(Recommended listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G0u13COALA )
Episode 132: Rainbow
in the Dark
By now, the many bodies of the "army" had fully surrounded
the two vixens. They stepped closer, readying the weapons that were
their arms and hands. But Magus looked Light's way, and as she held
her sword in one hand and reached out the other to the sky, she was
grinning. That could mean only one thing: She was about to do
something awesome.
When
there's lightning...
A bolt of lightning struck the palm of her hand, scattering itself
out from there across the entire mass of the monsters surrounding
them. A little bit of it was left behind, in the form of Ning's
sword. No sooner had it formed than she went out into the crowd,
dancing in a circle with both weapons around and between, under and
above the beasts' attempts to strike or block, slashing through every
one of them as she went. The weapons seemed weightless in her hands,
and the monsters' bodies offered no resistance to their motion, as if
they were back to being the wispy clouds they had first formed from.
Magus's orb followed along behind her like it was supposed to, but
she noticed something else—something unusual. A blue
glow seemed to surround the edge of each sword's blade, and it was
that glow which seemed to cut through
their bodies before the physical blades even had a chance to make
contact. The wounds it made sent out
enormous eruptions of black mist; this loss of mass was enough for
some of them to instantly dissipate, and some of those that didn't
still fell physically apart, as if the cut had actually
severed their bodies into two pieces. That wouldn't be so weird if
not for the knowledge that vixens' weapons usually couldn't do that
to those monsters—aside from a few specific exceptions like hydras
and mouthtopi.
Seeing that everything was working as intended, Magus let go of her
sword and slumped carefully onto the ground, turning over to lie on
her side instead of eating dirt. Every bit of her energy and
concentration needed to be directed toward keeping that big, bright
orb alive as long as possible. She'd said they were going to make it
before, but there had definitely been a tinge of false bravado to it;
she hadn't really wanted to confront the possibility of failure, or
what it would mean for her personally. But now...it felt like she'd
been right all along.
...I
cry out for magic...
Light came back next to Magus, and then a quick recital of Rowan's
phrase, and a swipe with Ning's blade, brought rainwater down from
the sky, up from the ground, and in from the air around them together
into a collection of waves, which pushed out into the crowd of
monsters, knocking them over and forcibly carrying them away,
sweeping them around to the direction they'd all came from. A couple
of natural bolts of lightning from the clouds above were siezed and
thrown into the water and through the monsters' bodies, before she
finally let go of the waves again, stopping to gasp for air and take
in some more of the summon's light.
She glanced down at Magus's prone form. "Still..with
us?"
"Y-yeah.."
"Y-yeah.."
She smiled. "Thank you."
"Hahah..n-no problem...any...anytime."
...There's
no sign of the morning coming...
It was time.
Quinn sent the last few super-strong puppets forward, clashing them
against the tank's latest attempt to charge. They kept on shoving it
back as the monster's limbs whipped and stabbed into them, until they
finally fell apart. She lifted her weapon one more time and threw it
off of the needle again into the thing's face, the impact knocking it
a little farther back and the eruption of thread producing another
satisfying explosion of black mist.
Then she stepped apart. Clark gasped heavily, stumbling around and
nearly toppling over before Rory caught her and propped her upright
so she could regain her footing. The white mist of Amory's power
leaving her came up off of Clark, but Rory held onto her own boost
tightly, quickly whispering her husband's phrase to borrow her power.
Clark pulled herself upright, taking the needle out of her ear and
handing it to Rory. "S...hhfh.."
"Hmm? You got something to say, dear?"
"Survff...hff.." She reached a hand all the way up to Rory's shoulder, gripping it hard, and looked her in the eyes with a severe, serious look. "Survive." If the Giver thought she was some kind of curse-maker, then—just this once—she wanted to be able to grant a blessing instead.
"Hmm? You got something to say, dear?"
"Survff...hff.." She reached a hand all the way up to Rory's shoulder, gripping it hard, and looked her in the eyes with a severe, serious look. "Survive." If the Giver thought she was some kind of curse-maker, then—just this once—she wanted to be able to grant a blessing instead.
