Between two rows of stacked hovering beds composing the large barracks room, a wave of dust races, or rather a wave of debris as beds are knocked off to the side with several in particular being tossed up above the top column chaotically amongst one humanoid entity clad in gold covered in dust.

From the shoulder perspective of that golden being, not an ordinary human but the Artificer given the intricate royal design of the body featuring the necklace of embedded diamonds, beds are flung from the dust wave’s head below, and from that head emerges the Knight who dashes up, his spiky blonde hair waving underneath his eyes covered in the black goggles with illuminated blue strips, similar to the mask covering his mouth. He arches his arm back against the waving cape with a black outer side and a glowing blue inner side–like the oversized collar–, the outer side featuring a silver cross by the right shoulder. He lets out a bellow as he clenches his silver fist before then throwing it, the flaring blue knuckles making contact with the Artificer as the two bracelets of the gauntlet on the elbow make a hissing sound similar to a piston, the two blue glowing rods in between flashing like an exertion of energy.

That exertion of energy is entirely transferred to the Artificer, whose body is flung further back from an explosion of blue just as the Knight dashes in pursuit, moving with trails of blue light coming from his silver boots, his suit perhaps not traditionally designed yet clearly technologically advanced.

Flying backwards helplessly at first, the Artificer throws her arms outwards with the emergence of four golden tentacles that all immediately suspend her motion as an air brake, letting her stop as she raises both hands which transform their shape each into conal cannons with grated bodies, flaring up gold before firing a rapid barrage of golden energy.

All of that hellfire is evaded with an upwards dash the Knight takes before then dashing straight forward and down at an angle to reach the Artificer, throwing another right fist which is caught by one of the Artificer’s which has swiftly reverted form, stopping both of their movements for a moment as an explosion of wind is finally released.

The rods connecting the bracelets of the right fist flare up again, and suddenly an explosive force strikes the Artificer backwards, not struck by a punch but rather an overwhelming surge of energy that throws her down towards the floor as the Knight aims both fists and begins firing a hail of blue energy bolts curved like half rings off the knuckles, also at a rapid speed.

Diving for the floor, the Artificer’s top tentacles latch onto the beds to swing her along the aisle rather than into it as her bottom tentacles seep back into her back which her top follows after flinging her, allowing her figure to be smaller and thus more nimble as she supports herself through propulsion of her golden cyborg feet, moving with sharp turns to evade the neverending blue hail from above with every shot having more coverage given its unique shape.

The depth variance allows for the Artificer to grab onto a bed frame and fling herself through the rows, between the empty beds for better cover, her face blank given the golden mask though the rapid synthetically tuned breaths makes it clear she’s stressed. Bolts penetrate through the beds used as cover, leaving burning marks in the mattress and metal frame, though at the very least the strafes between beds makes her presence more elusive.

That illusion allows the Artificer to begin circling back, moving towards the Knight even while being shot at, as she moves like a humanoid fighter jet, rolling in the air between rows and making sharp turns, all in an effort to evade the barrage which she does expertly. In moments she manages to get just below the Knight as two tentacles protrude from her back and rise quickly straight for the opponent.

Both of the golden tentacles snatch the Knight’s silver boots, one targeting each, and before the Knight can react he’s pulled against his will straight into where he dropped his target. Desperate, he slashes both tentacles with his hands as the rods flare, letting him cut through both of them with ease and leave the dangling tentacles around his legs, though both of them then reshape independently, coiling up and secreting helixes that transform both cut tendrils into humanoid specters that continue to cling on the boots with greater weight pulling on him. The adaptive transformation distracts the Knight who kicks with his feet to throw the specters off, successful in seconds but at the cost of focus as he’s immediately struck with a barrage of golden energy which initially knocks him backwards before he crosses both arms over his chest, both of which exhibit a panel of blue concentrated energy that absorbs the shots like a shield.

