//------------------------------// // I Burn // Story: The Multiverse in a Nutshell // by Pennington Inkwell //------------------------------// "Yang! On your left!" Yang didn't need to be told twice, her head snapping in the called direction. She barely had time to reach up and grab one of the creature's mandibles before they snapped shut around her throat. Rather than try to stop its lunge, she spun around and pulled hard, yanking it forward with more force than it had intended. While these bugs were big, they didn't seem to weigh very much, and she was easily able to throw it into a group of its fellows, knocking them all into a writhing pile of legs and broken chitin. She chambered a fire dust cartridge and fired into the heart of the mass. A dissonant choir of screeching and hissing almost drowned out the sound of the explosive shot landing as they were reduced to a pile of ashes. "Steee-rike!" She grinned and pumped her fist as Blake came up beside her. "Thanks for the heads-up." "These things aren't tough, but they certainly have the advantage in numbers..." Blake muttered. "We can't let our guard down for even a second." "Maybe, but that just makes it an all-you-can-bash buffet!" Yang pounded her fists together for emphasis. Blake didn't seem nearly as happy with the situation, but whatever argument she was about to make was cut off by a clap of rolling thunder. KRA-KA-KOOM! "YIPE!" Blake jumped up, and a second later Yang found herself wrapped in the other girl's arms. For a second, the two of them stayed like that, with Blake clinging onto Yang with an iron grip. "Easy, Kittycat..." Yang snickered as she silently wished her arms were free so she could pat the top of Blake's head. "It's just a little thunder." There was a flash of movement, and a moment later Blake was several steps away, arms clasped nonchalantly behind her back. Yang didn't need to ask to know that the incident would never be acknowledged, and she stashed the memory away to laugh about the next time she needed cheering up. Blake didn't seem to be the only one frightened by the thunder, however. The sound seemed to have had an effect on the army of centipede-like monsters. What had once been a chaotic, ever-moving mass had frozen completely, and countless heads had turned their way upwards towards the cloudy sky. In the moment of respite, Weiss and Ruby came over to join them. Somehow, what had once been chaos and insanity had suddenly become still and silent aside from the sound of more distant thunder. The rest of Team RWBY gathered beside Yang, similarly silent in the face of the sudden stillness. "What's happening? Why did they stop?" Ruby whispered. "More importantly, what are they going to do next?" Weiss countered. "We should be recording this..." Blake muttered as she reached for her scroll, "We've never seen it before, and Isis might have some ideas-" "SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The shrill cry pierced through the air, and every single head turned in the direction of the sound. With that signal alone, the creatures all moved at once, though not towards the girls. What seemed at first like random movement quickly settled into a pattern. Groups formed, portioning out their forces. Moments later, those groups had fallen into organized rows, with each of the insects reared back on their hind legs and facing directly forwards. "Are they... falling into rank and file?" Weiss whispered in disbelief. In a matter of moments, what had once been a senseless mob of monsters had organized themselves into an army silently waiting at attention. "Girls... I think we should get out of here..." Blake spoke softly, as if afraid of being heard by the creatures. "I've got a really bad feeling about this." "She's right." Ruby nodded. "We don't know what we're up against, any more." "Wait... something's coming." Yang narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her weapons as a flicker of motion in the distance caught her eye. It started at one of the cave openings, a deep shadow traveling along the ground with nothing to cast it. It moved at a high speed, zipping from one platoon of bugs to the next. Everywhere it went, the creatures seemed to tense when it was beneath their feet, fidgeting and straightening their posture. Every few seconds, one of the bugs, usually an injured one, would be pulled down into the darkness with little more than a squeak of panic before it was gone completely. Finally, the shadow made its way to the head of the army, not more than a stone's throw away from them. The darkness coalesced and began to rise, forming into a humanoid body. Aside from the basic shape, however, Yang couldn't make out any kind of details or features on its body. The thing looked less like a human being and more like a human-shaped hole in the world. All of the girls were too stunned to speak or take their eyes off of the new... thing. Its head turned from side to side, surveying the army one last time before nodding to itself. "Their commander?" Weiss practically mouthed the words, her voice not rising above the faintest of whispers. "I thought that was Cinder?" Ruby whispered back. "Either way... this thing is clearly in charge..." Yang reached down to her waist and retrieved a fresh set of dust cartridges, keeping her movements slow and deliberate to avoid drawing attention to herself. "Think we can take him?" "Yang, our orders were to just thin out their numbers!" Blake hissed. "He's got his back to us..." "We aren't exactly camouflaged!" Weiss growled. "That means it doesn't think we're a threat!" "Yang, don't..." Ruby pleaded. "We're never going to get a chance like this again!" Yang argued back, her voice climbing to a higher volume than any of them had dared since the silence had fallen over the battlefield. "What if that's their REAL leader? We could end all of this right here! Penn said we have to be independent if we want to save Remnant, right?" The rest of the girls all stayed quiet, and Yang knew it was because none of them had a good argument. She was RIGHT. She could end this here and- "I would advise you not to do what you are thinking of doing... but I could use a cool-down." The voice was low and velvety smooth, absolutely dripping with sarcasm and a smugness that made Yang's skin crawl. All of the girls turned their attention to the shadow. It was hard to make out, but it looked as if it was looking over its shoulder at them. "And nothing would make me happier than to snuff out one of the little flames that has been proving to be such an irritant to our landing party..." "You think it'll be that easy?" Yang growled in return, feeling the hair on the back of her neck starting to rise. Before she could get a response, however, Ruby stepped to the front of