Cold Comfort: A Race Against Time
"Okay. That means we don't have a lot of time. What we doing?" Roslyn continued to let herself breathe.
Penny nodded, agreeing with the earlier assertion that they should split up.
"Does anyone else know how to sense an anti-magic device?" she asked urgently.
Roslyn shook her head as she answered,
"No, but I'll try to help best I can."Penny nodded and looked about for others. She was likely the only one, and that would make this much harder.
Marz shook his head,
"Nay, I've been in 'em never sensed 'em"Oksana speaks fluently with her hands, though no one is able to make much sense of it. The gist they can gather is that they should retrieve the devices and rescue the town.
Sven shook his head as well with Esmii saying,
“No I can't sense them”.
Roslyn tilted her head as she tried to understand what was said to her,
"Oksana, and I'm struggling to understand, want to go after the devices first?"Penny struggles to interpret much, but she agrees that they should retrieve the devices.
Sven, meanwhile, scowls.
"Thoshe marblesh are too dangeroush to be left ash ish. They need to be deshtroyed."She mimics the marbles with a fist, and the devices with an open hand. When the open hand goes near the marble, it starts shaking around. When the device is removed, it appears to be a lot more stable.
“The marbles need to be destroyed, as fast as possible”“Yes!” Penny exclaims, the gestures clicking. With nobody else able to sense them, she realizes that she has a lot of work ahead of her.
“We should find the devices to allow us to handle the marbles!”Roslyn nodded her head as she said,
"Both are dangerous, I honestly don't trust anyone to weild then. However, someone made those devices so I doubt it's the last we will see of them. Right now, we're a bit helpless without magic. Especially against the Volti".
Oksana warn both Sven and Esmii whilst she agrees, she does an explosion affect and points to all the buildings around them. Perhaps she is indicating that they need to be removed into a more barren location before being destroyed.
“Both need to be destroyed, but magic is needed. I agree with Penny on this, we need to get the devices destroyed before we can take a crack at the marbles”Roslyn spoke out to try and
"So should we split up and find the devices or what? Cause we're wasting time."Yuliya looked to her comrades, having divided into two teams. Marz was a dear friend, but not someone she could trust with the marbles, or with the future of her nation. She spoke to Khaliun in hushed Vossoriyan, away from prying ears.
"These hegelans suffered an injustice, but don't let them get their hands on the marbles. You know what will happen if we lose them. Just try not to kill them. she patted her on the shoulder.
“Without the box, they can't do anything to the marbles anyway.” Khaliun pointed toward the town.
“We should move as we plan.”"You're right. I just need you to be prepared for what's to come." she continued to whisper, but turned to shout in Avincean.
"We get boxes, yes? I can sense too! I have one of my own, but smaller." she grinned proudly, thinking of her great victories in the trials.
Khaliun nodded whilst float-dashing with her associate. Pokerfaced.
“Don't let these foreigners get their way with the marbles.” she spoke in Vossoriyan.
Penny perked up as she heard Yuliya call out to them,
"Two teams then, yes!""So should we split up and find the devices or what? Cause we're wasting time." Roslyn gestured lightly to the people around her,
"Who's with who? Each group should have someone who can sense a device at the head."Oksana gestures that she is going after the devices, as they are the biggest threat, and wants to ensure everyone's safety.
"I'll take Esmii, Yvain, and Oksana!" Penny called out.
“Ok Penny” Esmii nodded to Penny as she made her way over.
"Okay, I'll be with Penny" Roslyn said as she made her way towards Penny.
Yuli points to Khaliun and pats Marz on the back.
"I want these two!"Marz nodded to Yuliya
Sven did not much trust Khaliun or Yuliya. He volunteered to join them, despite his worries about Esmii.
The Landsknecht Fritz joined the Penny group, Sugawara the Ronin stuck with Khaliun.
"We need to start moving out, or Volti will beat us to it." Roslyn pulls out her 2 maps she had made, as the first one was the one she made from her time with assisting the group with figuring out the boundaries of the anti-magic field, and compares it to the magic one that shows where a chaos marble within the wreckage.
