Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[MyrtenRose]

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"U-Up there! Please don't hit me again!" She mewled as she pointed, scrambling back with a look of flabbergasted terror on her face at someone recovering so fast and clocking her. She whipped her gaze around with a glare. "Cookie, I thoughtcha were supposed to stop that from happenin'?!"

"Well you stabbed her though, so..."​

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! It just...reflexes, you know. Sorry, really am!!" She reached out with what was meant to be a comforting pat on the shoulder if allowed, but regardless moved on. She gritted her teeth together extra tight, preparing for more pain as she herself grabbed another pair of the dust crystals and forcibly shoved them in as well. Despite her best efforts she couldn't manage to keep the scream of pain from getting out. For a few moments there it seemed every vein and artery was glowing, a golden color that rapidly shifted towards pink. The pain and the strain her body was suffering at the moment was...well, it was no picnic. Still, she forced herself to endure it. She had to. Her, Yang, they'd...well, the Shadow Fang couldn't be allowed to get away with that. After Nora's nerves settled enough, she glanced over to the faunus barmaid. "Sorry again. And thanks for helping me out. You didn't have to but I appreciate it." She gave a smile that was both apologetic and thankful, but by the time she picked up her weapon the look was gone, replaced by a more serious and angry look.

And then she was gone, going after the Tiger with as much speed as she could muster. The giant faunus had gotten the upper hand the first time, but not again. She wouldn't let her do so. The big woman had to be taken down and she intended to do so. For Yang, for justice, and for herself.​

 

[MidwayLives]

And then she was gone, going after the Tiger with as much speed as she could muster. The giant faunus had gotten the upper hand the first time, but not again. She wouldn't let her do so. The big woman had to be taken down and she intended to do so. For Yang, for justice, and for herself.

Tiger hadn't gotten far.

Her intentions had been to catch up with Hound and assist him and the others as needed. The battle with the young warrior had been a distraction.

Hearing a set of footsteps behind her, the faunus turned to face the source.

Her face wasn't a happy one.

"You."

The dust crystals stabbed into her arms, the glowing veins.

"You'd go as far as injecting dust crystals in order to defeat me?" It was...disappointing to say the least.

Still clocked in at 84%, Tiger spread her feet apart and focused on the diminutive huntress. "Come."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Tiger hadn't gotten far.

Her intentions had been to catch up with Hound and assist him and the others as needed. The battle with the young warrior had been a distraction.

Hearing a set of footsteps behind her, the faunus turned to face the source.

Her face wasn't a happy one.

"You."

The dust crystals stabbed into her arms, the glowing veins.

"You'd go as far as injecting dust crystals in order to defeat me?" It was...disappointing to say the least.

Still clocked in at 84%, Tiger spread her feet apart and focused on the diminutive huntress. "Come."​

"Wasn't exactly my strategy but when it comes to bringing down the jerks who'd bomb a school and got a good friend of mine caught in the blast...yeah, I'll bear that pain! Until you're the one down and out on the floor, I'll bring all the lightning, the thunder and the pain needed to put you there!!!" Nora defiantly snarled back, but she didn't waste any more time beyond that with more words. Neither did she let Tiger have any more say. The smaller bruiser pushed off the ground with her feet, lunging forward through the air in an instant. She had a good appreciation for how strong the faunus lady was now. The solution to that seemed obvious. Hit hard and fast and don't let her get any good hits in. Maybe not the most complex strategy, but if it worked then that would be all that mattered. Nora's size helped in that regard, there was less of her to be hit.

The lightning dust currently poking out of her arms would likewise be help that she planned to take complete advantage of. It was a supercharge, not only to striking power but her speed as well. The lightning bruiser, living up to the name. She was back for round two, and she wholeheartedly intended to make it count. In the blink of an eye she was in front of Tiger, face lit up with sparks and rage. Her hammer was less swung and more thrown, Magnhild's head aimed to slam into the faunus's ribs. Nora herself slid between the big lady's spread out legs, a fierce punch thrown to crack into one of Tiger's knees as she passed by underneath. If all went as planned she hardly let either of those attacks fully register with the faunus before her gauntlet glowed, beckoning her hammer to return to her hand in a low sweep intended to knock the lady off her feet and give Nora enough time to take hold of Magnhild and bring it down with a ferocious war yell and an equally ferocious strike with enough force meant to leave Tiger in a crater just as big as the faunus herself was. Or even bigger.

No games.​

 

[MidwayLives]

" Nora defiantly snarled back, but she didn't waste any more time beyond that with more words. Neither did she let Tiger have any more say. The smaller bruiser pushed off the ground with her feet, lunging forward through the air in an instant. She had a good appreciation for how strong the faunus lady was now. The solution to that seemed obvious. Hit hard and fast and don't let her get any good hits in. Maybe not the most complex strategy, but if it worked then that would be all that mattered. Nora's size helped in that regard, there was less of her to be hit.

'Coming right at me, hm? Bold...'
​

The lightning dust currently poking out of her arms would likewise be help that she planned to take complete advantage of. It was a supercharge, not only to striking power but her speed as well. The lightning bruiser, living up to the name. She was back for round two, and she wholeheartedly intended to make it count. In the blink of an eye she was in front of Tiger, face lit up with sparks and rage. Her hammer was less swung and more thrown, Magnhild's head aimed to slam into the faunus's ribs.

Tiger raised her arm and Magnhild's head instead impacted with Tiger's left arm.

Sparks literally flew from the weapon as Tiger's face twisted into a clearly pained visage. Those crystals had dramatically increased the strength this one possessed.

'If I wasn't paying attention, that might have broken my arm...'
​

. Nora herself slid between the big lady's spread out legs, a fierce punch thrown to crack into one of Tiger's knees as she passed by underneath.

"Ugh!"

Tiger collapsed to a knee and was knocked flat on her back by the following sleep.

Those crystals were quickly becoming quite the nuisance.
​

If all went as planned she hardly let either of those attacks fully register with the faunus before her gauntlet glowed, beckoning her hammer to return to her hand in a low sweep intended to knock the lady off her feet and give Nora enough time to take hold of Magnhild and bring it down with a ferocious war yell and an equally ferocious strike with enough force meant to leave Tiger in a crater just as big as the faunus herself was. Or even bigger.

Tiger watched Nora go to make her move.

No fear or trepidation at all present on the faunus's face.

Just an acceptance of sorts.

Bringing her arms over to guard her chest/face, she murmured something that was obscured to Nora.

The last thing Valkyrie saw before the hammer impacted was the muscles in the faunus's biceps and forearms swelling immensely...
​

No games.​

Indeed, there was a crater left where Tiger had been knocked.

The dust-and the fight for that matter-didn't stay settled for long. Tiger's foot now bare lashed out to catch Nora in the stomach and throw her back. If nothing more than to give Tiger some breathing room. As the faunus's herculean frame rose from the crater, Nora could have seen drops of blood pooling in the crater at Tiger's feet. The remains of her sneakers and the top half of her jumpsuit having been completely eviscerated as a result of her latest percentage jump. Bits of her could have been seen as the dust continued to trail away. Her pale-ish torso was visible with chiseled abs covered in sweat and blood. Blood coming from the wound that Maghnild's head had left on Tiger's right arm. The skin was deeply burned and blood was seeping through the cracks in her skin. Her limbs and the rest of her for that matter seemed more and more disturbing as the percentages continued to increase, bumps and cracks appearing along the lengths of her muscles. As if to imply that in some sense her body simply wasn't enough of a vessel to contain the power her semblance afforded her. At least not in it's entirety.

But yet even in all the years she'd been alive, no one, not even the maiden she'd fought with the others, had been able to damage her like this.

'She caught me right in between percentages. If I'd been a second slower, she would have fractured my arm. This strength has almost left her completely unrecognizable from the one I'd pummeled just moments ago...'

Lowering her arm, Tiger's eyes stared dead ahead at Nora.

"90%"

Balling her left hand into a fist, the purple smoke that Nora had seen spreading around Tiger before in their previous 'encounter' swirled around her closed hand. Sprinting forward and dragging her fist along the length of the wall-absolutely shredding it in the process-she swung it to try and catch Nora in the face..

'Let's see then...'

Tiger's ears twitched.

'If the power those crystals gave you...is enough to best me!' ​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Indeed, there was a crater left where Tiger had been knocked.

The dust-and the fight for that matter-didn't stay settled for long. Tiger's foot now bare lashed out to catch Nora in the stomach and throw her back. If nothing more than to give Tiger some breathing room. As the faunus's herculean frame rose from the crater, Nora could have seen drops of blood pooling in the crater at Tiger's feet. The remains of her sneakers and the top half of her jumpsuit having been completely eviscerated as a result of her latest percentage jump. Bits of her could have been seen as the dust continued to trail away. Her pale-ish torso was visible with chiseled abs covered in sweat and blood. Blood coming from the wound that Maghnild's head had left on Tiger's right arm. The skin was deeply burned and blood was seeping through the cracks in her skin. Her limbs and the rest of her for that matter seemed more and more disturbing as the percentages continued to increase, bumps and cracks appearing along the lengths of her muscles. As if to imply that in some sense her body simply wasn't enough of a vessel to contain the power her semblance afforded her. At least not in it's entirety.

But yet even in all the years she'd been alive, no one, not even the maiden she'd fought with the others, had been able to damage her like this.

'She caught me right in between percentages. If I'd been a second slower, she would have fractured my arm. This strength has almost left her completely unrecognizable from the one I'd pummeled just moments ago...'

Lowering her arm, Tiger's eyes stared dead ahead at Nora.