the group, holding tightly to Crescent Rose. "U-Uhm, excuse me? Mister shadow-man-thingy? We're sorry if we've been causing you trouble, but... this world isn't open to Baalchion OR Chirac's forces right now." Her voice was weak and her knees were shaking, but she stood her ground. "Until now we didn't know if your... landing party... could understand us, b-but... we want you to leave!" She straightened and stood a little taller. "B-by the authority vested in me as the leader of Team RWBYS and a representative of Remnant, we're asking you to leave our world alone!" The entity turned towards them, facing the team completely and tilting its head in an amused manner. "You speak for your entire world, young one? You would consign every living thing to perish in The Great Dying?" Ruby took a deep breath, and for a moment, Yang saw a glimmer of melancholy in her expression, one that she had seen many times before, but only in one place. "Life is precious, and it needs to be protected... but what gives it that value is how it's spent, not how it ends. We can't spend our days worrying about how they're going to stop... or else we'll never be able to be happy. That's a truth that extends to every living thing on this planet." The entity leaned forward slightly, as if examining Ruby more closely, and for a second, Yang wondered if Ruby's words had gotten through to it. "How very... bright of you." When the thing rushed forward towards her sister, it moved faster than any of them expected, and none of them were ready... Except Yang. She met the thing fist-to-fist, countering its punch with one of her own. There was a loud bang and a flash of flame as the creature hissed in pain from the explosive force of Yang firing Ember Celica directly into its knuckles. Both of them were repelled backwards by the force of the blow, but she didn't wait for her momentum to peter out. She pushed both arms back behind her and fired, using the recoil to propel her forward again and closing the distance between them in an instant. The thing was knocked off-balance and still recoiling, this was the perfect opportunity. She fired with one hand, causing her to spin in the air and adding additional force to her blow as she planted her fist squarely in the center of its face and unleashed a point-blank shot. And that was when the thing's head exploded, but not in the way she had expected. "Exploded" may not have even been the right word. It was like the creature's head unfolded, like an origami construction suddenly disassembling itself. It felt like she was staring into a kaleidoscope of blacks and greys, patterns repeating over and over again inwardly into what seemed like infinity. In the blink of an eye, the monster had vanished, spiriting itself away along jagged black patterns it had carved into the air like water flowing down a drain. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Yang registered that it was moving around her, dodging her attack and heading towards her teammates. That part of her took over the rest of her thoughts, snapping her out of the mesmerizing pattern and back into the present. "Don't even..." She tightened her grip on her left gauntlet's trigger, firing it again and causing her to spin in mid-air. With her right hand, she reached out and grabbed a fistful of the shadowy threads, pulling them along with her. "...THINK ABOUT IT!" She could feel it trying to slip through her grip, but she kept her hand wrapped tight around its jagged protrusions until she could feel its momentum crumble to her force. With a roar of fury, she yanked hard and threw the thing with all the strength she could muster. After that, the adrenaline seemed to wear off and the world returned to its normal speed. Caught in the awkward angle she was, there was no time to get her feet underneath her as the ground rushed up to meet her, and she grunted as she felt the gravel crash up against her aura with the force of the fall. "YANG!" Ruby's voice called out as a flurry of rose petals signaled her arrival by her side. "Are you okay?" Yang put both palms on the ground to push herself back up, only for grimace as shooting pain flew through her right hand. She ignored the pain long enough to get her boots on the ground and stand up on her own again. Once she was on her feet, she glanced down at the source of her pain. Whatever that thing was, it had torn straight through her aura and her glove, shredding the flesh of her palm. She could already feel the throbbing pain setting in, but she gritted her teeth and clenched her fist, keeping the injury out of sight as the other girls caught up. "I'm fine, just mad." "Well, looks like we're not avoiding a fight..." Blake growled, her weapon at the ready. "Any ideas?" "Yang's fire charge looked like it hurt it... it might have the same elemental weaknesses as the bugs." Ruby mused. "We can use the same attacks, but we need to keep focused on it so it doesn't slip away." "Don't get too close..." Yang's hand was stinging more by the second. She gave it a quick shake to try and disperse some of the pain, sending flecks of blood onto the ground. "Whatever it's made of, it's sharp. It cut through my aura like butter." The monster had collected itself now, pulling back into the first human-like shape it had shown them, but Yang could pick out tiny slivers of light passing through its body now, like it had pulled itself back together in a hurry and gotten some of the folds wrong. There was a series of clicks as Blake shifted Gambol Shroud to its gun form and Weiss readied a fresh dust cartridge. "What about your silver eyes, sis? You can take out tons of those bugs with them!" "I doubt it's going to stand still and wait for me to be ready..." Ruby muttered. "And I won't be able to do much afterwards if it doesn't work." "We'll cover you, just get ready!" Yang glanced over at Blake, and her partner returned her look with a nod. Yang's hand felt like it was on fire, but her heart was pounding with excitement, and she couldn't help but let a smile through. It looked like they were finally finished mowing through the lackeys and moving up the ladder. The shadow was watching them, allowing them the chance to plan. It was cocky. That was going to be its last mistake. There was a telltale whine of Weiss's glyphs under their feet, launching them forward and into the air with a boost of momentum. The thing seemed to unfold again, disassembling and taking to the air to meet them in a barbed wall. Yang fired her gauntlet, throwing herself to the side and past Blake. As she flew past, she grabbed at the ribbon on Blake's weapon and pulled her along. The two of them slipped past and to the side as the barbed wall snapped shut like a flytrap. In a practiced motion, they turned head-over-heels