Isabelline kicks down the clock tower's door as Jay lands on her back, crow beaks out.
"Looks clear to me," Isabelline mutters as Jay lands on the ground.
"See anything?" Jay asks Bích, who blinks. Her eyes scan the area, then she pulls out her gunchucks and looks up to the left stairwell. Crevan hears a clatter, and pulls out his claymores, staring at the right stairwell.
Two figures were on separate stairwells. A girl on the left, and a boy on the right.
“Is that?” Marco squints at the figure on the right stairwell. The figure moves forward, and Crevan’s jaw drops. It’s Harbin, his hair is disheveled, and he’s not wearing his hat. His ears are flat against his head and his pajamas are torn.
Bích, Isabelline and Jay stare at the left stairwell. A familiar pair of fluffy ears can be seen, despite being flattened against the head. Amethyst eyes glow with vertical pupils.
“Argente…” Jay whispers, lowering her weapons.
“You look like shit and your pajamas suck.” Isabelline deadpans, but Jay smacks her as Bích move forwards.
“The top of the tower is where the ringing is coming from. Get up there while I take care of her,” Bích orders her teammates and readies her weapon.
“Are you insane?” Jay squeaks, but Isabelline grabs her hand.
“Let her do this. We have to stop the ringing,” she utters.
“Same goes for you lot,” Crevan states to Ely and Marco.
“Get to the top of the tower and stop the ringing for Steph.”
Abigail readies her gauntlets and grimaces.
“Which staircase takes us to the top?” Ely asks. Abigail leans in each direction.
“Looks like the left one,” she takes a deep breath, and starts sprinting up the staircase. Harbin jumps down and lands on the ground, dragging his rapiers along the floor in a deranged manner towards Crevan. Ely, Isabelline, Jay and Marco bolt up the left stairwell, catching up to Abigail.
“Make it stop,” Bích stares at Abigail, who nods, and turns around to continue up the stairs. Argente also jumps down to the floor with a growl.
“Oi, you fluffy fuck!” Isabelline yells, making Argente turn around. Abigail fires electricity at her, hitting her square in the chest. Isabelline fires her silver dust gun at Harbin, getting his hand.
“BÍCH, CREVAN, NOW!!” Abigail and Ely yell, before continuing their ascend.
Bích and Crevan run at their respective partners.
“That must be hard,” Ely pants as they continue to run up the stairs.
“To fight your own partner.”
“That’s not Harbin or Argente, though. Those are just animals,” Abigail snaps back. Jay flies ahead, but then does a backwards loop-de-loop.
“More Faunus up ahead, guys! Get ready!” She warns them.
Crevan and Harbin’s swords clash. Crevan gets a closer look at Harbin, and notices his fangs are bared. Bích deflects Argente’s whip cracks and sees her ears dripping with blood. The pink haired girl tries to keep a straight face as she deflects the menacing cracks. Argente was out to kill her.
“Harbin!” Crevan yells as he cracks down more pressure on his partner.
“It’s me! It’s Crevan!!”
Only a growl comes out as Harbin kicks Crevan back.
“The ringing is too loud in his ears, Crevan!” Bích yells at him, backflipping away from the arrows now being shot at her.
“What does that mean?!” Crevan yells, switching to machine gun mode.
“They can’t hear us, they can only hear the ringing!”
“How do you know?!”
“Because I can barely hear you!!” Bích yells back with scrunched up eyes, cartwheeling out of the way of more arrows.
Crevan fires at Harbin, who deflects with his rapiers and charges forward with a menacing growl. Crevan sees blood coming out of his ears.
“They’re in pain!” he yells at Bích, who was clashed in a fight using her staff against the bullwhip.
“I know! The group has to stop this fucking ringing!” Bích wails.
Ely cuts through with his hatchets as the group continue up the stairs.
“This is ridiculous!!” he pants in exhaustion.
“How do ya think I feel?!” Isabelline yells back.
“The ringing is really loud now!!” She covers her ears with her hands. Jay does the same, but Abigail powers ahead. She sends faunus flying with each hit, and her eyes turn red.
“We’re so close! We can’t stop now!” She yells.
Harbin is sent flying back from a powerful swing of a claymore.
“Harbin! You have to fight it!” Crevan yells at him as he slowly walks up to his partner.