"Look like there might be one there based on when we figure out the field's range either."Once both groups had spoken and figured out a possible place an Anti-magic device would be, they began their move. They knew Khaliun could sense that there were enemies. However the moment she even tried to reach out to try anything, multiple bursts of energy occurred. Giant bursts of light, sound, heat, and even kinetic energy that made it nearly impossible for her to even continue to sense without feeling overwhelmed. However the moment she was able to refocus herself she was unable to track them but knew they had to be close, and the entire group knew it.
As both groups began to move, Marz began to run forward as he lead his group as they aimed to go to the center fortress on the river. While Penny began to lead hers. They knew they needed to make a move and they needed to find all the boxes, and Penny didn't waste any time,
"We need to stick close. Let's cross the river."Oksana indicated toward the harbour area and the boats in the north west, perhaps investigating across the way from there or around in that area.
She drew upon her magic to start a flying leap.
Esmii agrees with Penny, She starts to draw magic. Assisted with making a bridge or ice.
Yet as this group leaped the river, one of their own had messed up their jump. Penny began to slightly falling behind, just enough for when the moment she attempted to leap she felt her magic fade for just a moment, a moment long enough for her power to fade. A moment long enough for her to notice off in the distance that a group of masked people were watching. And a moment long enough for her heart to skip a beat and her to lose all focus and fall directly into the water.
The moment the others landed on the other bank, they turned to see Penny had fallen. Among the group they attempted to try and go back, but the moment they tried to go back they began to feel their own magic fading and made a choice, they began to run along the bank to continue to follow the group who were heading to the fortress on the water.
Shaking off her wooziness, Penny realizes that she has been left behind...again. However, she felt a tingle in her ear, a strange low humming sound seemed to have been coming from behind her. She could feel an almost tingling on her tongue similar to when blood fills the mouth. It was a feeling she knew well, she had sensed that a magic nullifier was near, but she knew the Volti were watching. So she tried to slip out of the water and skulk her way towards the warehouse she could feel the magic nullifier coming from hopfully without being seen.
Yet as she made her way closer to the warehouse, from all around her, she was slowly surrounded. Much similar to her allies on the other side of the bank. There her group found themselves trapped in an alleyway with on one side a group of Volti waiting and lurking, trying to jump them, and then the water. Yet Roslyn had an idea, she told the others to run forward as she began to set up some strange cannon she had been given by Oksana. Once set up she began to take out a strange glass bottle with a clear liquid as she opened the bottle and set it into a hole on top of the cannon. When the liquid fell into the cannon it began to burn as it produced a thick gas that began to funnel down the alleyway. She then took up the cannon again and began running once more, hearing coughing and wheezing coming from multiple people behind her.
Much like Penny as she had ran into the warehouse, not having magic was an incredible difficulty for her. She wasn't physically unfit, but with so much running, fighting, and then swimming before, it now was catching up with her now not having magic. Yet it became worth it as she noticed the crate with the faint hum of electricity. She couldn't figure out how to open it, so she leaned back and jumped forward and used her crutch to support her as she but her boot through the box and made many of these strange boxes spill out as she knew them to be Magic nullifiers. Penny fell down scrambling through the boxes.
The first one she found... wrong one! She threw herself into the box further as more spilled out.
The second try... not it! It was not in there as she threw multiple boxes out, each of which clattered and smashed. Penny began to dig more and more until she heard foot steps form behind her.
A group of masked men and women gathered, each one held weapons they seemed comfortable with, and each seemed ready and able to use them, but it was a small woman in a lilac mask who stepped forward.
"Save the both of us some trouble. Drop the box and there's no need to risk life and limb."Penny brought herself to her feet as she glanced at a box right next to her crutch.
"Fuck, your japes are awful."She lightly flicked the switch with her crutch. Then, she drew magic as quickly as she possibly can, before the others were even ready.
It was one word, and she could feel her manas responding.
"GORGE"They were all drawing, of course, and she knew they would be.
They kept drawing.
They couldn't stop.
First, one of the men began to bruise.
In that same moment Penny created a wall with her kinetic and binding magics, she knew what was to come next.
The Volti began to feel the energy continued to draw, they couldn't stop, they began to try desperately to expel their magic in any way possible, but it was neither easy nor pretty.
Most revert to quick, intuitive attacks.
Arcane lances
Kinetic slams
Explosions
The attacks laid into the wall Penny had created, no matter the battering, it stood firm.
The Volti agents could not keep up with the energy draw.