and landed with their boots on the ground, immediately opening fire. The thing opened up every time one of their attacks grew close, spreading further and further out. Every opening they made was simply incorporated into the pattern, repeating, shrinking, and growing across its entire body until the kaleidoscope pattern was hanging over their heads like a pitch-black cloud. "It's a fractal... It's like a living fractal!" Blake exclaimed. "Okay, so TAL us how to FRAC it up!" Yang hissed. There wasn't time for an answer as the thing began to churn, turning and spinning in on itself as it bolted down towards the ground... and towards Ruby and Weiss. Weiss, however, was clearly not going to be caught off-guard a second time. A spinning black glyph appeared in the air in front of the two of them, deflecting and rebounding the entity back in the direction it had come from. Blake's weapon shifted back to its bladed form and she lunged forward, striking the black spear at its head and splitting it down the center. The split didn't seem to faze the thing, as each of the halves curled back towards her. Yang's heart skipped a beat as, for a second, it looked as if Blake had been speared through her back, only for her teammate to reappear right beside her. Inside the tangled mass, the double left behind by Blake's semblance exploded into a concussive burst of flames, causing the monster to shriek and writhe in patterns that made Yang's head hurt. Still, it was hurting, and that meant it wasn't paying enough attention to dodge. When she shot a fire charge into the thing, pain exploded through her injured hand, too much for her to contain behind gritted teeth. "NNHGAAAAAH!" "YANG!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "W-WOAH!" The world turned into a blur of tumbling gray and brown as Rainbow Dash's feet slid out from underneath her again, sending her end over end into the dirt. She scrambled for a foothold or a way to right herself, eventually managing to dig her palm into the dirt enough to push herself onto the balls of her feet. She gritted her teeth as she slid to a stop, sparing a glance down to her hand to spot the scratches and shards of glassy gravel that had buried themselves in her flesh. She gave her hand a shake, letting the foreign objects fly out with a few tiny pops and crackles of electricity so it could start to heal. Thankfully, her new outfit was tougher than it looked, protecting the rest of her body from similar injuries. She made a mental note to thank the armorers back in Radian who had helped make it for her... again. "Lady Dash! Are you alright?" A voice asked from just behind her shoulder. Rainbow reached up, not even needing to look to lift the cat-sized dragon from her desperately-gripped place on her back. The gold-colored lizard crawled up and around her arm with ease, taking up watch on her shoulder. "I'm fine, Auri. What about you?" The tiny dragon stayed looking alert for another moment before her posture slumped and her head hung a little lower. "To be honest, I'm getting pretty tired. Don't you normally wrap this stuff up faster?" Rainbow couldn't help wincing slightly as she watched the form of her opponent rise back up from the ground. She was dressed in a deep blue robe, now, rather than the ragged red dress that she seemed to have died in. It was intricately patterned with the black sun that served as the dark legion's insignia, and judging by her limited experience watching Rarity work, was almost certainly fitted to her. Pretty quick to have earned herself a custom uniform... Guess Baalchion's goons took a liking to her. Whoever she had been in her past life, she was certainly moving down in the world quickly. At this rate, if Dash didn't take her out soon, she'd likely get a promotion, get command of her own underlings, and that would put an end to their little one-on-one rivalry. For the moment, the woman was snickering, making no effort to hide her entertainment at Rainbow's tumble. "I'd act surprised that you're so easy to trip up, but you Chiracians never DO look where you're going..." "And I'd act surprised that you're using dirty tricks, but you wouldn't survive taking me head-on, would you?" The woman raised an eyebrow, clearly aware that Dash was trying to goad her into stepping out of her territory. She had covered the ground all around her with a thick layer of ice for at least a three-yard radius. Instead, she spread her arms out to welcome Rainbow to attack her. The first time they'd fought had gone similarly. As much as she enjoyed a good hockey game, Rainbow had learned the hard way that super speed and a frictionless surface didn't get along well. The second, Rainbow had managed to melt through it by channeling her lightning through her feet, giving her enough traction to control her direction. But the stranger had still gotten away with a sneaky trick. Now she was putting the ice down in heavier layers, too thick for Dash to melt through. This was the third match. It was the tiebreaker, and Dash was losing. She didn't like losing. "You know, this would be a great time for a promotion to tenth-tier battle priest..." Rainbow muttered, half out of spite and half as a prayer in case Chirac was listening. "The fire magic would be REAL handy..." "You're barely in the fifteenth tier, you know your body wouldn't be able to handle that power until you've mastered your lightning!" Aurelia hissed in her ear. Before Dash could try to argue with her logic, the woman began making motions with her hands, drawing both of their attention back to the fight. It didn't take long to see what she was up to as her icy territory began to expand outwards, giving her even more leeway. "Oh, don't even try it!" Dash growled. She started running again with no plan in mind, just making for the edge of her frosted circle. Just as she was about to set foot on the slick surface, Dash turned and began to run around the circumference so that she could buy herself time to think. The lightning on her heels evaporated the attempt to expand before it had time to thicken and establish itself, but that wasn't going to work as an offensive method. She needed to find a way to attack from a distance and- "WHOA!" Rainbow was only barely able to duck in time to avoid an angled spike of ice that had sprung up in front of her. By the time she had registered the second one aiming to trip her at the ankles she was already leaning forward into a somersault to roll over it. In an instant she had given herself over completely to instinct, allowing her to slip through at least six more attempts to either impale or clothesline her before she broke away from the edge of the circle, sliding to a stop. The attack had been indiscriminate, sprouting sharpened shards in every