“Block it out! Cover your ears or something! Just don’t let this ringing turn you into a monster! Because you’re not a monster! You’re my teammate!!” Crevan wails as Harbin gets to his knees and stares at Crevan. His eyes were back to normal for a split second.
“Crevan! Please! Cease this ringing!”
Crevan froze, then Harbin shook his head with closed eyes. He opens them, and his pupils are once again vertical and narrowed.
“Please! Make! It! Stop! Putain de merde!” He gets up and roars, charging at Crevan with his rapiers out. Crevan deflects the fast swipes as best as he can.
Abigail kicks down the door to the top of the clock tower. She can hear the song playing from last night clearly. It’s coming from the turntable in the middle of the room. A figure turns around, and sneers at them.
“Scarlett,” Abigail growls, ignoring the fact that her ears are bleeding. The woman extends her arms and chuckles.
“Hello there, you blonde cow! How are your ears? Sick of the song yet?”
“Where is my sister?!” Abigail yells, smashing her gauntlets together. Scarlett thinks, then shrugs.
“Don’t know, don’t care, to be honest. That orange rabbit is a pain in my side anyway. All I care about is making every faunus dive into a psychotic rage so that they tear this city to the ground. Would you care to join?”
“Where is my sister!!” Abigail yells again, running at Scarlett, who dodges the hits.
“Woah there, I didn’t wave my red flag yet, you stupid cow,” she sneers, then kicks Abigail back.
"Alyss, take care of her, please" A figure appears next to the turntable and nods, she starts attacking Abigail, who dodges at her best ability.
Bích jumps onto the stairwell railing and uses her balance to run up it to avoid more whip cracks. She make a U-turn with her tail to turn around and fires her gunchucks at Argente.
“Argie, don’t make me do this!” She yells, ignoring excruciating ringing in her own ears. The grey-eared faunus only growls and cracks her whip again.
“This isn’t you! I didn’t fall in love with an animal!” She fires again as Argente dodges the bullets.
“Me neither!” Crevan yells back. Harbin stops and stares at him. Crevan snorts and keeps fighting.
“I’m not in love with you but you know what I mean!”
Abigail gets thrown back by Alyss, who smirks and bends down to look at her.
“You know, you’re really strong!” Scarlett laughs.
“You don’t even need a hypersonic signal to unleash your psychotic rage. It’s always inside you. I bet all those stupid animals out there are jealous that you can switch it on and off.”
“SHUT UP!” Abigail booms, scrambling to her feet to at Alyss charge again. Ely joins her this time, twirling his hatchets around.
“Marco, help us destroy the machine!” Isabelline bellows at him.
"LITTLE BUSY OVER HERE WITH SCARLETT" Marco yells back
"JUST HELP US REAL QUICK" Jay yells back at him. He nods, and the three of them bolt rush to the turntable and start to smash it.
"Ah, ah, ah" Scarlett ticks as she shoots at Marco.
"I'm not finished with you."
Crevan is backed into the tower wall by Harbin, who is still growling. Crevan uses a glyph to protect himself slightly.
“Harbin! Fight it!” He yells as Harbin bares his fangs again and readies a pistol right between Crevan’s eyes. He fires, but the glyph blocks it. Crevan goes into shock as the force of the bullet knocks Harbin back.
“He...He tried to kill me!” He whispers breathlessly, slumping to the ground.
Crevan looks over at Bích, who is still running up the railing and yelling at Argente, who is following her on foot, but her weapon is long enough to be in reach of Bích to attack her.
“Don’t be an animal!” Bích screams at Argente. She uses her tail to U-turn back towards Argente and closes her eyes. She opens them again and releases a blinding golden light. Argente covers her eyes with her forearms as Bích springs forward and tackles Argente back down the stairs.
Crevan notices Harbin running at him again, and with a roar, Crevan charges back at him.
Abigail and Ely continue to fight Alyss. As she parries all their attacks, Marco dodges another shot from Scarlett as he bullets toward her. She fires her cane and launches him back toward Isabelline and Jay, he gets to his feet and then gets shot back into the turntable and knocked down.
“Okay I’m REALLY getting sick of this song now!” Isabelline bellows.
