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Restoration Part 3

 

Huh? What is she talking about? 

Luna’s words didn’t quite make sense to Aurora. What was she going to do in a fight if she didn’t have her powers?

“Remember! Mr. Eterna’s orders were to leave her alive for him!” A guard yelled out to his peers. With that, Luna’s battle officially started.

 

***

 

As per usual, she slammed a smoke bomb onto the ground to become hidden.

“Turn on the vacuum!” 

This shout from one of the guards caught Luna by surprise. Small openings on the ground appeared and began sucking up all the smoke Luna had just created. The area was clear again in a matter of seconds. 

“Where is she?!”

Luna was already spotted grabbing a guard’s arms from behind his back and then knocking him against a wall with as much force as she could. He fell to the ground unconscious.

Looks like that’ll be the only free knockout I get. Luna thought this as three guards began rushing her. She quickly swerved around them, but not before striking one of them in the back of the leg. The sound of bones cracking was audible to everyone.

Following this hit was the sight of a stun baton about to meet Luna’s face before she ducked and rolled out of the way. She backed herself against Aurora’s tube and took the opportunity to say something fast to her.

“I can’t do this by myself! You’re gonna have to break out with your Curse!”

Once the words finished coming out of her mouth, she had to quickly dodge another baton.

“I can’t! I’ve already lost my ability. I’m sorry… It’s all my fault!” Aurora yelled out.

“I already sensed it was gone!” Luna maneuvered around four guards in order to retrieve her crescent boomerang. “But now I’m asking you to awaken it once more!”

“Awaken it again? What are you talking about?” Aurora asked.

“I need you to forge a new bond with me, Aurora!” Luna said as she temporarily created a clone who she simultaneously punched a guard in his helmet with, leaving a noticeable dent in the glass. “We can’t start over, but we have to move forward. It’s just like you wanted! We can’t let the past continue to haunt us!”

What I wanted…? “Y-you’re wrong! All I wanted was to see you again! Everything I did was just to excuse my selfishness!” 

Luna wanted to reply back immediately, but one of the guards got a lucky hit on her from the side. The pain inflicted by the stun baton wasn’t comparable to Katherine’s electricity, but it still horribly stung. She kicked her attacker away before he could follow up.

“Luna! Just focus on yourself! Don’t bother with me!”

Four guards surrounded and charged at Luna until she split into four and swept all their legs. 

“You’re just as involved in this as me! We’re both here because I ran away all those years ago! I’m the one who should apologize! I thought I was protecting you, but all I did was leave us both alone! We can’t change what happened to us, and we can’t redo the years since then, but that’s why we must find a way to move forward!”

After Luna said this, a loud bang reverberated through the room. She would’ve immediately looked for the cause of this sound, but her attention was stolen by the small spurts of blood that came from her arm.

A bullet had grazed her left shoulder. Luna turned and saw it came from the guard who was on the ground after she previously broke his leg. She threw her crescent boomerang right at his helmet which knocked him out for good.

Luna then dodged a few more guards, but more blood began oozing from her shoulder. It even bled into her cape. She covered it with her opposite hand while the pain started to build up, but this was putting her at a major disadvantage. 

Chloe banged her fist against the glass for the slightest bit of hope that it could break, while Aurora tried her best to activate her powers, but no matter how much she mentally exerted herself, nothing would happen.

 

***

 

C’mon! What’s missing! Luna needs you! Aurora yelled in her head.

Luna stepped back from the guards. She was still very much cautious of them, but she continued what she had to say regardless. 

“It’s the Aurora that’s here with me now that I care about! I know you hate the idea that I’d give up everything for you, but it’s why I’m asking for your help!”

Letting go of her wound, Luna reached her hand out to Aurora and smiled, “Let’s trust each other again! ” 

 

Trust…oh…that’s it, isn’t it? Aurora realized.

 

Her attachment to Luna had been built upon the memories they had together. With those memories turning into her source of pain, her attachment was severed and with that, her powers too. But here Luna was reaching her hand out to this confused girl once again. Her smile initially reminded Aurora of the one she made when she first approached her back in elementary school, but it was unquestionably different. It was a smile that carried the weight of its history, and did so proudly. 