An involuntary grunt escaped her as one of the faunus's foot slammed in her stomach and forced her back, boots skidding along the floor for several feet until she grinded to a halt. That blow, yep. That was precisely why she had to use all she could to avoid getting struck too much by this behemoth of a woman. A behemoth who only got bigger and bigger with each passing minute. Muscles on muscles on muscles. She'd heard that Blake had this word association game on several people. Ruby being purity, Weiss as defiance, Yang is strength and so on. For this one? Tank. Tank sounded about right. But she wasn't going to give up until this walking tank was lying down knocked out on the floor. As Tiger stared, Nora returned the look with an angry glare.​

Balling her left hand into a fist, the purple smoke that Nora had seen spreading around Tiger before in their previous 'encounter' swirled around her closed hand. Sprinting forward and dragging her fist along the length of the wall-absolutely shredding it in the process-she swung it to try and catch Nora in the face..

Nora braced herself as the faunus came in, weapon shifting and her boots digging further into the floor...right now she would have felt it convenient if she had something like those aura roots Elm had but no matter. She did her best to root herself to the spot without that, and the telegraphed a week in advance punch was met by Nora's right hand intercepting it, the open palm catching the strike before it could hit her face. Yet even with all the pain and sensations already coursing through her every nerve, she felt that blow. The force of that impact jolted through her every nerve, made her bones reverberate wildly, strained her muscles like they'd never been strained before...but still, like Tiger had before her, Nora remained standing in the same spot, teeth grinding against each other with the effort.

No follow up punch or kick came though, Nora's face shifting into a wild bloodstained grin and eyes lighting up with borderline insanity--

Spoiler: Mood

-before she spat into the Tiger's eyes. Immediately following that, Nora lifted her other hand up and brought Magnhild, now in its grenade launcher form, up with that hand until the barrel of the gun was staring Tiger down. With no hesitation she pulled that trigger and let loose with its explosive salvo at point blank range.​

 

[MidwayLives]

Nora braced herself as the faunus came in, weapon shifting and her boots digging further into the floor...right now she would have felt it convenient if she had something like those aura roots Elm had but no matter. She did her best to root herself to the spot without that, and the telegraphed a week in advance punch was met by Nora's right hand intercepting it, the open palm catching the strike before it could hit her face. Yet even with all the pain and sensations already coursing through her every nerve, she felt that blow. The force of that impact jolted through her every nerve, made her bones reverberate wildly, strained her muscles like they'd never been strained before...but still, like Tiger had before her, Nora remained standing in the same spot, teeth grinding against each other with the effort.

Tiger grit her teeth.

The only other time someone had actually managed to stop one of her punches...

"No!"

Tiger's aura flared and the purple smoke filled the hall as her entire body shuddered.
​

No follow up punch or kick came though, Nora's face shifting into a wild bloodstained grin and eyes lighting up with borderline insanity--

Spoiler: Mood

-before she spat into the Tiger's eyes.

The spit caught the faunus by surprise.

Normally, Tiger liked to keep herself composed for battles and the like. Letting herself get angry was giving the enemy an advantage they didn't deserve.

Getting spit on hit a little too close to home for her though.

Tiger's ears twitched and she snarled. Wiping away the blood, she bared her teeth at the smaller warrior.

"How DARE you-"
​

Immediately following that, Nora lifted her other hand up and brought Magnhild, now in its grenade launcher form, up with that hand until the barrel of the gun was staring Tiger down. With no hesitation she pulled that trigger and let loose with its explosive salvo at point blank range.

Tiger lurched forward-

*BOOM*

Immediately into a wall of explosions. But no screams or wails penetrated the thick layer of smoke kicked up.

Instead, a hand reached through and grabbed Nora by the neck. Lifting her off the floor, Tiger swept away the smoke with a swing of her arm.

The explosions certainly hadn't missed their mark. Marks of cracked skin and blood-not too dissimilar to the wound on Tiger's right arm-pocketed across her chest.

Tiger's eyes met Nora's and suddenly the huntress's world went upside-something the Masque could have told her all about if her ears weren't constantly ringing and she wasn't subsumed by nausea-as Tiger planted a foot forward and attempted to smash Nora straight into the floor. "My body's broken swords, fended off bullets, survived barrages of punches...IT WON'T BE BROUGHT DOWN BY SOMEONE LIKE YOU!!!!!!!"​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Tiger grit her teeth.

The only other time someone had actually managed to stop one of her punches...

"No!"

Tiger's aura flared and the purple smoke filled the hall as her entire body shuddered.


The spit caught the faunus by surprise.

Normally, Tiger liked to keep herself composed for battles and the like. Letting herself get angry was giving the enemy an advantage they didn't deserve.

Getting spit on hit a little too close to home for her though.

Tiger's ears twitched and she snarled. Wiping away the blood, she bared her teeth at the smaller warrior.

"How DARE you-"


Tiger lurched forward-

*BOOM*

Immediately into a wall of explosions. But no screams or wails penetrated the thick layer of smoke kicked up.

Instead, a hand reached through and grabbed Nora by the neck. Lifting her off the floor, Tiger swept away the smoke with a swing of her arm.

The explosions certainly hadn't missed their mark. Marks of cracked skin and blood-not too dissimilar to the wound on Tiger's right arm-pocketed across her chest.

Tiger's eyes met Nora's and suddenly the huntress's world went upside-something the Masque could have told her all about if her ears weren't constantly ringing and she wasn't subsumed by nausea-as Tiger planted a foot forward and attempted to smash Nora straight into the floor. "My body's broken swords, fended off bullets, survived barrages of punches...IT WON'T BE BROUGHT DOWN BY SOMEONE LIKE YOU!!!!!!!"

"No?"

The most rugged, intense, and yet quietly laconic voice to date cut through over the boom of the two bruisers' combat. It was then that Tiger heard it. The groan of metal flooring underfoot; the rapid gallop of a titan's approach. A hand of calamitous proportions shot out, surprisingly able to envelop the Talon's own gargantuan wrist in an iron-like vice and keep it there with all the unflinching immovability of a trade professional, the wall of muscle solemnly staring her down one that dwarfed all others present save her own.



"Then perhaps another."

Thus it was that Tiger was introduced to the right fist of 16-year-old Cookie Lemondrop, in the form of its daintily lace-clad knuckles drilling her in the cheek hard enough to crack the walls with the shockwave, her left already coming in for an equally emphatic followup.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Instead, a hand reached through and grabbed Nora by the neck. Lifting her off the floor, Tiger swept away the smoke with a swing of her arm.

The explosions certainly hadn't missed their mark. Marks of cracked skin and blood-not too dissimilar to the wound on Tiger's right arm-pocketed across her chest.

Tiger's eyes met Nora's and suddenly the huntress's world went upside-something the Masque could have told her all about if her ears weren't constantly ringing and she wasn't subsumed by nausea-as Tiger planted a foot forward and attempted to smash Nora straight into the floor. "My body's broken swords, fended off bullets, survived barrages of punches...IT WON'T BE BROUGHT DOWN BY SOMEONE LIKE YOU!!!!!!!"

"Hahaha--urkgh!" There was a strangled cry, alarm briefly crossing Nora's face in a blink and you miss it moment...but by the time their eyes met, the only thing apparent in Nora's wide blue eyes was raging defiance. The staredown didn't last too long, with the smaller Nora getting slammed HARD into the ground at their feet. It resulted in a crater of her own, Nora temporarily just laying there and letting out a groan of pain...and...snickering? "Oh y-yeah?" Nora questioned, not sounding impressed. In fact, quite the opposite. "Well, me? I survived the massacre of Kuroyuri. I lived through the Fall of Beacon. I helped stop the attack on Haven, even showed a bastard that rivals your size exactly why he shouldn't underestimate me. I've fought against giant Atlesian mechs and ancient leviathans of the sea. I've fought bigger than you. Stronger than you. Tougher than you. All you are is just the latest rung on the ladder. Just one more person that has to go down. That will go down. And you know why? Because--"​

"No?"

The most rugged, intense, and yet quietly laconic voice to date cut through over the boom of the two bruisers' combat. It was then that Tiger heard it. The groan of metal flooring underfoot; the rapid gallop of a titan's approach. A hand of calamitous proportions shot out, surprisingly able to envelop the Talon's own gargantuan wrist in an iron-like vice and keep it there with all the unflinching immovability of a trade professional, the wall of muscle solemnly staring her down one that dwarfed all others present save her own.

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"Then perhaps another."

Thus it was that Tiger was introduced to the right fist of 16-year-old Cookie Lemondrop, in the form of its daintily lace-clad knuckles drilling her in the cheek hard enough to crack the walls with the shockwave, her left already coming in for an equally emphatic followup.​

"..." She smiled, the blood staining her teeth and the pain doing nothing to hide the appreciation and gratitude expressed. Not just for the aid in the fight either. That was...honestly such a brilliant addition to her little speech that she changed up what she had been about to say. "Because I fight for what's good...and I don't fight alone." Nora finished, more quietly than the rest of it, doing her best to throw a kick to the same knee of Tiger that she had punched earlier.​

 

[MidwayLives]

The most rugged, intense, and yet quietly laconic voice to date cut through over the boom of the two bruisers' combat. It was then that Tiger heard it. The groan of metal flooring underfoot; the rapid gallop of a titan's approach. A hand of calamitous proportions shot out, surprisingly able to envelop the Talon's own gargantuan wrist in an iron-like vice and keep it there with all the unflinching immovability of a trade professional, the wall of muscle solemnly staring her down one that dwarfed all others present save her own.

Tiger barely had time to grasp the depth of the newcomer.

Who seemed to be just as muscled as she was-
​

Thus it was that Tiger was introduced to the right fist of 16-year-old Cookie Lemondrop, in the form of its daintily lace-clad knuckles drilling her in the cheek hard enough to crack the walls with the shockwave, her left already coming in for an equally emphatic followup.

