing next to her. If the school had turned against her, she wouldn't drag them down too.
Caspian glanced at her, but avoided her eyes as they flicked his way. He wasn't sure what to say to her. He felt obligated, as her brother. She wouldn't give much of an explanation. He knew that much. Besides, if Moka didn't seem to need one, he didn't. He just didn't like seeing his twin sister turned pariah overnight.
He swallowed his apprehension, and made his way over to the three to greet them. Lilly and Snow returned his welcome in tandem. He wasn't sure Lazula heard him. He knew his sister wasn't much for conversation. But most days she'd at least take the headphones off. He searched for a topic she might find interesting. "...I actually won my training exercise last week," he offered. A nervous chuckle escaped him. "I think that's the first one I've won yet."
"Oh. Good job."
Another nervous chuckle. "I guess that doesn't mean much to you, huh?" He picked at his sleeve, and wondered if it was too soon to admit defeat and return to Moka.
"It was impressive," Lilly assisted. "I can already tell he's improving."
"Maybe. But she hardly has any room to improve," Caspian commended, nodding at Lazula. "You're lucky, being as strong as you are."
"You think I'm LUCKY?!" she snapped, her voice bursting out like a river through a broken dam. Her headphones fell from her ears, tried to hang on around her shoulders but ultimately clattered to wet concrete.
"I-I-I just– you don't have to worry about–"
Lazula felt exactly as she did before ripping all those pictures, awards, medals off her wall– a boiling, seething rage she'd hardly felt before. She didn't realize her thumb worked at its favorite groove on Impetus's hilt until Caspian's wide eyes flicked down to it. He took a step back.
"You should leave," she sputtered. Caspian heard her breaths, raspy and uneven. She was almost unrecognizable– no longer the resolute, headstrong girl he'd grown up with. She curled under her hunched shoulders, eyes washed in rainbow like a slick of oil and darting between all the heads that turned their way. Even Lilly started to look uncomfortable.
"...No. I'll leave. I-I'm leaving." She nodded once, somewhere between Caspian and Moka, and turned away.
The late crowd that began to shuffle in behind them at the edge parted for her again. Caspian gave her one last glance as she left, measured his voice against the crowd's mumblings and a siren in the distance, and leaned in toward Lilly. "Is she alright?"
"I… I'd like to leave it up to her to tell you."
Halfway back across the bridge to campus, a pair of androids blocked her path. She moved to the side, but they matched her. She lowered a shoulder to check one aside, but it held a hand out.
"Lazula Skye, you are needed at the campus of Frontline Biomedical's Empyrean Tower."
"For what?"
"Your assistance is needed in an active attack by the Creatures of Grimm."
"Now?" she questioned.
"Yes. We have an airship prepared at the docks for you."
"Shit. Fine. I'll go."
"Alright. I'll send more students as backup."
With the Headmaster's final words, Griswold Baine's portrait froze, greyed out, and shrunk to become one of a dozen laid out above Headmaster Skye's desk. He placed his hands on it, leaning in toward them with his head down.
"I don't like this."
"Lazula will be okay. She took the news about as well as I'd expect, but she's still strong," the Headmistress assured.
"I know that much." He turned away from the desk, and to his wife. "But something's off about this. They contacted Lazula directly, not me. And if the Red Claw had been planning this for more than a few weeks, I figure Noxis would have told me."
"That's true. And the Red Claw is surprisingly organized, isn't it?"
The Headmaster nodded. "Yes. At the top, at least. And speaking of the Red Claw, we don't have any reports of members in the area."
"Should we send Lazula?"
"She's already on the way," the Headmaster returned. He tapped at his Holoband until Lazula's portrait appeared on one of the screens, and it expanded to four times its size. She appeared, shadows buried in the skin beneath her eyes.
"What is it?"
"Sorry to call you out on such short notice. From what I hear, a single large Creature of Grimm suddenly appeared outside the gates to Empyrean Tower. No injuries, so far. But it's caused considerable property damage, and already taken out eight Organds."
"Alright. What kind of Grimm?"
"We don't know. We've never seen anything like it before." He adjusted his tie. "But it's nothing you can't handle."
"I know that much. Four hundred and sixty souls, right? This shouldn't be a problem." Her eyes avoided him as she shook her head. "I know that's why you called me."
"We aren't the ones who called you out," the Headmaster returned. "It was a direct order from Frontline."
"Hm. Well is that it? Just kill the thing and I'm done?"
"Yes. I'm going to contact Caspian to help secure the surrounding area."
Lazula hung up.
The Headmaster let a breath go and rubbed the mark his glasses had made on his nose before he swapped Lazula's screen out for Caspian's.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Caspian. I'm sorry to spring this on you out of nowhere, but there's an active Grimm attack near Frontline's campus right now."
