Chapter 10 - At the Dawn of Spring

The colors bled from the world, smearing everything till it became a disordered black. My sight curled to nothing, and suddenly, splotches of blues and reds began to dot my vision in blurry approximations.

Heat was an abstract concept to put into words when capable of being viewed, but somehow the Semblance that I pilfered was able to add contrast to depth and distance to give me a sort of blue and red outline of the world. If one imagined a majority of the world being an ever constant dark blue that shifted to light blue every so often, then you would understand the background of what I was seeing. There was that odd red or lightish orange that stained warmer areas such as lights, and, with the fireball that was the original warehouse, the previous blue world was shrouded in a corona of red, bleeding heat.

However, that all paled in comparison to the deep, dark blueish-black hole that encompassed the area where the man stood. As well as the fact that the man was still standing a few meters away from me with an almost wraithlike grace -I don't think I saw him so much as twitch after he first moved. The craziest thing was the forearm that had appeared out of nowhere and speared through my chest the moment he moved.

It was only my ability to sense when Aura was being used for a Semblance that I was able to react in time, phasing out of the danger before my heart was run through. I couldn't feel it in this state of being immaterial to the plane that I stood on, but I knew that my heart was hammering through my chest.

'That was close…' I sweated despite not having physical pores -or I did, but phasing was weird.

Still, staring down at my opponent who still hadn't moved the arm from chest was somewhat wracking on any nerves a person might have. It took a moment for me to realize that there was an undercurrent of warm exiting the dark blotch where his head was, and I noted that I couldn't quite hear in this state.

The problem was that I could barely get any traction, either. My feet wouldn't suddenly slip through the floor, but I also couldn't move very far without trying my hardest on running away -the fastest I could go being a brisk walking pace. If I wasn't moving then being untouchable was just making myself an easy target to follow and wait till I came out of hiding.

However, I couldn't rematerialize with an arm inside me; the chances that that might just kill me was something I wouldn't like testing. Nor could I try to talk out why the snow-haired man had decided that impalement via arm was the best choice to start off our relationship. As such, I took the time that my own brand of stolen invincibility gave me to look into the power of the individual I was dealing with.

[Projected area-restricted extended perception. Area-limited wormhole creation.]

I frowned as suddenly the thermal vision became everywhere, and the link connected the two of us. My only sense at the moment was just my odd thermal vision, but when mixed with the effects of the man before me's Semblance, it felt like I could see every single angle of heat within the range of twenty two meters.

And within twenty two meters exactly was the man shaped hole of darkness. I could finally see him better than being a small cut out of the warmer environment. However, with the increased senses, I could also see that he wasn't entirely a hole of heatless space. A line going from his elbow to the tip of his pinky was getting oddly hotter by the second, and I didn't have enough visual cues to even begin understanding why exactly that was the case.

I did, however, have enough to to figure out that there was an odd curl in space at the space where the arm was coming out of, and that there was a similar curl coming from the right sleeve of his form. And, with my new Semblance, I knew how to affect what I now knew was a wormhole.

If it wasn't the power telling me that creating more than one was theoretically improbable, then I would have cried. Still, this new power gave me enough to fight against this crazy man. After all, he was probably the one who blew up the warehouse, and a hero shouldn't leave such a dangerous criminal on the loose.

The only problem was the sheer amount of Aura rolling off of the man, and the fact that he was unperturbed by not hurting me with the first attack. In fact, he even seemed to be waiting for the exact moment that I came back to finish me off. So I pulled the advice of mister Rouge: I lost all love for my opponent for a second.

The link between us flared in my head with phantasmal heat that not even my vision could pick up. The edges of the space that curled around his arm waved for a second, and I could tell that something changed in the lacksidal attitude of the man before me as he suddenly appeared more visible in my heat vision. His once midnight hue became a brighter and brighter red while the lines on his arms became nearly white.

He was moving now, small trails of heat gathering around his suddenly warm body. The arm that was still inside my chest was rapidly leaving at a pace of milliseconds. However, milliseconds were all I needed to close the wormhole. His right arm was removed at the forearm as easily as a hot knife through butter.

It was almost comical at how easily it fell through me, uselessly flopping on the ground and spreading a pool of heat on the floor. Dripping faucets of hot liquid came from the man as well, but I felt something in me fear that he wasn't done. He didn't even react to the wound; just gave it a glance as it bled the bright warm blood until it suddenly stopped.

