SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Chill Out (New)

Chill Out

“Weiss?” Sunset said, her eyes boggling. Of all the people…

Weiss turned towards her, inadvertently pointing the blade of her slender rapier up towards Sunset’s midriff. The slight widening of her own eyes seemed to make her scar disappear. “Sunset?”

“You were in that airship that went down?” Sunset asked. “What were you doing there?”

“I could just as well ask you what you’re doing here,” Weiss replied. “But yes, I was in the airship.”

“I saw the crash,” Sunset said. “I saw your Bullhead get shot down. I was coming to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

“Kind of you,” Weiss murmured. “But fortunately and unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do. I … am the only survivor, and as you’ve just seen, I can take care of myself.”

“Who … else was in there with you?” Sunset asked; she knew where Cardin and Flash were, but Russel was still unaccounted for.

“Just the pilot,” Weiss said. “I got his body out of the wreck, but … he died in the crash.” She paused. “So … what are you doing in Vale; I thought you were leaving on a mission to Mount Aris.”

“It’s a little difficult to leave Vale at the moment,” Sunset replied. “What are you doing flying into Vale?”

“I thought that I could be of more use here in Vale than as just one more sword on the lines beyond the city,” Weiss replied. “Since I’ve worked with the VPD in the past, I thought they might appreciate my assistance restoring order here in the city.” She paused. “How much do you know about everything that’s been going on tonight?”

“I…” Sunset paused, glancing away for a second. “I … I know about Flash.”

Weiss let out a little breath, not quite a gasp but on its way there. “I … see,” she whispered. “May I ask how?”

“I had to take … someone up to the Atlesian medical frigate,” Sunset explained. “I ran into Cardin there; he told me.”

“Ah,” Weiss murmured. “I see. I think? Who was it?”

“Who was who?”

“The person you were taking up the medical frigate?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’m a little curious about what you’ve been up to,” Weiss said.

Sunset couldn’t have put into words why she felt awkward about admitting this, but feel awkward she did; perhaps it was just the fact that this was an awkward situation all around. Of all the people that she would have chosen to run into tonight, Weiss wasn’t on the list — at least, not after what Sunset had found out about Flash. She probably wouldn’t have minded so much beforehand, but…

“It was Councillor Emerald,” Sunset admitted. “He was wounded at the Military Headquarters, putting a stop to…”

“The military firing on the Atlesians?” Weiss suggested.

“And other things,” Sunset said. “It wasn’t exactly the fault of the soldiers, General Blackthorn…” She tried to remember the excuse that Councillor Emerald had come up with. “There was a gas leak in the headquarters, and it drove the officers a little mad. Councillor Emerald had to step in and restore order, but … he got shot in the process.”

Weiss blinked. “A gas leak.”

“Or a fault in the air filters, something like that,” Sunset said. “I can’t remember the exact thing, but they weren’t in their right minds is the point.”

“Mmm,” Weiss murmured. “Well, I’m sure the surgeons aboard the medical frigate will take good care of him. Just as they’ll take good care of Flash.” She paused for a second. “I’m … sorry.”

Sunset frowned slightly. “Sorry for what?”

“About Flash, obviously!” Weiss snapped. “What else would I be apologising for?”

“I don’t know,” Sunset said. “But I do know that I’m not the one you need to apologise to; Flash … I’ve had no claim on him for a long time. I’m sorry that he … it … I don’t know how to express how much he didn’t deserve to have this happen to him; it’s wrong and cruel and unjust. I hate it. I hate to imagine what his life will be like now. But I don’t need an apology from you.” Now it was her turn to pause for a second. “I suppose … I suppose you’ll be wanting a new teammate for next year, huh?”

Weiss went very quiet. She became silent, in fact. Myrtenaster trembled in her hand for a moment, before Weiss’ right hand, her free hand, flew upwards through the air to slap Sunset across the face.

There was a crack, and Sunset’s head whipped around to one side, her fiery hair flying all around her. She staggered sideways a step, clutching at her face. “Ow! That hurt!”

“GOOD!” shouted Weiss. “It was supposed to hurt! That’s the point of slapping somebody, to hurt them!” She wheeled away, her wedge heels tapping on the ground as she stomped up and down. “How … how dare you? How dare you suggest—?”

“What, that you’re a product of your culture?” Sunset asked. “I know how Atlas treats people with prosthetics, the way it looks at them, the same way that it looks at the faunus. Like they’re broken, imperfect—"

“Just because I am Atlesian does not mean that I am Atlas!” Weiss snapped. “I mean, just because I’m Atlesian doesn’t mean that I hold every attitude that someone from Atlas might have. Am I a racist just because some of my countrymen are?”

Sunset rubbed at her face where she’d been slapped. It was smarting, she could feel her cheek throbbing; she wouldn’t be surprised if it left a mark. “No,” she admitted. “At least not that I’ve noticed.”

“Then why would you assume that I would turn my back on Flash just because he was injured fighting alongside me?” Weiss demanded. “Or did you hope I would?”

“No!” Sunset cried. “No, I … absolutely not! I told you, I have no claim on Flash, and he has none on me either; I just … you can’t deny that it … that people think like that.”

“No,” Weiss admitted. “No, I don’t deny it; I admit that there are some people who feel that way, who look at people who have had to replace their limbs with … in a certain way.” She stopped pacing and whirled, ponytail flying, to look Sunset in the eye. “But I’m not one of them. I won’t be one of them, especially not with Flash. He’s still the man he was, and I still … care a great deal about him.”

Sunset was silent for a second or two. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said softly. “Because he deserves someone he can rely on.” She rubbed her cheek just a little more, then lowered her hand from it. “I shouldn’t have prejudged you so harshly. There was no reason to assume—”

“The worst?” Weiss finished for her. “No, there wasn’t, but I can understand why you did. You still care about him yourself, don’t you?”