One by one, they overdrew.
They bruised.
They purpled.
Some had nosebleeds.
Blood began pouring from the eyes of another.
Penelope of Perrence remained impassive.
The girl she had once been would have been horrified at this display.
These were enemies, however, and one did not show enemies mercy - ever.
"Please!" One screamed.
"What is this!?" hollered another as he began to glow.
Steam rose from a scorched body.
"I surrender! I surrender! Please!"
A couple merely screamed.
"I have a family!" cried one more.
"You should've thought about them before coming here," she advised coolly.
Then, they were gone - all of them - except for Coccinella.
The Lilac Volti was ragged and battered, but incandescent with rage.
"Now, you one-legged cunt, it's time to pay for your murders."Near the center of the city, Yuliya, Marz, Sven, Khaliun, and the mercenary ronin close in on the location of the hidden magic nullifier.
From across the way, the sixteen members of the Dieci Volti Nascosti move to close in on them.
Soldato, on a rooftop across the river, breathes in.
Breathes out.
He lines up Yuliya's head in his sights.
"Time to sleep, princess."Then, he feels the magic go back out.
He lets out a hiss of frustration.
He reaches into his pack and lights something.
He tosses it and the area flares with intense thermal, chemical, and then - as it starts to blow off layers - kinetic and sonic energies as well: enough to 'flash-blind' the magic senses of the tethered who was almost certainly lining up an attack on him... as well as anybody else trying to sense him.
The other operatives aren't quite so well-prepared, however.
Marz looks to Yuliya and Khaliun with a slight head nod as he began to head off to the walls. Being prepared to fortify them as they could all sense it in that moment, they were followed here.
Off in the distance a far more magically gifted sniper began to make her move. She began to knock multiple of the Volti into the water. One of the unlucky few clambered back to the shore almost immediately. Two more are washed downstream. But the third was the unluckiest as he drowned.
Yuliya ran to the tower door and nearly ripped it off of its hinges in her eagerness to reach the magic nullifier.
Within she founds a large crate being used as a simple table in a storage room.
Yuli headed towards the box. Upon ripping the top open she found it full. Pack
full of these fucking things. And only once being turned on had such a powerful effect. It occured to her that she did not have the means to take these somewhere safe, back to her home, the castle. She had not been there since.. She pockets the one that's still on and looks down at the crate, contemplating for a moment whether to destroy them, or send them back to her school dormitory.
Yuliya sighed to herself as she took the box emitting the strange electrical hum and placed it into her satchel. Upon exiting the tower there was a crack of a gunshot and the satchel at her hip exploded. The device within it was annihilated instantly, and Yuliya felt a scalding burn through her armour that makes her grimace and hiss in pain. Magic had returned to play, and the remaining twelve Volti operatives waste no time launching themselves across the water.
Marz took his hammer and began swinging and breaking the space in front of him. Creating multiple ruptures in space that made those who tried to approach apprehensive. Those who tried to get around was faced with Sven and his hulking mass and greater magic. Khaliun and her Mercenary faced of with more as Yuliya jumped back into the tower as she realized they were pushing and would most likely go for the box, she needed it.
Yuli set her hand onto the crate and focused her senses. This was magic far beyond her capability, magic that even Jocasta had struggled to learn and do. Her time in the forked tower had given her insight into the temporal school, into the capabilities it possessed, and how far she could go with it, but this was a time she needed it to work. These boxes could be destroyed, but the volti had more. But if the government had them in droves, they could reverse engineer and work around them. The only people she could trust with this equipment was her family. Her brother would know what to do. With duty in her heart, she focused so intently, honing every bit of the timestream to send these where they needed to be,
HOME.
Home, another bullet cracked and let loose, this one was one the seeped malice. The air around the bullet shuttered at the mere idea of completing it's task, doing what it was created to do. As it flew, the bullet created multiple loud cracks in the air. The sound similar to that of multiple bull whips cracking, as this destructive malice aimed right for the head of the armored princes. Yet it was her faithful companion that saved the Princess as the bullet was stopped right before hitting Yuliya's flesh. Part of her helm was burnt and pierced, but the bullet was just there.
“MOVE!” yelled Khaliun, for she knew she could not trully stop this round, only hold it back for so long.
