Rose, Iziya and Graid had just succeeded in destroying the first lieutenants who led each of the platoons Rale’s company was comprised of when the rocky grandma saw Yuki was in big trouble. In particular, Mr. Nightsong had squatted down next to her as she lay on the ground, talking to the bloodied and burned amnesiac. At this point, it was only a matter of time before he killed the newest member of the child-looking grandma’s family.
The Earthlings seemed to be having trouble dealing with Tenji Line as well, but they had more numbers and could thus find a way to defeat him eventually. Graid and Iziya were a great duo and could at least hold off the remaining enemy forces with whatever stamina they had left. The young Miss Iceflame, however, was in greater danger than anyone else as she was faced with the strongest and most ruthless person on this field at the moment.
Rose didn’t even give her children any warning of leaving them, pushing her output near 90% and turning herself into a pile of rocks that mixed with the earth. She moved very fast underground in that form, reaching the defeated ice maiden and her attacker and emerging between the two along with a giant rock spike. The spike made Rale jump back, allowing the oldest member of the Summerbolt family to pull Yuki to her after coming out of the earth and returning to her normal appearance. Judging by her wounds, she could tell the villain had used the ’66 6-Faced Hammers’ Justice’ on her. And that served to greatly enrage the rocky grandma.
Her anger alone was not going to be enough to crush Ukris’ husband, however, especially with the output-enhancing tech he seemed to have in him. The tables needed to be turned by special means which someone needed to acquire while she held Mr. Nightsong off. No one else around could be entrusted with such a task but Yuki, Saya’s mother starting to whisper in the girl’s ear now as she held her close.
(Rose) ‘-Yu, can you hear me?’
(Yuki) ‘-I’m still alive somehow, so yeah. Thank you for coming to my rescue.’
(Rose) ‘-I’m going to need you to do a bit more for me before retiring, though, OK?’
(Yuki) ‘-Just tell me what you need.’
(Rose) ‘-When Rale’s forces hit us and he attacked you, one of his soldiers took Ulura aside to keep her safe. Maybe you can get to one of your healer classmates to give you a quick patch-up and then go and find her, eliminating the soldier and taking her hostage.’
(Yuki) ‘-So we can use her as leverage against him? That’s playing dirty.’
(Rose) ‘-But it’s our only chance now. All I need is for him to be distracted by seeing she’s in danger to land one clean shot. And it will be done. Think you can do what I ask?’
(Yuki) ‘-You’ve got it.’
(Rose) ‘-As soon as he comes after me, you …’
But Rale had already come after Rose just as she said that, Yuki wasting no time and teleporting aside with a momentary whirlwind of ice shards, the oldest Summerbolt managing to barely dodge Mr. Nightsong’s attack. The parallelepiped-shaped laser beam he had formed around his fist carved a hole in the ground instead of her torso as she jumped back, the fury of the black-haired brute in front of her seeming to increase by the minute.
(Rale) ‘-That child you just saved … belongs to me now.’
(Rose) ‘-Still treating people like property, I see. You haven’t grown wiser with age, Rale.’
(Rale) ‘-But you can bet I’ve become much stronger than you, old bitch.’
(Rose) ‘-Are you planning on killing Yuki and then bringing her back?’
(Rale) ‘-As we will do with anyone in this park that has some potential. (he narrowed his eyes) Everyone with potential … except all members of the Summerbolt family. (Ulura’s father paused for a moment and looked aside, seeming to be in deep thought) Oh, and that Blackscale kid, too.’
(Rose) ‘-Yuki is a Summerbolt as well.’
(Rale) ‘-Not on a genetic level she’s not. As long as she doesn’t have your family’s persistence running through her veins, we’ll be able to turn her.’
(Rose) ‘-I will never let that happen.’
(Rale) ‘-See? That’s the persistence I’m talking about. The same persistence we need to rid ourselves of as soon as possible.’
Rose smirked with as much confidence as she could muster in her present condition at the blue hammer.
(Rose) ‘-You must really fear us to be trying to take us down so desperately.’
Rale wasn’t moved by his new opponent’s words in any way.
(Rale) ‘-Just call it a preemptive measure. The powers of none of you are what they used to be 20 years ago, but your persistence … it still burns as hot as ever. Extinguishing it now will save us a lot of trouble in the future.’
The ground around the combatants started shaking, splitting open in many places and rock pyramids starting to come out of the cracks.