“I want good things for him,” Sunset replied. “As I said, he deserves them, even if he hasn’t gotten them so far. Anyway, you have my apology, and my gratitude.” She glanced down at Myrtenaster in Weiss’ hand. “On an unrelated note, would you mind pointing that somewhere else; my aura is a little … broken, at the moment.”

“Oh, right,” Weiss said, tilting Myrtenaster so the point was aimed down at the ground. “You know, when I tried to fight with my aura broken, I almost got killed by a griffon.”

“That … was before Flash and Cardin—”

“Yes,” Weiss said. “That was after my loss to Pyrrha in the arena. You know that she—”

“Beat you in the final, yes, I do,” Sunset said.

“Not that it matters now, except that my aura was left very low by the time she was through with me,” Weiss explained. “I didn’t want to retreat, and so, my aura was broken. And I was still in a better state than you.”

“I’m not helpless without my aura, just … vulnerable,” Sunset replied. “More vulnerable than usual. Aura or not, I can’t just hide and wait for it to come back; I can’t sit by or even stand by while they’re fighting. They are still fighting, aren’t they?”

“I presume so,” Weiss answered. “After Beacon was cleared of grimm, most of the students went out to the lines outside the city. It seemed as if the grimm might attack.”

“But you came here instead?”

“One more sword wouldn’t make any difference out there,” Weiss said. “But I might be able to make a difference in here.”

“Fair enough,” Sunset answered. “That’s… more or less why I’m here, too.”

“That,” Weiss went on. “And I didn’t want any sympathy from the likes of Blake and Rainbow Dash. They’d mean well, I’m sure, but I didn’t want to hear how sorry they were about Flash, or how they’re sure that he’ll be okay, and how marvellous prosthetic limbs are in Atlas these days, or how I should stick with them since I don’t have a team of my own anymore, for my own safety.” She sighed. “As I said, I know that they’d mean well, and that any sympathies sent my way would be sincere and well meant, but … that doesn’t mean that I want to hear them. On my own, I could—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your solitude, but why are you on your own?” Sunset asked. “What happened to Russel?”

“I sent Russel up to the Amity Arena,” Weiss explained. “His aura was broken,” — she raised an eyebrow at Sunset — “and in any case, after what happened to Flash and Cardin, he was a little … unfocussed. I was worried that he would … it was best for him to take a rest.” She tilted her head a little. “It might be best for you to take a rest as well.”

“No,” Sunset said flatly.

Weiss shook her head. “I’m sure there would be a few people who would be upset if they had to bury you.”

“I don’t intend to be buried, or cremated,” Sunset responded. “I told you, I’m not helpless. I’ve already come across a grimm cultist, and I took care of him just fine without aura.”

“A grimm cultist? Here?”

“Who do you think shot at you?” asked Sunset. “I saw the missile hit your Bullhead from a tower over there.” She gestured in the direction of the tower block from which the rocket and the shots had come. “We can’t see it from here, and they can’t see us, which is good because they took shots at me too. Now, the grimm cultist told me that his group have been causing chaos in this area, the area where they live.” She bit her lip. “I came across a house they’d broken into. What they’d done to the people who lived there … wasn’t pretty.”

Weiss frowned. “The grimm cultists are all attacking critical infrastructure. Power plants, television studios—”

“Not this group,” Sunset said. “Apparently, it’s down to their leader; he’s told them to…” — she shuddered — “to shed blood to prove to the grimm that they are worthy.”

Weiss made a shivering sound, although her body did not tremble. “I’ll never understand such people. To venerate and worship man-eating monsters, the insanity of it. So what you’re saying is that they’re spread out across this district, committing violent acts?”

“Perhaps, but I’m not so sure,” Sunset replied. “When I came across this particular cultist, he was all alone; the others had all gone—”

“Moved on to their next victim?”

“Or they’d gone back to the tower they’re based out of,” Sunset said. “These are poor people, to put it bluntly; whoever their leader is, it seems he’s been using resentment of their rich neighbours to recruit followers. I’ve been shot at from the roof, and you’ve been brought down from that same roof, and how many people can grimm worship really attract? I think if we head to that tower where the shots and the missile came from, we stand a good chance of catching their leader, maybe the whole group. At the very least, it’s a place to start, and a vantage point. We can find out how many other cultists there are, where they’ve gone, do what we have to do. And as you say, the other attacks were all focused on infrastructure; I’m not sure how long it’ll be before anyone shows up here. I tried to call the police, and I got no response. I think if anyone’s going to deal with this, it will have to be us.”

"You mean I’ll have to," Weiss corrected her.

Sunset had to resist the urge to hit Weiss with some magic. It would have been very satisfying, and she probably would have done it, except that, having already been in an airship crash, Weiss' aura might not be up to it.

Instead, rolling her eyes, Sunset raised one finger and shot a bolt of green magic just past Weiss' face, missing her by a hair, making the hairs of her ponytail dance as though in a sudden breeze as the magic shot past to hit the wall of a house beyond. It chipped the brickwork a little, but did not more than that.

It was enough to make Weiss stare at Sunset regardless.

"For the last time, I am not helpless," Sunset declared. "I'm just … vulnerable, that's all."

Weiss continued to stare at her. "But … your semblance … how?"

"My semblance," Sunset began. "Is … not exactly my semblance."

Weiss' eyes had been wide; now, they narrowed in suspicion. "Not exactly your semblance?"

"Not at all my semblance then, if you must," confessed Sunset. "Which is as much as I will say or you need to know; suffice to say that I can be of use. And do you really want to do this all by yourself?"

"I could," Weiss said at once. "I am prepared to." She glanced down at the sword in her hand. "I would rather that than lead someone else into—"

"What happened to Flash and Cardin … I'm sure you did everything you could," Sunset told her. "It doesn't make you a bad leader, and it doesn't mean you have to shun all company hereafter. Especially since that would mean shunning Flash, which you've already assured me that you won't do." She ventured a small smile. "Besides, who said anything about you leading me anywhere?"