Yuli had it. She had the teleport. Then that fucker ruined it. That bullet would have been a death blow without Khaliun's assistance. Her focus dropped instantly and it went awry, and she was forced to leap out of harms way, knowing that would have been a lethal blow had it connected. She had come so close.. so very close. Only violence would suffice now.
"No mercy. Annihilate them. We can't get the boxes out while these worms live." she spoke coldly. There no was no rage in her tone, only resolution and duty.
The Volti had finally reached the group and began their assault. One tried to create toxins in the air to attack and debilitate the group, yet Sven was too fast. This seemed to just be a set up as everyone saw something ominous, a simple leather satchel flying through the air, and then a terrible chemical reaction within.
Sven dived for Esmii, he had no true recourse, they were both to be caught, but he knew he had the power, as he huddled over Esmii, he began to focus energy behind him into multiple small explosions to cancel out the energy, but he never realized it was a run away explosion. One that could not be stopped. He let up for a moment as the explosion, the heat, the shrapnel flew into him and his lover, he thought death had them until he felt the pain stop. Sven and Esmii saw Marz there incandescent with energy as he had just broke the space that the explosion was in and destroyed it. Leaving slight singes but nothing more.
Roslyn saw this incredible force and was filled with worry as she screamed out,
"ESMII! SVEN!", before she could continue her teeth grit as she felt a lance of arcane energy cut across her side.
Blows continued to fall upon the students as they found themselves surrounded on all sides. Multiple Volti ran in to take the fighting up close, while others sat back and shot their guns or used magic to assist their allies. The constant onslaught finally let up as the students began to retaliate. Yuliya scorched many with atomic fire, the Mercenaries cut with fluid and unrelenting attacks, and Yvain even sliced the arm off of one, yet she was different, when she screamed, she did not scream in pain, hatred, or even terror, she cried out,
"Do you really serve these bloodsuckers!?" she screams.
"You fool! Where is your pride!? Where is your dignity!?"Yvain was at first admiring his new trinket until his curiousity was piqued by the woman.
"Bloodsuckers? Why would I even serve anyone but my country's crown?"She stumbled, clutching her side with her remaining arm, utterly horrified.
"You don't even know!?" she coughed.
"Who do you think runs this country?"He swayed his hand.
"From what I remember from reading a bit on it. They're people who left Eskand hundreds of years ago." He shrugged, gritting his teeth from the pain in his shoulder. A contorted smile forming from it.
"Can't say I blame them from wanting to leave after losing a war that badly... but to call them bloodsuckers is a bit harsh, no?"She regards him a bit dimly.
"Sanguinaires, you noble twat. They're sanguinaires!"His expression was no longer the one of a smug know-it-all.
"Sanguinaires.. You understand that word is not to be used lightly. Would these people really let themselves be ruled by those things?"On the other side of the city, Penny faced off with her assailents,
"You know, don't you?" Volto Lilla hissed,
"You know and you willingly protect her.""Oh, I'm not doing this for Yuliya," Penny replies.
She shakes her head.
"I'm doing it because I hate people like you. Because you don't care," she hisses.
"You don't learn. You see the world only in black and white and you'll never see me as anything except something to be destroyed." She shrugs bitterly.
"So, then I guess it's my job to destroy you first."Penny called once again upon her manas.
"REVOKE," she called.
Her mana colony wrests control of the others' from their nerves, at least somewhat. Their territoriality revoked, the three Volti operatives are left exposed.
A loud explosion ripped through out the city as it threw multiple people from their feet. Sven, Esmii, Yvain, Yuliya, and even Marz was thrown multiple feet into the air, but it was Roslyn who had taken it the worst.
After barely surviving the last attack, Roslyn screams upon feeling another attack slip past her defense. Her eyes widen and her head dizzy. Her heart raced, but her blood cooled as suddenly a man appeared beside her. His hand reached out and touched her. A frozen sensation drifted across her flesh causing it to curl. Her hand snapped up, pushing it away as she stepped back. Her knees buckled, her world going dark, before she collapses in a heap. The last thoughts on her mind was regret she wasn't better. Her vision slowly faded as she was able to see the one armed illusionist take notice of her and then dissappear.
Surprisingly, she materializes next to Khaliun. This one is apparently some sort of illusionist.
"Why!?" she demands.