"Uh– What?! Right now?"
"Yes. Lazula's headed over herself to deal with the brunt of it. So far, only one Creature of Grimm has been reported. But I need you to lead her team and your own in securing the surrounding area. Can you do it?"
"Both teams…" Caspian considered. "Yeah. I think so."
"Can I go too?" Moka's voice cut in.
"Sure, Ms. Chino. Thank you. Gather everyone and make your way to the airship dock. You'll set out as soon as you're all inside."
A hundred feet above the swath of grass and marble before Empyrean Tower, Lazula saw her target. There was nothing like it in her Grimm Studies textbook, that was for sure. It was huge. Fifteen feet tall, at least. And its body– almost lobster-like in shape but with a long, reptilian tail– was several times longer. It whipped around in place, bisecting the android assaulting its leg at the waist with its rounded blade of a hand. It sniffed at the destroyed machine and whirled around again, cracking the white steel shell of Empyrean Tower's campus with its axe-shaped head.
The airship landed, and Lazula stepped out.
"SOMEONE, HELP US!"
It couldn't have been any of the dozen or so androids still standing. No amount of emotional simulation modules could replicate the horror in that voice. It was the voice of a human soul– a human soul that had long since lost its body.
Impetus glinted under the light of the airship that began to lift behind her. She nodded at the Organd nearest herself. "Out of my way. I can handle this."
The monstrosity turned her way, crimson eyes igniting the rain that pelted its bony shell and ran down a pair of mandibles. The claw-like appendages of its multi-hinged jaws chittered with hunger, the sound like that of a single massive cicada. With little warning it lowered its head and broke into a sprint, whiplike tail wavering behind on each step. It crushed a half-dead Organd on its approach, and rammed its head into the ground where she stood.
Lazula evaded, just to be safe. The axehead the size of a king-sized bed tore a cleft in the dirt, and she struck twice at the creature's knee, swiping her blade between gaps in its armor. Its leg faltered slightly with the second strike and it let out a garbled shriek. Its tail, claws, and head lashed wildly, the latter colliding with Aegis. Lazula flung backward across the inundated ground, bouncing once with a squelch and rolling onto her side.
She drove Impetus into the dirt to help her stand, spitting a wad of mud and wiping it off her chin. The demon charged her again.
Aegis swatted away the first bladed strike, and Impetus the second. She leapt beside a lunge of both arms and its head, planting her boots in the shaking ground and reversing direction to drive her blade deep into one of three eyes on the side facing her.
Another shriek– this one louder and longer. Tar erupted from the ruined eye and mixed with the rain running down the side of its head as she drove deeper and twisted. Its mandibles rattled and the massive head thrashed back, blade-arms flailing in Lazula's direction. She held Aegis steady five feet below its chin, waiting for an opening beneath the crushing weight of each strike.
Its tail impacted the back of her leg, and she stumbled just long enough to be caught in its pincer.
Aegis defended her from the front, but at her back a bony scythe scraped away at hundreds of souls' worth of aura. Its hands weren't just blades. More like claws, or seven foot wide garden shears. She felt the energy building behind her shield. She could hold out for a while longer as it mounted within her, spreading up her arm and rolling about in her core– all those souls had to be good for something, after all.
As the abomination raised her to its spined mandibles and drooling, clattering jaws she lashed out against its grasp, ripping Aegis and Impetus around in an explosion of bone shards.
She landed below its monstrous face, which pulled away in another fit of agony. Its heavy whip of a tail cracked upon her shield, and she swallowed the impact once more. She leapt, turned in the air as she let the fullest extent of her semblance free from Impetus's tip. Mud parted beneath the arc of force that cratered the monstrosity's bony side. All went silent for a moment as the rain vaporized in the force of the shockwave.
The creature attempted to right itself, three defiant but aimless steps before it slumped on the ground and its tail came to rest behind it. Darkness rose up from its body like steam.
"That's all?" Lazula grumbled as she slid Impetus back into its sheath. She looked at the scrapped androids littered across the field to distract herself from the silence of their still-standing allies. Ten had fallen. If these were supposed to protect the people of Port Cyrreine, it was no wonder terrorizing the city came so easily to the Red Claw.
"So, now what?"
They all stared at her in blank-faced silence. She'd grown used to Snow, but the distinct lack of soul in their eyes made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She heard nothing but the sound of the rain until a ringing filled her ears, so high-pitched she couldn't be sure at first it was real. But it grew louder until it was excruciating, stopping only when a red glow flashed within the eyes of each Organd, one at a time.
The android nearest her activated a hard-light blade.
