Scarred
“Take cover,” Sunset said. “Blake, stay with Tukson.”
“Wait,” Blake began, “what are you-?”
Sunset didn’t give her the chance to respond before she teleported.
Teleportation was easier when it was sight to sight; with the windows tinted to be blacker than the night outside, Sunset couldn’t see where she was going, but it was only a brief hop from inside the store to the street outside, and her memory wasn’t so bad that she couldn’t recall the details she’d only just come from.
So long as she didn’t teleport into Adam or Torchwick, she’d be fine.
And she was fine, thank Celestia; she appeared with a crack and a flash of green light not far from her motorcycle, about half a foot off the pavement; Sunset wasn’t concerned about the use of magic: with Adam around, it might be the most use she was going to get out of it.
She appeared and quickly dropped onto the pavement with a soft thud, a few feet away from Adam and Torchwick. Adam was in the lead, with Torchwick trailing a little behind him. Sunset gritted her teeth. She would have preferred it the other way around; she didn’t think that Torchwick was quite so good at blocking bullets.
But she had to work with what she was confronted with.
Sunset hit the ground and dropped to one knee, bringing Sol Invictus to her shoulder in a smooth, fluid motion.
She started firing. Sol Invictus cracked three times, shattering the stillness of the night air. She hit Adam once, staggering him back a step with the impact, but by the time of her second shot, he was already reacting to her presence. His sword, that terrible crimson blade, leapt from its scabbard to trace blood-red patterns in the air as he parried her second and third rounds. Adam darted to the right, his sword in one hand and the sheath-gun aimed at her in the other hand; he unmasked Torchwick behind him as he dashed into the middle of the empty street.
Adam fired, the bullet thudding harmlessly into a shield hastily conjured. Torchwick raised his cane. Sunset was faster, and a beam of magic erupted from her palm to hit him square in the chest and blast him backwards and flat onto his back. Adam fired again, hitting Sunset in the shoulder. She felt the blow like a punch from Yang, spinning her around and knocking her onto her belly; her new cuirass hit the pavement with a metallic clang.
Sunset knew what was coming next. She teleported again, appearing in the air a couple of feet above the ground and back from where she had been and where Adam was charging towards. Sunset shot at him; once more, he parried the blow with his sword.
Sunset’s feet thudded onto the ground, her knees bending. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get very far by shooting him. But then, she ought to have known that already.
She couldn’t shoot him with bullets, and she didn’t dare attack him with magic, because he’d just take it on that damn sword of his, and she’d end up making him stronger.
Which meant that she was going to have to do this close quarters. Just like she'd feared when she'd decided to go to Pyrrha for help fixing that gap in her training.
If Dash can do it… yeah, even I can’t make myself believe that.
But she would try it anyway. He had hurt Ruby, he had terrified Sunset, she wasn’t going to let him hold that over her forever.
She wasn’t going to be ruled by her fear.
She was going to be ruled by her anger.
Sunset bared her teeth at him, this man who had hurt Ruby. He had hurt Ruby, and he was going to pay for it.
Sunset put one hand upon her jacket, and with a touch of her aura, she ignited the fire dust that she had infused into the fabric. The spark spread across the jacket, igniting the fire dust infused into the material as fire rippled up Sunset's arm and across her back until half her body seemed to be burning with flames of crimson and gold. And yes, she had chosen the colours to match her hair, because if you were going to do this, then you might as well make it look cool.
My Phoenix Cape.
Sunset let the fires burn upon her back and arms for a moment, and then she charged at Adam, a roar of anger ripping from her throat, her bayonet gleaming in the moonlight as she jabbed it at him like a spear.
Adam parried, once, twice, three times turning her thrusts aside. But he did not counterattack. He couldn’t, Sunset had reach on her side, and she wasn’t letting him get close to her. He could knock her bayonet and rifle barrel aside, but Sunset simply recoiled and thrust forward again.
He didn’t look particularly concerned, but it was hard to read his face behind that mask with its blood red lines upon it.
Torchwick seemed to think that Adam was holding his own with no assistance needed. As Sol Invictus clashed with Adam’s crimson blade, Torchwick picked himself up off the ground and approached the door to Tukson’s Book Trade. He reached for the handle-
The door slammed open into his face, knocking him back with a cry of irritation as Blake emerged out of the crack in the doorway, her black ribbon spinning around her as she hurled herself on Torchwick in a blur of frenzied motion that drove him backwards by the sheer fury of her onslaught.
Not that Sunset had much attention to pay to that. She had to focus on her own fight and on her own opponent.
Adam batted Sol Invictus aside again, and Sunset retreated a couple of steps. She wasn’t getting very far; she might have to change things up somehow.
She teleported directly behind Adam, thrusting her bayonet forward for the small of his back, but he twisted in place with the nimbleness of an eel and the speed of a pegasus in flight to parry her assault again.
He smirked at her. “I remember you,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. “You were there at the docks that night.”
Sunset smirked right back at him. “I was there when we stopped your little scheme, yeah.”