direction along the edge of her icy disc. Without even landing a blow, the ice mage had managed to get Rainbow to back off. "Come on, is that all you've got?" Rainbow dusted her knuckles off on her jacket. "I haven't even broken a sweat and you're just firing blind already?" The woman's brow furrowed as she reached out, grabbing at the air. The ice responded to her motion, breaking off the spikes at their bases and levitating them into the air. With a sweeping motion, the pieces all shattered into hundreds of smaller versions and began to orbit their creator like a tornado of daggers. Deep in the deadly blizzard, Rainbow could see her smirk before, with a grandiose flourish, she pointed one accusatory finger... directly at them. The ice storm followed her command, breaking away from her and flying towards Rainbow and her tiny friend with blistering speed. "Wuh-oh..." Rainbow rolled her eyes. With barely a blink's worth of effort, she had sped out of the way of the attack, dodging all the way to the other side of the ice ring. She made a show out of taking the time to wipe her forehead. "Wow, that was a tough one, you almost had me!" Dash waited for any kind of comeback from her enemy, but she didn't move. She didn't even turn to look in her direction, just standing there and grinning. Rainbow didn't like that one bit. What does she know that I don't? The answer came in the form of a whistling shard of ice that slipped just over the woman's shoulder. Without already being up to speed, Rainbow's reflexes failed her, and the glassy shard buried itself in her shoulder. "GAAAH!" "Lady Dash!" Rainbow tried to pull her focus away from the pain, forcing her body back up to speed in spite of her injury. As time seemed to slow down, she could see more of the shards inbound towards her, all dodging and weaving around their master under their own power. "It's a homing attack..." she grumbled, reaching up to take hold of the shard in her shoulder. Her whole left arm felt like it was completely asleep, as if the circulation had been cut off for hours. The ice was draining her energy, and she was going to need it. She gritted her teeth. Even at this speed, the world wasn't at a standstill, and the attack was still coming. She didn't have long. With a deep breath and a groan of anticipation, Rainbow tightened her grip on the icy shard. It was trying to work its way in deeper, grating against her bone like a nail on chalkboard. She focused on her breathing and pulled hard. "AAAAAUGH!" She couldn't hold back the scream. The shard was fighting her, trying to push back into her wound like a magnet as it slipped through her hands. Without warning, the shard melted enough to slip out of her grip, stabbing again even deeper. The other shards were getting closer, it would only be another second or two before she was turned into the world's chillest pincushion. She needed to change tactics. Letting her deadened arm hang limp at her side, Rainbow tried to run. With the shard leeching her energy, however, it felt like pushing her way through molasses, and she was only barely keeping ahead of the rest of the projectiles. They all tinkled and rang like shards of glass as they collided with one another and split off into even more needle-like pieces. She could even feel a few of the smaller ones pressing at the back of her jacket, trying to force through to her flesh. "Auri, I could use...ngggggh... a little help, here!" The golden dragon hanging on her shoulder for dear life quickly seemed to lose that blurry edge that super speed gave the world, her pace speeding up to match Rainbow's own. She clambered over to her left shoulder as best she could, looking at the shard with a cringe. "What do you want ME to do, Rainbow Dash?" Rainbow tried not to scream at her with the obvious answer. "You're a dragon, can't you melt it or something?" "I'm not a lithic, I'm a metallur-" "Then ZAP IT!" The little dragon leaned down and took a deep breath. Rainbow braced herself. A second later, a crackling buzz completely dominated her left ear and a violently painful stinging raced up and down her body as her friend breathed out a cloud of electric bolts into the wound. Her "dead" arm spasmed wildly and her left knee locked as her leg stiffened from the current washing through it. Rainbow nearly fell again, but she forced through it. She remembered the training she'd gotten in Radian. She focused on her breathing, on visualizing the electricity passing through her, entering the current of her body like a second bloodstream. The spasms weakened, then passed. She could feel the moment that Aurelia's lightning breath connected directly to her own current, it was like a sudden jumpstart to every muscle in her body. Suddenly, the feeling of having to push through molasses was gone, and the air felt like air again. The pain disappeared, and the only remains of the shard was a small trail of steam left behind them. "Better?" "Yup! Thanks a bunch!" Rainbow giggled slightly with glee. "Now hold on!" A slight tug on her scalp was the only sign that Auri had hidden in her ponytail as she put on a burst of fresh speed. She still had the wound in her shoulder, but adrenaline was taking the edge off of the pain and she was doing her best to keep it relatively still. She circled back towards the centerpoint of their battle, where the real enemy was waiting for her, watching her with a mix of amusement and wariness. She was casually guiding the storm of ice with one hand, using the other to raise herself up on a frozen pillar to gain the higher ground. That gave Rainbow an idea. It wasn't necessarily a GOOD idea, but it was a cool idea, and would look awesome if it worked. Rainbow focused inward, once again trying to draw on what she'd learned during her time in Radian. Inside of every living creature of the light was a current, a lightning bolt caught in a perpetual loop. It was the source of every bolt of inspiration. Every breakthrough in thought, every moment of overwhelming glee or joy, every urge to not only survive, but to WIN, was a branch of that eternal lightning bolt sparking outwards and into the soul. With practice and training, one could learn to access that internal current on command, to tap in and steal a bolt of rapture from it. With even more training, that current could be changed, redirected to flow closer to the surface and through different parts of the body as you wished. That redirection of your internal current was what the twentieth through tenth circles of Chiracian battle priests pursued. It was that current that Rainbow could feel coursing through every inch of her being right at this moment, making her practically giddy at the thought of what she was about to do. Once again she set herself at the boundaries of