I felt everything come back as I transitioned back to the world, easing myself out of the phase I settled into. Instantly, I felt the effects of the semblance I pilfered react to the rest of my senses, and I was suddenly aware of everything.

My sight found every detail in my environment. Every stone, cracked concrete, stain, watermark or trace of dust was suddenly as visible as if my eyes were right next to them. The same went for every other aspect of my senses, and I nearly toppled over at the sheer amount of sensory information that began to pass through my mind. It felt like, in these twenty-two meters that surrounded me, I was the center of the universe.

'Wait, calm down…' I shook my head, making the sheer scale at which I was looking at everything come easier. 'Fight now, gawk later, Jaune.'

"You've finally come to." The man spoke easily, alerting me of the fact that he hadn't made a single move for the couple seconds I stood there like an idiot. "It's a beautiful feeling, no?"

I almost answered, before clamping down on my tongue. The change from aggressive to conversational was really jarring. "Who are you?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, where are my manners…" The man bowed, taking the time to remove his robe with almost practiced grace before folding it up right next to him. However, I wasn't sure I was quite ready for the amount of pale scars of various lengths dragging across his body in thin, white lines. The one thing that gave me a bit of pause was the fact that the stump that was once his right arm had already scabbed into a deep, red crust. Even with Aura helping, I found that speed ridiculous.

"My name is Carver, Arie." The white-haired man finally said. This time I was able to get a good view of his other arm as he stood; from the elbow to the fingertips the coloration seemed to darken to pitch black from his already dark skin, and I could finally see that there was a sharp silver blade jutting from his elbow to his pinky, parting the nearby flesh as if it was supposed to be there in the first place. "And I am a swordsman."

"Uh…" I honestly didn't know how to respond. In the end, I decided not to, and instead catalogued everything he said.

'Carver Arie… Arie…that sounds familiar- wait!' My body froze as I suddenly remembered just where I heard the name Arie Carver. I couldn't help the cold sweat that suddenly engulfed my back, nor the fact that a lump had begin to sit in my throat. All because of the fact that the name Arie Carver was known by pretty much everyone.

He was one of the Reds.

My hands went straight for Vengeance and Mercy, sweat making gripping the handles on both of them a slight chore. I began to tremble lightly as the horror stories about the places Arie visited were turned into nothing but scar ridden buildings full of bodies. And never once during all that had he been injured.

Idly, my eyes fell to the arm that laid calmly on the ground, half expecting it to shoot up and reattach itself to the dark skinned criminal. Both of us knew it was a complete fluke that made it possible to take his arm, and I certainly wasn't getting a second chance anytime soon. However, only the crackle of the nearby burning building and the laughs of the murderer twenty two meters away made me seem like that expectation was stupid.

"I see you recognize me! This makes it even better!" The killer grinned a mouthful of pearly white teeth. "Come, let us fight sword against sword, and feel as the world announces our clash! I want to know the sound our sword, too! It feels so… similar."

"Yeah, um, about the whole 'feeling the world thing' can we, you know, reschedule it?" I asked, finding it in me to try and joke past the sheer terror I was feeling. My words could've been incomplete stutters for all I knew, but all I wanted to to try and get away. No matter how strong I had gotten, this guy was on another level entirely. "I'm pretty booked right now, but maybe we can meet up another time?"

"Really?" Arie asked, clearly confused. "I guess I'm also on a mission, so I shouldn't be indulging myself. Though," Arie paused, and I felt as if the world was getting a littler darker. "This is the first time I have been needing such a serious patch up from Lacerus… hey, do you know a nickname for Lacerus? I can't seem to come up with one."

I felt lost at how childish and unserious this man was now that he started talk, and the fact that I stared at him for a good minute or two after he spoke was a good indicator for how underwhelmed I was. This was not what I had expected. In the end, I just answered 'Lacy' because I thought it would get him away faster.

"Excellent!" Arie announced happily.

Then his body began to steam. Small plumes of white vapors began to waft of his skin at a visible rate, and the sword embedded into his arm was growing red hot. Before I could question what was going on, my body moved on instinct as the swordsman disappeared briefly from my eyes.

I could still see him as he cut a path straight towards me. Through the virtue that I was aware of everything happening in the twenty two meters around me I was able to witness that, despite the loss of limb, the man was faster than I could physically catch him. If anything his lost arm made him faster with the less weight weighing him down.