Rory nodded, giving back a reassuring smile. "Will do. Now shoo!
Get yourself outta the firing line. I can't go all out with you in my
space."
"Hffh...alright." Clark started off with a slight stumble,
but soon managed to get going in a run, off in the opposite direction
from the tank.
...You've
been left on your own...
Rory turned toward her opponent. "Alright, ugly. Just you and me
now."
However, it hadn't been idle while they were having their moment.
Five other monsters stood between her and the tank. "..And your
friends," she amended. "Okay then!"
Dr. Quinn ran forward, grabbing the first monster by the leg and
tossing it into the next. They clumped together, starting to fuse,
and she picked up the mid-fusion monster in both hands, swung it
around, and threw it into the tank's mouth. The next two she threw
higher, making one crash into its teeth and the other stick itself
uncomfortably into the part of the beast's face that was missing a
lot of eyes thanks to Quinn's hammer. The last one she leapt and
punched, making it roll back toward the tank and slam into its chin.
The tank rumble-roared again, its spawn sinking into its skin as it
began to charge. Rory landed from that punch into a continued run,
intercepting the monster before it had gathered the momentum to go
faster than a human's walk and punching it three times:
"No—you—don't!" She was pumping everything she had into
speed for the run, then snapping it all into strength for each hit.
Now she could hear the monster's limbs coming down at her, so she put
it into speed/defense, dodging the first two before catching an
upward swing to the chest that sent her flying back and landing hard
on the ground several yards back.
"Hh..hahah!" She sat up, and stood up, waving a hand over
her slightly bruised front torso. Clark's power made the hand glow,
healing the injury. "That actually kinda hurt!" she said,
smiling defiantly. "Now we're serious!"
Her husband's voice echoed in her mind: Survive. Right—survive, and live to enjoy what would come after. Tonight, and tomorrow, and the rest of her life that she wanted to live. It felt like she was a little tougher, a little faster, just from thinking about it.
The monster drew its limbs back and tossed out some more cannon fodder for her. So she steadied herself, then took off at a sprint. Time to do it again.
...Do
your demons, do they ever let you go?...
Thad's driving was terrifying. Emma squeaked slightly when he
rammed right past a red light, then went halfway across the
intersection before jerking the wheel in his hands to make the car
swing around to the left, stomping on the accelerator the instant it
was facing the right way to start off down the road. It was true
that she wanted to get there as fast as possible, but it especially
bothered her that he seemed to be enjoying this!
She tried to reassure herself that, even if he wound up crashing the
car into a building or something, she could toughen herself, heal any
critical wounds he got, and hopefully walk away with both of
them alive. Then she got out her phone, just to try to focus on
something else right now, and turned it on. There was relief,
then a slight shock of panic: It was undamaged—probably since she'd
restrained her throw to avoid making a hole in the wall of Amory's
apartment—but she also had...ten missed calls, and five
messages in voicemail. She shuddered slightly, looking at
those notifications, but then gritted her teeth and went to listen to
some of them anyway. She really needed to not be thinking
about how fast the vehicle she was in was moving through the
very-not-highway streets. So, from least to most recent...
"Emma, darling!" Her eldest sister April had left
the first message. "I saw the video—is that really you?
I mean, I know I said you might be a late bloomer, but I didn't
expect this late, or that much blooming."
"What, you jelly?" Beverly's voice said afterward, sounding
a little more filtered, like through two layers of phone instead of
one. "I mean, she could just about model your designs, riiight?"
So this was...some kind of conference-call setup involving more than
one of her siblings.
"Are we seriously not gonna talk about her punching a demon
in the faaaace!?" Atlas cut in, loudly and quickly. "Like,
wham!" One could easily imagine his fist slamming into an
open palm. "I didn't think super strength was in your
powerset, but that big wolf-thing went flying!" If he
was in on the call too, it was probably all six of them.
"What's it feel like to touch one, anyway?" Ben
asked. "Is it solid like a rock, or—spongy? Like does your
hand sink into it? Do they have fur?"