that ring of ice, but this time she put her all into it. She forced herself to lean inwards, fighting the centripetal force threatening to throw her off-course. Behind her, she could hear the tinkling of the ice shards growing fainter as the popping and crackle of electricity grew louder. "Yes, yes, yes..." she muttered with a grin. Out of the corner of her eye, she could catch the blue lightning starting to trail behind her, running up and down her multicolored contrail. "Just gotta go a little faster..." She could feel a burst of steam on her cheeks as the ice trailing her was obliterated, and the ice at her feet was starting to melt, as well. As she found herself able to move further and further inwards, she couldn't help but put on another burst of speed as he goal came into sight: her own lightning trail, lagging so far behind her that she was beginning to catch up to it. The woman at the center of it all seemed to be catching on to what Rainbow was trying to accomplish. With a growl, she slammed her fist down onto her pillar, sending more spikes of ice jutting out in every direction, but Rainbow was ready this time. When the frozen spears appeared in front of her, Rainbow leapt up and into the air. She grasped at her geode, feeling herself pony up as her wings appeared from her back, her jacket morphing around them to allow her to move them freely. She hadn't used this trick in one of her fights, yet, and her opponent hadn't aimed any higher than her head, which made flying over the spikes child's play. She couldn't hold the flight for long, though. She could already feel the Equestrian magic sputtering and threatening to peter out. Thankfully, she didn't need it for long, just long enough to avoid getting impaled. Even as her wings threatened to dissolve back into magic particles, she pushed herself forward even faster as she dropped back towards the ground. Her electrifying aura let out a series of tiny thunderclaps as bolts made for the easy grounding of the spikes, vaporizing them instantly on contact. She was closer than ever, and as time slowed to a crawl, Rainbow could see her own blue sparks just beyond arm's reach in front of her. Through the pain, Rainbow raised her left hand to reach for the blue bolts, stretching every muscle in her arm to its limit as she continued to sprint for that ephemeral finish line. Five inches... three... two... one... She could feel it, she was starting to tire out. Her body was covered in sweat. Her legs felt like they were on fire. Her shoulder was screaming from her attempt to use it, and while she wasn't sure how much blood she'd leaked out through the hole the ice had punched in her flesh, it was definitely enough that she could feel her head starting to spin. Here, just a tiny distance from victory, she was pushing up against her limits. Two inches... three... four... No... No! This couldn't be it! This world was under attack, they needed help, they needed a hero! And she was the only Chiracian who had been willing to come to a completely new world. There was no backup coming, nobody else who could finish the fight! It was all on her. Rainbow narrowed her eyes, reaching deep down inside. She needed that inspiration, that bolt deep in her soul, now more than ever! She forced her legs to move faster, deepened her breathing... and reached. At first, all she could feel was exhaustion. She was trying to tap into an empty tank, and trying to ask for more was seemingly impossible. But she kept looking, she pushed deeper into her core, searching for something, anything she could draw on to close that last gap. But the bolt of inspiration wasn't there. Every ounce of current was already out and engaged. "No..." Rainbow whispered. "No... No... No..." Her lungs were on fire, her legs were excruciating, and her goal was still just out of reach. The woman seemed to have realized Rainbow was trying to shut her in and was pushing herself higher and higher on her pillar of ice, readying herself to make a quick escape. In her mind's eye, she imagined going back to Radian with her head hung low, failing her first mission. She remembered why she had come here, to the world that had been abandoned by its gods: because watching it from Radian, from Chirac's point of view, she could see that this world had clung to survival, that every day this world's people chose to stand up and fight for their right to exist. This world was broken and tired... but still fighting every day. Three inches... two inches... one inch... This was a world of fighters! Of survivors! The kind of people who never gave up until the last buzzer! Am I going to let a world like this get destroyed? "NO! NO! NO!" With a final lunge, Rainbow reached for her contrail... and her fingertip made contact with one of her sapphire thunderbolts. "YES!" KRA-KA-KOOOOOOOOM! With an earth-shattering thunderclap, the whole world dissolved into blue. It felt like hours before Rainbow became aware of herself again. All resistance had melted away, as had the pain and tiredness of her body. Rainbow was still moving in laps around the icy plane that had been set up to stop her, but it felt like it took almost no effort to keep going. Her body felt light, like she weighed nothing at all. The world around her was almost completely still. Looking closely, she could make out the tiniest of movement as the other mage was trying to fling herself upwards and out of the perimeter. The steam around the edges of the ice was also moving at a snail's place, slowly enough that she could watch the process of the ice melting, boiling, and then turning into steam a drop at a time. "What happened?" Rainbow looked down at herself and was shocked. Her body looked like... well, it looked like her, at least in shape... but her body was made of the same blue energy as the lightning that she made as she ran. Not only that, but another complete bolt was running straight through her gut and around the circumference of where she had been running before. It was only now, on closer inspection, that she realized she wasn't even running any more. It was more like she was gliding around it, effortlessly able to move as fast as she wanted. "What do you mean- WHAT?" She watched a gold-colored bolt emerge from behind her, zipping out in front of her "face" like a tiny ball of lightning. "WHAT DID- HOW DID YOU-" "Auri? Is that you?" Rainbow looked more closely at the ball of gold-colored lightning. It didn't LOOK like Aurelia, aside from the color, but... it felt like her. "What happened?" The golden ball of lightning inched closer. "You... You closed the circuit." "I WHAT?" "You just jumped about TEN YEARS ahead in your battle priest training, Dash. AGAIN!" The little dragon sounded incredibly tired, and she'd dropped her respectful tone. "So... What's this mean?" Rainbow gestured down to her body. "You know how scouting dragons can travel between planets and star systems super fast? This is step one of how we do it." Rainbow looked down at her body again. "No WAY!" With all the distraction, she finally remembered why she had been fighting so hard to begin with. "So... does this mean we can kick HER butt?" she nodded up towards the ice mage, who was edging out of the center of the circle. It looked like she'd used her ice pillar to propel herself into a leap for the outside of Rainbow's perimeter. She saw the orb of electricity that was Aurelia give a smug little wiggle. "Oh, you BET we can!