Tier Three

The yawning maw that was the entire back of the Beast had opened up in front of him, and Wesley had no real pretense about the fact that he was very likely to die, here. His thoughts couldn't come together, not facing the endless likelihood of death just before him, to put together anything for his Elemental Emulation Skill. He didn't have enough laziness at the moment to emulate a Time Framework, or enough selfishness for a Space Framework.

He wasn't so benevolent at the moment to allow the Life Framework to give himself some sort of summoned creature, nor was he so focused on getting something done that he could activate the Death Framework. He simply could only stare into the maw of fangs that awaited him as he felt himself falling forward into the abyss of death.

This was it. He had fought so hard to get here, to survive everything that life had thrown at him to be able to fight against a Beast, to avenge his parents. To even allow himself one chance against them had been the single thing that he had wanted out of life, and yet now that he was here, even with a full group between himself, his allies, and then the group that held Andrew and John... even combining everything that they had together, he was still finding himself at the mercy of the Beast.

Were they this powerful? Were they truly such a force that he couldn't stand up against them? He had wanted more than anything to slaughter them, and yet he was finding that everything that he'd done up until this point had been for nothing. He wasn't able to avenge his parents- he wasn't able to keep them from rolling in their graves at his own failure. This was the difference between what he was capable of, and what the Beasts were- he understood now, more than ever, why the humans had been pushed back so far, so easily.

A gentle wind passed him by as he pitched forward, no longer able to stop himself as the creature thrashed again, sending him airborne directly into the waiting maw.

But before he fell, a sudden blast of what felt like hot water slammed into his face and chest, the raw power behind it actually sending him up and backward through the air. The shock of it caused his eyes to flutter back open, and he saw an individual standing (standing!?) in the air, facing the creature from its side. The upper half of its jaw was split, spiraling through the air as the blood from the Beast sprayed in all directions, coating the landscape (and those below) in the crimson spray.

However, he realized that he was now free-falling from the back of the creature, hurtling down toward the ground. His eyes opened, before he turned in the air, facing the rapidly-approaching dirty street beneath him. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes, trying desperately to focus on the selfishness that came with the Space Framework, doing his damnedest to try and keep from turning into Wes-colored paste on the ground.

The distance began to stretch for a moment, before he suddenly found himself inches above the ground and he collided with it, grunting as he felt something crack in his chest. Ribs, maybe. "Guh..." he managed out, not able to breathe as the air was forced from his lungs, and he struggled for what felt like an eternity before he finally managed to take a breath.

The dust from the street flew into his mouth and nose, and Wesley coughed several times, trying to expel it as he turned onto his back, struggling for air as he stared up at the cloudless morning.

"Wes, dude, you okay?" he heard his brother call, and he merely lifted a hand, about all he could do at the moment, before dropping it again, not able to respond much more than that at the moment. He shuddered, the pain in his chest from his ribs enough to cause each of his breaths to send sharp spears of pain throughout his entire body. It seemed that he wasn't too far off with the broken ribs.

Jay's face came into his vision a moment later, the man leaning down and examining Wes' empty stare before he frowned, looking up and away at someone. "Hey, Ted! Uh...Ethan! C'mere," he called out, gesturing the two of them over to where his brother lay on the ground. "Can we get some Restoration going here?"

Jay backed off then and there were two other faces that came into view. Wesley recognized them both, and the feeling that there was going to be some sort of 'safety' with the both of them caused him to start to lower his guard, now that he was no longer on the cusp of death. His entire body ached, and there was the possibility that he had more broken than just his ribs, but as the pair began to go to work on him, Wes' eyes began to flutter closed, the young man falling unconscious.

-

"What the hell was he thinking?" Sasha asked, her gaze clearly full of concern as she stared at Wesley on the ground, standing near Jay. "That was basically just suicide, going up there."

The older of the two siblings gave a low sound. "If I'm being honest, Sash, I don't think he meant to do that," the man spoke, the shirt he wore torn and several bloodstains showing through, indicating that he had very likely taken some severe damage before he too had been Restored. Granted, he had his own Skill to use, and Wesley might too, if he could have focused on it, but he sincerely doubted that his brother was in any state to do that right now.

She frowned at that, before she glanced over to where the Beast lay. Or rather, the pieces of it. She had been about two seconds away from Teleporting herself up to the back of the Beast herself to rescue Wesley when the figure had shot in, almost too fast for them to keep up with. He'd simply leapt skyward and then stayed there, something that none of them knew was even possible, before he cleaved the upper fangs off of the creature's body with... something, before using that same thing to cut the creature in half.

"Do you have any idea who that is?" she asked, looking to Jay, who shook his head. "Yeah, me either. He seems like he's good at what he does, though," the young woman spoke, unable to help but to find a bit of safety in a figure that was able to so easily dispatch the Beast that the lot of them had been fighting against for as long as they had, none of them making any headway. Of course, they couldn't really see the fellow very well, as he wore the standard heavy overcoat of the Soldier, the hood pulled up over his features.

It was at this point that Shannon had made her way up and was walking toward the figure, when she had heard their words. She paused, glancing at them. "That's no he. That's Victoria Frost," the woman spoke, the sour look on her face abating for just a moment as she looked back over at the figure who was clearly using the communicator to speak to someone else. "She's a Tier Three, and I've heard her Time Framework is over fifty percent."

Jay swallowed at that. He was a Tier One... and so were all of them here aside from John, and the Beast had just completely held them all at bay with ease... and then a single Tier Three had shown up and obliterated this creature without even trying. He felt awe building in his stomach, but at the same time, there was annoyance in equal measure.

This was something that he could never do. He couldn't ever reach this same point. She was born with the innate gift of being a Tier Three, and not only that, but she had a high amount of Framework in a single Element. That was over two-hundred percent for him as a Tier One. There was no way that he could ever compete with that, no matter how hard he trained and practiced, and that hard truth was a bitter pill to swallow.

But she seemed to finish her conversation then, pulling her hand away from the communicator before she turned to look at the group that was still putting themselves back together. She strode toward the group and while she wasn't particularly noteworthy in her appearance, the absolute confidence she exuded made her seem several times more attractive than she might have been otherwise. "Lieutenant Shannon," the woman spoke, her piercing blue eyes on the one trained Soldier. "I trust that you did not request these rookies assist you?" she spoke. Her tone was matter-of-fact and straight to the point, without any sort of wavering hesitation.

Shannon saluted, before she shook her head. "No ma'am. I told them to flee, to save themselves. But this one," she spoke, gesturing to Wesley's unconscious form on the ground, "had rallied them all together to defend me, even after I told them to leave."

Victoria's eyes flickered to Wesley's prone form, her eyes narrowing.