(Rose) ‘-Our family’s flame will not be extinguished by the likes of you, Rale. (the pyramids emerged fully now, targeting Ukris’ husband as Rose roared at him with more power in her voice than she thought she currently had) IT DIDN’T WORK BEFORE AND IT WON’T WORK NOW!!!!’
Wide laser beams came from under each pyramid and destroyed all of them before they reached Mr. Nightsong, the lasers shattering each rock structure into cube-shaped blocks. The power of the beams blasted those rocks to the ground in a bullet-like fashion, scarring the land even further with the new sets of holes left in her while Rose had managed to close the distance between her and the hammer maker. She had now become a drill of many mini rock pyramids with the apexes pointing outward, trying to pierce through him. A single wave of the laser freak’s hand made all the surrounding beams converge on her just as she made contact, foiling her attempted assault.
(Rale) ‘-Looks like we’ve got ourselves a classic active vs. static deva clash here, don’t we? (multilayered rock armor saved the pyramid maker from the beams while she dug her way underground and came back out at another spot on the battlefield) Statistics show that active deva users defeat static deva users in most cases, though, right?’
(Rose) ‘-I didn’t know you had become smart enough to be reading statistics, Rale.’
Despite his effort to hide it, Rale was definitely annoyed by his enemy’s remark.
(Rale) ‘-How else do you think I’m running one of the biggest construction companies in this country if not by being smart, Summerbolt?’
He was just begging Rose to retaliate with an even worse insult and she couldn’t resist the temptation to do so, even though they were fighting to the death and all. She made a mocking imitation of the deep-in-thought expression on Rale’s face from earlier while adding a touch of her childish cuteness to it to make the insult even more effective.
(Rose) ‘-Hmmm … I don’t know how else. Maybe your wife runs it for you?’
The whole battlefield used by the two was consumed by a single dark blue laser beam now, the rocky grandma suffering damage in spite the armor made of her deva this time around, Rale appearing in front of her and starting to pummel her. His rage seemed to have reached its peak.
(Rale) ‘-ANOTHER THING I’LL BE GLAD TO RID THE WORLD OF ARE THOSE ANNOYING COMMENTS OF YOURS!!!!’
All Rose could do was block the blue hammer’s laser-clad fists and kicks to the best of her ability and use atomic-sized rock armor on the inside of her body to not allow any laser particles to reach her and cause her to end up like Yuki. Unlike the highly tenacious baby doll, this old lady would not survive being hit by such an attack.
As difficult as it was, she tried to pay attention to her surrounding environment while the wrathful beat-down continued, realizing the wide laser beam around her and Rale had not disappeared. It had only taken the shape of a parallelepiped which had started to grow smaller in size. Seeing that, the old Mrs. Summerbolt figured that the brute was most likely planning to lock her in one of his laser prisons to disintegrate her.
In order to prevent that from happening, she partially shifted her focus from defending against the flurry of attacks to creating tiny clusters of rocks throughout the inside of the laser parallelepiped. Due to her original concentration faltering, however, at one point her whole rock armor was broken, Mr. Nightsong’s fist making proper contact with her torso then.
The sheer force of that punch sent her to one of the walls of her prison that kept on diminishing in size, feeling as if a truck had hit her head-on. Her chest, her whole being even, was rattled more than it had been for years, the initially local pain quickly spreading through her nervous system. The impulse bombardment that reached her brain made it feel like she was hit with a brick on the head as well, meanwhile her ribcage boiling in an inferno of pain.
From the experience she had with injuries, she could tell that at least one of her ribs was broken. Registering the lack of air and the amount of blood coming out of her mouth due to the wound took a while with the pain overtaking her at first, Rale not wasting any time, however. He grabbed her by the throat now and dragged her to the bottom of the prison, getting ready to leave her there and let his mass of lasers smash and cut her into oblivion.
How she managed to clench one of her hands into a fist, the pyramid maker did not know. Maybe it was just the force of habit of going beyond her limits. Nevertheless, clenching her fist led to the quick expansion of all the tiny rock clusters she had spread within the parallelepiped and that was all she needed. The newly formed masses of rocks quickly joined together to make a copy of the villain’s prison, but smaller, in order to slow down his creation’s compression. At the same time, the two fighters were now inside the rock prison, meaning Rose had successfully brought her foe on her turf.