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The edges of Yang's vision blurred and darkened as the nearly blacked out from the pain. This was something she was unprepared for, something far, far beyond what she would have expected from her injury, even if she WAS firing with her bad hand. It felt like her arm was exploding in slow motion, being pulled apart layer by layer from the inside. The spike in the pain slowly relented, reducing to a constant, painful throbbing that now reached nearly halfway up her forearm. "Yang! Are you okay?" Yang drew in a long breath through her clenched teeth as Blake rushed over to her. Her teammate drew up short, however, with a horrified look on her face. "Your arm-" "No time to worry about that, we have to-" Yang tried to wave away Blake's concerns, but froze as she finally caught sight of the source of her pain for the first time. Her arm was covered in pitch-black markings. It almost looked like a tattoo, except that it had the hazy edges and faded look of a splinter buried just under her skin. The same complicated patterns that made up the monster's body were crawling up through her arm like an infection. It was already halfway up her forearm and starting to send tendrils towards her elbow. Yang's mouth simply hung open in shock for a second before the markings began to move, making the same kaleidoscopic motion of turning and folding in on themselves at the same time they were pushing outward at the edges. This was when that pain returned anew, the feeling of her arm being pulled apart, and Yang dropped to her knees as she tried to hold in another scream. "NGGGGGGGGGGGGH!" "YANG!" She heard Ruby's voice, but it barely registered in her mind. The sensation in her arm was changing. It wasn't just a burning pain, any more. It felt like she'd plunged her hand into a bucket of dry ice, cold and searing at the same time. Chills ran up and down her entire body, always emanating and then returning back to her infected arm. With every freezing wave, Yang could feel herself growing colder, weaker. Her body was starting to seize, curling around her wound to try and protect it from the rest of the world. She didn't know what this thing was doing to her, but she was fading fast. She felt so cold... so... cold... That was when the light came. It was a wave of warmth that washed over her like a hot bath and a warm hug combined into one. She heaved a sigh of relief as the chills and spasms were washed away by the silver light surrounding her. Even with that relief, it took a few seconds for her to realize that her teammates had all gathered in front of her, standing between her and their enemy. Ruby was leaning on Weiss for support, making it clear that the force that had saved Yang was her silver eyes. Yang tried to force herself to stand up, but her limbs felt like limp noodles. She tried again, using her good arm to push herself up off the ground and into a sitting position. She looked around, seeing no sign of the monster. "You okay, Yang?" Blake asked, turning ever-so-slightly toward her as her cat ears swiveled from side to side, clearly on high alert. "Y-Yeah... I think so..." Yang looked down at her injured hand, giving it an experimental flex. It felt off, like the skin was too tight. The black markings were still there, but they had stopped moving. "Thanks for the backup, sis." "This isn't over..." Ruby muttered, uncharacteristically serious. "I wounded it, but I don't think I got all of it." "It looked like it burrowed into the ground." Weiss declared, giving the dust chamber on her rapier a spin until the fire dust cartridge locked into place. "I can try to force it out with an area attack, but we'll need a plan for once it's out here..." "Yang's hurt, Ruby's exhausted, maybe we should just get out of here while we have the chance..." Blake whispered. "Can we call for an evac? My scroll is dead." Weiss's hand slipped into her pocket, retrieving her scroll and giving it several fruitless button presses. "What? I always charge this before we go on a mission!" "I- I think these things can drain energy." Yang grunted as she forced herself back onto her feet. "I felt like the life was being sucked right out of me." "If that's the case, then we've lost contact with Isis and didn't even know it. We're on our own." Blake stiffened as both of her ears shifted to face the same direction, forward and slightly to the left. "Negotiations didn't work-" "So we have to fight our way out." Yang's knees wobbled as she stepped up alongside her partner, but she settled into a familiar ready stance. "If this thing absorbs energy, maybe we can give it more than it can handle?" "That plan is extremely reckless. If we've lost contact, Isis should be sending backup. We just need to hold out." Weiss argued. "That thing is recuperating, and time is on our side." All the girls gripped their weapons tighter when the thing's voice spoke up. "Actually... it isn't." The voice seemed to be coming from every direction, and Yang's eyes widened as she realized how. The shadow had retreated back into the ground, like it had been at the start, and had completely encircled the group in a black ring in the dirt. Yang resisted the urge to curse in front of her sister, but they were surrounded, and more of those tendrils of shapes were beginning to emerge from the edges of the ring and crawl towards them. Weiss wasted no time, and Yang almost smirked as she planted the tip of her weapon in the ground. A burning red glyph appeared under their feet as a shock wave of flames flew out around them. The tendrils recoiled at first with a hiss, but the flames sputtered out moments later, as if trying to burn at the edge of a lake. Before the embers had even stopped glowing, the tendrils lashed inwards, grabbing hold of the edges of the glyph. There was a clatter as Weiss lost her grip on her weapon and her eyes grew wide as she grabbed at her chest. With a sound like the squeal of tearing metal, the snowflake-shaped glyph ground to a halt and the edges of it began to turn a corrupted black. "Weiss, let it go. Let it go!" Ruby