Adam chuckled. “A temporary setback, a momentary check upon an advance to glory that cannot be halted. And in the process, you lost something too, didn’t you?”
Sunset growled wordlessly, thrusting forward at him. He retreated a step, parrying the thrust.
“The little girl in the red cloak,” Adam said. “The one who pushed you out of the way. Is that why you’re here? Is this some quest for revenge?”
“Shut up,” Sunset snarled. “She’s not dead. You messed that up too.”
“Huh,” Adam said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Must be one tough girl.”
“She is.”
Adam’s smirk broadened. “I’ll be sure to take her head next time to make good and sure.”
Sunset bellowed in anger as she went for him, reversing the grip of Sol Invictus in her hands so that she was wielding it like a club, swinging the wooden stock for his head. He wanted to talk of taking heads? She was going to bash his in so that he could never, ever get anywhere near Ruby again. And then she would pluck that sword from out of his cold dead hands, and everyone – everyone – would know that you didn’t mess with Sunset Shimmer and get away with it!
She hurled herself at him, swinging the butt of her rifle, trying to hit his head, to hit any part of him with her furious blows. Her teeth were bared, her ears were flattened against the top of her head, and her tail was rigid with anger as she swung at him again and again. Adam took the blows upon his sword, giving ground before her, the smirk still fixed upon his face; the sight of that smirk only made Sunset’s anger burn all the hotter. She could feel the heat from her phoenix cape mingling with the sweat of her wrath as if she were actually on fire herself.
“I didn’t kill your friend, but you’re still angry about it,” Adam observed. He chuckled. “So much fury in those eyes of yours. And that power, the way you teleport? Ah, if only I had found you before the huntsmen academies got their claws in you. What use I and the White Fang might have made of someone like you. What use we still could.”
Sunset’s only response to that suggestion – that she might join the White Fang after they had almost killed her friend – was to attack him harder, try to move faster, to assail his guard with even more furious intensity than before.
“Yes, you’re angry,” Adam declared. “That’s good. Anger will keep you alive.” His smile broadened. “Until you find yourself up against an even greater fury than your own!”
And Sunset learned that he had just been playing with her all this time. But now he was done with playing, and as he went on the counterattack against her, Sunset swiftly learned the difference between Adam toying and Adam fighting. He got faster and stronger out of nowhere, all the reserves that he had been holding back while it pleased him to let him expend her strength against him suddenly flooding to the fore. Sunset had beaten upon his defences like a tide assailing the sea wall, but now, Adam was like an ocean tempest which catches a lonely sailing ship at sea and sweeps that gallant vessel to a watery grave. Sunset staggered backwards, desperately parrying his furious slashing strokes with Sol Invictus. He was so fast, faster than she was, and he was so strong, stronger than she was; she turned aside, presenting her flaming sleeve to his stroke. The flames of the phoenix cape leapt higher as the crimson sword descended towards it, the fire of the dust erupting in a burning geyser, so that even as his stroke bit into Sunset’s aura, she could be sure of burning away some of his as well; it was probably the first bit of harm she’d done to his aura all night, and didn’t that hurt to admit.
That was the point of infusing her jacket with dust like this: she couldn’t be harmed without harming her attacker in turn.
Adam took a step back. His blade had only a faint red glow, not enough to really worry her, not yet.
On the other side of the street, Blake had been joined in the fight by Tukson, but it seemed as though even together they were struggling to bring the fight with Torchwick to a close.
Adam’s expression was still and solemn. “Do you think that dust protects you?” he asked. “Do you think that I am afraid of a little harm? Do you honestly believe that I will not suffer much worse than this for the sake of my people?”
He seemed genuinely angry now, anger borne out of a sense of affront as he charged at her, his red blade swinging, biting at Sunset’s aura, heedless of the damage he was taking to his own as he drove her back, knocking Sol Invictus out of her hands, slashing at her, slicing into her aura until he had Sunset on the ground with his foot upon her cuirass.
He raised his sword to stab down at her.
With a pulse of aura, Sunset activated the lightning dust in one of her vambraces; it sparked and crackled, snapping like a pack of wild dogs as he lashed out from the metal plate to tear at Adam’s leg. He growled in pain, faltering, momentarily distracted.
Sunset’s hand glowed as she picked up her motorcycle in the grip of her telekinesis and dragged it towards them both.
Adam turned, but slower than before, thrown off-balance by Sunset’s lightning attack, and the motorcycle hit him square in the face and chest, hurling him off Sunset and sending him flying with a grunt of pain.
Sunset rolled away, picking herself up and onto her feet. She drew her sword, Soteria, uncertain whether or not to ignite the fire dust she had infused with the black blade.
Sunset heard Blake gasp in pain. She turned to see Torchwick catch Blake with a blow to the side and then to the face that knocked her flying backwards, hair askew.
“Blake!” Sunset yelled.
Tukson slashed at Torchwick with his claws, but the man in white evaded the wild stroke easily before bringing the tip of his cane down on Tukson’s head and beating the bigger man into the ground. Torchwick laughed as he aimed his cane at Blake while she was down.
Adam regained his feet and charged at Sunset, his expression set in a rictus of anger.