So I put all my effort in following him through his Semblance. The world around me followed every twitch of his legs, and every spark that glanced off the pavement as his bare feet deftly trailed over the asphalt.

His left arm swung backwards before he reached me, a ovular wormhole opening up at the apex of its path. I followed the path, and hurriedly braced Vengeance against my side before the blade on his arm smashed into my silvery weapon.

My muscles screamed along with the bright sparks that flew into the air as the metals grinded on each other. The rubber on my sneakers squeaked desperately as my feet were almost dragged from underneath me, and I had to dig into the ground with all my strength to not get sent flying.

However, in that instant, I reach out towards the opened wormhole. It wavered along with my thoughts, collapsing around his arm, but that's when I realize that the wormhole seemed to enlarge around the end of his arm's path.

As his bladed arms grinded past my blade, and finished its attack, it reached the larger part of the wormhole before it could be cut off by the collapsing thinner parts. Instead, Arie had ample amount of time to remove his arm before the tear in space cut off his remaining weapon.

I breathed deeply. There was no warning or que to our fight, but I knew that's just how this Arie guy was. He darted around topics like he used his wormholes; one second he would be talking and the next he would be trying to cut you down. In fact, it was my mistake to even believe that I could run away without a fight.

Heart pounding in my ears and sour sweat clinging to the air, my eyes peered through my mask to my opponent. If I was to fight, then I needed to bring out every trick in my book. Looking down, I found the bags of Dust that I had pilfered to still be on the ground where I dropped them when I went intangible. There was a weight limit to the phasing that I just now found out.

'Apparently, he already has an idea that I copy Semblances…' I thought to myself, eyeing the now still swordsman. The steam that had been roiling off of him was now nowhere to be seen, and his bladed arm looked like it was cooling down.

And he was smiling now. A wide grin spreading across his face as if a kid that had been given a candy store. He began to walk towards me in the tense silence, slow and methodical steps that juxtaposed the excitement his entire form gave off.

"You can see my Semblance, friend." Arie spoke as he moved, picking up his pace. "My space tears won't catch you off guard like every other swordsman I have faced." He spread his arm and stump in an inviting gesture. "We can finally fight an honorable fight!"

The closer he got, the more and more I felt that I wanted to run away. This guy was insane! Fight an honorable fight? Did he want to duel to the death while he was already down an arm?

However, I had an idea on how to fight this guy. My mind was racing as the monster stepped closer, and I knew the second I opened the wormholes that my idea based on I couldn't run away. That no matter what my night started as, I would need to finish the fight with someone clear out of my weight class.

And as I resolved myself in the tense, wordless clash of our respective senses, I felt that I could do it. I would fight against one of the most terrifying criminals to ever grace Remnant. Arie must have sensed that I was preparing myself for a fight because he grinned and moved, now running straight at me with battlelust rolling off his movements.

Until he stopped and my heart froze. The sudden stop in our movements was on no part ours, but it was because of the person who stepped into our fight. No, stepped was a bad way to say how they came into the range of our senses.

They phased into the area, marching past a solid wall as if it wasn't there.

"You idiotic buffoon!" The person yelled at Arie in a high pitched roar. Their shorter red hair bouncing as I realized that she had become physical now. "What's taking you so long!"

"Ah, sorry Lily…" Arie looked almost meek in the face of the redhead, but all I felt was ice freezing my veins.

'There's… two of them.' My mind whirred as I studied who I suspected to be another member of the Reds. With the familiarity that they had with each other, there was little doubt that she was just a random passerby.

Shoulder length dark red hair trailed off in curls at her ears, and bounced with each step. A pair of bright, green eyes hadn't even acknowledged me as she glowered over the one-armed swordsman. She was also tall, reaching up to my height while still being rather lean.

Baggy, green camouflage pants shifted on her long legs with a pair of thick combat boots treading across the ground. A thin, white, spaghetti-strap top left little to the imagination as it hugged around her curves, and revealed her slender arms. Oddly, there was a few small bulbs on her wrists that seemed to be darker than her creme colored skin.

As if to spite me, her gaze finally found me, the arm next to me and the fact that I looked like I was prepared to fight after glaring at Arie of a couple seconds. If I didn't find her so terrifying, then I might have complimented the fact that she was rather beautiful. She even looked like she was close to my age, too.

'Why is it always the scary ones who are hot?' I asked myself, and tensed as the teen scowled my way.