Heavy fire is maintained, in fact it’s doubled as while she was initially firing out of one conal cannon, she uses her other hand as reinforcement, hailing rain down on the shield and managing to pressure the Knight enough that he dashes backwards in initial retreat, beginning to also use the layout of the barracks to his advantage as he weaves between beds in an effort to realign his concentration. He specifically doesn’t move in regular flight, but rather quick dashes in succession, allowing him more nimble movement with only the slight kick of his feet to trigger the dash. This allows him to move in zips, with minor adjustments in direction that makes his movements more erratic, and thus harder to follow though the Artificer pursues nonetheless.

The two don’t only pursue horizontally, but the Knight makes a slight downward dash to move between the lower beds, getting closer to the ground though the stack of beds is tall thus they’re still well above the floor. The Knight’s movements are in zig zags, not committing to a straight line but instead angling himself with every launch, kicking the air as though there’s an invisible wall he’s platforming off of. Not far behind, the Artificer chases in flight, her feet emitting bright beams of propulsive energy that dance as her movement changes, following the erratic opponent through the many bunk beds of the open floor.

In fact from a birds eye view, there’s just the blue and gold streaks chasing each other throughout the grid of beds, zig zagging in random directions, their battle constantly furthering from the center of the room where the smoking hole is.

That race only becomes more intense, the luminosity of the trails ever so brightening the faster they move, and the faster they move the less time there is for assessment before the next move. At this high rate, the Knight uses this narrowing window of reaction time to throw a powerful punch downward at the front edge of a bed he flies right past, causing the whole bed to tip like a seesaw, the bottom being flung upwards which crashes straight into the Artificer who could only administer a response of crossing her arms over her face as four tentacles protruded from her back as an additional cross, padding the blow though her back is flung straight into the metal base of the upper bed.

In that stagger, the Knight dashes in a sharp turn fully to face the other direction where he then dashes the other way, throwing another punch straight for the top of the Artificer’s golden head; right beside that head though the golden shoulder extends, or rather a shoulder gun does designed like a mortar though with sophisticated shapes as the tube has several rings to divide the weapon into segments. Each of those rings spin as the hollow opening of the mortar flares bright before firing a dart out, a golden dart shaped like a missile which lands straight in the center of the Knight’s fist before it could strike the head.

An explosion of golden energy erupts off the dart, knocking the Knight slightly back and providing the Artificer just enough time to reorient herself upright and retract both the mortar and tentacles just as the Knight retaliates with his other fist aimed at her, though this time instead of throwing a punch he instead ignites his knuckles which fires a triplet burst of energy projectiles for the golden abdomen which does manage to land on target, blasting that target backwards.

Colliding through beds which swerve out of place upon impact, the Artificer is sent through the several levels of bunks, being flung with her hands out forward, caught off guard by the surprisingly seasoned fighter.

There’s little time to remain hazed though as moments after that fighter launches himself at her through the same path now cleared, both of his hands flaring bright, his cape dancing viscously from the incredible force of his bound.

Arching his right arm back, the Knight bellows before throwing his first punch with a blazing bright fist towards the Artificer’s face, though from raising her forearm up and expanding a point on that forearm by the wrist into a larger circular shield, she absorbs the impact of the strike as the whole shield flashes a golden light indicative of a local energy barrier.

Immediately next the Knight throws an underhanded punch for the stomach to avoid the shield, again trying to overwhelm the Artificer, though only a brief strafing backwards dash is needed for her to avoid that fate again, moving along the aisle to avoid throwing herself into the walls.

To further avoid a retelling, she retracts her shield and raises both hands as they each transform, the forearms thickening still with a generally cylindrical shape though heavier, and each of the five fingers morph into long barrels that extend and are binded by a few rings which overall mimic a minigun by the time of completion when she has them aimed towards the Knight. Furthermore after the transformation, both of the sets of barrels from each hand begin to spin with a whirring sound, and all ten barrels promptly unleash a barrage of rapid golden gunfire at rates nearly that of a concentrated beam.

That barrage is desperately evaded by the Knight who makes erratic dashes, hiding behind the beds as cover though those are incinerated swiftly from the barrage that chips both the mattresses and metal frames at such speeds that they turn to dust in seconds. The stationary gunner simply rotates her torso to maintain aim as well, constantly putting the Knight on defensive mode as he dashes behind more beds only for them to be shot down, gradually destroying the barracks more and more with the progression of battle.