The punch in sync with Nora's attack on her knee left Tiger falling against and through a nearby wall.

Debris fell to the ground and the talon was left flat on her back.

Thoughts raced through her mind of her comrades suffering. The fates they'd surely be left to if they were to lose.

Unacceptable.

Thus, she slowly sat up and rose to her feet. Two blood-red eyes staring at Cookie and Nora from the hole in the wall.

"So, it's come to this. Consider this the highest compliment I can give."

The smoke gushed from around Tiger's body, encircling her as she screamed her lungs out. Her arms, legs, torso, constantly shifting and growing in mass. The cracks that'd been there previously as a result of her increasing enhancements spread along her limbs, hinting at her body literally tearing itself apart at the seams in order to try and keep up with the increases to her muscle mass that her semblance, 'Full Metal', could bring out of her. Growing up had been both a learning experience and a constant nightmare. Afraid to reach out and touch someone out of fear your lightest touch could still break bones or land them in the hospital. Unable to feel comfortable holding a delicate flower lest your 'gentle' touch be enough to snap it in twain.

Or the agonizing days of pain that came with unknowingly pushing your body past it's limits. That's what Tiger strove for. Controlling her semblance as best as she could. To live a life where she controlled her semblance and not the other way around. Breaking it up into percentages helped her immensely. But she always strove further, wanting to test the edge of what she was capable of. First it'd been 90%, then reaching 100% was the next milestone and so far, she hadn't been able to jump beyond it. Maybe it was just something inside of her willing her not to go that far/to put her life on the line like that. It may have been true: her body's way of self preservation. If she were to go any further than 100%-if it was even possible-she potentially risked serious bodily harm with muscles tearing under the strain, etc etc.

It was just as such that Tiger never considered her life being worth much. If it meant fighting for the cause then tear her body apart she would.

Reaching an absolutely massive hand out and crushing a piece of debris as it fell, Tiger stepped out from the hole, her skin as pale as a corpse's and splotches of red visible under the tears running across her body. The wounds Nora had left still stood out like a sore thumb as did the soon to be bruise on the left side of her cheek. Slightly hunched over, Tiger inhaled and exhaled. Taking this form wasn't easy and it meant she had to finish this up now or risk losing it all.

"100%."

Moving faster than one might expect with someone with a monster frame like hers, she sought to grab both Nora and Cookie and drag them with her through the wall behind them.

"GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

Her mask having long since been abanaonded lay on the floor, picking up the battle and what Tiger had pushed herself to.

'It's all for the Shadow Fang. My life means nothing. BUT I WON'T LOSE HERE!!!'​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

When she rolled back to standing, the weapon in her hands was a far cry from the pistol it had been. The gun was longer, the barrel more elongated and it glowed a bit with a pale blue light in the darkness. She couldn't quite match his agility and speed but she believed her tech would make up the difference. There was only one way to test out that hypothesis though. Her eyes flitted to his exact spot in the darkness. "Let's try this one out, huh?" Gwen aimed and pulled the trigger, firing not a single shot but rather a constant stream of absolute chill. A blast that spread out wide, almost like a cone and almost like a flamethrower, except...cold.

The blast of cold was likely tested more than a few times in Gwen's labs, the formation put through its paces till it was understood enough to be employed in combat. Yet when she fired it, it ignored what all other tests implied it would do and violently swerved to the right as it gathered into a tight line and disappeared into a ring blade who's grey innards began to turn blue-

The strike came so fast it hit before her aura could even try to warn her; A blade to the neck slashed into Gwen's aura from above and to the side, well out of sight of where she'd been focused on panther, but before she could even turn to where blake landed, all that was left was a clone and a brush of fabric against her arm before it was suddenly wrenched behind her in a painful hold as a boot slammed into the back of her head to pin her down as Blake's voice quietly echoed through the comms for Panther.

"This doesn't go our way. Exfil. One trip. Ilia, Hound, and Feri."

 

[MyrtenRose]

Moving faster than one might expect with someone with a monster frame like hers, she sought to grab both Nora and Cookie and drag them with her through the wall behind them.

"GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

Her mask having long since been abandoned lay on the floor, picking up the battle and what Tiger had pushed herself to.

'It's all for the Shadow Fang. My life means nothing. BUT I WON'T LOSE HERE!!!'

"..." Well okay, that was much faster movement than she woulda pegged for someone of that gargantuan size, and she hadn't even been going in to this second round expecting a slow titan. Nevertheless, Tiger was upon her, almost before Nora could react. Almost. The smaller fighter was able to let go of her weapon just before one of Tiger's hands wrapped around her neck. Magnhild was left lying on the floor as Nora got scrapped along the ground, even as the big tiger faunus charged through the wall into the next area...until the grenade launcher began to glow. The low grunting noises that escaped her lips throughout the assault were overshadowed by the din of the floor being torn up in that brutal way, but Nora's eyes were only briefly on Tiger before they glanced behind the faunus. Her pulling her weapon to her had it shooting through the air like a bullet. It didn't quite go to her hand, though. Instead the grenade launcher was used as a bludgeon intended to slam into the back of Tiger's skull at high speeds to knock the faunus's head down and closer.

At the same time Nora leaned up as much as she could, reaching out with both hands to grab at Tiger's head. The air around the ginger sparked, her veins glowed and even her eyes shined bright as she focused, gathering a lot of the lightning flowing through her and forcefully expelling it right out of those hands and into Tiger, fully intent on shocking the giant into unconsciousness so this would be done and over with like NOW.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The blast of cold was likely tested more than a few times in Gwen's labs, the formation put through its paces till it was understood enough to be employed in combat. Yet when she fired it, it ignored what all other tests implied it would do and violently swerved to the right as it gathered into a tight line and disappeared into a ring blade who's grey innards began to turn blue-

The strike came so fast it hit before her aura could even try to warn her; A blade to the neck slashed into Gwen's aura from above and to the side, well out of sight of where she'd been focused on panther, but before she could even turn to where blake landed, all that was left was a clone and a brush of fabric against her arm before it was suddenly wrenched behind her in a painful hold as a boot slammed into the back of her head to pin her down as Blake's voice quietly echoed through the comms for Panther.

"This doesn't go our way. Exfil. One trip. Ilia, Hound, and Feri."

"......................" Even with the nightvision mode engaged, she hadn't seen that coming. Not in the slightest. Let alone react to it. Before she knew what the heck was up, she was pinned up against the floor with one arm pulled tight behind her and a boot pressed against her skull to keep her down. "...Jennings?" She mumbled into the floor, trying to ignore how bad the floor tasted as she addressed her robocompanion through their own commlink. "Yes, Master Helios?" "Delete this from mission recordings if you'd be so kind." She grumbled, making no immediate move to resist as she laid there, seemingly docile. From the glimpses she'd gotten just now, the odds had shifted quite considerably to stack against her. This required...weighing options. Considering stratagems.​

 

[MidwayLives]

"..." Well okay, that was much faster movement than she woulda pegged for someone of that gargantuan size, and she hadn't even been going in to this second round expecting a slow titan. Nevertheless, Tiger was upon her, almost before Nora could react. Almost. The smaller fighter was able to let go of her weapon just before one of Tiger's hands wrapped around her neck. Magnhild was left lying on the floor as Nora got scrapped along the ground, even as the big tiger faunus charged through the wall into the next area...until the grenade launcher began to glow. The low grunting noises that escaped her lips throughout the assault were overshadowed by the din of the floor being torn up in that brutal way, but Nora's eyes were only briefly on Tiger before they glanced behind the faunus. Her pulling her weapon to her had it shooting through the air like a bullet. It didn't quite go to her hand, though. Instead the grenade launcher was used as a bludgeon intended to slam into the back of Tiger's skull at high speeds to knock the faunus's head down and closer.

The blow to the back of the head got Tiger to do one thing.

Release her grip on the similarly muscular teenager that she'd dragged through the wall alongside Nora.

As Tiger's head fell forward, she grit her teeth-
​

At the same time Nora leaned up as much as she could, reaching out with both hands to grab at Tiger's head. The air around the ginger sparked, her veins glowed and even her eyes shined bright as she focused, gathering a lot of the lightning flowing through her and forcefully expelling it right out of those hands and into Tiger, fully intent on shocking the giant into unconsciousness so this would be done and over with like NOW.

Tiger's long flowing hair went all over the place as she screamed in pain.

The electricity going through her had her twitching and shaking like crazy. It felt as if her entire body was on fire. A feeling that wasn't all that foreign to her, sadly enough.

Pain was just a fact of life for the woman who called herself Tiger. Everytime she reached a new limit with her semblance, it often left her flat on her back in terrible agony.

But it was HER life! It was what SHE wanted! From training to controlling her semblance to joining the Shadow Fang. It'd all been her choice.

To lose like this...

The things she had done to get here...

Various faces flashed before Tiger's eyes. Helmeted Atlesian soldiers she'd killed, humans in general who got in the Fang's path, and the woman she'd killed to earn her moniker. If she fell here than all of their deaths would have been utterly meaningless. Tiger was nothing if not a woman of conviction. If she believed in something then damn it all, she'd do everything in her power to see it through. Raising her left arm, shaky as it was, Nora noticed Tiger's frame distorting almost as if she were attempting to go beyond the previously stated 100%. The huntress would have felt a warm drip of blood on her face and then more as blood began running down from the various tears along Tiger's body. The process in extending her semblances's percentages was often done in seclusion-all the better to help Tiger focus and gradually work it out-brute forcing it like this would only end in horrendous pain.

She knew that all too well.