"Let's try to focus here, huh?" And now it was Carrie. "Now listen up, Emma—some of us tried calling you to see if you were all right, but clearly everyone doing that at once was just gonna overwhelm you..."
"Let's try to focus here, huh?" And now it was Carrie. "Now listen up, Emma—some of us tried calling you to see if you were all right, but clearly everyone doing that at once was just gonna overwhelm you..."
"Oh, yeah, like you weren't the first one!"
"Shush, Bev. So—when you didn't answer, we had the bright idea—"
"My idea!" Doris said insistently.
"—the idea to just do it all at once!"
April said: "...And let you know we're proud of you. You're so much more amazing than any of us could've imagined, staring down those unsightly things—"
"And punching them in the face!" Atlas interrupted.
"Shush, Bev. So—when you didn't answer, we had the bright idea—"
"My idea!" Doris said insistently.
"—the idea to just do it all at once!"
April said: "...And let you know we're proud of you. You're so much more amazing than any of us could've imagined, staring down those unsightly things—"
"And punching them in the face!" Atlas interrupted.
This was followed by a bunch of disorganized chattering. Emma could
make out a little more than half of what everyone was saying, and she
could manage as much as that only because she had a decent amount of
experience with her siblings doing this exact thing, quite often,
every time the family was all together.
April cleared her throat emphatically to quiet everyone down.
"Please, do call any of us back whenever you feel ready.
We'd love to chat!"
...
Her parents had made their own call, with much the same sentiment.
"Really, it's fine you kept it a secret. It's a pretty
hard thing to admit to, right?"
"You're so brave, dear..."
"You're so brave, dear..."
...Is
it someone that you know?...
One message had been left through the VI app: "Gemma, this is
Simon! My compliments on your reveal! —Ow, Karis!" (She
seemed to have hit him.) "I'm well aware it was
unintentional, but you couldn't have announced yourself in a better
light if I'd planned it! I mean, jumping in front of a crowd
to save someone, that's downright genius! Anyhow, I just
wanted to let you know that I'm available, if you'd like some sage
advice on dealing with newfound fame. In fact, the entire VI's PR
department is at your disposal—or at least, as much of them as I
can muster—which is quite a lot! Just gimme a ring!"
...
A second one had, too: "Emma, this is Ezekiel...Dr. Bridges. We,
only met briefly the other day, but—in light of recent events, I
wanted to make certain you were aware. If, you need someone to talk
to—confidentially, I mean, about anything at all, the VI has
resources available. There's no need to call me, I know you don't
know me, but you could get in contact with Rowan, or perhaps
Simon, to arrange something. Just—be aware that you don't have to
deal with these things all on your own. There's no shame in asking
for help."
...
Finally, a number she didn't recognize. "Emma." But she
knew the voice immediately. "Be careful out there. I don't want
to see you in surgery. And, don't break my son's heart, alright?"
Thad's voice cut in just as she was finishing the last one: "Hey,
we're almost—you okay?" he interrupted himself.
Emma realized she had a few tears coming down her cheeks
again—surprising; she really thought she'd run dry by now. "Uh—I'm
fine. Just, I realized I'm kinda stupid—like always," she
said.
"Can't say I agree with that. But—we're almost there,
so I thought you might wanna get ready to jump out?"
"Um...r-right." She put away the phone, wiped her face on a sleeve and took in a sharp sniff to try and make her nose quit running. "I'm ready."
"Um...r-right." She put away the phone, wiped her face on a sleeve and took in a sharp sniff to try and make her nose quit running. "I'm ready."
She'd spent all afternoon refusing to look—refusing to listen.
She'd been so terrified of what everyone was going to say. But
the only thing they really wanted to do was tell her the obvious,
something she should've realized—should've known—to begin
with. She'd purposely isolated herself, thinking she just needed...or
really, just wanted to be alone, but the truth was just
the opposite. It was really that she'd felt alone. Like nobody
else could ever understand.
And all any of them wanted to do was help her, support
her, encourage her! Let her know that she wasn't
alone!