It was this newly formed smile that pulled Aurora back into the present.

“Leave Luna alone…”

Luna created four clones, but she gave no clear intention to them, they were quickly wiped away when hit by stun batons. She backed away further.

“Leave…Luna…alone…”

Luna looked desperate to patch up her wound, but she couldn’t do that while still being attacked.

“Leave…Luna…alone…!”

A familiar red aura flickered around Aurora’s body. Its rate of turning on and off only got faster and faster. From a distance, Luna could also see the tube surrounding Aurora also beginning to glow until it turned into a bright red. 

With her hands held up, Aurora yelled from the bottom of her heart.

“I TRUST YOU, LUNA!”

The glass separating the two girls shattered into pieces. They then reformed into a wall of glass and went flying at one of the guards, slamming him against a wall and knocking him out in an instant. 

The guards looked at Aurora with caution, but Luna stared at her in awe. Her words managed to shoot into her heart and returned her Curse. 

The remaining five guards raised their pistols at Aurora as they were given no orders to keep Aurora alive if she broke out.

“Freeze!” one of them yelled out. Aurora didn’t move any closer, but she did gleefully smile, for they made a grave error in the heat of the moment.

Five Lunas rushed at each one of them and disarmed all of them through either kicks, punches or cuts with her knife to their hands. 

When they were distracted by Aurora, Luna wrapped her wound in a bandage to stop the bleeding and could now fight as usual. 

They all yelled out in pain, but Luna didn’t let up once all her clones vanished.

She snatched the stun baton of the guard she just disarmed and pressed it against his neck, one of the most vulnerable parts of their suits. It only took three seconds for him to pass out.

“Catch, Aurora!”

Luna threw the baton high up in the air, making it clearly visible for Aurora.

“Got it!”

Directing her hands at the baton, it halted in the air before moving directly toward another guard. He reacted in time and blocked it with his own baton, but Luna’s surprise punch to the gut forced his body to relinquish its firm positioning and have the baton directly meet his neck. Only three guards left.

Luna snatched another baton and used it for herself. The third to last guard could hardly fight back against these two. 

Out of desperation, the last two guards charged at Aurora, realizing she was the biggest threat. As they were about to swing their batons at her, their torsos felt a rope tightly coil itself around them. When they looked back, they saw two Lunas that both shot their grappling hooks and were holding them in place.

“It seems we’re done here.” With the pull of Aurora’s hands, the baton she controlled reached both their necks one after the other, knocking out the last two guards.

 

***

 

Luna’s clone vanished, and she let out a big sigh of relief now that she could rest. She focused on slowing her breathing, and it was only now that she realized how fast her heart was beating. Did she really exert herself that much physically, or was this fight simply that stressful for her?

The details of the metal floor became more visible to Luna as she stared down at it, though the view changed when Aurora’s feet entered her eyesight.

Luna had yet to raise her head, meaning she didn’t know what face Aurora was making. Her mind considered so many possibilities when in combat, yet she had no clue what to say or how to face Aurora. Was she supposed to cry tears of joy? Smile and be happy that they’re together again? 

Everything she said during her fight was in the heat of the moment. An outpour of emotions while her adrenaline had kicked in. Taking a second to think about it logically, there was something clear that she could say.

“You…saved me…thank you,” Luna quietly spoke these grateful words. Unsure at exactly what exactly Aurora would say. 

She waited seconds for an answer, until it was as if a warm blanket wrapped itself around Luna. Aurora’s arms felt soft as they surrounded her body. The bottom half of her face pressed itself against Aurora’s shoulder. 

“Actually, it's the other way around.” Aurora said, hugging even tighter.

The shine of the moonlight was present in Luna’s widely open eyes.

“Ahaha…!” A delicate laugh came out of Luna, followed by her hugging in return.

If these two had been left alone like this for a minute longer, tears would surely start flooding both their eyes, but that never came due to someone they semi-forgot about.