urged, shaking her partner's shoulder violently. When Weiss didn't respond, Ruby transformed her weapon into its rife form and opened fire on the ground, fruitlessly trying to shoot at the shadow and kicking up tiny clouds of dirt. "I- I see it!" Weiss gasped. "The end! The finality of the end of all things! The burning, burning, burning of all things!" The glyph seemed to be slowing it down, but the thing was still moving further and further inward towards them. They could try to make a leap for it, but Yang knew Blake was the only one who could probably make it unassisted. Her arm was beginning to throb again, as well. They needed to destroy this thing, burn it out completely with more power than it could tank. With Weiss babbling nonsense, Yang could only think of one thing that could put out that much power at once. The question was whether or not her body could handle it in its current state. Well... only one way to find out! "I'm going to make an opening." She kept her voice low, soft enough that only Blake's superior hearing could get the message. "When I do, grab the others and run." Blake turned to look at her, eyes wide and mouth already forming an argument. Unfortunately, much like their opponent, Yang wasn't going to give her time to fight her. With a roar, Yang activated her semblance and leaped into the air. She felt the usual burst of heat as her aura lit ablaze and she crashed to the ground like a falling meteor, striking the ground with enough force to shake the earth... and then the golden fire was gone. "What the- WOAH!" Before she could solve the mystery of what had happened to her semblance, her infected arm had lifted up of its own accord as if being pulled by some invisible force and flung her back into the center of the circle. This time, Yang couldn't help letting a few curses slip as she was thrown across the glassy ground, covering her in cuts and scrapes. "Yang! What are you DOING?" Ruby cried. Yang narrowed her eyes, reaching for her semblance again. It was still there, a deep well of energy completely untouched, as if what had happened moments ago just.... hadn't. She glanced down, seeing that the monster was about halfway through the glyph, which was now the girls' last line of defense. "I'm trying to make us an opening!" Yang pounded her fists together and triggered her semblance again. This time, she channeled the energy into her gauntlets, unleashing a barrage of fiery blasts at the ground in front of her. Once again, just as the blasts were about to make contact with the creature, they simply fizzled out into regular shotgun shots, and Yang felt her semblance once again return to its untouched state. Wait, didn't Penn say these things want to rewind the whole universe back? Yang looked down at her hands, seeing that the infection had crawled up to her elbow and was making its way up to her bicep. With a gasp of horror she also saw that her gauntlets didn't quite fit like they had in the past... they were larger, looser on her wrists. Or she was smaller. This thing's turning the clock back on ME so I can't attack it! "Yang, Blake, you need to get out of here!" Ruby ordered, tightening her grip on the still-babbling Weiss. "I can use my semblance to speed Weiss away, but I can't carry more than one person right now!" Yang growled. The thought of everybody just making a run for it didn't sit right with her. This thing was fast AND crafty, and her instincts told her running wasn't going to be an option. She turned both of her gauntlets downward and fired, flinging herself up into the air. Immediately, a tendril sprung up from the edge of the circle, grabbing her boot and flinging her downwards towards the black void surrounding them. It was only reflex that made Yang fire again, barely propelling her back into the safety of Weiss's glyph, where she came to a crashing halt. "Ow. Running isn't- ow- gonna work, sis..." Yang muttered. There were only a few inches of space between them and the monster, now. "Ruby... what do we do?" Blake asked, inching closer to the center to avoid a few errant tendrils that were starting to crawl up and onto the glyph. "I-I don't know." There was fear in Ruby's voice, genuine terror at being forced to make the admission. Yang's semblance was formally called "Burn." That was what she always wrote down on any school admissions and the like. Her dad, however, had a different name for it: "The Temper Tantrum." Her entire life, Yang's control of her semblance had been... tenuous at best. Sure, it was always passively collecting the kinetic energy of blows to her aura, and she could certainly activate it on command, but it also had always activated at its strongest when she was upset. Most often it was when someone messed with her hair, which her dad had always told her was just like her mother's. Sometimes, it activated when someone made the mistake of taunting her in a fight, and they usually lost soon after. But hearing that fear in her little sister's voice was always what made her burn at her brightest. "GRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Golden flames burst out of Yang's body in every direction, knocking her friends to the ground and pushing back the monster's advance. She felt her injured arm throb and chill, trying to force the power back inside of her, but Yang forced through it like running through a brick wall. With another roar, she slammed her boot down onto the darkness in front of her, causing it to squeal as a section surrounding her foot was reduced to embers. The mysterious force tried harder to force the energy back into her body, and Yang could feel the pressure of it burning at every inch of her skin. She refused to let it silence her roar again. She took another step, and the entire ring of darkness recoiled, shuddering and shrieking before pulling away from her. Her arm throbbed again, and Yang felt that same chill from before beginning to run through her, weakening her in an attempt to force her to back down. Yang fought back, drawing on the energy of her semblance to push back the frosty feeling. It was like the concepts of hot and cold were at war inside her body. Some portions of her felt like they were freezing solid, only moments later to be in the depths of an inferno. It was all localized in a hundred areas of her, making it feel like fire and ice were dancing across her skin. The more that she pushed and pushed to bring out the power to burn away her enemy, the more of her own power the thing forced back down her throat to try and keep her contained. But that was just more ammunition. Yang roared again, metaphorically and literally trying to spit the fiery energy back in the monster's face. Her aura was climbing to heights she'd never felt before as she tried to fight