The whole time Amory had been there, it was only kindness in his eyes and his voice. He'd probably wanted to give her that hug from the start, and he'd finally taken his chances at the last moment, just as she was leaving—and all she'd been able to think about was how much she didn't deserve it. Amory was always like that—she'd practically expected him to put up with her at her worst, and felt even guiltier when he did. But Blake...
The whole time Amory had been there, it was only kindness in his eyes and his voice. He'd probably wanted to give her that hug from the start, and he'd finally taken his chances at the last moment, just as she was leaving—and all she'd been able to think about was how much she didn't deserve it. Amory was always like that—she'd practically expected him to put up with her at her worst, and felt even guiltier when he did. But Blake...
The idea of a "hero" was a complicated thing for him. But
all the same, him calling someone else a hero was the highest
compliment he could give. He hadn't said that right away, but at the
end—after she'd blown up at him. The terrible thought had
overtaken her mind that he only cared about her as long as she was
useful, so she'd tried to use that to push him away...and he'd
practically ignored that, just to tell her that he was still on her
side—even if she wasn't.
Maybe, in the end, all of her worst thoughts were true. Maybe she was
a pathetic, awful, selfish, useless waste of a person. But as
long as so many people thought she was worth something, as long as
they just wanted to help her—as long as she wasn't alone,
she could at least try to do the same for someone else. If
nothing else, Beryl—the Watcher—had known this about her
all along: If Rory was going to be alone without her, and might not
survive because of that—then she couldn't just sit around and do
nothing anymore!
"Whoa..do you...feel that?!" Magus wasn't sure what
it was—except for a strong pull, a sharp tug.
Light nodded. "Emma...needs her power back."
"Th-then, hey, let's give it! I mean, dude—I'm not usin' it anymore."
"Yeah..." With the same words that had granted Magus temporary use of Gemma's powers, Light revoked that and sent them back to their owner.
"Th-then, hey, let's give it! I mean, dude—I'm not usin' it anymore."
"Yeah..." With the same words that had granted Magus temporary use of Gemma's powers, Light revoked that and sent them back to their owner.
Magus could feel her body shrinking slightly and weakening
significantly; it was an unpleasant and kind of sick feeling. But at
the same time, it was a massive relief—she felt like a swarm
of bees had finally left her brain!
The monsters had recovered their feet after the wave by now, many of
them helping the others to get up faster, and they were moving toward
the two vixens again, a steady march now developing into a headlong
rush. Light took up her swords again, taking a few slow steps forward
before beginning to build momentum, and soon her speed matched that
of the approaching army. She crashed into them with the same dance of
blades as before, and they chose to surround her rather than
continuing toward Magus—clearly intent on removing the 'real
threat' first. Good thing they weren't smart enough to know the
source of her present burst of power.
...You're
just a picture...
A hard, running-jumping kick landed where the monster's nose should
be (but it was just more eyes), and then Rory's leg was grabbed by
one of the thing's tentacles. Another one struck its spike out at her
while she was hanging upside-down, and she couldn't do better than
boost her defense and take it. It tore through her armor but bounced
off her stomach, and she grabbed that limb in her arms, using it to
yank herself out of the other one in a way that badly sprained her
ankle. Then she let go as it whipped violently to try and throw her
off—letting herself be thrown, healing herself in midair,
and landing in a brief roll before standing up again.
"Come on!" Somehow she'd managed to
really get its attention on her by now, enough for it to no
longer keep aiming for the city, but instead actually spend time
awkwardly turning before trying to charge right at her. And
Rory was mentally perpared to do it all again, even if her muscles
were getting sore and her body was begging her to relinquish
Amp's boost. They were just fighting another stupid hydra back in the
city, right? How long could that possibly take?
As it took its first steps forward, Rory getting ready to charge
herself, something different happened. A bunch of spindly, thin
shapes rushed up from the ground on either side of the tank, winding
themselves around its many spiky legs. Some were made of shadow, some
of stone, some of metal, some of the rainwater soaking the ground and
the air around them. A series of bolts of lightning struck down from
the sky into its body one after another, sending an eruption of black
mist steaming off of it as it leaned its enormous weight back and
forth and whipped its limbs around wildly, trying to break free of
the bonds.