"Why are you taking their part!? They spit on people like you and I!" Suddenly, there are three of her, in a triangle formation round Khaliun.
Khaliun turned her dark gaze onto the assailant, hammer at the ready. But then there was another! And then another. Surrounded, the bitch-faced strazi readied herself for the worst.
They all spoke at once.
"You know he's not coming to save you," she hissed.
"He'll only be there if she's threatened!"“And yet, he's nowhere to be seen.” a triple attack! The Tethered sought to draw out the first attack.
“Только когда Воссория действительно истекает кровью, он приходит на кормежку!”Then lightning resounded, 3 bolts flew and converged on Khaliun. Leaving a dust cloud from the explosion of energy.
"Vossoriya has bled plenty today, don't you think?" the illusionist counters.
"Why not just let us have what we came for? What is your quarrel here?"“Недостаточно, чтобы насытить его.” sneered the burnt Khaliun.
“Моя страна важнее твоего вероучения.”"Then if you are not with us, you are against us." She shook her head.
"It will nto be your country that bleeds, but the evil within it."The hammer was readied, although the immense pressure from the chaos marble seemed absent.
“Now get out of my sight.” Khaliun swung her hammer at the one armed woman. It connected with her body, if it was there. It was an illusion that had tricked her which allowed the Illusionist to fade away as she said,
"Not while I have a job to do.".
Khaliun's head turned when she heard the yelling of another,
"You may all still walk away and you will not be harmed."The Volti seemed to have dodged an attack from Yuliya as he spoke in a tone only she could hear,
"Your time is coming to an end, princess. Monsters like you have no place in a civilized world.""Big talk for terrorist." she snarled back, holding a portion of her neck that still had shrapnel from Soldato's assault.
"One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. I am satisfied with my choices," he replied.
"Are you?"Then, he had bigger problems to deal with, he saw in the corner of his eye Yvain had steadied the Burning eye and aimed...yet he halted. Something about the mention of sanguinaire did not sit right with him. His breath heavy from the shrapnel and bullet that hit him during the battle. Eyes opened wide.
"This woman is a sanguinaire?"The Volti operative smiled grimly and nodded.
"Not only her."The illusionist appeared beside Yvain, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"We may not agree on much, but can't we agree on this?"Yvain looked conflicted.
Penny's friend was inhuman filth? A dirty bloodsucker? He nodded, his eyes shining with a determined glow.
"We can agree on the horrid fact that they rule over man is unacceptable."Then, there was a flash of temporal energy somewhere in the distance, where none but Khaliun could sense it, much the same distance where Coccinella tore into Penny.
Penny's defense was frantic. She drew the energy from it, empowering her movement, but she was flagging at this point. Multiple attacks came falling down onto her as she began to be surrounded by the survivors of her first spell.
As one rushed her, he took up a dagger as he stepped in to stab her, but Penny retaliated with a punch that took him in the jaw and the lower half of the operative's head came apart in an explosion of bone, flesh, and shredded skin. He slumped to the ground, dead.
Soon enough after multiple attacks she warded off, she finally faced down the Volti.
"Not so smug now, are you?"Coccinella hissed.
"I was never the smug one! All you had to do was walk away."Penny tilted her head to the side.
"I could say the same for you.""Remember that you force me into this," said the Volti.
With that, she wobbled.
She wavered.
She stumbled.
Her skin began to split.
There was... something beneath it.
Something hard and glistening.
Her back arched and she let out a scream.
Insectile arms burst from her ribcage.
Blood poured from her ears and eye sockets and even Penny reeled back.
Four great wings burst from her back.
The rest of her skin split and sloughed away.
In the place where once a pretty young woman had stood was now a great insectile beast, a... thresher of some sort.
A flying one.
A long, elastic arm shot for Penny's head, a wicked claw adorning the end of it.
"For too long have these bloodsuckers oppressed my people! For too long have we have to hide and cower in our own land!"Penny was too slow. The claw sheared right through one of her crutches and obliterated it, arcing up to slam its serrated edge into her bicep.
Penny hurtled backwards and crashed into some crates.
The Thresher stalked forward.
The main group was in nearly as much difficulty. As the fighting continued, many of them had taken injury after injury, Sven and Esmii were overwhelmed with the damages, but Sven heard Roslyn's cries and ran to her. Sven manages to rush out a heal in the heat of battle. It doesn't do much, but it managed to stabilize her.