A fusillade of fire stopped Adam in his tracks, forcing him to retreat, desperately parrying bullets with his sword, just as Sun leapt down from out of the sky to nail Torchwick with a flying kick that sent them both to the ground in a thrashing tangle of arms and legs.
They were up and on their feet in a moment, staff and cane alike whirling and clacking in a furious rhythm.
There was an Atlesian Skyray overhead, painted in a garish neon blue with accents in all the colours of the rainbow, a Skyray from which leapt Rainbow Dash, her metallic wings unfurled as he glided down to the ground, firing her SMGs at Adam as she flew and fell.
She landed in front of Sunset, between her and Adam and right in Adam’s face as her wings tucked in behind her, and she holstered her SMGs and, diving beneath the stroke of Adam’s sword, punched him in the gut.
There was a boom like a peal of thunder, and Sunset caught sight of a shockwave emanating from Dash’s fist as Adam, his face contorted, was picked up off the ground and hurled away like a ragdoll.
Rainbow pursued him, a rainbow trailing behind her as she charged, but Adam was back on his feet a split second before she reached him. He raised his sheath and fired twice at Rainbow, but Dash dodged the shots – which Sunset had to conjure a shield to protect herself from in turn – by sliding along the ground. Adam leapt up, avoiding her attempt to sweep his legs out from under him, but Rainbow pushed herself off the ground with one hand and caught him with a flying kick on the side of his face that knocked his mask off to land with a clatter in the road.
Rainbow kept up the pursuit, one fist raised… and then she stopped, frozen in place, her magenta eyes widening.
Sunset could not restrain a little gasp herself as she understood why: they could see Adam’s face now, what lay beneath the mask.
He had been branded, his left eye ruined by the ugly mark that had been burned into his skin: the letters "SDC."
Sunset had never seen anything like it. She had never so much as heard of anything like it. Small wonder that Rainbow hesitated.
Adam did not hesitate. He slashed at her with his sword, and this time, Rainbow did not dodge the stroke; Sunset couldn’t even say that she was trying to. Whether she was trying to or not, the stroke caught her in the midriff and sent her flying.
Adam climbed to his feet. He was panting heavily, Rainbow’s attack must have taken a lot of his aura.
“Look,” he growled, his one remaining eye glowering, seeming almost to burn with a blue fire of his hatred of humanity. “Look at me! Look at what your precious Atlas does to those who are judged unworthy!”
Sunset summoned Sol Invictus into her hands. Rainbow Dash reached for her shotgun, but before Sunset could close her fingers around her gun, she was kicked in the face by the diminutive girl with the pink and brown hair who had gotten in her and Ruby’s way during the dust shop robbery on the night they met. Having sent Sunset sprawling with her unexpected appearance in the battle, she turned her attention to Rainbow Dash. Or rather, the person who had just kicked Sunset in the face shattered like fragments of glass before another copy of her appeared in Rainbow’s face, lashing out at her with feet and with her parasol both, and while she didn’t manage to land a hit on Rainbow, it was also true to say that Rainbow didn’t land a hit on her either; they danced for a moment, a rhythm of blows dodged in rolling, elastic motions, before the little girl in the old-fashioned get-up leapt backwards to stand by Adam. Torchwick, having brought himself just enough of an advantage over Sun to disengage, joined them.
“Perfect timing as always, Neo,” he muttered.
Neo – if that was the girl’s name – looked insufferably smug to hear it.
The Skyray landed. The side door was open, revealing Ciel Soleil with her enormous rifle in hand. She placed one hand upon her ear. “This is Rosepetal Two, requesting backup at Princess Aurora Street-”
Neo smirked at Sunset and curtsied politely to all concerned.
Rainbow shot her, and the three figures of Neo, Adam, and Torchwick all shattered like glass, disappearing into nothingness, leaving behind an empty street and the three of them nowhere to be found.
“What the-?“ Sun said. “Where did they go?”
The screech of tires echoed towards their ears from a street or so away.
“Into that getaway vehicle, I suppose,” Sunset muttered.
“It is unfortunate that they didn’t use a Bullhead,” Ciel growled. “Command, this is Rosepetal Two, requesting an aerial search of the area around Princess Aurora Street; suspects are fleeing in an unidentified vehicle.”
Blake crouched down by the prone and unconscious Tukson. Blood was beginning to pool around his head. “He needs help!” she cried.
“Also, please send medical assistance; we have a civilian down,” Ciel added.
Blake’s golden eyes were wide as she looked from Sun to Ciel to Rainbow Dash. “What… what are you three doing here?”
“Saving you, apparently,” Ciel answered. “Rainbow Dash, what are your orders?”
Rainbow didn’t reply, she was staring at the space where… where Adam had been. Her features were creased by a frown of confusion, her eyes flickering back and forth as though there was something that she did not – could not – comprehend.
“Rainbow Dash!” Ciel repeated, more loudly this time.
But Rainbow did not reply.
Sunset was certain she knew what Rainbow was thinking of: the brand on the face of Adam that now was branded upon their minds.