"Well," Weiss said, "if we are going to work together, then, as I'm the one of us who is currently bulletproof, I think I'm the one who should go first, don't you?"

"Are we going to work together?" asked Sunset.

Weiss hesitated for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "Take care," she said. "I'd rather not tell Pyrrha that I was there when you died."

Sunset snorted. "You won't have to catch my last words, don't worry." She gestured, for the second time, in the direction of the tower block from which both rocket and gunfire had come, assailing both Sunset herself and Weiss' Bullhead. "It's that way."

Weiss nodded, and as she had said, she led the way in the indicated direction. Sunset let her take the lead without argument; as Weiss herself had stated, she was the one, of the two of them, who could get shot and not feel it, and so it made sense for her to be the one in front.

Although, in view of Weiss' somewhat diminutive size, it wasn't as if Sunset could hide behind her very effectively.

Nevertheless, it was generous of her to offer, and Sunset was not above admitting that she was glad of it.

She kept Sol Invictus in her hands, ready to fire over Weiss' head if any more enemies should show themselves.

Although, if she did shoot anyone, if she shot any of these grimm cultists who lurked around here, then they would probably be as dead as she would be if they shot her. The young man that Sunset had left trussed up in iron rails had no aura — Sunset wouldn't have been able to pick him up so easily if he had — and what were the chances of others of his ilk, of people like that, from a place like this, having their auras unlocked? Perhaps their leader, this mysterious 'him' who had defied the plans that Cinder and Tempest Shadow had made to concentrate on terror and bloodshed closer to home, had unlocked the aura of some of his followers, but if some, then why not all? Why not the young man that Sunset had come across upon the road?

No, the chances were that nobody they met tonight — at least nobody that they met here, in this place — would have their aura. They would die to bullets or to well-placed blows.

They would be as dead as any grimm.

As dead as Adam.

That was … not something that Sunset was entirely comfortable with, if she was being honest. Killing people, taking life, pulling the trigger, and then … the look on Adam's face remained with her. It was lodged permanently in her mind, and no eviction notice that Sunset could serve would budge it. It was claiming squatter's rights within her head.

She did not want it to be joined there by other such memories. She did not want the blood upon her hands; there was enough there already.

Just because they were in love with grimm didn't mean that she wanted to put them down like grimm.

Sunset slung her rifle back over her shoulder.

Weiss, who had been walking silently ahead of Sunset, turned her head slightly back towards her. "Is something wrong? Or would you just prefer to rely on your … on the thing that is not your semblance?"

"I can control the power level," Sunset replied. "I can make the strength nonlethal."

"I'm not sure why you'd want to," Weiss murmured.

"I don't want to kill anyone," Sunset said. "Even if they are grimm cultists."

"Didn't you say they've killed people already?" Weiss responded. "Those who live by the sword can't complain when they die by it."

"But not by mine," said Sunset quietly.

Weiss didn't respond. She turned her head away, looking once more straight ahead of them as she led the way.

She led the way down the side of the road, a road that was, like Cavendish Street that Sunset had lately come from, lined with high-class terraced housing, each three storeys high, with stone steps and iron rails and gates. Here, too, there were signs of break ins, with doors smashed in and doorways gaping open. No blood, though, that Sunset could see.

Perhaps it was simply where Sunset could not see it, but even that was something she was grateful for.

There were a couple of bikes — not motorcycles but pedal bikes, both of them a little undersized, one of them a vivid green and the other a brilliant red, both of them covered with stickers that were too small for Sunset to properly make them out — sitting next to one particular set of rails. Somewhat implausibly, they had been chained up to the rails themselves.

And behind the rails, one of the windows in the nearest house had been smashed.

Weiss stopped and glanced at Sunset over her shoulder. "You know," she said, "I can't help thinking that, in this sort of neighbourhood, there's room for a bicycle inside the house."

"I think you're probably right," Sunset acknowledged. "Although the idea of grimm cultists on … don't those look like very small bikes to you? Like kids' bikes?"

Weiss looked again. "I suppose," she said. "But that doesn't—"

The front door to the house opened, and two scruffy-looking boys in dark hoodies and torn jeans, with bulging backpacks slung across one shoulder each, started to emerge.

They were laughing.

"I can't wait until we get back and show the gang!" the one in front said. "This is going to be soooo epic; they're gonna—"

Both of them fell silent as they saw Weiss and Sunset.

"Oh, crap, bruv," the one behind explained as he pulled a pistol out of his hoodie pocket.

Sunset grabbed both boys and the pistol with her telekinesis, hoisting them up off the ground as she had done their older, more blood-stained confederate.

"They got superpowers!" moaned the one who had pulled the gun.

"Of course they do," said the other. "That's Weiss Schnee from off the telly, and that's the other one, the one who set herself on fire."

'The other one'? Sunset thought. 'The other one'? I had two great matches, and I'm 'the other one'?

She couldn't keep her lip from curling in irritation as she pulled the gun into her hand. It felt very light in her grasp. Probably because it was all moulded plastic, without a single metal or moving part to be seen as Sunset turned it over.

She pointed it at the ground and pulled the trigger. It made a sort of gun-like sound, but there was neither flash of the muzzle nor, indeed, any sign of a bullet.

Sunset looked at them. "Is this a toy?"

"You what?" asked the boy who had pulled the 'gun' on her in the first place. His hazel eyes bulged. "It's a toy! That Kenny G, he swore it was real. He told me it was one of them huntsmen guns, that was a toy gun, but it was also a gun. He swore on his life! I'm gonna kill him when I see him again!"

"What with?" Sunset asked dryly.

"If it's not a real gun, that means you can put us down now, right?" asked the other boy. "I mean, it's not like we did nothin'."

"So, this is your house?" asked Weiss.

The boy was silent for a second. "Well, maybe we was robbin' the place, but we didn't do nothin' else, honest. We didn't chase them out of their 'ouse or nothin'; that was—"

"Shhh!" the other boy, the one who had foolishly mistaken the toy gun for a real one, hissed. "Shut up, bruv, or you're dead!"