"Hang in there, Roshie one."Roslyn inhales, blood dribbling from her lips as she smiles. Her form shivers.
"I-I'm t-trying, but-t thi-thinking I should've stayed... fuck, at the academy..."Sven struggled to hear it amid the crazed clash and the act of defending his life, but he can't help but agree. While Esmii kneels over Roslyn and assists while saying,
“You hang in there, you hear me!”"I'm t-trying, but-t..." Roslyn inhaled, her lungs felt like glass as she wheezed,
"I'm not much of a fighter. I'm sorry I let you down-" Another thunderous explosion occurred, this time it had even shook the earth underneath them, yet what was worst was what stepped from it. A massive fireball had occurred, one that had consumed an entire building, and what stepped through was a single man holding up both of his hands.
The first hand reached out and projected such violent kinetic energy it was warping the air and became visible. The energy surrounded Yuliya's neck and lifted her into the air.
His other hand aimed directly at Sven as he said,
"You are fighting the wrong battle," and a heavy crushing began to occur.
Sven feels his neck wrenched around and the world grows faint. There's a great deal of pain and he feels muscles and ligaments snap, but his vertebrae hold. It isn't so easy to kill such an absolute unit of a lad. He slumps to the ground, close to unconsciousness.
"Oraff," he rasps,
"Why have you forshaken me?"The world swirls.
He feels hot and cold.
Numb and hypersensitive.
His mind, on the border of unconsciousness, dives
and it dives deep.
He finds himself on a battlefield.
The walls of a massive castle loom above him, and the banner of the oriflamme.
Before him stands a warrior of oraff, mercilessly striking at him.
He calls instead, not on this greenlander god, but on Mother.
Sven rises, his hulking figure incandescent.
Heat boils off of him in colossal waves.
His neck twists back around.
Steam erupts from his nostrils.
The very ground beneath him begins to melt.
Everyone around him began to move, Esmii picked up Roslyn and moved them as his heat only got more intense. It felt as if Sven was hotter than a blast furnace, hotter than the fires of a dragon, or even under the full wrath of the sun.
In that same moment, he was gone. Sven had cleared 300 feet in less than a second and was covered in the blood of a Volti. Yet that blood boiled away as he again dissappeared, moving faster than a blur and again turning another man into nothing but pieces.
The air was left thick with iron as blood covered Sven's hulking, shirtless form. He threw his arms out to the sides and roared, all of the blood evaporating off him as his heat only grew. The air warped around him as no light glistened off of him, only the stone emitted light which caused more and more heat to be produced. The battlefield began to get crowded with inhospitable areas and Soldato knew he needed to stop this, as he lined up a shot hundreds of yards away, he thought he had gone unseen, that was until he saw Sven dissappear.
Soldato jumped forward and turned putting his hands up to block his face, but Sven already swung and punched a hole right through Soldato's body. Yet It wasn't enough.
Sven's fist connected with the magusjaeger and punched a hole clean through him, emerging from the man's back.
But...
Soldato grabbed him back, staring up into the massive Eskandr's raging eyes with all of his dying fury.
"We burn," he grated
"you burn with us."From high above came a titanic surge of energy.
the Orbital Annihilation Cannon had arrived.
Veleno had appeared above.
Of course, that's what they had called.
That was what was supposed to have happened.
It did not.
Something of an entirely different nature appeared.
It was Coccinella instead.
She held Penny's unmoving body impaled on one of her claws.
She tossed the limp form aside and it somersaulted lazily through the air on its way towards the ground.
Then the wildblood hurtled towards Sven.
Sven then dropped the mortally wounded Soldato to meet the wildblood in charge.
The groups below scattered to catch their comrades sparing both from their grizzly fates. Yet for Sven when he took on the Wildblood he found himself far out matched. Her strength was extraordinary, her feroscity met his own, and he himself was feeling his energy waning. Sven never realized that the Wildblood had an appendage he did not account for, a spike. It aimed right for Sven's chest, aiming to put him out of commission, but it would not take his life. A crack of thunder resounded, reality cracked and broke around the wildblood as she felt an intense pressure nearly tear her apart as she was sent flying, there stood another man glowing with heat and fire, holding a hammer almost double his own height. She began her charge once more, but was pushed back as the same short man as he held up his hammer and a lance of arcane energy poured out. But it was differnet, when it made impact it bubbled and burned even the hard plates the Wildblood had. She dived off to the side, as each of the groups began to reconvene.