A spurt of blood gushed out from across Tiger's back as she pressed her forehead against Nora's. Her voice shaky and unsteady thanks to a combination of the electricity shocking her and the blood running out of her. "Faunus...Hearing is better...than human's....Heh. You have your friends and I....have my..." By this point Tiger's chest was soaked in blood and smoke was riding off her body as it forcibly returned back to her normal appearance regardless of Tiger's stubbornness. But her left arm hadn't fallen from where she'd raised it and her aura hadn't been broken yet. Keeping her forehead against the huntresses's, their eyes locked into the other's, Tiger screamed.

"CONVICTION!!!!!!"

Her left arm started to swell as Tiger used what little power she had left in 'Full Metal' to boost her arm beyond her current limit. The results weren't going to be pretty and as the shadow of her arm loomed over Nora, Tiger knew full well that in the state this was going to leave her, she wasn't going to be able to avoid capture. It pained her like no punch or kick ever could. But even up to her last breaths, she'd fought for what she believed in just as Nora had and in her eyes, that was enough to be proud of.

"110%!!!"

The arm swung down to crack Nora in the side of the head.

*THWACK*

Whatever force was behind the impact quickly dissipated after the blow was struck. Tiger's semblance required careful guidance and patience. Using it in a manner like this....well...Her left arm returned to it's normal size and both Cookie and Nora could have heard every individual bone in the limb cracking all the way from her forearm up to her hand. The limb itself seemed as though as it'd been wrenched to the right and to the left by the sheer feedback of attempting to tap into too much power. Her fingers at the very least were all facing different ways. As for Tiger herself, smoke from the shock treatment mixed in with her usual purple. Her right arm carried the burns and as her left arm fell down to her side, it was obvious she'd already checked out.

Her eyes had clouded over and she'd lost consciousness before slipping back, her aura shattering upon falling onto the ground.

She was an complete and utter blood-soaked mess. Her hair splayed out behind her head. But the smile on her face seemed perfectly content. As though she'd made peace with herself before passing out due to the damage she'd suffered.

'I...am....Tiger.' ​

 

[MyrtenRose]

A spurt of blood gushed out from across Tiger's back as she pressed her forehead against Nora's. Her voice shaky and unsteady thanks to a combination of the electricity shocking her and the blood running out of her. "Faunus...Hearing is better...than human's....Heh. You have your friends and I....have my..." By this point Tiger's chest was soaked in blood and smoke was riding off her body as it forcibly returned back to her normal appearance regardless of Tiger's stubbornness. But her left arm hadn't fallen from where she'd raised it and her aura hadn't been broken yet. Keeping her forehead against the huntresses's, their eyes locked into the other's, Tiger screamed.

"CONVICTION!!!!!!"

".............."

Even Ren had only been this close no more than a few times, so even though there was still plenty of anger in her, with the faunus's forehead pressed against hers Nora expressed only uncertainty. But that uncertainty gave way to concern and annoyance in equal measure, as Tiger's scream that rivaled Nora at her loudest was unleashed right in her face. It was deafening as hell and annoying. But that was the least of her problems.​

Her left arm started to swell as Tiger used what little power she had left in 'Full Metal' to boost her arm beyond her current limit. The results weren't going to be pretty and as the shadow of her arm loomed over Nora, Tiger knew full well that in the state this was going to leave her, she wasn't going to be able to avoid capture. It pained her like no punch or kick ever could. But even up to her last breaths, she'd fought for what she believed in just as Nora had and in her eyes, that was enough to be proud of.

"110%!!!"

The arm swung down to crack Nora in the side of the head.

*THWACK*

That strike hit so hard it instantly shattered the aura that had been supercharged by the lightning dust crystals, the pinkish hue cracking and fading away. Nora herself bounced and skidded along the ground from the sheer force transferred over. There were enough bounces there that she felt somewhat like a basketball like that. If a basketball could feel tired. And hurt. And had blood. When she finally stopped, she just laid there for a moment, feeling very much like Loki in the Avengers. The sounds of the bones cracking and shifting in Tiger got Nora to lift her head a little, just enough to look over at Tiger...and just in time to witness the big woman falling backwards. The Tiger was down. She was out. That got a light snicker out of Nora and she pushed herself up to sitting further. The sudden movement provoked a weird feeling in her mouth and her tongue briefly fished around in there before Nora spat out into her hand. Blood and spit stained her palm but there was also...

"..."

Her tongue moved some more, lifting to feel a certain spot, now empty. Yep. That was one of her teeth, knocked free by that last blow. Or more, she wasn't exactly sure. Too much hurt right now to be super certain. Still, despite all the pain, Nora managed to force herself to her feet and start taking shaky steps over to where Tiger was laid out. Along the way she ripped out the dust crystals in her arms and threw them to the floor, some blood trailing out of the spots where they'd been and dripping along the ground. She stopped just by the big lady, looking down at her with a satisfied smile. It may not have been getting all of them, but she'd managed to take down one of the toughest ones as far as she knew. That was enough for her. "I told y--you. I promised I'd win...for....for a friend, and that's j-just what....I did." She had just enough energy to slowly raise a hand in victory, blood still flowing out of her arms and in her mouth and from the gash on her forehead and other minor scratches, alongside several bruises. "You know...I w--wouldn't say no to a vacati--"

She didn't finish that sentence, her aura, energy and will so far beyond running on empty that she just dropped backwards similarly to Tiger, once again unconscious. It was a safe bet she'd be out for a good while this time.​

 

[Indolent]

Rather than holding any frustration for the utter ease with which the faunus dodged around her shots, as some might have, Gwen only tilted her head in an appreciative manner. He moved like water, graceful and sublime...honestly, the way he weaved between the dust projectiles seemed almost like an art form to her in some ways. Not bad...not bad at all. She didn't outwardly express that thought however. Instead her thoughts moved on, briefly considering what weapon option would be best for someone like that. Hmmmm.



She didn't get too far with her mental calculations then, interrupted as they were by two things. One, that blunt sentence. There was still no annoyance within her after hearing that and, contrary to what might have been expected, she actually agreed with an easygoing grin. "Oh you have no idea how true that is. Consider yourself lucky you don't have to sit through a briefing with the councilwoman or the general or colonel." Her reply was completely amicable, despite everything. She'd never been one for talking with people at extreme length, far more comfortable with her machines than people, but she dealt with it as duty demanded. But that didn't mean she had to like it.



The second thing being the lights going completely out and filling the whole place with instant darkness. That was clever of them, presumably the faunus had the place set up to give themselves an advantage just in case something like this ever occurred. Clever, but not enough in this particular case.



With a single thought, her influence over technology had her holographic visor pop back into place just as Panther fell back in that dramatic fashion, with the nightvision mode engaged this time. The whole area was bathed in pale green light from her perspective, and she nodded, satisfied. "Much bett--" Her aura forewarned her of the incoming danger and she leaped backwards, narrowly avoiding the attack from above. With the veritable tornado of strikes that followed, she did her best to replicate Panther's own ease in weaving between the attacks with her own agility and advanced special operative training...but it didn't go quite as gracefully. In recent times she had spent more time in her lab rather than hitting the gym or sparring, and enough of that showed. Many of the attacks she managed to avoid, but a number of them managed to hit home. She sprang back after the latest blow that landed, a roll into the darkness to briefly put some distance between them.

When she rolled back to standing, the weapon in her hands was a far cry from the pistol it had been. The gun was longer, the barrel more elongated and it glowed a bit with a pale blue light in the darkness. She couldn't quite match his agility and speed but she believed her tech would make up the difference. There was only one way to test out that hypothesis though. Her eyes flitted to his exact spot in the darkness. "Let's try this one out, huh?" Gwen aimed and pulled the trigger, firing not a single shot but rather a constant stream of absolute chill. A blast that spread out wide, almost like a cone and almost like a flamethrower, except...cold.​

When Gwen ambled back to standing with her versatile weapon reconfigured, she saw Panther opposite her, his posture frankly languid despite it all with the selfsame acidic stare still fixed upon her. When the cone of cold wafted towards his position, he moved nary a muscle save for the slow, purposeful incline of the head to one side.

The blast of cold was likely tested more than a few times in Gwen's labs, the formation put through its paces till it was understood enough to be employed in combat. Yet when she fired it, it ignored what all other tests implied it would do and violently swerved to the right as it gathered into a tight line and disappeared into a ring blade who's grey innards began to turn blue-

The strike came so fast it hit before her aura could even try to warn her; A blade to the neck slashed into Gwen's aura from above and to the side, well out of sight of where she'd been focused on panther, but before she could even turn to where blake landed, all that was left was a clone and a brush of fabric against her arm before it was suddenly wrenched behind her in a painful hold as a boot slammed into the back of her head to pin her down as Blake's voice quietly echoed through the comms for Panther.

"This doesn't go our way. Exfil. One trip. Ilia, Hound, and Feri."

And all was clarified when all that happened, why Panther had became lackadaisical all of a sudden. His was the penchant for allocating energy where it needed to go and this necessitated some modicum of multitasking especially in the use of his semblance, hectic combat style, and the nature of the masks' comms system. His demeanor remained placid, unaffected by the turn of events that transpired save for a subtle bodily gesture of deference towards Blake, "Yes Master, it will be done."

A pointed glance Feri's way and paces sequestered in silence, the two wolves faded into obscurity as the Hand's protege carried his orders out. The next was a given with the final the same, the last presenting itself something of a challenge but it didn't weigh on the faunus, his attention fast upon executing the exfiltration posthaste.

 

[Indolent]

There was an important distinction to make in how Greki's semblance worked; while it did impart on her the ability to keep herself lucid even has her body went feral, it didn't make her any more calm and lucid than she'd normally be.