Weiss put one hand on her hip. "You're not in much position to be making threats."

"I'm not gonna kill him!" wailed the boy. "But everyone knows, if you talk about Dark Angel Tower, things go bad for you, bruv, like 'never seen again' bad."

"'Dark Angel Tower,'" Sunset repeated. "Is that the one over there?" She pointed in the direction of their unseen objective."

"I don't know," the boy with the toy gun said unconvincingly.

Weiss climbed a couple of the steps towards the open door, though she still had to look up at the levitating boys. "Sunset and I are huntresses," she reminded them. "You know that, you've seen us on TV, you know what we're capable of. If there's something going on here, something that you're scared of, then we can protect you. We can take of what's going on."

"Maybe she's right," the first boy out of the door said. "I mean you were pretty cool, shooting lasers and flying and all proper superhero stuff. I think you shoulda won that fight, you were way cooler than that other one; she was just borin', she didn't hardly do nothin'—"

"Get to the point," Sunset snapped.

"Calm down, Sunset," Weiss said, holding up one hand. She paused for a moment, looking up at the two boys. "My friend here is a little impatient, and I can only keep her restrained for so long. Now, if you keep stalling me, if you don't cooperate, then I'll have no choice but to assume that you're involved in all of this somehow, and then I'll have no choice but to let Sunset…"

The boy with the toy gun swallowed. "Let her what? What're you gonna let her to do to us?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise," Weiss said calmly. "Or, you can tell me what you know, and I'll not only let you both go — minus everything you stole from this house, obviously — but I'll also clean up your neighbourhood for you so you don't have to worry anymore."

Sunset folded her arms, even as her hands continued to glow green with magic.

She did her best to look menacing as she glowered at the two boys.

"Okay, okay!" cried the first boy. "We'll tell you everything! Dark Angel Tower, right, it's … it used to be like a normal place, right? Like, me and Spanner, we live in Firefly Tower, and it sucks, but it's whatever, yeah? Dark Angel Tower used to be like that; a couple of mates of ours used to live there. And then this guy moved in, and people just started … started disappearing, right. Not like they moved out, or maybe they did, but they were really quiet about it—"

"Or maybe they didn't," said the second boy.

"Yeah, yeah, or maybe that, maybe…" The first boy trailed off. "The only people who were left, the only people you see coming out of there, they're all members of this gang, right? And anyone who stands up to them ends up dead."

"They say they're found the next morning with their throats slit," added the second boy with a little too much relish.

"And anyone who goes up into that tower, even the police, they never come out again," said the first boy. "And if you're out at night, around that tower, you can hear things."

"What kind of things?" asked Weiss.

"Like … like growling," said the first boy. "Like there's a monster there or something. You don't want to go up there."

"Actually, I think we do," Weiss murmured.

"What about tonight?" demanded Sunset.

"Tonight, after the matches were over, we started to hear screaming and shooting," the first boy said. "And we went up onto the roof, and we could see the gang from Dark Angel Tower runnin' through the streets, and they had guns, and they were shootin' 'em, and people were runnin' out of their houses. And then the Dark Angel crew went into some of the houses, then they came out; after a while, they started comin' back to the tower, and we—"

"Decided to rob the houses," Sunset finished for them.

"They got so much stuff, man!" the boy with the toy gun cried. "They got consoles, designer trainers, everythin'! After they ran off … we weren't hurtin' anyone."

"Hmm," Weiss murmured. "Thank you both for your invaluable assistance." She turned away, descending the steps with her back to the two boys. "Put them down, Sunset."

Sunset unfolded her arms and released her magic, dumping the two boys somewhat heavily upon the steps.

Weiss put one hand on her hip. She didn't look at the two of them. "Leave the things you stole and go," she commanded coldly.

The two boys paused. "Just from this house or—"

"Leave the bags!" Weiss ordered, each word as heavy as an avalanche descending from a snow-capped peak.

"Right, right," the two boys agreed hastily, leaving their backpacks on the step and scrambling down them. They fumbled to unlock their chained up bicycles, casting anxious glances towards Sunset and Weiss as they did so, before finally unchaining them — leaving the chains — and riding off, pedalling furiously down the street.

Sunset climbed the steps. She picked up the two backpacks — they were both heavy; she wondered if the two boys could have managed to ride off with them — and put them back inside the house before she shut the door.

It seemed that, when the occupier returned to their home, hopefully tomorrow, they would find themselves in possession of someone else's belongings; hopefully, they could sort things out with the neighbours so that everything went back to its proper place. That wasn't something that Sunset and Weiss had time to take care of right now.

As she closed the door, Sunset couldn't help but say, "'I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise'?"

"It got them to talk, didn't it?" asked Weiss, a slight chuckle in her voice.

"True," Sunset admitted as she descended the steps. "And at least we know that we won't have to worry about civilians caught in the crossfire when we get there." She paused. "What do you make about this monster thing?"

"They could be mistaken," Weiss said. "They didn't seem like the brightest after all. But it's not impossible that there's a gigas there waiting for us."

"A gigas?" Sunset repeated.

"A possession grimm," Weiss said. "Not possessing people — this isn't a chill — it's more possession of … objects. It makes a shell for itself, and controls it."

"Like a geist?"

"Similar," Weiss said. "But different. Geists would be harder to smuggle into a city, but a gigas can be done. My father…" Her free hand rose to the scar on her face. "It can be done," she repeated. "I'm not saying it necessarily has been done, but it can be, so we shouldn't be too surprised if we reach the tower and find ourselves facing something like that."

Something like what? Sunset thought, because Weiss had been somewhat scant on details. Considering what she had said, however, the lack of detail probably wasn't her fault: a lot would depend on the shell of the gigas, and they couldn't guess what that might be ahead of time. They would just have to deal with it, whatever it looked like, when they saw it.