Yvain stood there, paralyzed by the sight of the limp body of his cousin falling. He would've raged, he would've run to catch her but his legs would not budge.
Then as despair began to engulf him he could see Penny showing signs of life. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief.
Yuliya sees Penny fall into Oksana's arms. And there's nothing she can do to save her. She's no binder. There was only a target. Soldato had been dealt with by the rampaging sven, but this literal insect would pay. This was her mark. She would use the magic of the gods to destroy this creature from the inside out, attempting to RUPTURE. Yet the Wildblood warded it off without even a motion, showing the great difference in their control of their manas.
The students looked to Penny as she was being healed by Oksana. Most were worried yet were also prepared for when the others were going to attack but they never did. After a moment longer, Penny pulled in a deep breath and then let out a cough.
Penny rolled onto her side, sniffing.
She looked up to see Yvain.
and Oksana
"Oraphe soit loué," she whispered.
"Tu as ma sincère gratitude."She reached up and kissed Oksana on the cheek in thanks.
But then they were not alone.
Coccinella landed.
The remaining Volti operatives regrouped.
Giallo and his squad of eight arrived.
Penny and Roslyn were very much out of the fight.
The remaining nine found themselves surrounded, and it was at that moment that Sven's knees buckled, his body unused to channeling the sheer power it had a minute or two ago.
They were now, effectively, eight.
Sixteen surrounded them.
Including one of the original wildbloods.
Coccinella spread her multitude of insectile arms.
"For too long, we have run and hid from these monsters!" the thresher-beast proclaimed.
"For too long, they have stepped on the common people, fed upon them, and bled this land dry."Yuliya walks to Khaliun, eyeing the hammer. She knows there's a way out here. A way to eliminate them all.
"Мрамор. Отдай его мне, и я покончу с этим."(Give me the marble and I'll end this.)
Khaliun squinted.
“You have one. You're going to want to keep this hammer for what's to come.”Yuli sighs. She didn't want to have to use this one yet.
It was then she saw it, a small flash of energy, she knew it had to be the Volti magusjaeger who was constantly aiming for her. She slowed down time, just a touch. Just enough to take that doll out, open it, and flick that chaos marble at the gunman that simply refused to die, not saying a word.
The marble hurtled towards Soldato, warping time and space along the way.
He tried to control its flight with kinetic magic, but his capacity just wasn't enough to do it.
Realizing that it is an impossible fight, his attention turned to the houses behind him. People are running and screaming, but some won't be fast enough. Before it could get too close, he launched himself at it so that they meet over the water.
Then time stopped.
A large, dark-haired Vossoriyan man appears, clad in richly-ornamented robes.
He reached out and plucks the marble out of the air between two fingers, pausing to examine it.
Soldato, mere feet from him, was not frozen in time.
His eyes widened and he looks up to behold Radmomir, the legendary protector of Vossoriya and one of the ten elders of the Sanguine Council.
He scowled.
"Oh, you're still here."He took a knife from his pocket and tossed it at the soldier.
"You fought well," he admits.
"Do it yourself or I do it." Soldato takes up the knife.
He rolled up his sleeve.
The two of them locked eyes.
"Fuck you!"He was then at Radomir's throat, slashing.
The Volti's speed was incredible - inhuman.
Radomir took hold of his neck, snapped it, and then fed.
The knife splashed into the water below. Time, meanwhile, had returned to normal.
The sanguinaire elder dropped the body. Floating in the air, he turned and tilted his head.
He regarded Sorriso and Coccinella as he took a pair of knives from his pocket.
His gaze was cold and unblinking.
"You have five seconds to get out of my city."Whatever they missed earlier, the students, the Volti operatives, and all of those nearby see Soldato's body fell. They saw the power of Radomir. They heared his words.
FIN
The body of a man whose original name was long forgotten and would not be remembered by society fell beneath the waves. His consciousness faded.
Yet, there was the hint of a bitter smile on his face hidden behind a mask few would remember.
As the last stirrings of life left him, Soldato knew that he had left Radomir with a special gift, and it would
not be forgotten.