Looking to one side, Rory found a certain pair of vixens, one holding
up her left arm while the other held up her right. "Emma?!"
There was a distinct glow coming out of both bodies—one a darker
gray and the other much brighter—vaguely similar to the blazing
aura Light had had around her while in "rage mode".
...We're
a lie, you and I...
To be perfectly honest, Rory had not expected Emma's help
tonight—not at all. But it felt wrong to admit to that, especially
in the face of some serious relief she was feeling about not having
to charge at that thing and risk getting eaten or stabbed or crushed
yet again. So she quickly followed up the surprised exclamation of
her name with: "What took you so long?" pretending
to have the confidence in that girl that...maybe she should've had
all along.
"Oh, you know—" "—panic, stress—"
"—anxiety, self-loathing—" "—literally
arguing and fighting with myself—" "—so...um, j-just
the usual stuff." The water-limbs made some loud cracking sounds
as they steadily froze into solid chunks of ice, and as soon as they
were frozen, Emma brought up some more, making it even harder for the
monster to free itself.
Rory took the opportunity to get out her husband's weapon and start
quickly weaving a rope with it. "Heheh...i-is that all?"
"Well um...—" "—I, also left my car on campus—"
"—and had to get a ride."
"Oh, yeah—that'll do it."
Light allowed herself to be surrounded. Better than those things
getting to Magus, to kill or eat her. The crush of their bodies came
steadily closer and closer, more of them encroaching no matter how
many she knocked away or cut down. She tried to get herself together
to change into light and move away again, but she was getting
increasingly exhausted; it was going to require channeling, and
concentration. There were too many weapons coming at her, too fast,
from too many angles...
...You've
been left on your own...
Then, suddenly, there weren't. The water all around her had raised
itself up, forming a multitude of thorned limbs, grabbing and binding
the monsters where they stood. In the direction she'd come
from—beyond which was where Magus was still lying down—they went
as far as to pick up the monsters and throw them aside, clearing out
an aisle wide enough for a person to comfortably walk through. Rowan
was on the other side of that crowd in her tall, commanding
Amp-lified form, her left hand raised to maintain and control all of
those limbs. She calmly-yet-briskly walked through the parting of the
army that she'd made. "I should have departed sooner," she
said, her ears folded back slightly and her usual near-monotone voice
conveying a certain level of doubt, of uncertainty, of regret.
"Nah—you're just in time," Light said, taking a small
step in Rowan's direction. Smiling again, she let go of her swords
and held out her right hand palm-up, like she was asking for a dance.
As it had been with Ning earlier that day, both of them understood
what she was asking for without words—and Rowan accepted
immediately, placing her free hand on Light's. When Light spoke the
other vixen's phrase once again, this handshake brought them
together—light shining and water flowing into a spot in between
them to reform into single, two-tailed form. Her clothes were a
mixture of Rowan's elegant dress and Light's more tomboyish outfit,
her form tall, strong, beautiful and imposing. Her hair and ears were
a bright, pale blue, her eyes glowing a brilliant, emerald green. Her
expression was a somewhat muted version of Light's confident grin
from before.
You. Will not...
With a wave of her right hand, the limbs of water gathered together,
forming the shape of a gargantuan water-dragon, its teeth made of
Rowan's sword. It swallowed up over half of the monsters inside its
body, keeping its mouth partially closed to tear through them as they
passed into its mouth.
...Stop us.
A motion of her left hand gathered a majority of the light coming out
of Magus's orb into a much thinner, longer dragon made of pure white
light, eight short legs appearing at even intervals down the length
of its body. Like Zeno's walls, this was "hard light"—more
than solid enough for it to rush through the air and curl itself
around the rest of the army, squeezing them together like a gigantic
constrictor. Its claws—made from Light's blade—tore into their
trapped bodies, immediately destroying a number of them.
...Like
a rainbow
in the dark...
...Just
a rainbow
in the dark!
Rory threw her rope, weaving it around one of the monster's legs
around the middle of one side, near the leg's joint. "Help me
pull!" she called, yanking it down. When Plus started toward
her, she clarified: "Not the rope, the legs!"