"Let's go," Weiss said. "We should keep moving."

Sunset had no objection to that, so she followed once more as Weiss took the lead continuing to walk down the pavement, past the silent houses on either side of them.

Having found out from the two idiots that these houses were so quiet because they were unoccupied — which Sunset could believe; in other neighbourhoods, people might be huddling behind closed doors waiting for the dawn to break and some clarity to return, but if you could hear things going on right outside your door, you might not want to stay behind it waiting for that door to be broken down — lent them a less foreboding air than they had once possessed. Sunset didn't need to imagine the frightened people on the other side because they weren't there, she didn't need to contemplate what they might see if they twitched their curtains to look out the window, she didn't have to worry what a stray shot might do.

It was good for her, and good for them too, she hoped, to be out of harm's way. She hoped that they had found somewhere safe to hunker down and wait for morning and the return of sanity.

She hoped, too, that thanks to the efforts of Weiss and herself, come morning, this place would be safe to return to.

Weiss reached the bottom of the street ahead of Sunset. There was a crossroad, with two sets of traffic lights, one on either side of the street, both positioned to cross the road that cut across, heading towards, amongst other places, Dark Angel Tower.

Weiss stepped out from behind the last terraced house, to be greeted immediately by the crack of a gun going off and a bullet hitting the pavement between Weiss' feet. It had missed her, but it was sufficient to make Weiss scramble back into cover behind the houses.

That didn't stop the people up on the tower from shooting some more, a fusillade ringing out from down the road to strike the corner of the house and the road where Weiss had stood a moment ago. Chips of brick were flung off the building to land before the two huntresses, but that was about all the shooters managed to do.

Sunset heard a boom and the hiss of a rocket.

She flung out her hands, conjuring a shield up around Weiss and herself as the rocket struck the street in front of them. Sunset felt the heat washing over the two of them, fire consuming the emerald barrier, the power of the explosion and the debris hammering against her magic, sending its impact reverberating through it back to Sunset herself. Sunset's arms shook slightly as the fire died down. The pavement had been torn up, the street light had been obliterated, the nearby windows had all been shattered and the walls scorched black where they had not had chunks blown out of the brickwork, but Sunset herself was quite intact, and Weiss looked to be in good shape also.

Weiss jammed Myrtenaster down into the ground, the point of the rapier piercing the wounded flagstones beneath them.

An array of pale blue glyphs began to appear, shimmering in the air, gently rotating as they formed lines stretching across the street.

Pale blue, those are the laser ones, right?

Beams of light burst out from the glyphs, firing at an upwards angle.

Yep, it's lasers.

Beam after beam leapt from the glyphs, travelling upwards through the night, presumably — behind Weiss, Sunset couldn't see — in the direction of Dark Angel Tower. Sunset didn't know if Weiss was trying to hit back or simply suppress their opponents, but if it was the latter, then it worked; the gunshots died down completely as the lasers flew.

Weiss kept up the bombardment for a few seconds after the gunfire had ceased, her glyphs continuing to fire, before she stood up and extracted her blade from the ground. The pale blue glyphs disappeared like dead grimm, fading away into nothingness.

Weiss poked her head out around the corner. She wasn't hit. Nobody even shot at her. After the interruption of gunfire, the street, the whole neighbourhood, was once more quiet.

Weiss motioned for Sunset to remain where she was while she stepped fully out into the street.

Still no one shot at her, no sudden flurry of bullets knocked her down onto her back, nothing at all.

Thus reassured, Sunset ventured to stick her own neck out, literally, risking a look down the street. She could see the tower. It looked pretty much like the other towers around her: a medium-rise obelisk of grey concrete, a brutal lump, solidly built, all sharp angles and square proportions, with more concrete forming a sort of superstructure around the outside, like supporting pillars preventing the thing from collapsing. So far, so similar to its near neighbours — and what a contrast to the old-fashioned elegance of the terraces around it — but context suggested that, since that tower had shot at them, that tower was also their objective.

And yet, no one was shooting at them now.

Sunset stepped out into the road to stand beside Weiss. Nobody shot at her either.

Nevertheless, that was something that could change quickly, and against that eventuality, Sunset raised her hands and conjured up another shield around both her and Weiss, the bubble of magic enveloping them both from above their heads down to the road.

Weiss looked at her. "Can this move with us?"

Sunset adjusted the spell ever so slightly. "A little trickier," she said. "But yes, we can."

Weiss nodded. "Good." She took a step forward before she asked. "Does this … whatever this is, does it have any limits at all?"

"Yes," Sunset replied. "I just haven't reached them yet tonight."

Weiss didn't pry further. She just kept walking forward, which meant that Sunset, perforce, had to move forward as well. Her breathing was deep, she had been using a lot of magic tonight, and yet, she hadn't hit her limits yet. It was a little surprising, but not a gift she was inclined to spurn.

After all, if her magic had run out alongside her aura, then she really would have been useless, just as Weiss had thought.

But she was not useless; her magic was holding out for now, and Sunset was able to walk beside Weiss down the road towards the tower.

The road down which they walked was straight as an arrow and uninterrupted by any junctions or turn-offs; one of the reasons why Sunset had conjured up a shield was the near absence of cover for them if the shooting resumed. Other towers rose on either side of them, but they could not be directly reached because, now that Sunset and Weiss had started down this road, they were hemmed in by it, closed in on either side by a street of services: a bank, a grocer, a butcher, a baker. Shut up shops lined up in a row to form a guard of honour as they walked, while the tower loomed ahead like a monarch on their lofty throne, waiting to receive the petitioners.

Or the assassins.

This monarch had an honour guard, but it seemed as the two huntresses walked towards it that it had no actual bodyguards, not anymore, not since the gunfire from the tower had ceased. Nothing and no one else stepped forward to challenge their approach.

There was a thud. The street beneath them trembled.

I may have spoken too soon.