“Are you two really gonna do me like this?” Chloe said gesturing at the tube she was still stuck in.  “I hope you guys didn’t come to save only Aurora.”

The two quickly backed away from each other when they heard Chloe’s voice. Luna hid her face in her cape while Aurora dashed over to Chloe.

“O-oh yeah! I’ll free you right away, Chloe!”

Aurora’s face was both flustered and red. While Luna’s face was also red, her face turned serious as she thought deeply about their relationship. The recent conversation she had with Melody also came to mind.

Aurora really is more than just a friend to me now, isn’t she? Assuming she feels the same, where do we go from there? …No, this isn’t the time to be thinking about that. One priority at a time, Luna.

The glass trapping Chloe shattered to pieces, but Aurora made sure not to have them be blown directly at her as it was sliced to pieces. All they did was fall to the floor before Chloe could walk over them.

“It’s a bit annoying that I got to do nothing that whole time, but hey, you two got your moment together-”

Chloe’s snark got cuffed off by Luna’s embrace.

“I’m relieved that you’re safe too, Chloe.”

Chloe must’ve been taken aback, but she took it in stride. “Great to see you kicking too, Luna.”

“So…” Aurora said. “What’s the plan now?”

Luna replied, “Dawn and Serene are back in the security room. Dominic is surely aware that intruders are here and that it’s likely us. The subway we used may be guarded now, so we’ll need to find another means of escape.”

“It’s not like we should leave first, anyways.” Chloe said.

“Why’s that?”

 “When Aurora and I were being taken here, I caught a glimpse of a room that seemed like it was storing Dominic’s blood. With how he was talking to us, it seems like he’s planning on spreading his power just like he did with me and Kate.”

“What? Why would he…?”

“Why don’t we ask him?” Chloe pointed towards the corner of the room. Luna forgot about the scientist manning the computer that got locked in the room and hid in a corner of the room. It looked like he ended up hiding there as the entire fight went down.

Luna marched over to him, which after everything he’d seen, was enough to get him talking.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! I’ll tell you! Mr. Eterna plans on selling his blood for billions of dollars to high powers across the world.”

“That’s a rather reckless way of spreading his power,” Luna said. Now grabbing the man by the collar.

“These latest samples are strongly connected to Mr. Eterna. Before, they’d only cause people to develop superhuman abilities, but now he’d have greater control over those who have his blood. Breaking that trust in any way would automatically deactivate his gift to them. They’re kept in a storage room here. I-I’ve told you all enough, right?! You won’t hurt me like all those guards?!”

“Yeah we’ve hassled the man enough, Luna. You want to tie him up with one your ropes-”

Chloe’s suggestion was never listened to on account of Luna slamming the man to ground. It didn’t look like he’d be getting up for a while.

“Woah! Didn’t know you were that no nonsense.”

“In a place like this, I’m not taking chances when it comes to people I love,” Luna said, staring at no particular person, but that didn’t stop Aurora from trying to move into her field of view. “Putting that side, Dawn, can you see where the storage room is while in security?”

“I can! It’s not too far down the hall from where you are. There’s also multiple emergency escape pods located at various points around this whole lab.”

“Good to know. Now let’s-”

“Wait. Someone just entered that room. They don’t look like the other guards or scientists.They’re wearing all black.”

“What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re trying to bypass the lock to the vault containing the blood samples. Hang on! This is bad! If they do that, then the emergency alarms-!”

Like clockwork, a blaring alarm noise blasted into Luna, Aurora, and Chloe’s ears. The lights on the ceiling glowed a harsh light that overtook all colors in the room.

“Luna, we need to get out of here!” Aurora yelled.

“Dawn! Disable the lock on this room!”

Melody wasn’t given the chance to do this, for as soon as Luna gave this command, the door had visible electric currents surrounding it. A few seconds later, the door short circuited and opened automatically. 

Walking into view was a girl each of them were familiar with, but only two of them had fought before. Her eyes reeked with desperation and exhaustion. Like an animal trying to force open a cage they had no hope of freeing themselves from, but would keep trying no matter what. 

After so many failures, Katherine was prepared to do whatever it would take to achieve her goals.