Ruby disappearing in a cloud of rose petals was expected, and in the face of it Greki stayed calm. Greki's laid back nature obscured her sense of professionalism, but didn't get rid of it. She'd read up well enough on Ruby Rose and what she did and how she worked, how she fought; the Fang had files on all of Oz's leuitenants after all; they were human, and you only ever trusted a human so far. The feral beast Greki was piloting twisted with nimble ferocity, catching her diving crash on the arm instead of the back of the neck with a growl as she tried to wrestle herself back on top.

The thing that wore Maria's skin was not expected. What, exactly, had been done to Maria Calavera was something the Fang had never fully deduced, and until twenty seconds ago none of them even knew she was working with Weiss. Even if Blake had been made aware of the failed checkup turned murder attempt, there was no reason to believe that ended in anything but the Grimm Reaper's demise. There was barely any homework to be had, and what little could've happened Greki hadn't done.

So when some beast that looked like no grimm the expert huntress had ever seen suddenly slammed into her side and beset her with fang and claw, she panicked. The upside to her semblence was that even when Greki panicked, her body didn't. The downside was that, when it was in charge, all it did was fight back, and it was not a fight that it was prepared to win on its own. Greki's aura flared in the darkness, a smattering of light silver piercing the black in flickers-

A massive wave of sound enveloped the trio from the dark, shattering the rest of Greki's aura in a burst. It was almost impossible to ascertain where it was coming from in the dark and with their senses so assaulted as it pummelled the floor tiles into ruin, its massive roar echoing across the walls loud enough to rupture and un-aura'd ear drum even if it wasn't in its line of fire. Greki, with her aura gone, got the worst of it; her eyes bled, and the feral beast howled and wimpered and tried to weakly scrabble out of the pain. This time, however, it wasn't the rage fueled spewings of a man lost in old memories, an impotent roar from an addled beast. Greki was It was merely the setup.

A pair of tsize eighteen tabi crashed down from the rafters,likely barely missing Maria by virtue of her semblence, but Ruby had no such early warning system amid the assault of pain and sound, and a massive hand lashed out to grip her neck while she was pinned.

If it worked, Ruby was the first one to truly escape the pain tonight; a blessed sleep overtook her, likely the most peaceful one she'd gotten in years.

"Stand down, beast and flame." the bear growled at Maria, Greki gasping for air from where she laid nearby suffering from a terrible collection of internal bruising and ruptures that were nonetheless not the torn to shreds state Bear could only picture that travesty ending in if he'd not intervened. "Or your precious Schnee loses the silver eyes she'll so desperately need in the coming days"

Ruby didn't budge, no matter how she'd been clawed or bitten at herself.

Ruby knew that she wasn't the strongest phyiscally.

She knew that this wasn't the most oppertune way for her to fight.

But it was how she loved to do it. Just giving it all with all the energy her own body had to muster. The carnal feeling of giving into your baser instincts and using tooth and claw. It didn't matter how many times she was knocked aside or torn into. She'd keep running back until she physically couldn't stand anymore.

That's just how Ruby Rose was.


Ruby's face lit up.

Her face despite it being marred by blood and cuts was still somehow just as genuine as it'd always been. From the moment she'd first been introduced to what Ozpin had made of the Grimm Reaper and how she saw her now.

"Maria!~" Ruby called out.

Though it was more than a bit muffled with her currently trying to gnaw on Greki.


Why was everything upside down-ohp-she'd been hit by that old man's weapon again hadn't she?

She really hoped the ringing it left in her ears wasn't permanent.

Crashing in a heap on the ground, Ruby's aura shimmered around her entire body as it trembled. An attempt was made to stop the oncoming surge of vomit but it was to no avail. A pathetic storm of coughs followed it as Ruby sat there hunched over, the bare skin of her back left drenched in a cold sweat. Her head felt as though it'd been stuck in a box and beaten over the head repeatedly. Collapsing forward with her arms pulled over her head, Ruby seemed to whimper and mewl in response to the severe pain wracking her body.

As her arms lowered though, her organic hand seemed to have grabbed something out of her pocket...


*click*

Ruby barely had time to turn before-

"AAAAGHHHH!!"

Her aura flared like a wildfire out of control.

She writhed and wriggled under the faunus's weight, her face turned up into a pained grimace.

Then the hand came in.

The grimace vanished having been replaced by a blood stained grin.

"I...may have been caught like prey..."

The palm of her hand began to glow an icy blue. Not unlike the signs that'd been clear when Feri launched ice spikes at Weiss.

"But I'm more of a predator than you'll EVER BE!"

*VSSSSSSHHHHH!!!*

A beam modified by the added ice-dust canister streamed from Ruby's arm. The last shot Ruby had attempted to take had been knocked off course by Greki. Now that she wasn't a problem and Bear had done Ruby the honor of closing the distance between them, everything was set to go. If it worked out like she intended, the faunus would have been frozen over by the beam. Vanishing in a trail of rose petals from under the aged warrior's frame, Ruby didn't get too far before having to come to a stop. Eager as she was to indulge her wild side/her truer instincts as she saw them, Bear's weapon had been no joke. After experiencing the gauntlet of pain of having been blasted not once but twice, Ruby saw taking it out of the equation as a necessity. Thinking on it, she had her doubts the initial beam she'd fired would have actually been enough to sever Bear's prosthetic. At least without weakening it's structural integrity.

"Ector!" ​

The sequence of events happened one after the other that it did not allow room for repartee, which suited the Colonel just as well as he aligned his position toward the Masque's and Bear's. It was with a stern expression and the purposeful flick of his left that instigated a series of pops, micro-explosions cascading across the cybernetic implement that comprised Bear's arm to take advantage of his predicament to shatter the ice and buffet it. Within the epicenter of each explosion surged to life a flare, akin to ignited thermite, concentrating the brunt of energy Ector channeled now into absolutely mangling the weapon if not melting it completely.

That was the left hand, what of his right?

It was with the deft flick of the wrist akin to a maestro directing his orchestra that a cloak of oxygen encapsulated the faunus's perimeter radially, suffused with twinkles of gold that reflected the glare from the precursor attack. Lightning dust, processed to incredibly fine particulates that was carried aloft by the Colonel's semblance with little trouble.

A curving flourish towards an unsung crescendo arriving to an abrupt finale saw a grander explosion of sorts, whereby instead of burning flames that cleansed it was a different phenomena altogether, ignited still by flame yet superseded by the element altogether. It could be described no better than a ball lightning, with the unfortunate faunus caught in the center, within the makings of a shock chamber to put it crudely.

"Liza, queue emergency medical services, please." Ector murmured to himself, his stern expression belying his distaste for the situation.

 

[Indolent]

A seedy bar somewhere in Mantle. Actually somewhere most relevant people knew of.

"Have you seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen this stoat? He's adorable and responds to Brosel and also tends to avoid shady people soooooo."

"Gretchen, you can't just say that aloud."

 

[MyrtenRose]

As days went, this was high up there on the eventful scale. She'd come just looking to try and help...somehow, if she could. To be there for...honestly, she had no idea exactly what to call Eve even now. Friend? More? Whatever the case, she'd come to help. Had managed to get in, her training and natural chameleon trait serving her well. The only problems? She hadn't expected the Atlesian Inquisition. A strike by their military, with Weiss and Carnelian themselves leading the charge? The situation escalated fast. The whole place was pitch black, dark as dark could get...though that was not really a problem for her. The sounds of heavy fighting and screams of pain and fierce howls echoed all over the place. Punches that sounded like thunder. Explosions. Dust. Magic. Chaos.

She knew where Eve was currently, even with all that going on...the problem was just all of that stuff going on. She could only hope she could sneak by with those distractions, especially considering faunus eyes. Like Blake, who still clung to the Fang's cruel methods in total belief. The feelings on Blake, this twisted and lost version of her friend...to say they were complicated would be one hell of an understatement. And her other self, tied down with Blake even now. The chameleon couldn't exactly blame her counterpart for that much at least. Was Snake still here too? Not to mention the rest of the Talons, and Weiss, and Carnelian, and all the rest they brought to this hunt.

Ilia could only hope that the bull hadn't been drawn into any of the fights going on around her, the chameleon ninja doing her best to sneak about as quietly as a light breeze of wind and just as unseen.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"......................" Even with the nightvision mode engaged, she hadn't seen that coming. Not in the slightest. Let alone react to it. Before she knew what the heck was up, she was pinned up against the floor with one arm pulled tight behind her and a boot pressed against her skull to keep her down. "...Jennings?" She mumbled into the floor, trying to ignore how bad the floor tasted as she addressed her robocompanion through their own commlink. "Yes, Master Helios?" "Delete this from mission recordings if you'd be so kind." She grumbled, making no immediate move to resist as she laid there, seemingly docile. From the glimpses she'd gotten just now, the odds had shifted quite considerably to stack against her. This required...weighing options. Considering stratagems.

And all was clarified when all that happened, why Panther had became lackadaisical all of a sudden. His was the penchant for allocating energy where it needed to go and this necessitated some modicum of multitasking especially in the use of his semblance, hectic combat style, and the nature of the masks' comms system. His demeanor remained placid, unaffected by the turn of events that transpired save for a subtle bodily gesture of deference towards Blake, "Yes Master, it will be done."

A pointed glance Feri's way and paces sequestered in silence, the two wolves faded into obscurity as the Hand's protege carried his orders out. The next was a given with the final the same, the last presenting itself something of a challenge but it didn't weigh on the faunus, his attention fast upon executing the exfiltration posthaste.

Feri had deftly spun her ringblade around her arm after it absorbed the ice, the Argent heir giving Gwen and Blake an irate look past her mask "Hurry up and dispose of this one, my sister cannot- What are you-" She started to glance towards Panther as he approached with a frustrated sneer that instantly vanished into surprised terror and a far less imperious squeak! as she suddenly fell straight through the floor along with him.