There was another thud, and another, more and more thudding steps in quick succession, echoing down the road as Sunset saw something coming towards them from the direction of Dark Angel Tower. At first, she couldn't make out what it was; the darkness made it difficult to see clearly. As it came closer, stepping into the glare of the nearer street lights, then it became easier to see but not necessarily easier to work out what it was.

It was presumably this gigas that Weiss had mentioned, although Sunset would never have guessed if Weiss hadn't mentioned it already; she would have been left baffled by this thing that stalked towards them, making the ground shake beneath its tread.

It was a lumpen, misshapen, patchwork thing, scarcely a 'thing' at all; to call it a thing suggested unity of design, singularity of purpose, some common element binding it together, of which Sunset's eyes could find none. It was a collection of junk. It was scrap metal, crudely fashioned with nails and screws and some welding here and there into a … it had two legs as thick as pillars, it had two arms like articulated tree trunks with three sort of fingers at the end of each hand, it had a round body that gave it an almost pot-bellied look, and it had a head, or a helmet that resembled a beak in some respects, and a visor from out of which nothing could be seen, not even the pair of red eyes that Sunset half expected. It didn't look like a man; it didn't look exactly like anything, just a crude copy of many similar things — a man, a beowolf, an ursa — made by someone without too much skill or concern for accuracy.

A growl emanated from somewhere inside the metal.

"This is the gigas, right?" Sunset asked.

"Yes," Weiss murmured. "Although it didn't make this for itself; someone made this for it."

Sunset found it a little hard to understand why an actual grimm, smuggled into Vale by grimm cultists, wouldn't simply kill off the grimm cultists and go on a rampage — it wasn't as if they had any actual connection to the creature, and Principal Celestia had been clear that whenever grimm cultists came into contact with the objects of their worship, it did not end well for them — unless perhaps this mysterious figure who had taken over the tower block were one of Salem's servants.

But if so, what are they wasting their time here for?

The gigas growled once more as it took another stomping step forward.

That's a question that can wait for later, Sunset thought as she lowered the shield protecting her and Weiss — she didn't have much choice; they weren't going to kill this grimm by simply hunkering down and waiting for it to give up — as she held out her hands and unleashed a barrage of magic upon the gigas. Bolt after emerald bolt leapt from her palms to slam into the patchwork scrap armour in which the grimm had made its home. Some of the bolts glanced off the armour due to the angle, some them spread out across the dull metal in bursts of brilliant green light; together, they made the gigas sway on its large and lumpy feet, tottering backwards so that, for a moment, Sunset thought it might fall onto its back.

It didn't quite; the gigas managed to steady itself, arms flailing, backing away a step, and then another. It hunched its lumpen body, lowering its head like a bull about to charge.

Weiss charged first, flying forwards along a line of shimmering white glyphs as bright as she looked in the moonlight. She headed straight towards the gigas in its shell. The gigas raised an arm to bring it down upon her, but Sunset grabbed the armour in her telekinesis and held onto it, grunting a little with the effort of restraining the hideous strength of the grimm.

She grabbed its other arm too, in case it got any ideas, holding both arms and the gigas itself in place as Weiss closed the distance. As she reached the gigas, standing small beneath it, the slight pale figure standing beneath the dark armoured giant, Weiss' white glyphs disappeared, and in its place, a black glyph beneath her feet.

The glyph turned from black to red, and Weiss was catapulted up into the air. The gigas' face followed her, the only part of it which could follow her as Weiss soared upwards, her ponytail flying as she spun around.

Another white glyph formed beneath her feet, angled downwards so that Weiss was facing the gigas, and behind the white glyph, there appeared a column of black glyphs, a pillar of them, one by one each turning red.

Sunset guessed what Weiss was going to do, and with her telekinesis, she wrenched the grimm's arms and hands towards itself, moving them like a marionette as Weiss launched herself like a missile towards the gigas.

Sunset hit with the grimm with its own two hands, the clang of metal ringing out as massive fists slammed into the beak-like helmet. The gigas recoiled but was still mostly in place as Weiss struck home, jamming her slender sword into the gigas' visor and firing a blast of dust — Sunset couldn't tell what kind of dust — into its insides.

The gigas fell, toppling backwards like an unwanted statue, cracking the tarmac beneath its bulk.

Weiss landed just beyond its head, turning and jamming Myrtenaster into the ground as she unleashed a wave of ice that rippled from her sword to cover the street and consume the gigas from the inside, ice spikes bursting up through the joints in the armour, rising over the pot-bellied cuirass, coming through the visor.

The gigas' armour tried to move for a moment, armour creaking and groaning, fingers twitching, then it fell back and was still.

For a moment, Sunset expected the thing to start dissolving, before she remembered that this was only a shell made by someone, not the grimm itself; the grimm was dead inside—

Or it was getting away.

Sunset stepped forward, then dashed forward, feet pounding on the tarmac as she spotted something crawling out of the armour and beginning to skitter away, its dark form visible upon the white of the ice. As Sunset got closer, she could see it more clearly, a tentacled thing, small and black, with red lines upon it and a single red eye burning in the middle of it.

She grabbed hold of it with telekinesis, drawing Soteria with one hand over her shoulder as she pulled the grimm towards her and onto the point of the blade.

Black tentacles flailed upon black metal for a moment, before drooping limply down and dissolving into ashes.

Sunset sheathed the sword back across her shoulder.

Weiss drew her sword out of the ground. "I've certainly fought tougher specimens," she observed.

Sunset walked towards her. "All the same, how did they control it?"

"I've no idea," Weiss admitted. She looked towards the tower, looming large before them. "But the answers we seek are close by now."

Sunset conjured her shield again as they resumed their progress, but she almost needn't have bothered because there were still no more shots from on top of the tower, no bullets, no bangs, no rockets. Sunset might have expected them to start shooting again after they saw their gigas fall, but nothing. Nothing but the tower itself, growing taller and taller as they got closer and closer.