(Rose) ‘-You won’t be ridding yourself of me just yet, boy. I’ve still got a few things left to do in this world, after all.’
With another command of her mind, the oldest Summerbolt caused the inside of her prison to transform into pyramids with isosceles triangle-shaped faces to stab Rale many times, she herself merging with the pyramids. This tactic allowed her to move through the structures made by her and get to her target, who had managed to cut every single pyramid before its apex could hurt him. Once she reached him, the old lady returned to her normal form, grabbing the brute on both sides of the head.
(Rale) ‘-Getting so close to me again after what I did to you? You really long for death, don’t you, Rose?!’
(Rose) ‘-No. I just act suicidal out of madness every now and then. (she allowed the surrounding remains of her pyramids to absorb the parts of her body Ulura’s father had targeted with the laser beam shot by both his fists) But that madness is something I’m willing to accept, if it serves its purpose. (Rale was left gaping from surprise at how the child-like grandmother had survived his latest attack, this providing her with the perfect opportunity to spill a mini rockslide into his throat) This is for what you did to Yuki. Let’s see how you like it when someone poisons the inside of your body with their deva.’
She could no longer keep her body spread between the pyramids around, but thankfully as she returned to normal, Rale couldn’t focus enough to use the beam formed around his fists to pierce her. His laser prison that had just broken through its smaller rock copy also dissipated, Rose’s ability to focus on anything no longer being active by then, which led to the pyramids and parallelepiped around them crumbling.
Both warriors fell back on the ground near the other now, the old Mrs. Summerbolt looking at how Mr. Nightsong was writhing and rolling in pain until eventually he stopped. He then sprang back up to his feet, a deep sigh leaving his chest, followed by the forming of a pleased smile on his face when his eyes found those of his opponent.
(Rale) ‘-Your revenge scheme seems to have failed. Active devas have a much more invasive nature while static ones are more isolation-oriented, meaning they focus on stopping things rather than progressing through them.
Hence, if someone with an active deva poisons the body of someone with a static one and they realize that, they can protect themselves, just like you were doing when I tried that against you. If a static deva user tries to do the same to an active deva user, however, that deviant can easily stop the spread of the static deva within their body.’
(Rose) ‘-I don’t think … it was as easy for you to stop it … as you said it should be, Nightsong. You sure seemed in a lot of agony for a moment there.’
(Rale) ‘-Your attacks are as persistent as yourself, after all. What matters is the final result of our battle. And that result is the same as the one I told you of when we started fighting. (he stepped closer to her, putting a hand on the ground and channeling his lasers through it to form a beam under her with the intention of ending her life) You and me have gone full circle, old hag. You were the stronger and the smarter one of the two once, but now you’ve grown weak and senile.’
(Rose) ‘-While you’ve reached the height of your abilities and your intelligence?’
(Rale) ‘-Exactly.’
(Yuki) ‘-A genius like you could certainly predict this too, then, right?’
Rose and Rale both looked aside to find Yuki was standing near them, holding the partially incased in ice and maddened Ulura in front of her with an ice dagger put to her throat.
No surprise came over the black-haired brute when he saw the situation his daughter was in, however. Rose’s plan to turn the tables on him had failed.
(Rale) ‘-I didn’t exactly predict it, but it seems like I didn’t need to. Fate is simply on my side. (Yuki hadn’t noticed what Rose’s condition was initially, but was astounded once she found out, the visible collapse of her resolve bringing further joy to Ulura’s father) You try to do anything to my daughter and I’ll end Rose’s life in an instant. She’s much closer to death than Ulura, anyway.’
A cold calm suddenly came over the white-haired beauty’s face then, confusing everyone else near her.
(Yuki) ‘-Maybe your daughter will welcome death when she learns of what her father has kept from her.’
Further confusion struck all the ones listening to the ice maiden, a tinge of worry being noticeable on Rale’s face as well now.
(Rale) ‘-What are you talking about?’
(Yuki) ‘-I heard what you said earlier, just when I came between you and Saya. You said you had dispatched soldiers throughout the park to eliminate all survivors. (the amnesiac narrowed her eyes now, her gaze seeming colder than ever) ALL survivors. That means your people aren’t targeting only my class, but Ulura’s as well, right?’
The father tried to maintain his composure while the daughter was shocked.