“I’m sick of this woman’s face” Marco snaps back and readies his sickles.
Scarlett pulls out a tube of lipstick from her pocket and touches up without a mirror. Marco runs at her, and she twirls it around and clicks a button.
“Watch out!!” Jay yells. The lipstick shoots a laser beam. Marco backflips out of the way.
“WHAT?!” He wails in confusion.
“That’s a laser beam!!” Jay yells again.
“NO SHIT,” Marco snaps back.
Crevan boxes Harbin in with the same glyph cube he used in the tournament.
"Harbin, block it out!" Crevan’s throat can't take much more yelling. Bích landed on top of Argente when she tackled her down the stairs. Right now, her target is dazed, so Bích straddles the top of her and holds a gunchuck around her throat. Tears form in her eyes.
"I don't want to shoot you," she chokes out, her eyes are still heterochromic. Only a growl comes out.
"What do we do?" Crevan pants, reinforcing his cube with more glyphs. Bích looks down at Argente and sighs.
"We hold them down."
Marco dashes forward, dodging Scarlett’s bullets, he gets close enough to land a few hits before he is pushed back. Isabelline continues to try and turn off the record, but the button is jammed.
"Looks like we're going to have to break it!" She yells at the other two. Jay starts to whack at the machine with her hammers.
“It’s tough alright!” She yells. Ely swings his hatchets at Alyss, building up rage.
Harbin roars and smacks his body against the glyph cube. Crevan grins, proud of his work.
"Keep it up, buddy, you're not getting out," he says, slumping in exhaustion. He stares at Harbin: bloody ears, fangs bared and manic eyes. This isn't his partner, this is a monster. He looks over at Argente, squirming under the pressure Bích is reluctantly placing on her. She's in a similar state to Harbin.
"This has turned you both into monsters," Crevan voices his thoughts. Bích looks up and sighs.
"I hope they're doing okay up there."
"They need to destroy that ringing," Crevan states as Harbin smashes against the cube again.
Bích flips Argente into a sitting position and stares at her: psychotic eyes, bloody ears and canines exposed. She starts to tear up again as Argente growls.
"You're not the Argente I know," she chokes.
"Keep hitting it!" Jay yells, ignoring the blood streaming from her ears. Isabelline loads a brown dust crystal into her weapon. It morphs into a hammer. She crashes it down on the turntable, bending it. Jay changes the wind currents to make her hits stronger.
Isabelline continues to whack the machine with her hammer.
“It’s not budging! We need more damage!” Jay yells.
‘More damage,’ Ely thinks, then stares out of the window. They were surely more than 4 stories off the ground.
“Isa! Stop!” Jay yells, but the dragon isn’t listening. In fact, her pupils are starting to go vertical.
“Isa! NO!” Jay tackles the giant dragon.
“Jay! We have to push this out the window!” Ely yells at the winged faunus. She stands up and turns around with her hands covering her ears. Her pupils start to slit as well.
“We need to hurry up!!” she wails and helps Ely push the turntable towards the edge, but it’s extremely heavy. Marco runs over to try and help, but Scarlett grabs him around the neck and throws him at her feet.
"Yeah, that's not happening."
Argente begins to build up strength, and manages to throw Bích off her and stand up. She runs for her whip. Picking up her whip and turning around, Crevan instantly tenses up.
“She’s going to scream!!” He yells at Bích. The deranged faunus flares her nostrils, ready to scream.
“No…” Bích whimpers, before scrambling to her feet and running at Argente. She shoots at her feet, and this causes her opponent to choke on her own breath and cough. Bích grabs Argente’s shirt and throws her into a lip lock. Crevan stares with his mouth hanging open.
“Well...that’s one way to shut her up,” he scratches his head as Harbin rips at his own hair. Crevan puts another glyph around his cube.
But his face falls as Harbin disappears and reappears outside of the cube.
With a roar of rage, Crevan charges at his opponent.
‘WHY! DOES! EVERYONE! KEEP! GETTING! OUT!” He screeched in fury as he slashes away at Harbin’s defense.
Ely looks over at the faunus girls. Isabelline was on the ground, breathing heavily and shaking her head. Jay was desperately trying to push the turntables out of the way.
Ely shuts his eyes, and when he opens them, his body starts to glow.