The ribbon slipped away from Gwen's arm as a hand clasped it instead to wrench it even farther back as the boot pressed down and Gwen her a voice that was far, far too close, enough that she could feel Blake's mask brushing against her ponytail.

"I don't want to spend the time or aura to break yours."

There was a terrible creaking noise coming from her arm as Blake pulled harder, an absurd amount of strength hidden underneath the loose robes she always wore.

"Make me, and you won't die quick. You'll just spend the next month wishing you had."

There wasn't a single breath in her tone that implied it was anything close to a threat or anything less than a promise, the terrible beast named righteous rage Atlas had provoked audibly straining against Blake's self control to make good on those words regardless of whether or not Gwen complied. She was just a soldier in the grand scheme of things, a human who'd never done anything to wrong faunus kind, had the misfortune of being the spawn of one of Remnant's biggest monsters, nor the reputation of Carnelian, but there was still no doubt that there wasn't anyone in existence Blake wanted to kill than Gwen in that moment.

The pressure didn't vanish, nor did the tickling against the back of her hair, but Blake seemingly fell silent in wait for a response.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You mongrels think you've finally earned your seat at the table? A slice of the kingdoms we built, the territory we ripped away from the Grimm?"

His snort was derisive, his movements smooth as his eyeline swept away from addressing Hound to refocus on the path before him.

"Come take it from me. But here's a tip: tired old grudges and glory hounds won't get you far."

That was when Ilia, with the blessing of her semblance's perspective, realized.

She was looking at herself. Carnelian's eyes were locked on exactly wherever it was she was standing, her perfect camouflage apparently no better than a layer of paint to the general's violent eyes as he continued on his slow, inexorable path towards her, his eye's beam glinting off the swords in his hands.

"It's gonna take rage. And I'm eager to see if this new generation of fleabags are finally capable of enough hate to earn what your kind always felt the world owed you. Another blowhard with a pointy stick and a chip on his shoulder, though? You trying to bore me to death?"

Hound snorted with a wolfish grin despite the irritation flashing through his eyes and thoughts as his feet stepped and slid in pace with Carnelian's own stride,

"See, here's the thing gramps. I don't care if you have fun."

Ilia's breath hitched as she saw herself, made eye contact with herself, knelt against the ground with one eye clutched shut and the other faintly humming the same blue as Carnelian's in the dark.

"Hound?" She hissed, breathless

"Relax, I got it" He replied. Yet he didn't move to strike. Only slowly kept his steps in lock with the general's. Ilia's breath heaved a little faster as she tried to catch it

"Hound!"

"I said I got it!"

Another step. Another step.

"...What do you want from me, huh!?"

She wasn't Blake. She knew that. Blake's voice wouldn't have the tremor of fear as a backdrop against the anger in her voice. Blake wouldn't have taken an involuntary step back as she stood up. Blake would've been tearing this guy apart ten minutes ago if she'd been in the same room as him. Blake would've stood a chance.

But she was still herself. She was still an Amitola. Her parents didn't raise a coward. And she'd never go down without a fight.

Lighting Lash crackled to life in her hand as she flourished it with a vicious snarl despite the fear in her heart and the certainty this was pointless.

"You want to play with your food?! You want me to fight back?!"

Hound straight up rolled his eyes, the vitriol in his voice more biting than anything that he'd pointed towards Carnelian. "Would you shut the fuck up and just accept that I GOT THIS-!?"

He vanished.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*click*

Ruby barely had time to turn before-

"AAAAGHHHH!!"

Her aura flared like a wildfire out of control.

She writhed and wriggled under the faunus's weight, her face turned up into a pained grimace.

Then the hand came in.

The grimace vanished having been replaced by a blood stained grin.

"I...may have been caught like prey..."

The palm of her hand began to glow an icy blue. Not unlike the signs that'd been clear when Feri launched ice spikes at Weiss.

"But I'm more of a predator than you'll EVER BE!"

*VSSSSSSHHHHH!!!*

A beam modified by the added ice-dust canister streamed from Ruby's arm. The last shot Ruby had attempted to take had been knocked off course by Greki. Now that she wasn't a problem and Bear had done Ruby the honor of closing the distance between them, everything was set to go. If it worked out like she intended, the faunus would have been frozen over by the beam. Vanishing in a trail of rose petals from under the aged warrior's frame, Ruby didn't get too far before having to come to a stop. Eager as she was to indulge her wild side/her truer instincts as she saw them, Bear's weapon had been no joke. After experiencing the gauntlet of pain of having been blasted not once but twice, Ruby saw taking it out of the equation as a necessity. Thinking on it, she had her doubts the initial beam she'd fired would have actually been enough to sever Bear's prosthetic. At least without weakening it's structural integrity.

"Ector!"

The sequence of events happened one after the other that it did not allow room for repartee, which suited the Colonel just as well as he aligned his position toward the Masque's and Bear's. It was with a stern expression and the purposeful flick of his left that instigated a series of pops, micro-explosions cascading across the cybernetic implement that comprised Bear's arm to take advantage of his predicament to shatter the ice and buffet it. Within the epicenter of each explosion surged to life a flare, akin to ignited thermite, concentrating the brunt of energy Ector channeled now into absolutely mangling the weapon if not melting it completely.

That was the left hand, what of his right?

It was with the deft flick of the wrist akin to a maestro directing his orchestra that a cloak of oxygen encapsulated the faunus's perimeter radially, suffused with twinkles of gold that reflected the glare from the precursor attack. Lightning dust, processed to incredibly fine particulates that was carried aloft by the Colonel's semblance with little trouble.

A curving flourish towards an unsung crescendo arriving to an abrupt finale saw a grander explosion of sorts, whereby instead of burning flames that cleansed it was a different phenomena altogether, ignited still by flame yet superseded by the element altogether. It could be described no better than a ball lightning, with the unfortunate faunus caught in the center, within the makings of a shock chamber to put it crudely.

"Liza, queue emergency medical services, please." Ector murmured to himself, his stern expression belying his distaste for the situation.

The beam caught Bear's arm, the Rose vanished, and in the instant that followed the area Bear had been standing in became the epicenter of hell itself. The ice didn't so much melt as explode; the steam that joined the explosion would've melted unshielded flesh in an instant.

Yet the beast in the cloud still stood, his expression briefly inscrutable in the haze of the aftermath, the only sign that he was still alive and not merely a standing corpse was the shimmering of his grey aura in the dark. Bear was far from his prime. No amount of training, fitness, and resolve could stop age from taking its toll. Bones weakened. Flesh tore. Muscles loosened.

But the soul did not. It was eternal. The reasons so few hunters reached retirement age had little to do with their main weapon against the dark dulling its edge against the implacable rock of time.

There was a reason such a huge target survived a war with Remnant's most vicious killer with only one limb lost. Even subjected full blast to Ector's semblance, he still stood. Likely not undamaged, but still yet unbowed

"Humanity has always been the predators, little warrior. You are no different. Just true to your kind. And you, burning junior;-"

the dark that enveloped the room when the flames cleared and Bear's aura recentered seemed even deeper than before.

"-Your predecessor's flames burned hotter."

Whatever explosions or blasts struck where bear had been moments before lit up the room just enough to show that he wasn't there anymore, once more terrifyingly quiet for someone carrying around so much weight.

 

[MyrtenRose]

The ribbon slipped away from Gwen's arm as a hand clasped it instead to wrench it even farther back as the boot pressed down and Gwen her a voice that was far, far too close, enough that she could feel Blake's mask brushing against her ponytail.

"I don't want to spend the time or aura to break yours."

There was a terrible creaking noise coming from her arm as Blake pulled harder, an absurd amount of strength hidden underneath the loose robes she always wore.

"Make me, and you won't die quick. You'll just spend the next month wishing you had."

There wasn't a single breath in her tone that implied it was anything close to a threat or anything less than a promise, the terrible beast named righteous rage Atlas had provoked audibly straining against Blake's self control to make good on those words regardless of whether or not Gwen complied. She was just a soldier in the grand scheme of things, a human who'd never done anything to wrong faunus kind, had the misfortune of being the spawn of one of Remnant's biggest monsters, nor the reputation of Carnelian, but there was still no doubt that there wasn't anyone in existence Blake wanted to kill than Gwen in that moment.

The pressure didn't vanish, nor did the tickling against the back of her hair, but Blake seemingly fell silent in wait for a response.

There was no crying out at the sudden lance of pain that came with her arm getting twisted even more and stronger too, now personally gripped by one of Blake's hands. Not so much as a grunt. Either she was that disciplined or... "Hmm? Oh sorry! It seems I got so caught up in thinking up strategies that I almost forgot who the plans were for." She replied rather casually, even giving a slight grin. "And really? That sounds intriguing. Say, for the sake of knowledge, what torturous attacks are you implying there? Nevermind the fact that such talk of savage violence really doesn't help your cause in any meaningful way, I'm personally more curious about the techniques themselves, you see. Because, between you and me, I have my weapon but I've always believed the best arsenal anybody could ever bring to a battle is the power of their mind. Intelligence, force of will, that sort of thing, you know? So hey, while I have you here, maybe you could share some of those brutal ideas of yours? I'm kind of a glutton for knowledge." Gwen's mouth ran a little wild but she was as cordial as could be, given the situation.

And doing her best to distract from the fact that the armor along that wrenched arm held by Blake was subtly, nearly imperceptibly shifting. For what purpose? That remained to be seen.​

 

[MidwayLives]

Ruby pushed herself up to her feet.

The ringing...It hadn't stopped.

"My ears..."

She grit her teeth and clutched at either side of her head.

