Caspian stirred, and for a second felt the unsettled inertia of waking up in a place not yet familiar. The blinds were open, and past them the white sky that stretched over Atlas. The same sky the Northern Lights slow-danced across the night before. For another second he made sure it wasn't all some wishful dream– saw his sweater and khakis, right where he left them. Saw the brief call with Moka in his Holo's history. Most mornings the warmth of his bed would make him heavy, and he'd nod off another two or three times before committing to the day. But now he felt light, ready to see the city with Moka and the rest. He showered, brushed his teeth, and was on his way.
As Rowan's room was two doors down, he met him first.
"So, how'd the dance go?" he asked on their way to the elevators.
Rowan nodded. "It went well!" a sly grin began to spread, and his nod continued, slower. "It went really well."
"Good. Something tells me I shouldn't ask for details."
The self-satisfaction smeared across Rowan's face told Caspian more than he cared to know. "Feel free to ask away."
"No."
He crossed his arms and cocked his head back impishly. "So what did you do, mope around your room all night?"
"I hung out with Moka, thank you very much!" Caspian countered.
"Oh? And how'd it go?" Rowan asked. "All the juicy details, please."
"Nothing juicy! We went for a walk and looked at the Northern Lights." He fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve– of the striped blue button-down Moka once said she liked. "Then, we... kind of kissed? Twice?"
"Gods damn, dude. Finally!" They arrived at the elevator, and Rowan tapped the down button. "Happy for you. You'd be good together."
"Well, I don't think we're 'together,' or anything," Caspian replied, and proceeded into the elevator. "It's a good sign, but you know, you can never be sure so I don't want to make a big deal out of it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, she probably has like, five other options lined up at any given moment, so–"
Rowan cut him off with a hand on his shoulder. "Cas, I say this with nothing but respect. For one of the smartest people I know, you're really freakin' stupid sometimes."
"Hey!"
"She kissed you– twice– under the Northern Lights, you had a moment straight out of some corny-ass romance movie, and you still can't tell how much she likes you?"
"But... it's her."
"And it's you! Give yourself some credit, man."
The elevator doors opened, and Moka perked up when she saw him.
Of all Northwind Stadium's twenty-five thousand and some-odd seats, Moka sat in the skybox next to Caspian. If he hadn't reserved the spot in advance, his whole group would be stuck at the highest rim of the nosebleeds– and even it had begun to fill in. Along with the rest of CRLN and LSLI– bar Lazula herself, they ate lunch along the water, walked the boardwalk, and filled in their tourist bingo cards. Between Caspian and Moka, nothing was said about the night before. But things did feel different. Some final barrier he didn't know separated them, like a single-pane glass window, had shattered. And now they walked proudly on its broken glass, nearing an embrace.
He only hoped he didn't imagine the change in the air between them.
Together, they enjoyed the spectacle. Pit Viper had wrapped up their performance ten minutes before. An animatronic Beowolf capped it off, and when it appeared in a burst of fog and black confetti, about a third of the audience screamed. But Laurel defended them. Snake Eyes switched from guitar to axe, and she left the mechanical beast in three smoking chunks before dedicating it to "any more of you Red Claw punks that might still be out there." Caspian knew she filtered herself. If it wasn't a family-friendly show, a near-rhyme of "punks" would have taken its place.
Thousands of cameras flashed and blinked, like a wall of diamond dust searched by neon spotlight. Billboard-sided Holoscreens played the over-edited championship video; a series of highlights from each of their matches, smash-cut together to driving music.
It faded. The lights dimmed. Lazula knew it was almost time. As soon as the Academy League President finished his speech, she'd enter the stage. She hoped he'd keep it brief, but he wasn't so merciful. After about ten minutes that could have been three, he finally moved along to the typical pre-round spiel.
"Hailing from just down the hill, Sterling Platton of Atlas Academy!"
Even in the tunnel, the applause was deafening. It echoed down the tunnel for a minute straight.
"And his challenger, looking to reclaim the 'Indomitable' title, Lazula Skye of Sentinel Academy!"
From Sentinel's side, cheers. From Atlas, the disapproving drone she expected. From Mistral, Vacuo, and the upper tier, the tumult landed somewhere between the two. The edges of her armor glimmered in the spotlights. And for the first time in a year, she faced Sterling beneath them.
"Please shake your opponent's hand, and take your place."
Sterling smirked, and offered his hand. Lazula's fist tightened. He wouldn't take her semblance now, would he? Surely even he had that much decency? His semblance was like Caspian's– their aura needed to make contact to activate. Using a semblance here, before the match started, would be grounds for instant elimination. But Sterling claimed the home-field advantage, and the cards were stacked so high against Lazula's opponents, a blind eye from the officials wouldn't surprise her.
"Lazula?" the President prodded. Sterling extended his hand further.
Lazula met Sterling's gaze. Narrowed her eyes– dared him. And shook his hand.
The countdown started at thirty seconds for the championship match, just to drum up the crowd. Lazula closed her eyes. Took a deep breath, and felt the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She kicked the ground to test her semblance, felt modest energy surge up to her knee before dissipating.