"You hurt him?" I heard it as a question, but I knew she was just stating the obvious.

"Ah, Lily, are you worrying about me?" Arie cut in happily. "I see I'm finally warming up to you! Don't worry about the arm, though! I lose them all the time, so Lacerus always has extra for me- ack!"

"Shut up." The teen growled as she jabbed a hand in Arie's throat. "You," Her green eyes bored into me. "Who the hell are you?"

"Uh, who are you?" I asked back, not really sure what to do.

If anything, my answer didn't really seem to cool her ire. Instead, she growled, "I mean who's your gang? The Union and their dogs? A random criminal? That new gang cropping up in the corpse of Junior's organization? Why are you standing in our way?"

"What?" I felt myself frowning at her questions. "Aren't you mistaking something? You guys," There was some righteous fury gathering in my words as my volumed increased. "Killed all those people in that explosion! They-"

"Are criminals." The girl cut in. "They all have killed, raped and dealt with their fair share of evils. The real question is: why you're protecting them?"

"That's…" I felt all my tongue feel like a lead weight in my mouth, uselessly flopping to try and retort. No matter how much I wanted to argue that killing was wrong, I couldn't quite pull out the words. And, as she stared at me, I realized that they weren't going to let me go no matter how I answered.

I had injured Arie and that was enough to cement myself as bad to her, and protecting criminals all under the notion that killing is wrong was apparently not the answer. The Reds were known for silencing their enemies, and being ruthless in everything they do. That meant that no matter what I said or did, we would be opposed to one another. After all, they were criminals while I was the hero.

"Does it really matter now?" I asked, letting my hands tighten around my weapons. Fighting one person from one of the most feared criminal group was one thing, and fighting two was definitely something I was going to be cursing myself over.

The teen seemed to find something within my answer and nodded to herself. Arie laughed, "See, we're all getting along! He didn't seem like a bad guy to me. Right, Lily?"

"I thought I told you to call me Lilac? My name, you idiot." Lilac snarled. "Besides, Summer didn't say she saw anyone here other than us. He," She gestured over to me. "Shouldn't even be here."

"Oh," Arie seemed to catch onto something I didn't. His face didn't really give much other than disappointment. "Oh well, I thought I finally had someone who I could cross swords with other than the leader. Sums had been making mistakes lately, but I guess he might be the cause."

There was no warning, again. Maybe there was an unspoken declaration or it had been slipped in somewhere, but whatever it was I couldn't find it. Instead, both of them had charged me the second Arie finished talking.

Arie was steaming once more, causing small eddies of white vapor to swirl in his absence. Lilac, on the other hand, was intermittently phasing in and out of existence as her strides made her glide across the ground. Both of them moved fast enough for me to lose track of them physically.

Of course, I knew this before they had even acted, and I was getting used to the randomness of Arie's attacks. They had Aura to increase their physical abilities, too, so if they teamed up I would be hard pressed to do any other than hide out in phase.

So before they had even moved I had a plan ready.

A wormhole opened up next to one of my bags of Dust as they ran, and another appeared right next to Arie. As the tears in space curled into existence, we both understood just what I was doing. His eyes widened by a fraction, but I was already finishing my initial attack.

Vengeance slammed into the bag of Dust, sparking against the concrete below. The bag ignited into a huge explosion. Jaws of flame clamped around my form, but I was already prepared for it, phasing out before I could feel the full force of the blast.

The other bags of Dust were spared from the blast as the wormhole I created was swallowing the explosion before it took the rest with it.

Wormholes were an odd thing, and Arie's Semblance was even more questionable. He could alter the size of his wormholes and even the shapes. And that's exactly what I did; funneling the blast of my makeshift bomb into a large hole in space to a much smaller exit.

The end result was Arie getting slammed with a massive plume of fire and force. The ground around the exit bubbled and cracked, pieces of loose asphalt being sent flying as my attack roared into being a few meters in front of me.

However, where Arie was being held down via explosion, Lilac was free to move in her phased state. She easily charged straight through the explosion surrounding me, and punched a free hand at my chest.

Though, I think both of us were startled when her hand actually collided with my phased out body. I stumbled back a few steps, reeling in pain and confusion as she stared at me. Something broke off her wrists, and fell to the ground with an odd clink, becoming physical as soon as it left her body.

All I could see was a small red marble before it too exploded into fiery light. Heat washed over my vision, and snakes of fire lanced through me. However, I was safe while in phase. Normally, nothing could touch me, and I think that's exactly what Lilac was thinking up until she collided with me.