"Huh?—" "—Oh!" Minus seemed to realize first, with Plus an instant behind, and both of them released most of the bindings around the monster's other side to instead send a bunch of new ones up around its legs. Both bodies used both hands to gesture back, making the various elementally-formed limbs pull against the monster's attempt to rock itself in the opposite direction, push back with its "arms", and do just about anything else to keep from toppling. She even managed to make the ground under it tilt just a little bit...
"Huh?—" "—Oh!" Minus seemed to realize first, with Plus an instant behind, and both of them released most of the bindings around the monster's other side to instead send a bunch of new ones up around its legs. Both bodies used both hands to gesture back, making the various elementally-formed limbs pull against the monster's attempt to rock itself in the opposite direction, push back with its "arms", and do just about anything else to keep from toppling. She even managed to make the ground under it tilt just a little bit...
And then, abruptly, the entirety of the land under the monster, to a
depth of several feet, flipped sideways, all at once. "Whoa!"
Rory hadn't expected Emma to be capable of that, even in her
present state, and dropped her rope, stumbling back slightly, as the
monster rolled over onto its side. But then, it turned out that this
hadn't been Emma's doing at all.
"That was what you were after, right?" Simon—Petra—called from nearby. "Hah, look at it skitter around! Just like an upside-down turtle if not for those tentacle-things."
"That was what you were after, right?" Simon—Petra—called from nearby. "Hah, look at it skitter around! Just like an upside-down turtle if not for those tentacle-things."
"Less gloating, more killing!" Karis said, coming up next
to her and pointing emphatically at their biggest problem.
"Right right!"
Plus and Minus managed to simultaneously exchange a glance with Rory,
and then both of them released everything else to instead focus a
bunch of limbs on grabbing and binding the beast's "arms".
A couple of them managed to evade these restraints at first, reaching
into the thing's back and yanking out some of its mass to toss out as
a couple of low-grade monsters.
"Aha, targets for me!" Tora ran up immediately,
slashing her claws into a snakewolf. It started chasing her, and she
disappeared, reappearing above it to land claws-down into its body.
Karis went after the other one, Remedy's gauntlet appearing on her
arm as she leapt into the air and punched down into the gryphon's
body, destroying it immediately.
A net of metal wire teleported into place above the tank's forelimbs
as they broke free of Emma's efforts and threw out another couple of
smaller monsters, falling onto them and tangling them together in its
grip. Rory ran up and grabbed one end of that net, pulling back; Sam
appeared on the opposite side and grabbed the other.
Now that other people were doing the hard work of keeping the monster
sideways and bound, Emma turned her attention to actually hurting
it. She flung one weapon after another at the beast as it
thrashed around and roared, trying anything and everything to get
itself free. Petra was pelting it with spikes of rock; Dawn and
Cynthia had appeared at some point too—the former throwing
roughly-made chunks of sharp ice while maintaining a rough two walls
and "ceiling" of ice around the former, so she could
gather and throw out one fireball after another. As Hugo walked into
view behind Petra, the tank's next roar seemed to mute itself midway
through, the sound crashing back into and through its body to send
out another stream of black mist off of it. Opposite Emma and Rory's
position, Zeno was shooting a volley of light-arrows into its
underside. And a sense of energizing relief washed over everyone as
some of Nico's trees sprouted up from the ground closer to the city
freshly plowed by the monster's feet.
When a number of the army managed to swim and struggle themselves
free of the water-dragon, and the light-dragon's victims squeezed and
pushed into each other to allow some of them to jump free, the fused
vixen simply dismissed both of them, returning her weapons to her
hands, and strode forward. The water the dragon had been made of
gathered around her into a multitude of limbs, each one holding a
"copy" of Light's sword and using it to slash into the
approaching monsters; the light-dragon's components turned into a
ring-shaped halo floating several feet above her head, the
concentrated light erupting out of it into lasers that each pierced
through several of the army's bodies at a time.
...When
I see lightning...
A bolt of lightning struck down toward her from above, splitting as
it hit the halo and forking out, amplifying along the way into so
many bolts each the same size as the original one; each one found its
mark, the majority of the struck monsters falling apart instantly.