He hadn't sealed her semblance.
Their audience counted down the final ten seconds, drowning out all but the starting tone.
She kicked off into a full sprint. Sterling held his ground, blades launching from arms, shoulders, and hips. Lazula swatted each away as it came and channeled them into boots pounding concrete. She leapt the rest of the distance, and Impetus crashed like a wave against the pair of blades he countered with. He flew back on force that rocked the stadium and lit up the hard-light barrier behind him. For a second she thought she'd already won. But two blades pierced the ground between them, Sterling skid to a stop an arms' length shy of the arena's edge, and he slingshotted himself forward.
He was a maelstrom of steel with two blades in each hand. She was nearly caught in it, forced off her feet. But the energy from his blades shot down her leg and back, and she stood. He forced her reply aside. Aegis thwarted his next strike, but as he raised a knee and shot a sword into her gut she recognized a feint. He caught the blade and followed up with it, but Lazula parried and crossed his shoulder with her blade. She slashed again. Once, with impact amplified into the strike. He dodged the second and third, turned with two blades crossed like a pair of scissors. But she knocked them aside, twirled and with Aegis knocked him to the ground twelve feet away.
She reveled in his grimace. He stashed it away and pulled back to his feet, firing five blades along a dust-propelled cord. She blocked the first two, which hit in tandem. But they split to each side of Aegis, a third skewered her thigh, and the fourth and fifth clutched her back like the talons of a great Nevermore. She felt a wave of aura tear away as she ripped herself free, and turned to block a razor-edged bullwhip. She sparred Snow and her whip six times leading up to the championship. She knew at this distance she couldn't block it as she would a blade, as the whip would cascade over the top of her shield and strike her from above. She stepped back between each lash, which she took into her shield and angled into the ground.
A blade glanced off Aegis's face, meeting the ground tip-first. Lazula caught another in mid-air with Impetus, and flicked her wrist on impact to guide its cord behind her shield. She punched up, worked it around her forearm as the leading blade too stuck in the concrete, and wrenched Sterling toward her. Impetus skewered his stomach. She slashed again but he danced beside it, and raised his hands like a puppeteer.
Cords tightened around Lazula– twisted her arm, and hoisted her leg off balance. He raised his own, cocked his knee to his chest. Lazula strained against the cords that bound her, heard them screech and whine, but even she wasn't enough. He planted his boot into her stomach, kicked her into one of the blades impaling the ground. But worse than the pain of being stabbed in the back, the wave of nausea his semblance spread.
Her puppet-strings retracted, passed blades over her skin. She pivoted away from a slash from three blades, took it into her shield and kicked Sterling in the stomach. Because at least now, she didn't have to treat him like a biohazard. He grunted, lurched forward, and Aegis rang out over the back of his head. She queued up for another strike, but blades tore themselves from the ground and skewered her back and side. The unexpected pangs drew a yelp of pain and surprise, forced an opening long enough for him to slash twice more before Lazula caught up and swatted away his third.
He was faster than her– that much was true their first meeting, and he'd only become faster since. He'd dodge or parry half her strikes– more than just about anyone else was capable of. And each time he did, a blade would spring from an elbow or knee, some odd angle she wasn't used to guarding, and shave off a bit of aura. A mosquito bite that took only two or three percent at a time, but against someone like Sterling, every fraction mattered.
Lazula braced herself against spinning steel, holding both blades off with Impetus before she cast them aside, reversed her grip and drove forward. The jab flung sparks from the blades on his back as he ducked under, and from an elbow fired two blades. Lazula pulled behind Aegis, and Sterling danced around her three strikes of response with infuriating ease. He grappled her next swing with a blade in each hand, twisted her wrist and struck with both. Aegis only blocked one. She stumbled back, blocked three more slashes in half a second, and her blade crashed down from above.
The overhead strike met a cross of steel, and one blade fired from Sterling's hips glanced off her side. She punched him away with Aegis before his next strike landed, and tumbled away from more flying steel. Both blades impaled the ground. She sprung from the concrete blade-forward, and though her strike flung him back and drew up a ripple of silver aura, he withdrew his blades and skewered her back. She parried his next strike with the flat edge of her blade. But instead of the second strike she readied, Impetus flicked aside a blade from his elbow and Aegis blocked one from his opposing hand.
She was prepared to lose her semblance. The fact she couldn't slam Sterling out of the stadium with the full extent of it was still infuriating. Sterling caught the blades that rattled off Aegis, and Impetus locked again in a pair of oversized shears. He wrenched her blade aside and another stabbed the base of her palm, prying Impetus from her fingers.
She glanced aside to where it landed, blocked two strikes from the other side. She rolled away from a third, but heard a blast of energy and the screech of half a dozen steel cords. By the time she armed herself, two blades scourged her back, one passed by a leg, and three more met Aegis.
As Sterling retracted his blades, she chanced a look at the scoreboard.
His desperation made sense. Her aura held just above 60%. His, around 30%.