(Rale) ‘-Just because you didn’t hear me say it doesn’t mean that’s not what I meant, Iceflame! Don’t try to deceive my daughter now!’
(Yuki) ‘-You said you were planning on resurrecting me after killing me to make sure you would be able to control me. Perhaps you mean to do the same with your daughter’s classmates?’
(Ulura) ‘-Father, what is she talking about?’
Rale’s façade was breaking more with each next word spoken by Yuki. And the ice maiden didn’t let up at all as she sensed that as much as Rose.
(Yuki) ‘-That soldier you left with Ulura … maybe you had ordered him to take her far enough so that she wouldn’t see any of the things the rest will do to her classmates?’
(Rale) ‘-Ulura, don’t believe a word she says! She’s just making wild guesses to confuse you!! To turn you against me!’
(Yuki) ‘-And what about the way your forces were structured? Ulura was always meant to be kept separate from the Martians, right? She’s got good teamwork with them, so she could be sent to join them when the time was right. But instead you had her lead some of your soldiers along with Line-sensei. In order to make sure she would never learn of what you’ve done with her friends.’
The rocky grandma didn’t know for sure if Yuki was telling the truth as she hadn’t seen the battle through her eyes. Maybe she was indeed just trying to fool Ulura. What Rose knew was all this had made Rale drop his guard and cancel the formation of the laser beam under her while also not having noticed the rock spike she was forming from the ground behind him.
(Ulura) ‘-T-This c-can’t possibly be true. Right, father? Right?!’
(Rale) ‘-Of course it’s not true! Do you think I would ever do something so …’
Then the spike pierced his back, its blood-soaked tip coming out through the unarmored part of his stomach.
(Rose) ‘-Knowing you as well as I do, Rale, I’d say you’re completely capable of doing that and more.’
(Ulura) ‘-Father!!!’
(Rose) ‘-Relax, girl. Being the monstrous brute that he is, your father won’t die just from that. (her eyes focused on Yuki now) But he won’t be a threat to our family for the remainder of this battle.’
(Yuki) ‘-I’ve got to go and help Izy, Graid and the rest of the class. Are you going to be alright here?’
(Rose) ‘-I’ll be just fine, Yu. Go and save the others. In the mean time me and good ol’ Rale here will catch up.’
(Ulura) ‘-I’ll kill you!!! I’ll kill every single one of you!!! Let me go, Iceflame, or I’ll kill you first!!!’
(Yuki) ‘-I’m getting really tired of your threats, Ulura. Move along and make yourself useful, will you?’
The baby doll teleported aside along with the former high-school tyrant, Rose watching as Miss Iceflame erected quite a few ice walls to stop the barrage of attacks the enemy troopers had sent at her classmates, Iziya and Graid.
Tenji Line lied defeated further down the field, as clouds covered the sky and the smoke from the clash between the anti-deviant arsenal and the ice walls disappeared, Yuki stepping closer to the soldiers now. The Summerbolt brother and sister got up soon enough and helped the Earthlings do the same as they gathered around the girl with white hair.
All listened to her negotiating with the villains to stop firing if they want Ulura to live while the pyramid maker turned to her impaled and angered, but apparently too tired to keep fighting, enemy.
(Rale) ‘-You fu**ing bitch. How much longer are you going to keep this spike in me? Make it disappear already.’
(Rose) ‘-If I do that without anyone being close by to give you medical attention, you will really die. Plus, I’d like to have a little talk now that things have quieted down.’
(Rale) ‘-You’ll need more spikes than this one to make me talk and I doubt you can make any more right now.’
(Rose) ‘-Yuki gave quite a good description of your actions and motives up until now and I find that to be the most likely version of how things actually happened. But still, I’d like to get some confirmation directly from you.’
Rale grinned at his opponent.
(Rale) ‘-Whether I confirm it or not doesn’t matter. All of this is going to end pretty soon.’
(Rose) ‘-How so?’
(Rale) ‘-Your senses have really dulled over the years, haven’t they, Summerbolt? Can’t you feel it? She’s almost here. Any second now … she’ll be upon us. Whatever answers you want, you can get from her and whatever form of oblivion you dread the most, she will bring about.’
Just as Rale said that, Rose heard the loud crack of thunder, following the sound with her eyes to what she guessed was the big central field area of Nebula. Only the lightning bolts that had appeared there were purple. And between them were shot black lasers.
(Rose) ‘-Ukris.’