It may have only been medium-rise, no more than twenty or twenty-five storeys, but it certainly loomed very high indeed as Sunset and Weiss stood beneath it. There were bodies lying around the tower. Some of them had wounds visible, in their fronts or on their backs, others — with guns lying next to them — looked as though they had fallen off the roof to the ground below.

Or been thrown off, though who would have done the throwing was a question without an obvious answer. Had the leader of this little cult tired of his followers?

There might be only one place that they would find out.

And yet, they advanced upon it slowly, stepping around the dead that lay around the tower. They avoided the parts of the pavement where the blood gathered, moving warily towards an open door that gaped before them like a black mouth.

Lights flickered in the room beyond, some sort of lobby, with a few faded chairs and an intercom panel on the wall. With the light flickering on and off like a disco strobe, it was hard to see anything, but at the same time, Sunset couldn't use her night vision spell because when the lights came on, she'd be blinded by them. But she could at least see the stairs, when the lights were on, and even a little when they were not.

Weiss continued to take the lead, not only because she had the aura but also because, with aura, she was just a lot faster than Sunset. Protection from harm was the most obvious advantage that aura conveyed, but as Sunset pounded up flight after flight of stairs, going up and around, up and around, turning left only to be confronted with yet more stairs with grey linoleum laid on them, she really missed having a great power within her that would make it all feel easy. As it was, she huffed and puffed her way up, legs aching, knees protesting at the constant pounding up and down. She wasn't quite so feeble that she had to stop for a rest, but she did notice Weiss slowing her own pace so as not to outrun Sunset.

Sunset hated her for that, and was very grateful at the same time.

Weiss, for her part, forbore to comment. Sunset was grateful for that too, and hated it.

Each flight of stairs led to a landing, with corridors running off it to the apartments within the building. It was all very quiet: no sounds, no signs of life, nothing but emptiness, and darkness. Dark corridors where the lights either didn't work or flickered on and off, dark doors without any light creeping underneath them. Silence — and bloodstains on the carpet. Bloodstains on the carpet and symbols drawn on the walls, symbols in black or red — hopefully red paint; with all her heart, Sunset hoped that it was red paint — daubed over the beige paint on the walls themselves. Eight pointed stars, that crescent symbol like Jaune's emblem inverted, rams' heads and beowolfs' gaping maws and king taijitus flickering their tongues. As they climbed the steps, Sunset came to prefer the darkness to the flickering light that would expose these symbols, casting them in an even more sinister light than the context as they appeared and then disappeared then showed themselves again in rapid succession.

The first sign of life came near the top of the building, not quite at the very highest floor but close to it. They heard the growl first, then a dog — a huge dog, a dog so huge that Sunset almost took it for a beowolf for a second and wondered how many other grimm had managed to get in here somehow — erupted out of the darkness and slammed into Weiss. It wasn't a beowolf, just a dog that was bigger than she was, as tall as Pyrrha and as muscular as Rainbow Dash with a mouthful of teeth like knives. The force of it knocked Weiss backwards into the wall' she nearly tumbled down the stairs into Sunset; the dog was on top of her, saliva dripping from its immense maw, its barks as loud as cannon fire. Myrtenaster had slipped from Weiss' grasp, and the dog had its mouth around her arm, biting into it again and again, taking chunks out of her aura with each bite.

It was huge. Sunset had never seen a dog so big before. The size of it — and the thought of what it would have done to her, without aura as she was — made her hands tremble a little as she unslung Sol Invictus off her shoulder.

She cocked the rifle as she aimed it at the enormous dog.

The dog turned its giant head, bigger than Jaune's head, towards her.

Sunset fired two shots in quick succession, echoing up and down the staircase. The first shot hit the dog in the neck, the second squarely in the head. Blood spattered over Weiss as the dog's lifeless body fell down onto her.

"Ugh," Weiss grunted, pushing the body off her lap and wiping futilely at her stained white clothes as she got to her feet. "Thank you."

Sunset shrugged. "You would have taken care of it eventually."

"Eventually," Weiss said in reply.

It was at that point that the two of them noticed a light coming from the corridor at the top of this flight of stairs. For the first time since they had begun to climb up and up and up this tower, they could see an open door and soft light streaming out of it. The two of them approached, moving side by side now, on either side of the corridor, not calling out — after what they'd seen so far, whoever was here was unlikely to be friendly — but rather, moving as quietly as they could manage until they reached the doorway and could look into the apartment itself.

A man stood with his back to them, dressed in a dun brown camelhair coat. His hair, which ran down to the collar of his coat, had once been blond, although it had faded now to a yellowish grey. He stood before a table lined with candles, so many candles dripping wax down onto the wooden surface, with more candles on smaller tables on either side of the doorway. A ram's skull was mounted on the wall in front of the man, surrounded by an eight-pointed star.

The smell of incense lay heavily in the air, getting up Sunset's nose and entering into her throat, making her want to cough or worse.

"Candles," the man said, in a rather hoarse, croaking voice that sounded as if he were struggling to enunciate each word. "Sigils, spells, and incantations, all rather absurd, isn't it? All this … flummery, genuflecting at the feet of a creature that perceives you only as prey. But over time, I must confess, I've come to rather appreciate them."

"You appreciate the opportunity it affords you for power over others, I suppose," Weiss said.

The man turned to face them. His skin was almost as grey as his hair, with a papery, or even sandpapery, quality to it, as though it had been dried out, every bit of moisture extracted from his flesh. It was stretched across his bones, sunken at his cheeks and beneath his eyes, even looking in places as though it was peeling away or crumbling into dust. His lips were dry and cracked and wrinkled, and his eyes were dark, the blackness expanding to consume the colour and the white alike.

Sunset took a step back. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end.

"A part of me hoped that the gigas would deal with you," the man said in his hoarse, halting voice. "When I realised that you were huntresses, it was clear that my flock would not be sufficient, though I thought my friend might. But another part of me is glad that you made it. This body of mine…" He held up one hand. His nails were long and yellow. "If anything survives this night, I shall need a new body, and yours … young and strong and perfect." He took a step towards them. His shadow, cast by the myriad candles, stretched out for them like a spear.

