A wide grin formed on Fushcia's face as Mitsuba stood next to her, "Omg! It's Yuri of the Five Saints!" She pulled out a bunch of diamonds and puckered her lips, "Did you come all the way here to offer up your body?"

Yuri scoffed and cracked her knuckles, "As if...We came here on different business, but it wouldn't hurt to kill you too."

"Oh really...then die!" Fuchsia launched all of the diamonds towards Yuri, prompting Colt to leap in front of her and take them head on.

I was right, since her diamond failed to work on me before, I'm practically immune to her core power!

Following Yuri's lead, Colt shot past Mitsuba and charged over to Fuchsia. Even with his core energy enhanced speed, he struggled to keep up with Yuri.

Got her!

Before they could land a hit on Fuchsia, they were snatched through one of Mitsuba's portals.

As Colt struggled to regain his composure, Yuri locked her legs around Mitsuba's neck and flipped her down the street. "Colt, handle Fuchsia!"

"On it-"

Fuchsia's arm expanded in both girth and length, shooting forward and blasting Colt through the streets. His rapid flight came to an end as he smashed into a streetlight, knocking it over. Once the pain set in on his body, he opened his eyes to see that he had just been shot through several homes.

What the fuck was that? I thought her only ability was turning other people into core beasts!

As Colt struggled to rise to his feet, Yuri dodged a series of wild swings from Fuchsia, closing the distance between them in the process. Even as Mitsuba tried jumping in, Yuri found a way to handle them both at once.

Before he could keep up with her rapid movements, Mitsuba had already been knocked unconscious.

Yuri's amazing, but I can't leave her alone!

Fuchsia expanded arm shot past Yuri and smashed Mitsuba into the pavement. Through this abrupt course of action, she retrieved a small orb and stepped away from Yuri.

"You're tougher than I expected, " said Fuchsia as she swallowed the strange orb, "I'll have to be a bit more careful with you."

Yuri grit her teeth, "You just ate her core? Looks like I'm gonna have to rip it out of your guts now!"

"Man, you're so stubborn..." cried Fuchsia with a childish pout, "I thought it was protocol within the CCU to even fight me. Although, I guess that's why it took you guys so long to come looking for Mitsuba."

"Wh-What?"

"I guess I'm right. Mitsuba's been with me for three years now, and thanks to her, I had tons of little toys to experiment with!" Fuchsia clasped her hands together and laughed, "I've also become more of a threat to you dirty humans-"

Colt lunged forward and smashed his skull straight into Fuchsia's face, "Shut up!"

"Keep going!" shouted Yuri as she leapt forward and delivered an explosive kick.

The duo continued to unload an onslaught of heavy blows to the woman, rocking her back and forth with each decisive strike.

No matter how many times he hit her, it'd never be enough. For everything she said about Mitsuba, to everything she's done. Every blow carried an immense level of hatred behind it.

Die!

Just as they closed in for the finishing blows, a blinding cascade of lights erupted from within Fuchsia's body, burning Colt's skin to blistering levels of damage. Within this small pocket of time, her fist came blasting into his face once more, ridding him of his sight.

-

Yuri watched as Colt's motionless body blew straight into the dirt, only to be sent crashing into a building nearby. She thankfully held her guard up the moment she felt the heat, but the weight behind the sudden blow nearly snapped her arms in two.

This bitch is a Swiss army knife with all of these powers!

Buried beneath the debris and rubble, she reached into her pocket, retrieving a small capsule. With the squeeze of her hand, core energy exploded from the capsule, shooting off into the sky. With its meteoric rise, she was carried along with it, clearing through the buried rubbled she found herself in.

Fuchsia glanced up at Yuri, with a captivated smile etched onto her face, "No way, it's like some robot anime! I have to turn you into a core beast now!"

Sitting within her Lily Reaper, Yuri locked onto Fuchsia and unloaded an explosive burst of core energy, setting off a large explosion that consumed the very street she stood on.

Damn, the little bug dodged at the last second!

Her mech rocked as Fuchsia leapt on top of it, delivering an explosive punch to its exterior.

"It didn't break?" She retreated and landed on a nearby rooftop, "Aren't you scared in there, Yuri? I mean, you're in that congested cockpit, while I can shoot around and hit you from all angle-"

Pressing a button on the control pad, Yuri shot forward and blasted Fuchsia through the sky with a wild swing, "My Lily Reaper isn't some run of the mill robot! Underestimate me, and I'll kill you!"

Fuchsia caught herself on another rooftop and erupted into laughter, "That speed...You must be using core energy to fuel it."

She's perceptive. I don't know what she's doing, but after all of that fighting, she must be running low on core energy. With her goal being to convert me into a core beast, she's most likely saving some in reserves for that...

Yuri pulled a series of levers within the cockpit, unleashing a flurry of destructive blasts towards Fuchsia. While she managed to avoid some, the final two caught her at a perfect angle, scorching her body to near cinders.

With healing all of her injuries and fighting me, I'll just force her to burn through all of her core energy! She'll be forced to run away, or die here. There's no way she'll be able to get inside-

Fuchsia's arm expanded once again, blasting straight through the front of the Lily Reaper. Shards of metal and glass scattered throughout the cockpit, cutting into Yuri's arms and legs as she watched the moonlight shine into her safe room.

The large fist stopped right before it reached her face, retracting as if someone had been playing with some measuring tape.

"What's wrong?" asked Fuchsia as she gazed up at Yuri from the roof of the building, "I bet you didn't think that I could stack core powers! Too bad, I'm all out core energy though."

Yuri sat in silent horror, watching as core energy began to leak from the gaping hole in her mech. As the final spurts leaked out, the Lily Reaper came crashing down into the pavement, ringing a loud thud throughout the entire neighborhood.

Fuchsia pouted, "I was saving core energy to turn you into a core beast, but if you were gonna kill me, I'd have to abandon that little plan, right? Wasn't that obvious?" She took a moment to absorb the scenery, "I'm satisfied with this ending though. Watching the hope fade from your eyes was way more valuable than I thought it'd be."

She continued to ramble on some random nonsense that Yuri was barely able to hear.

"Oh well, we're both out of core energy, so we can call it a day here." said Fuchsia, "I don't feel like waiting for it to replenish, so...bye!" She awkwardly waved at Yuri and sped off into the city, leaving her with the scraps of the Lily Reaper.

-

Maple City, Some Random Neighborhood

Normal Realm

8:54PM

Colt and Yuri stumbled towards a portal in an alley with their broken bodies.

Shortly after Fuchsia escaped, Colt woke up and found Yuri standing in the tattered fields of what was supposed to be a beautiful city block. They decided to leave, with the mission being dubbed as a failure.

The entire walk back was dead silent, only leaving the cicadas to sing alone. This time, their song was as gentle and tranquilizing as it used to be.

The night had blown by, faster than either of them could have anticipated.

On this fateful night, they encountered a special entity. This entity forced them both to stomach painful truth, welter it meant accepting one's failures, or having their pride and joy smashed within seconds.

On this fateful night, they were both taught the lessons of a cruel truth...