'Wait, I can see her, too…' I realized that, even though I was phased, I could still see her. The whole world was awash with my thermal vision, but only Lilac was visible in all her form.

I think we both kind of stared for a second before moving once more. As the fire around us died down, we both went physical before jumping away from each other.

Lilac frowned, snapping several more red marbles from her wrists where more promptly started growing in their place. She threw more my way as I went into phase, sending the area I was in into a flurry of explosions.

As I moved, the ground behind me became a street pockmarked with divots formed from those marbles that were growing on her wrists. Internally, I was screaming about where this ability had come from, but I was too busy trying to time when I went physical to try and get away from being cornered by her small grenades to say anything.

Lilac had somehow been corralling me despite my efforts to evade, and I quickly found her passing through one of her explosions as a sort of cover. Her sudden appearance caught me so off guard that I couldn't react in time for her to slam a fist into my gut.

Sheer pain rushed to my brain as I found it difficult to breathe. A part of me wanted nothing more than to curl up and gasp for air, but Rouge's training had pounded in my head that now was not the time for that.

Instead, I pushed through the pain, gritting my teeth as I stepped into the still phased enemy's guard. She had used the distraction of the explosion to land a blow on me in the hopes that I would be felled by that hit, but her stance was odd and lopsided when she realized she hadn't taken me out.

My sword swung out as I stepped, drawing a silver blur in the phased world. However, the second I was about to hit her, she turned physical, letting my blade pass through her.

Still, I was not done. Forcefully twisting my hips, I phased back into existence, and continued my swipe at the female member of the Reds.

Lilac wasn't done with trying to dodge my blow even when we were basically shoulder to shoulder, and her body phased in and out of the world as she tried to time when my blow would hit her. What she failed to know was the fact that I knew each and every instant that she went intangible. It was simple to match her whenever the blade was about to hit.

That was until a black hand came in, parting the smoke that surrounded us, and grabbed my blade the second that I went tangible. I was given no time to think what that meant before blinding pain erupted on my side.

There was a loud crack as I stifled a scream, biting deep into my lips. My body flew like a ragdoll for a second; curling slightly around the foot that had been buried into my side before being launched into the broken road.

I bounced twice before beginning my roll, and only stopped after a couple seconds of trying to grind my blade into the pavement. My vision blurred slightly as I tried to make sense of what just happened. A deep agony set into my ribs as I realized they were broken once more.

'Is this a common theme now?' I wanted to scream, but the Semblance that I gained from Arie was informing me that the two killers were still charging me. Still, I was given a little bit of breathing room as they had paused when I had been sent flying.

Breathing room that was slowly becoming useless as Arie was on me within seconds, steam rolling off him and a grin stained to his face. The scariest thing was the fact that the huge -and very focused- explosion had barely slowed him down. Sure, there were large burns that simmered on his flesh, and I could see signs of growing scabs taking some areas on his dark skin, but for the most part, he was still moving fine.

I barely had a second of thought before the battle crazed maniac attacked me. A large sweeping kick sliced through the air towards my neck, but I ducked right at the moment to catch Lilac throwing a few red marbles our way.

Hurriedly, I phased out of the world, twisting as I put some more distance from the white-haired monster who just shoved his hand into the hard concrete, boring into the gray ground with ease as the explosion washed over the two of us. Idly, I noted that he must have done that exact maneuver against my improvised explosion attack to not get thrown away from the blast. He was crazy, I had decided then and there.

All that being said, I barely had time to get good enough traction by becoming physical before I was forced to block a swipe from Arie's sword embedded left arm. The force from the blow was enough to make me remember the fact that I now had broken ribs, and I tiredly stopped myself from doubling over in pain.

Luckily, I had Lilac appearing right next to us as a perfect distraction from having to spare time to care about the pain in my ribs. She sent a flurry of punches and kicks that matched Arie's, phasing in and out of sustainability to throw me off.

I was forced to match her random switches while paying attention to the fact that Arie was trying to take my head off. Though, I did notice that she was specifically trying to force me into my physical form to drop one of her marbles inside me while she was phased. After I had noticed that little terrifying trick, I made sure to try and be as phased as possible whenever she had one of those marbles ready to pop off her wrists.

'Six seconds…' I reminded myself as I ducked under another swipe from Arie, collapsing a wormhole he had tried to sneak in while we fought.