Sunset grabbed Weiss by the collar of her bolero and yanked her backwards, away from the man and his long shadow.

Having done so, she raised Sol Invictus to her shoulder and fired.

There was a bang, and the man shuddered as the bullet entered his shoulder. He looked down at the hole in his camelhair coat and, with one long nail, poked at the flesh beneath.

"Now I shall definitely need a new body," he said.

"How … who are you?" Weiss asked.

The man smiled. "When a beowolf grows older, it becomes larger and larger, as well as more intelligent, more cunning, more wise. But what about a grimm without a body? What do you think happens to a chill when it gets older?"

It learns to control its stolen body far more effectively than before, Sunset thought. "You came to Vale and recruited cultists to worship the grimm—"

"I gave young men purpose, direction," said the chill. "That's what we have, but you don't; that's why you admire us, worship us, because we have what you lack in your aimless, miserable little lives! I filled up their lives with meaning, I made them—"

"Monsters," Sunset said.

"A monster knows what it is and what it does," said the chill. "It doesn't pretend, it doesn't doubt, it doesn't agonise."

"It only kills," said Weiss. "What was the purpose of all this?"

"Destruction is the purpose," declared the chill. "Destruction is everything. And when Vale falls tonight, destruction will consume everything you know."

"Vale isn't going to fall," declared Weiss. "Atlas will stop the grimm beyond the wall." She raised Myrtenaster. "And we will stop you here."

The chill laughed, or sounded as though it was trying to laugh; it came out as a kind of coughing, sawing sound. "I've been amongst you for a long time, but I'm still a grimm. I can still hear the singing of the horde calling to me. I can feel what's out there, their fury, their strength; I can feel the things that you haven't seen yet. You can't stop them." Its smile broadened. "And you can't stop me."

It started to lunge towards them — before Sunset slammed an inverted shield around it, and around its shadow for good measure.

"Watch us," Sunset said, even as her mind raced to try and think of a way to actually beat this thing. How to beat it, how to kill it, how to stop a chill, chill, chill, chill, how were you supposed to—?

"Sunset," Weiss said, as Myrtenaster's cylinder cycled to red fire dust, "can you run?"

"Maybe," Sunset said. "Why?"

Weiss swept her sword magisterially in front of her, flame leaping from the tip of the blade to spread out across the carpet of the room. The fire crackled and flickered as it began to spread, licking at the edges of the shield in which Sunset had trapped the chill.

"Because I think we should run," Weiss said.

Now, it was Sunset's turn to lead the way, her knees hammering as she pounded down the stairs, all the stairs, all the way back the way that they had come. Weiss was on her heels, and as she went, she cast more fires from her sword, fires on every floor that they descended.

Sunset kept her shield up as long as she could, though increasing distance as she plunged down the stairs made it more difficult, rendered the connection more tenuous. She could feel the flames lapping all around her barrier like water surrounding a rock; she could feel the chill within pounding on the shield trying to get out, though flame was all that awaited it on the other side.

She gasped for breath. She could smell the stench of the smoke from all the fires Weiss was causing, displacing the smell of perfumed incense in her nose and mouth.

Sunset started to cough, her connection to the magical barrier snapped.

But there was so much fire, fires everywhere, crackling above them, and Weiss was starting even more fires while she had dust; surely, there was no escape for the chill now.

Sunset and Weiss emerged from out of Dark Angel Tower. Almost as soon as Sunset began to slow, staggering to a halt, gasping for breath, she felt a stitch begin to stab her in the side. She winced and held that same side, for all the good it did.

Weiss turned around to look at the tower. Sunset did likewise, though her stitch kept her bent over a little.

The tower was burning. Flames leapt from every window, glass shattered, smoke rose into the air towards the moon. Fire consumed the interior; by the time it finished burning, there would be nothing left but that brutal concrete shell.

Nothing left of the chill, either. The flames would devour it, surely. Devour its body, certainly. Would its … essence burn? Yang had killed one, hadn't she? She and Team YRDN, as it had been then, had destroyed the host body and the chill with it. Now they would do the same, or had done the same; there was no way the body could survive in those flames.

It was gone.

She hoped it was gone.

Sunset watched the flames, along with Weiss, watching as the tower burned and, with good luck, took all its horrors with it. She straightened up, trying to ignore the pain in her chest as she did so.

Weiss glanced at her. "So," she said softly. "Where to now?"

Author's Note:

I'm away this Friday so the next chapter will go up the following Monday, 27th May.

Comments

[AngelicTitan]

A grown up Chill, huh? That’s a terrifying thought, and I am glad that Sunset and Weiss took care of it before it could do more damage, but it seems like there still are things left to be done before the end.
I suppose we may see what is left of the Vale Police Force, or we see what is happening with the White Fang before we go and have Sunset’s story intersect with the Dragon Grimm.
I also like how Sunset isn’t comfortable with killing people anymore considering Adam and the Breach; her demons still haunting her even after they were long conquered by her. Now, we have to see what will be done next time.

[Stet709]

So Sunset revealed part of the truth about herself to Weiss, which was... inevitable, I suppose if she didn't want to cripple herself by avoiding using magic.
Huh, the leader of the Valish grimm cult was a grimm itself... interesting. With the head destroyed, the rest should follow. Now... where to next, indeed?

[Kiue Jin]

11908708
One *hopes* its destroyed. Because considering the ghostly nature of the Chill... it's hard to say if normal fire would hurt it once it abandoned its host.

[Mastermind4892]

Gotta say, it is enormously satisfying to see Sunset’s magic at work against people without aura. To see how effective her powers can be.

[AdverseFlower95]

Damn, alpha chills sound to be really freaking scary and probably the reason why people should take all 4 years to graduate so you aren’t blindsided by.