through the cycle of spending and replenishing. She felt ready to explode with energy, more power than she'd ever felt in her entire lifetime being constantly shuffled back and forth between her and her opponent. It was a head-to-head battle of will, and the loser would be incinerated. Every time the power was forced back into her she returned it even stronger. The chills were getting shorter and weaker, now, and the burning sensation was growing to dominate every other of her senses. Her skin was hardening, cracking and glowing like burning coals. Yang wasn't just screaming to psyche herself up, any more, it was like the whistling of a pressure valve as even her breath was weaponized, turned into a wide swathe of golden flames just to release the energy built up in her body. The marks on her arm were burning away, transforming from an inky infection to blackened embers. Yang could feel the thing still trying to force the power back onto her, and it was like standing on the surface of the sun... and Yang could feel that this was the last attempt it would be able to make. She shot forward and down, ripping the thing out of the ground like an eagle plucking up a rabbit from an open field. It wriggled and squirmed in her grip, now hardly more than a morphing mess of black lines the size of a handkerchief. For the first time since their war of attrition had begun, Yang stopped screaming. The flames died down as the mountain of energy finally, blissfully, was allowed to burn itself out. She resisted the urge to gasp for the breath she needed so badly just long enough to look the thing head on and deliver one message. "Get. Off. Our. Planet." With that, she raised the monster up to her face and bit down hard on the squirming mass, letting out a deep breath of air that carried that last of her overwhelming energy along with it. The monster screeched and screamed and struggled for a second more between her teeth, then finally fell silent as it was reduced to dust. Yang looked around, seeing not only the other members of her team staring at her in amazement, but the assembled army of monstrous bugs also observing her in what, deep down, she knew was mortal terror. Yang opened her mouth, roaring one more time at the monsters. Her semblance was spent, but she felt rejuvenated and ready to go a hundred more rounds with those pipqueaks. "GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The roar was like a signal to them all. Instantly, the hordes broke rank and scrambled for the nearest tunnel entrances, desperately crawling over one another in an attempt to get underground and out of her sight as quickly as possible. In a matter of seconds, the army was gone, and the four girls were once again alone. Yang turned back to her team, finally taking the opportunity to let the last vestiges of her semblance go and let out a sigh of relief. "Well... that was a thing." "Yang... are you okay?" Blake asked very slowly. Yang nodded. "Yeah, I'm great, actually! Just really hungry! How's Weiss?" Ruby looked down to their teammate, whom she was cradling in her arms as best she could. "Once you got that thing off of her glyph she collapsed. We should really get her someplace safe to get looked at." Yang nodded, dropping to one knee to take the unconscious girl from Ruby. It was only then, when Yang went to reach for their injured teammate, that she saw why her friends had been so worried about her. Her arm, the one that had been previously infected, was almost completely incinerated. It was blackened and looked like it ought to crumble to pieces at the slightest touch, like the remains of a heavy log after a bonfire. Her gauntlet on that hand had completely melted, filling in many of the cracks and crevices in her flesh with golden metal. And yet somehow, despite all of this, it was still moving and flexing completely normally, as if she'd taken no damage at all. Yang could only stare, dumbfounded, at her arm for several seconds. She moved it up and down, flexing it at the elbow and the wrist to make sure she really WAS still controlling it. "I don't... understand. How?" Those were the only words she could sputter. Before anyone could so much as try to give her an answer, a crack of lightning and a buzz of electricity filled the air, and suddenly someone else was there with them. It was Sunset's friend, that woman with the white hair and the super speed again. Yang tried to remember what Sunset had said her name was... Rainbow-something? "Sorry I'm late! I swear it doesn't happen often!" she chuckled, looking around the area for... something. "So, where's the fight? I coulda sworn there was a second powerful monster around here!" Yang grinned and waved the stranger off with her charcoal hand. "No worries, I already took care of it!" "Aw man, really?" Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. "But I just got this cool new power-up and- whoa. Dude, your arm!" Yang nodded. "It doesn't hurt... I'm not really sure what happened. This big, black fractal freak scratched me up pretty bad and gave me some kinda infection, but I think I burned it out." Ruby interrupted. "Hey, you're Rainbow Dash, right?" "That's the name, don't wear it out!" Rainbow grinned. "What can I do for ya, kiddo?" Ruby nodded down at Weiss's still-unconscious body. "Well, our friend is hurt. We've got a base camp about half a mile that way with supplies and more people. Could you help us get her there?" "You kidding? No problemo!" Dash leaned down and scooped Weiss's frail figure up in her arms. "I'll be there in a flash!" She raised one foot as if she was about to take off running, only to stop as a thought seemed to occur to her. "Wait a minute, how do you know my name?" "We're friends of Sunset Shimmer, she told us-" "WHAT?" She rushed forward to look Ruby in the eye, only barely managing to hold on to Weiss. "Sunset's here? Where is she? How did she get here? Tell me everything!" Before Ruby could sputter out a response, something climbed out of Rainbow Dash's hair and onto her shoulder. At first it looked like one of Isis's drones, but closer inspection revealed that it wasn't just the wrong color (gold, rather than silver), but it was completely organic: a real-life dragon. "Lady Dash, this girl needs help urgently. We can gather intelligence regarding your friends later." That seemed to snap Rainbow out of her frantic interrogation. She looked back down at Weiss, then in the direction Ruby had pointed. "Okay, right. I'll be right back, don't go ANYWHERE!" With that, she vanished in another crack of lightning, leaving the other three girls on their own. Yang finally sat down beside Ruby and Blake, still flexing her charred arm and trying to understand what had happened to her. "Weird day, huh?" "Yeah." "Seriously..."