As she closed in again, Sterling held a palm out to her and a blade fired on a metallic twang. Lazula swatted it aside with her shield, and cleaved the air as Sterling dodged her. He fired another blade from his other wrist. It missed, but he blinked aside and caught the first in the same hand.
Lazula felt a cord around her ankles, and recognized the same move he pulled last time they fought. She dug in a heel, and felt razor wire upon her aura– pulling tighter, digging in. She twisted her whole body to wrench him into Impetus's gleaming tip.
A buzzer sounded, and confetti fell in a blue and gold blizzard.
Lazula stood, Impetus still unsheathed. She saw her name in massive holograph letters, shocked by golden lightning. Saw Sterling curled up on concrete next to her. Felt the first snowflakes on her hair, and heard the roar of the audience. Quieter than usual. But she didn't care.
"Yes!" She plunged Impetus into its sheath, balled her fists and fell to her knees. A hundred feet above her, a hologram did the same "YES!"
"The winner of this year's Vytal Tournament– LAZULA SKYE!"
She swallowed, because she wouldn't let the world see tears of joy. She stood, turned, and offered Sterling a hand. He eyed it silently, suspicion etched deep between his brows. With a sigh and downcast eyes he grasped it, and Lazula heaved him to his feet. With a curt nod and no further words, he skulked off toward the locker room.
The swarm already descended on the center platform– both cheering students and riled up spectators, and cameraman-anchor pairings from all four kingdoms and Menagerie. She powered through the interviews. Kept her chin up and answered whatever they had to throw at her, because she knew they were the only thing between the present and her standing atop the podium. Soon enough it was built from hard-light, and the press was ushered toward the sidelines. A team of organizers and androids escorted Midas out. She shuddered, and he took the third-place position on the pedestal. They practically had to lift Sterling onto the far side of the podium– the platform with "2nd" glowing three inches below it.
Lazula stepped to the top of the podium.
"Our third place finisher, Midas Baine, of Sentinel!"
Midas grinned and shook the President's hand, then offered his neck for the medal. "I'll take it!" Lazula heard above the cheer. She wouldn't let him kill the moment.
"In second place, Sterling Platton of Atlas!"
Sterling was rigid, pulled away slightly as if he were allergic to silver. The President stepped in closer, and wrangled the huntsman in the medal's strap.
"Which of course, leaves this year's Vytal Tournament Champion. Lazula Skye, of Sentinel!"
She smiled at the camera, nodded at the President, and felt the silk around her neck, the weight of gold. And her face on the Holoscreen above her went black, like all the lights in the stadium.
A hush fell over the crowd. Then a murmur. A deep buzz from the stadium's sound system rattled the stands, rattled Lazula's chest. Like the thick hum of a cord plugging into an old-fashioned amp. It sounded almost like Laurel preparing for a set– but she was up in the skybox, just as confused as anyone else.
A voice began to speak. Sourceless, formless. Caspian froze, because even through the echo of the stadium he recognized it. In the back of the room, Ichigo curled around his laptop intently. The glare of his screen washed over his glasses.
"Hello, and attention, people of Remnant. You're listening to one of many voices silenced by Frontline Biomedical Technologies."
Lazula glanced sideways at Midas. He played his poker face, but chewed the inside of his cheek.
"For years, Griswold Baine has spoken his pledge to create a world without suffering. Tomorrow, June 21st, Frontline Biomedical's Organic Androids will allow him to make this dream a reality. Griswold Baine and his team have figured out the quantification of the human soul. Aside from a very select few, the body and consciousness of every individual on Remnant will be archived, and merged into a single whole. This is to be called 'The Apoptosis Project.'"
Midas stepped from the podium. With a Holoband to his chin, he vanished into the crowd.
"A copy of the executable files is now available to all who need proof. A document accompanies it– a manifesto penned by Griswold Baine himself detailing the rationale and end goal of his pursuits. You all likely know Frontline Biomedical as the company that changed the world. The company that mass-produced androids and revolutionized healthcare science. But this is a front. Its true purpose is as the medium and orchestrator of the apocalypse."
The murmur of the stadium grew– confusion, terror, to violent disarray. Gold medal around her neck, sword in its sheath, Lazula was calm. This was what the Headmaster– what her father– prepared for. The target she, his weapon of choice, had been aimed toward the whole time. It wasn't only the gold medal's weight on her shoulders, but the weight of the world.
In the skybox, one of Moka's hands covered her mouth. The other found Caspian's hand next to her. At his other side Snow stared dead ahead, the bright blue of her eyes reflecting on the glass.
"This is Headmaster Skye, of Sentinel Academy," another voice joined. "I've spent the last several years aware of this truth, and preparing to reverse its course. It may seem as though all is lost. And I don't blame you for thinking so. But–"
The audio cut out.
It was too late, anyway. Black wings– like those of a hundred vultures, choked the twilight.
As a Nevermore's scream drowned out tens of thousands, and as its beak against the hard-light barrier shook the stadium, Lazula felt something nudge the side of her knee.
From second place on the podium, Sterling looked up at her.
"Hey. Take your semblance back. Looks like you'll need it."