The faunus seemed to have vanished for the time being. But the effects of that damned weapon hadn't left. She doubted they would at the very least until this battle was over. The thrill of battle excited her and got her blood pumping. Her entire body was trembling in a mixture of ecstasy and feral fury. The ringing was a reminder that she'd been sloppy. She'd been struck twice by this particular faunus. If there was one brightside, she looked over her shoulder at Greki's form.

That one was worse off.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Hound snorted with a wolfish grin despite the irritation flashing through his eyes and thoughts as his feet stepped and slid in pace with Carnelian's own stride,

"See, here's the thing gramps. I don't care if you have fun."

Ilia's breath hitched as she saw herself, made eye contact with herself, knelt against the ground with one eye clutched shut and the other faintly humming the same blue as Carnelian's in the dark.

"Hound?" She hissed, breathless

"Relax, I got it" He replied. Yet he didn't move to strike. Only slowly kept his steps in lock with the general's. Ilia's breath heaved a little faster as she tried to catch it

"Hound!"

"I said I got it!"

Another step. Another step.

"...What do you want from me, huh!?"

She wasn't Blake. She knew that. Blake's voice wouldn't have the tremor of fear as a backdrop against the anger in her voice. Blake wouldn't have taken an involuntary step back as she stood up. Blake would've been tearing this guy apart ten minutes ago if she'd been in the same room as him. Blake would've stood a chance.

But she was still herself. She was still an Amitola. Her parents didn't raise a coward. And she'd never go down without a fight.

Lighting Lash crackled to life in her hand as she flourished it with a vicious snarl despite the fear in her heart and the certainty this was pointless.

"You want to play with your food?! You want me to fight back?!"

Hound straight up rolled his eyes, the vitriol in his voice more biting than anything that he'd pointed towards Carnelian. "Would you shut the fuck up and just accept that I GOT THIS-!?"

He vanished.

The general wasn't even giving Hound the dignity of a reply at this point, nor anything more than the sort of perfunctory sigh a man of his station typically reserved for paparazzi, homeless people and drunks. The only noise coming from Carnelian's advance was the quiet rap of his boots on the polished floor as their race-by-inches continued, his inhumanly technological glare still rooted on the defiant faunus before him rather than the more tantalizing foe nipping his heels. The crack of the whip drew from him a wry, indulgent sneer, lit by the glow of electricity as his easygoing pace finally came to a halt a short distance away, as if the old man were indeed cowed by the display. The next words to leave his mouth, regrettably, stood at odds with that comforting notion.

"That won't be necessary. Matter of fact, I don't much care what you do."

Several things happened at once in those next few seconds. Hound vanished, a detonation from one of the other skirmishes briefly shattered the gloom, and in whatever brief opening occurred when Ilia's more evolved eyesight had to adjust to the sudden light-to-dark differential Carnelian moved from the spot he was in, disappearing from her eyeline in a manner not altogether dissimilar from how her mentor vanished from Ector's.

Only instead of melding into the darkness around them he was very abruptly filling her vision, Lightning Lash's radius and the remaining gap between them closed with such haste the gloom hadn't even resettled when she felt a claw with more grip strength than most Grimm wrap around her throat. It was like a vice, the embrace of a boa constrictor that made her want to gag and heave in air at the same time as it wrung the air from her lungs, yet it was somehow the least potent of the sensations to assail Ilia in that moment, even if the others were of a differing nature entirely; mental as opposed to physical.

'Cause you made a good point just now. There's only one animal in this entire building young enough, angry enough and good enough that they might be the one to do it. Two if you squint, but your pack of ingrates let the bull go so feral I'm not convinced she's even worth the time anymore.

The voice was like booming thunder, yet its scratchy baritone and hard edge were unmistakable as belonging to anyone other than the owner of the hand on her neck. It sounded younger, though, both in pitch and manner of speaking, as if she were being addressed by the very same gleeful savage who once took such delight in her people's torture rather than the withered husk he aged into.

Too bad, really. She's been my most promising pet project ever since I first marked the bitch. You have any idea how boring old age gets? Just when I'm beginning to think I've engineered the perfect little savage, a warrior with enough bloodlust, enough hate, enough wrath to be the one who finally puts me out of my misery, I'm told she goes and breaks down over a woman. Couldn't wrap my head around it, at first. The things I did to her, and this lovesick puppy crap is what makes her spin out? Figured it must've been one hell of a lady. I'll admit, she has yet to disappoint. I know you know what I'm talking about.

It also wasn't a voice at all, and the sadistic general's lips were entirely still. If Ilia had ever harbored any concerns about the potential invasiveness of her own semblance, they seemed positively paltry now as Carnelian not only answered her private thoughts about Blake, but did so by projecting his own consciousness into her brain.

It was to be the least discomfiting thing beamed to her thoughts in that moment, one that stretched out over an eternity as her mind worked overtime to process several seconds' worth of speech in one.

But enough reminiscing. What do I want from you? Tell you the truth, toots, nothing. I just thought it might be funny if I gave you a preview of all the ways your precious little love triangle ends before I send them both to the s̷a̸m̷e̴ p̶i̴t̴ ̸ ̸y̷o̸u̵r̴ f̷o̸l̸k̷s̸ ̶a̸r̶e̶ ̵b̵u̷r̸n̸i̸n̵g̵ ̶i̴n̵

Spoiler

The series of images that flashed through Ilia's head were seizure inducing, but they also felt more real than any nightmare she'd ever had, which was probably saying something. They ranged from the violent to the unspeakably brutal, and depicted every dark thought Ilia had ever had about the current trajectory of her love life. In the amount of time it took an electrical signal to reach the brain, she had perceived every horrible end, every dark outcome that had been gnawing at her ever since Eve reentered the picture, and a few she hadn't. Eve hurting Blake. Eve hurting Ilia. Blake hurting Eve, or Ilia herself hurting both. Every possible variant of a once-close trio ripping each other apart like animals, she saw; anxieties pulled from the depths of her mind married to the viciousness of the one assailing her.

Until gradually, the scenes shifted. A fourth figure became more prominent amid the depictions of violence, one with a shadowed face and a sinister crimson eye. He was always the aggressor. Always the winner. And when he was there, the brutality on display tripled, the level of unfeeling violence and bloodshed Ilia was subjected to dwarfing everything else by magnitudes. Though he never raised his voice and his face was never clear, somehow she knew innately that there was more rage and hate coursing through those old veins than any of them had ever felt in their lives.

He felt inevitable. More specter than man, a corpse held together by wires and metal plates. The death of the dream all three of his prophesized victims had at one point shared, only there was nothing dreamlike about the whirring digits of the hand wrapped around her throat so tightly it felt like her head was going to pop off, nor the tight, contemptuous sneer glaring down at her.

As Ilia recovered from the heartless violation of her thoughts, both lingered only for the second it took him to see the look on her face, and by the time she stopped living the nightmare of Carnelian mounting Blake's head on a pike he was nowhere to be seen.​

 

[Indolent]

He vanished.

Undoubtedly, there was something of a fisticuffs to be had between the Panther and the Hound in the shadows that was quickly resolved as he was violently and unrepentantly ejected somewhere else. Something to the nonsensical beat of "I HAD HIM" was said interfused with appealing to his warrior's pride and the sense of obligation to vindicating one of the wrongs done to the faunus this night.

The Hand's order superseded all, even the dog's mewling whines but it bears to be said that his reluctance to have done so to his fellow faunus was wore plainly, an expression good as invisible in the shadows were it not for their eyes.

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The general wasn't even giving Hound the dignity of a reply at this point, nor anything more than the sort of perfunctory sigh a man of his station typically reserved for paparazzi, homeless people and drunks. The only noise coming from Carnelian's advance was the quiet rap of his boots on the polished floor as their race-by-inches continued, his inhumanly technological glare still rooted on the defiant faunus before him rather than the more tantalizing foe nipping his heels. The crack of the whip drew from him a wry, indulgent sneer, lit by the glow of electricity as his easygoing pace finally came to a halt a short distance away, as if the old man were indeed cowed by the display. The next words to leave his mouth, regrettably, stood at odds with that comforting notion.

"That won't be necessary. Matter of fact, I don't much care what you do."

Several things happened at once in those next few seconds. Hound vanished, a detonation from one of the other skirmishes briefly shattered the gloom, and in whatever brief opening occurred when Ilia's more evolved eyesight had to adjust to the sudden light-to-dark differential Carnelian moved from the spot he was in, disappearing from her eyeline in a manner not altogether dissimilar from how her mentor vanished from Ector's.

Only instead of melding into the darkness around them he was very abruptly filling her vision, Lightning Lash's radius and the remaining gap between them closed with such haste the gloom hadn't even resettled when she felt a claw with more grip strength than most Grimm wrap around her throat. It was like a vice, the embrace of a boa constrictor that made her want to gag and heave in air at the same time as it wrung the air from her lungs, yet it was somehow the least potent of the sensations to assail Ilia in that moment, even if the others were of a differing nature entirely; mental as opposed to physical.

'Cause you made a good point just now. There's only one animal in this entire building young enough, angry enough and good enough that they might be the one to do it. Two if you squint, but your pack of ingrates let the bull go so feral I'm not convinced she's even worth the time anymore.

The voice was like booming thunder, yet its scratchy baritone and hard edge were unmistakable as belonging to anyone other than the owner of the hand on her neck. It sounded younger, though, both in pitch and manner of speaking, as if she were being addressed by the very same gleeful savage who once took such delight in her people's torture rather than the withered husk he aged into.