If it wasn't for his specific sensory expansion ability tied into the wormhole creation, then I probably wouldn't have been able to watch both opponents at the same time. There was also the fact that Lilac's entire strategy never went very far off of trying to stick an exploding marble inside me while she was phased, so I was having an easier time reading her. In fact, I was confidently taking information as we fought, and realized that she could have three marbles on one wrist as a single moment as well as the fact that they took a whole six seconds to regrow.

However, I had no idea where I would implement this knowledge. Sure, I might be able to pull something off if Lilac and I fought alone, but with the two of them here I was having trouble matching them.

Every second I thought I was about to land a blow on Liac, Arie would intervene at the perfect moment. And don't get me started on Arie. He had been running through every single explosion that Lilac sent out, and hadn't gotten more than another couple scratches on his body.

When I had gotten a little bit of space between the three of us for a small moment of rest, I had shot a few shots of Mercy's high caliber shots at Arie, expecting Aura to make my shots useless as it warded off my shots. I had also expected the shots to at least give him some pause.

However, he had ran straight through the bullets, letting them ping off his midnight skin like they were striking metal. That was the first time I noticed that he hadn't been using Aura at all this entire fight.

That this crazy battle nut had been tanking explosions, sword swings, bullets and everything in between with only his physical body. And, more importantly, he had been winning!

I had decided then and there that I needed to get away before exhaustion and pain distracted me long enough for one of them to get the better of me.

So the dance of the three of us continued. Arie would dart at me, charging through the bullets I sent his way and the explosions of his teammate. I would block his attacks in a hurried panic, barely dredging up the strength to not get blown backwards while my ribs would scream a whole new tune of misery. As the battle lagged on and on, I found that there were a growing amount of cuts gathering on my arms and legs from Arie's sword embedded arm that stung and bled with every forced movement.

Lilac wasn't making it any better for me, either. She would pepper the area with those marbles of hers, drawing both me and Arie into fiery blasts that cracked the ground, and sent flying debris my way that I had to dodge through with great prejudice. It didn't help that she would suddenly rush through at any time my attention on her lapsed for just a second with the intent to put one of those volatile spheres inside me.

This whole terrifying tango continued for a little longer as I found just exactly where I needed to be. Another explosion yelled in my ears long enough for me to still find my head ringing even as I phased out of existence, but Lilac wasn't giving me the benefit of rest.

She hurriedly ran up to me as I was dazed, sending a punch that I slid past with a grace that ignited my ribs. The one thing that she didn't expect was that when I attacked with Vengeance, I stabbed forwards, completely missing her by quite a bit.

However, that was only if a wormhole hadn't opened up in the path of the blade tip, the exit pointing straight into her sternum. She barely had the mind to watch as my weapon forced itself into her unguarded torso, taking her breath away as she was pushed back by my strength.

Lilac landed a few meters away, keeling on the ground while glaring at me, breathless. The problem was that Arie hadn't even spared a glance at his injured teammate, and I was forced to retract Vengeance before he could close the wormhole around the part that stuck out.

I was physical again before he even reached me. His attacks were normally telegraphed long before he even made the blow, and I was given ample time to ready myself before the left haymaker came in like a freight train.

Even the wind from the fist coming my way was something to be afraid of, and we had gotten into the rhythm of me either jumping away before he could attack or me phasing before he struck. That meant that when I stepped into punch, letting the corded, black arm pass right next to my head and scrap along the top of my shoulder, his expression was one of delicious shock and confusion.

I felt my body shake from the sheer force of the attack that had occurred so close, and my eardrums popped at the change in pressure that he had created from the punch. However, as I shoved the hilt of Vengeance into his ribs, I knew I had gotten him.

I had noticed a little while ago that whenever he wasn't steaming he had trouble stopping rapidly. His speed and strength might have been upped a couple times while burned up inside, too, but he most certainly had difficulties stopped without his little boost.

That meant that when I kneeled on the ground, braced Vengeance's tip into the concrete and jabbed the hilt into his side as he was in the middle of moving, we had reached the proverbial 'unstoppable force versus an immovable object' scenario.

For the first time in our fight, I saw his expression change from a slight, arrogant grin to a something quite gratifying. His eyes bugged as his body bent around the sword. The ground around us cracked in a spider web around my sword, giving away only after a couple seconds of resisting this monster. Then there was a loud boom as the concrete burst from the collision of the forces, and the whole area shattered in all directions.