With a roar, he sprints over to the turntable and whacks it with his hatchets. He then picks half of it up and drags it towards the window. Jay uses her semblance to lift the other part up.
“One the count of three!” He yells at her. She nods.
“One!”
Bích moves back from Argente, who stares at her, eyes narrowed. She grabs the end of her whip and uses it to put pressure against Bích's staff. Bích pushes back, tears streaming from her face.
Crevan begins to cave under the pressure from Harbin’s rapiers.
‘Two!” Ely bellows at Jay, her ears are bleeding.
Marco is still brawling with Scarlett, but he's tiring. Scarlett can see this and attacks him head on, he manages to parry her attack and land a hit on her she stumbles and swings wide striking Marco across the chest knocking the wind out of him he stumbles back a few steps, Scarlett takes this advantage to strike at Marco, who blocks her attack and swipes her off her feet and pins her down then swipes the blunt side of his sickle against her head knocking her out. Abigail clashes with Alyss again, but gets tripped over and knocks her head against the wall. She’s unconscious as Alyss moves forward, prepared to finish the job with a sick grin on her face.
“THREE!!!”
Ely and Jay push the turn table out of the window.
It falls at an alarming rate, and smashes.
The sound is deafening.
-
Argente, Bích and Harbin all cover their ears and howl in pain. The three of them drop to the floor, breathing heavily. Bích and Crevan stare outside of the tower door. All the faunus outside scream in pain and drop to their knees as well.
Crevan shuts his eyes and crumples to the ground. He has no energy to pick up his claymores. He lifts his head slowly and looks at Harbin.
“H-Harbin?” he stutters with exhaustion. Harbin looks up, his pupils were no longer vertical.
“Crevan,” he croaks weekly, then falls to the ground. Crevan crawls over to him and lifts his head up.
“Harbin! Are you okay?!” he hisses, and Harbin coughs.
“The ringing…”
“What about it?” Crevan panics
“It’s….it’s stopped.”
“It’s stopped?” Crevan repeats, and Harbin nods.
“Oh thank fucking goddess,” Crevan sighs with relief and collapses onto the ground next to his partner.
Bích gets to her knees and puts her staff on the ground next to her. She looks at the faunus in front of her, gasping for air.
“Argente?” Bích whispers. The brunette looks up, her pupils are back to normal, and there are tears in her eyes. Her ears droop as her bottom lip trembles.
“Bích,” she whimpers, and bursts into tears. The whip-wielder falls into Bích’s embrace, and the staff master tears up as well.
“I know, I know,” Bích runs a shaky hand through the brown hair.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I hurt you,” Argente breaks down and trembles through sobs, but Bích hushes her.
“It’s okay,” she also starts to break down and continues to messily pet the girl in her embrace.
Abigail stirs, her head throbs in pain. Her eyes flutter open, and she sees Ely standing over her. His face is full of worry.
“Abigail? Abigail!” His voice is muffled and distant. A faint ringing is in her ears, but it’s not the same one as before. It starts to fade as she slowly sits up.
“Ely?” she murmurs. He puts a hand over his heart and sighs.
“Thank god you’re okay.”
“What happened? Where’s Scarlett?” She tries to get up, but Ely pushes her back down.
“The turntable is destroyed. Has the ringing stopped?” He asks her gently. Abigail focuses, and nods.
“Yes, it’s gone,” she trembles with relief. She sees police all around them, four have Scarlett in handcuffs. Paramedics surround Isabelline and Jay. Marco is in the corner answering questions.
“Where’s Felicity?” Abigail demands with exhaustion. Ely looks down.
“It turns out she was in the mob outside. Everyone was. They’re being treated at the city hospital.”
Abigail shoves him off her and stands up, ignoring the throbbing in her head and searing pain all over her body. A paramedic enters the room and walks right up to her.
"Miss, you need to see a doctor," he says, but Abigail just stares at him.
"I need to see my sister."
"Miss, your head is bleeding," the paramedic points out, but Abigail ignores him.
"My sister has been in pain since 8am. A bleeding head means shit to me. Let me see my sister."
The paramedic looks at Ely, who nods.
“Just let her see Felicity first, then she’ll let you treat her. Isn’t that right, Abigail?”
The blonde nods.
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