Too bad, really. She's been my most promising pet project ever since I first marked the bitch. You have any idea how boring old age gets? Just when I'm beginning to think I've engineered the perfect little savage, a warrior with enough bloodlust, enough hate, enough wrath to be the one who finally puts me out of my misery, I'm told she goes and breaks down over a woman. Couldn't wrap my head around it, at first. The things I did to her, and this lovesick puppy crap is what makes her spin out? Figured it must've been one hell of a lady. I'll admit, she has yet to disappoint. I know you know what I'm talking about.

It also wasn't a voice at all, and the sadistic general's lips were entirely still. If Ilia had ever harbored any concerns about the potential invasiveness of her own semblance, they seemed positively paltry now as Carnelian not only answered her private thoughts about Blake, but did so by projecting his own consciousness into her brain.

It was to be the least discomfiting thing beamed to her thoughts in that moment, one that stretched out over an eternity as her mind worked overtime to process several seconds' worth of speech in one.

But enough reminiscing. What do I want from you? Tell you the truth, toots, nothing. I just thought it might be funny if I gave you a preview of all the ways your precious little love triangle ends before I send them both to the s̷a̸m̷e̴ p̶i̴t̴ ̸ ̸y̷o̸u̵r̴ f̷o̸l̸k̷s̸ ̶a̸r̶e̶ ̵b̵u̷r̸n̸i̸n̵g̵ ̶i̴n̵

Spoiler

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The series of images that flashed through Ilia's head were seizure inducing, but they also felt more real than any nightmare she'd ever had, which was probably saying something. They ranged from the violent to the unspeakably brutal, and depicted every dark thought Ilia had ever had about the current trajectory of her love life. In the amount of time it took an electrical signal to reach the brain, she had perceived every horrible end, every dark outcome that had been gnawing at her ever since Eve reentered the picture, and a few she hadn't. Eve hurting Blake. Eve hurting Ilia. Blake hurting Eve, or Ilia herself hurting both. Every possible variant of a once-close trio ripping each other apart like animals, she saw; anxieties pulled from the depths of her mind married to the viciousness of the one assailing her.

Until gradually, the scenes shifted. A fourth figure became more prominent amid the depictions of violence, one with a shadowed face and a sinister crimson eye. He was always the aggressor. Always the winner. And when he was there, the brutality on display tripled, the level of unfeeling violence and bloodshed Ilia was subjected to dwarfing everything else by magnitudes. Though he never raised his voice and his face was never clear, somehow she knew innately that there was more rage and hate coursing through those old veins than any of them had ever felt in their lives.

He felt inevitable. More specter than man, a corpse held together by wires and metal plates. The death of the dream all three of his prophesized victims had at one point shared, only there was nothing dreamlike about the whirring digits of the hand wrapped around her throat so tightly it felt like her head was going to pop off, nor the tight, contemptuous sneer glaring down at her.

As Ilia recovered from the heartless violation of her thoughts, both lingered only for the second it took him to see the look on her face, and by the time she stopped living the nightmare of Carnelian mounting Blake's head on a pike he was nowhere to be seen.​

In the next instant, Ilia was no longer there, seemingly melding with the very ground before being carried off to the depths of the unknown as she suddenly dropped akin to a pebble sinking beneath the water's still surface with nary a ripple. Perhaps the sensation combined with being enveloped in the darkness would elicit a less than favorable reaction from the chameleon given her profoundly painful experience of the spiritual kind but, it needed doing.

And Panther was surprisingly gentle despite his hurried gait.

 

[Indolent]

Feri had deftly spun her ringblade around her arm after it absorbed the ice, the Argent heir giving Gwen and Blake an irate look past her mask "Hurry up and dispose of this one, my sister cannot- What are you-" She started to glance towards Panther as he approached with a frustrated sneer that instantly vanished into surprised terror and a far less imperious squeak! as she suddenly fell straight through the floor along with him.

The ribbon slipped away from Gwen's arm as a hand clasped it instead to wrench it even farther back as the boot pressed down and Gwen her a voice that was far, far too close, enough that she could feel Blake's mask brushing against her ponytail.

"I don't want to spend the time or aura to break yours."

There was a terrible creaking noise coming from her arm as Blake pulled harder, an absurd amount of strength hidden underneath the loose robes she always wore.

"Make me, and you won't die quick. You'll just spend the next month wishing you had."

There wasn't a single breath in her tone that implied it was anything close to a threat or anything less than a promise, the terrible beast named righteous rage Atlas had provoked audibly straining against Blake's self control to make good on those words regardless of whether or not Gwen complied. She was just a soldier in the grand scheme of things, a human who'd never done anything to wrong faunus kind, had the misfortune of being the spawn of one of Remnant's biggest monsters, nor the reputation of Carnelian, but there was still no doubt that there wasn't anyone in existence Blake wanted to kill than Gwen in that moment.

The pressure didn't vanish, nor did the tickling against the back of her hair, but Blake seemingly fell silent in wait for a response.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Hound snorted with a wolfish grin despite the irritation flashing through his eyes and thoughts as his feet stepped and slid in pace with Carnelian's own stride,

"See, here's the thing gramps. I don't care if you have fun."

Ilia's breath hitched as she saw herself, made eye contact with herself, knelt against the ground with one eye clutched shut and the other faintly humming the same blue as Carnelian's in the dark.

"Hound?" She hissed, breathless

"Relax, I got it" He replied. Yet he didn't move to strike. Only slowly kept his steps in lock with the general's. Ilia's breath heaved a little faster as she tried to catch it

"Hound!"

"I said I got it!"

Another step. Another step.

"...What do you want from me, huh!?"

She wasn't Blake. She knew that. Blake's voice wouldn't have the tremor of fear as a backdrop against the anger in her voice. Blake wouldn't have taken an involuntary step back as she stood up. Blake would've been tearing this guy apart ten minutes ago if she'd been in the same room as him. Blake would've stood a chance.

But she was still herself. She was still an Amitola. Her parents didn't raise a coward. And she'd never go down without a fight.

Lighting Lash crackled to life in her hand as she flourished it with a vicious snarl despite the fear in her heart and the certainty this was pointless.

"You want to play with your food?! You want me to fight back?!"

Hound straight up rolled his eyes, the vitriol in his voice more biting than anything that he'd pointed towards Carnelian. "Would you shut the fuck up and just accept that I GOT THIS-!?"

He vanished.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




The beam caught Bear's arm, the Rose vanished, and in the instant that followed the area Bear had been standing in became the epicenter of hell itself. The ice didn't so much melt as explode; the steam that joined the explosion would've melted unshielded flesh in an instant.

Yet the beast in the cloud still stood, his expression briefly inscrutable in the haze of the aftermath, the only sign that he was still alive and not merely a standing corpse was the shimmering of his grey aura in the dark. Bear was far from his prime. No amount of training, fitness, and resolve could stop age from taking its toll. Bones weakened. Flesh tore. Muscles loosened.

But the soul did not. It was eternal. The reasons so few hunters reached retirement age had little to do with their main weapon against the dark dulling its edge against the implacable rock of time.

There was a reason such a huge target survived a war with Remnant's most vicious killer with only one limb lost. Even subjected full blast to Ector's semblance, he still stood. Likely not undamaged, but still yet unbowed

"Humanity has always been the predators, little warrior. You are no different. Just true to your kind. And you, burning junior;-"

the dark that enveloped the room when the flames cleared and Bear's aura recentered seemed even deeper than before.

"-Your predecessor's flames burned hotter."

Whatever explosions or blasts struck where bear had been moments before lit up the room just enough to show that he wasn't there anymore, once more terrifyingly quiet for someone carrying around so much weight.

"Your bid to goad me into validating your colorful illustration of me to mesh with your narrative is absolutely dull and abyssal for the effort given." Ector retorted dryly, his annoyance at the elder faunus's disappearance manifesting in the somewhat loquacious words he uttered.

A jaunty extension of his left arm summoned a reverberating gust extending radially, the limb held for a few seconds before it was retracted with a final snap of the finger. Wisps of flame thrummed to life throughout the hangar, illuminating the area plainly as day as the Colonel cautiously cast about.

Ah, good, the General seemingly vanished as well.

"Rose, compose-- Right." He paused, remembering the artificial tinnitus that was the side effect of Bear's weapon, prompting the sharp change in his demeanor as he plainly illustrated to the bandit princess to recompose herself and to restrain the battered Greki. If she could.

"Bear's vanished, the same for Chameleon. Wolf is ko'd. Moving forward to assist the councilwoman."

It was an exercise in caution that was undermined by the lingering urgency of the circumstances, bidding the Colonel to move faster than he'd like in unknown territory.

 

[Indolent]

"I'm almost done with my quick sketch." The diminutive brunette muttered, her jaw quirked in a way that it looked uncomfortable how it was set, especially with how her tongue protruded. She was hunched over a scrap of paper stained with coffee and who knew what else, the patrons of the bar-- at the bar separate from the common rabble populating the tables to be exact-- having taken upon themselves to investigate her rapid scrawling in their inebriated states in something of a semi-circle huddle with her at its epicenter.

The larger of the two siblings found himself unconcerned, eyeing the interior of the bar slash stripper club in observation. Namely the lack of a certain bouncer and the wild barmaid whom once found herself afflicted by the generosity of the town's popular stateswoman. The other one. With the smaller following.

"The atmosphere does feel different without them. Strange."

"K, I'm done. So. Maryyyyyy, you definitely saw him before but just to be doubly, positively sure."

She inverted the sketch immediately, sliding it to the countertop's side opposite before leaning back with her arms crossed as her face contorted to that of satisfaction.



She received a rousing chorus of bewilderment ranging from accusations surrounding the manipulation of the broken clock above the bar contingent on her drawing pace to whether she was a published artist.

"He's not only my best friend but he's a freaking amazing model. Stays super still so I had lottsa practice. Gimme him, I know you've got him Mary."

"Your ability to enthrall people frightens me still."