It was at that moment that I began the final steps to my plan. In the time that Arie was distracted by my sudden counterattack, I created a wormhole to the bags of stolen Dust that had miraculously survived the fight, and Vengeance's tip slammed straight into the middle of them.

Sparks flew as the metal grinded against the ground before there was what I could only describe as a bellow of fire and flame. Heat and pain engulfed me as the explosion exited on the wormhole beneath me, burning my skin the second I touched the fire. Idly, I felt my ears burst as the roar turned into a soft mewl to me while I could still feel that it was much louder than I could hear.

For the first time in the fight, I screamed. Pain greater than any other lanced through my nerves as the fire tried to eat away at my body, and my throat quickly grew dry and hoarse as the heat and smoke filtered into my airways. I had already went through several explosions and fires, but I always had a power that would let me negate some aspect of it.

In the couple seconds that it took the blast to reach me, I weathered through the entire fire and flame of the explosions I had been using. My body was lifted by the force of the bomb, and I instantly sought the safety of my pilfered phasing ability.

When I felt my body enter intangibility, the force from the explosion was still carrying me, and I basically flew away as the blast carried me away at a blistering pace. A plume of fire covered my escape as Lilac's heat vision couldn't see through the sheer amount of heat that was covering my trail. It barely took a second to leave the entire twenty two meters of Aire's pseudovision, and I flew a little longer before my flight dipped down.

My falling body would have crashed through several buildings along the way if it wasn't for the handy phasing Semblance of Lilac. Instead, I was allowed very brief, one-minute tours of several rooms along my way to the ground.

Still, I was rather glad that my landing was softened by phasing slightly through it before I crumpled back into the physical world, rolling for several more meters along the coarse gravel before my back slammed into a helpful lamppost. My whole body groaned in complaint as I breathed. Even then I still continued to cough up black smoke for a couple minutes more.

I didn't even need to look over all the damages to my body to know that I had probably been through one of my worst fights. Cuts and bruises of differing severity covered my body, and even twitching my fingers caused some amount of pain to make my mind lag in torment. The worst was perhaps the new broken ribs as well as the fact that I was still coughing up smoke.

However, despite all my injuries, I took the time to stumble up to my feet, bracing one arm on the lamppost that had stopped my uncontrolled landing and the other arm using Vengeance as a crutch. It took me a couple of moments to realize that I had left Mercy back with those two members of the Reds, and I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that I was worried more about my pistol than myself for a second.

"That… could have been worse…" I breathed out, somehow finding a smile on my face.

If it wasn't for Arie losing an arm at the beginning to my surprise attack, then I wouldn't have gotten the upper hand on him. If it wasn't for me being able to pinpoint Lilac's strategy, then I would have been an explosion away from death. If it wasn't for Lilac not having much finesse in her movements and relying mainly on her Semblance, then I wouldn't have been able to phase as much to dodge away. If it wasn't for Arie not doing anything other than highly telegraphed attacks, then I would've been beaten black and blue. If it wasn't for them falling into a false sense of security, then I wouldn't had been able to run away.

There was so much that lined up in my favor that I wasn't even sure if I could call myself lucky or unlucky. However, as I still breathed and struggled to march my way back home, I knew that I had definitely come a long way since I first started.

I found myself back outside my apartment just as the sun was gracing over the buildings in Vale's horizon, and I locked onto one power that I really needed right now.

[Single-target parasitic Aura theft. Activatable shared Aura.]

I gasped as I pulled on the Aura it was connected with, and suddenly felt the healing properties of the energy suffuse through me. It was so warm and comforting that I almost passed out on the spot.

Still, I stumbled up the stairs to my door, careful not to get blood anywhere only to meet the eyes of my neighbors waiting patiently outside my door. They looked at me, staring at all the wounds that covered me, and probably making some kind of guess to what happened in my eventful night.

"What does the other guy look like?" One of the twins asked. I couldn't really tell which one as my vision chose now to suddenly become a blurry mess, but based on the tone I had to guess that they wore red.

However, I couldn't really answer that question as all that came out was blood and smoke as well as a well meaning laugh. For some reason I felt quite safe as I collapsed at their feet. Their words were no longer aggressive towards me, and, while we were once enemies, I liked to think that I was a good judge of character.

I closed my eyes to two blurry people rushing towards me. Numbing darkness was pleasant company as well.