Only—the two-tailed vixen hadn't done that. Looking around,
she spotted the person responsible quickly enough—her body lit up
in the night by stray sparks running all across it and out through
some of the rain falling around her. "Ning?! I was under the
impression you felt too out-of-control to fight."
"Yeah, well—I thought maybe it'd be good for me to let
loose a li'l bit—under the circumstances?" she said,
amplifying the stray sparks around her into some more bolts, having
them strike into a bunch of the monsters nearest her. "What
d'you say, partner?"
She nodded. "Let's finish them." And punctuated this
by shouting Ning's phrase, granting her the rest of her power
back.
...Feel
the magic, I feel it floating in the air...
The fused vixen spred her arms wide, re-forming the two dragons and
using them to pull the army together just as before. Then she became
light/water and moved/flowed herself over to one side of Ning and a
yard or two away—just outside of accidental-shock range. She turned
her head the other vixen's way and nodded to her.
While she raised her hand and drew together the electricity in the clouds above, beginning to send one bolt down after another into the dragons and their captives, Ning yelled over the noise of all the resulting thunder: "So, what do you call yourself?"
"What do you mean?"
"Y'know, your cool fusion name?!"
While she raised her hand and drew together the electricity in the clouds above, beginning to send one bolt down after another into the dragons and their captives, Ning yelled over the noise of all the resulting thunder: "So, what do you call yourself?"
"What do you mean?"
"Y'know, your cool fusion name?!"
"Oh, that." What did light and water had in common?
Her thoughts went back to when Braille was talking about how her
powers seemed to work—about seeing the ocean. That was enough to
come up with a reasonable title: "Wave."
"Sweet!"
"Sweet!"
...There's
no sight of the morning coming...
The dragon made of light, and the flashes from Ning's bolts, were the
only bright things around now—Magus's summon either spent up or
dismissed. She had passed out not long after losing the powers
borrowed from Emma, but she was still alive and breathing—just
exhausted. A fraction of Wave's concentration was devoted to keeping
the heavy rain off of and away from her so she wouldn't drown or get
too cold.
...There's no sight of the day...
As with Quinn's net before, the tank showed itself capable of
untangling its front limbs from the metal net annoyingly quickly, and
then it managed to title itself back to being upright. Sam was
already hard at work making another net; Rory staggered off to one
side, panting heavily, as her body finally insisted on relinquishing
Amp's boost despite all protests from her mind. Turning to look, she
saw it finish throwing out some more minions, which meant...
"It's gonna charge again!" she called out.
"Oh really?" Petra stomped, raising a wall in front
of the monster as it started trying to pick up speed. "We'll see
about that!" She lifted her arms into an MMA sort of
readt stance, and a pair of stone fists rose up just behind the wall
to match her own. When the tank crashed through the wall, it met a
one-two punch from those fists, sending it sliding backwards. It dug
its feet into the ground to stop once again, so Petra dropped the
fists and tilted its footing back and forth to ruin its balance.
Karis and Tora took down the beasts it had thrown off of itself, so
everyone else continued focusing fire on the tank as the ground under
it kept tilting it this way and that. Sam reappeared in front of it
to toss another net out and tangle up its limbs, and Emma took the
opportunity to stike some lightning down through the steel wires and
hit all across the front of its body.
This was the first time Rory's vixen form had ever felt truly tired.
It registered as "I've had a great workout, and now I need
to stop or else I'll pull or sprain something." She decided that
she probably wasn't strictly needed right now, and put some distance
between herself and the fight before taking a seat on the ground to
rest. Some brief poking with Clark's needle found no particular
injury—just the physical exhaustion she was already well aware of.
...You've
been left on your own...
Emma had bought her a couple of minutes of not having to fight
at a hundred percent. There had been just five or so minutes
of the two of them working together against the tank until more help
arrived, instead of Rory alone. She would've exhausted herself sooner
without that help—by her own estimation, she'd probably have felt
this spent a minute or two before the city's vixens had arrived.
Which meant they likely would've arrived to one of a few tragic and
unpleasant sights. Best-case, she'd be badly injured and collapse at
the last moment; worst-case, they'd be up against her "nightmare",
and/or a very enraged
Clark.
She...had come to not really like that girl much, at some point.
Sure, their first meeting was fighting a couple of gryphons together
to protect a hospital, but the second one was when she'd been
so selfish and insecure, so completely unable to just get over
herself, that she'd threatened and then attacked Light for no actual
good reason. Even as recently as this afternoon, she'd thought of
Emma as mentally weak for not just gritting her teeth and returning
to the fight, no matter what she was dealing with in her
personal life. But obviously, that was wrong. Maybe she hadn't
actually said anything too unpleasant to her, but at the same
time...perhaps an apology was in order. Or at the very least, a
proper thank-you.
The attack on the tank continued. Between Petra, Sam, and Gemma's
efforts, it had very little opportunity to do anything but roar and
thrash around—and its own roars were turned against it anyway.
Everyone else took down its minions when they came, or kept tearing
into it. It took some time to damage it down until it was indistinct,
but with everyone working together it felt like something of a
foregone conclusion.
...Like
a rainbow...
By coincidence, the last blow went to Emma—one last lightning
strike dissipating it into black mist and finally ending the
excessively prolonged fight.
Wave exhaled, dropping her arms and dismissing the two dragons. She
took up her swords in those hands and lifted them again, taking a
small step forward. Of the entire army—a single monster made of so
many bodies they had once been too numerous to properly count—there
were only six left. She could take these down with some simple
melee.
Ning drew the twin swords she'd formed that morning, glanced between
the two of them, and then tossed one of them forward, breaking it
apart into a forward strike of lightning as it came close to the lot
of them; it arced through half of them, immediately destroying them.
So—make that just three. She then called down a bit of
lightning again into that hand, reforming it into her old sheath
before dropping it to the ground and taking the remaining sword in
both hands, striding forward next to Wave.
The last three fell in one strike each—one from a single swing of
each of Wave's weapons, and then Ning stabbing her blade into the
last one, kicking the hilt to drive it in farther before exploding it
into a shower of sparks to dissipate the very last of the army.
...You're
a rainbow
in the dark!
Now that the job was done, Wave immediately stepped apart. Light had
worn out her boost from Amp at some point before Rowan's arrival, and
she stood still for about half a second after coming out of the
fusion before suddenly passing out and collapsing backwards, Ning
hurrying to catch her before the back of her head could strike the
ground. Rowan took in and out a deep breath, releasing her own
boost—knowing how to do so 'safely' from Wave having thought about
it at some point—and then turned to face them. "...I knew we
were overdoing it."
This is it! This is the episode that I've been planning for quite a long time. We're stretching the gimmick of episode titles also being song titles as far as I'm willing to go with it here; in every other case, you aren't meant to think of the actual song, but in this case I'm invoking the lyrics deliberately.
It does occur to me that the actual message of the song is more fitting for the events that precede this episode, but I think it's no less fitting to use the song as a theme of coming out of that desperate situation. Listening to this song, and imagining the events of this episode, has been one of my ways of motivating myself to keep going, just so I could reach this moment in the story. Don't worry, I still have plans for what comes after, but I'm still really happy to finally write this particular part.
There are lots of ideas and back-references in play here, not all of which completely came from me. Like: Someone commented that Light hasn't been smiling very much lately, and I thought "yeah, I can use that." So that became properly canon in Episode 123, so I could bring things back around here. Someone guessed at some point that Magus would be a hopeful, optimistic foil to Light being the more experienced but also worn-out and stressed hero, and at the time I thought "probably not", but that idea is also very much on display in these last few episodes. I had to restrain my fingers (the typing equivalent of "biting one's tongue") when someone guessed about when Thad would get a mask, because I knew this event was when that was going to happen.
Anyway, this is the last of the run of episodes I have prepared at this time. I do want to get to the denouement of this whole thing (and the lead-in to what's coming after), but maybe so many updates of only this story will annoy or at least concern people interested in other things that I write here. So I may take a break and work on some of those instead; we'll see.