Though as the Knight moves longer distances and begins circling around the Artificer, it becomes harder to track him, for the cyborg has to make longer turns just to keep pace, as while it’s technically less effort to turn around rather than make the racing circles, she seems to begin struggling to sustain her dominance.

Through her eyeless perspective, the cyborg focuses both of her minigun hands along her own vision, turning it around as her weapons don’t stop for even a second, eating up the surroundings beds and quickly opening up the space around her. Though even with that opening, the Knight keeps evading the gunfire, able to move quickly with powerful dashes, making downward and upward strides to use the several levels of beds to his advantage. At the very least though, as long as she could maintain her current control, she wasn’t the one in danger and could simply wait until the Knight slows down even fractionally.

Through the heavy gunfire coming from her own hands, the Artificer notices the Knight’s hands beginning to brighten more, charging up another attack. This would most likely have to be another projectile blast given that it’d be sheer suicide to come closer for a personal punch, though even the single projectile blasts would be decimated by the hail of gold, thus this seemingly desperate bid for retaliation would have no ultimate weight.

The hands are noticeably the brightest they’ve been observed through, brighter than when they were charged for the shot, and as the Knight’s fists close in preparation and are drawn together, something begins to feel off.

Randomly a distant explosion can be heard from far below which pulls the Artificer’s focus downward, just for a moment breaking her focus as she stops moving.

Suddenly the Knight dashes upwards and suspends his own motion, practically letting himself perish if not for the short distraction, but as he raises both of his own hands in aim, his counterattack initiates right when the Artificer remembers to keep focus on him.

He fires his strike, though instead of it being a distinct projectile whether a single shot or a barrage, it is instead one concentrated, consistent stream of energy which beams straight through the hail effortlessly, reaching the Artificer’s miniguns where they make impact, causing her to synthetically shriek in pain as both sets of her barrels are melted, destroying her weapons as she tries to dash backwards for a quick retreat, unable to sustain her constant domination without needing a pause.

No such pause is provided though as her backward dash is far slower than the Knight’s who instantly dashes straight to her with his flaming blue boot to her face in a roundhouse kick, one that itself emits a blast of smoke and dust while also blasting her body downwards.

From the angle she was struck at, she flies into multiple beds yet again, crashing against them on her back at great speeds, causing those beds to fly backwards as well with visible dents as her body drops down for a harsh landing.

All the way down from the sharp angle the Artificer plummets, crashing into the ground with a heavy boom and blast of smoke and dust among the wrecked beds, both her and the barracks becoming victims of this skirmish as it now pauses, an immediate counterattack lacking as indication of the magnitude in the beating.

During this vicious battle in the barracks above ground where the two combatants flew and traded great blows, beneath the floor persisted another battle in the bathroom floor where moves the two other combatants between the rows of bathroom stalls, and above them slowly emits smoke and dust from the hole connecting the two environments, the two pairs separate yet the effects of one skirmish bled to another.

The two combatants move in one direction towards the hole, one charging forward who's dressed in dark gray jeans and a stone blue bra wielding a dagger made of yellow lightning that she swings at the other who staggers backwards, that one in the oversized white hoodie and knee socks who raises her gaze towards the hole in curiosity upon noticing the secretion.

With a frown, the Vanguard observes with vibrant pink eyes at the smoke particles falling into the bathroom, wondering verbally in a reserved voice: “I guess that would’ve been too easy..huh?”

“Don’t worry about them,” advises a second female voice, though this one spoken with more of a boastful attitude, that coming from the orange-haired woman who is still charging at her, calling the Vanguard’s focus back down.

While the two are engaged in battle, it’s not nearly as fast paced as the one above, as while she carries the lightning dagger in her hand, she only makes occasional slow swings with it. Her movements do cause her long hair to move, not nearly as smoothly groomed, instead more chaotic and unkempt.

She continues calmly with that same smile, mocking playfully: “Or are you just not worried about me? That’s kind of rude, you know, you should at least give your opponents a chance before you judge them.”

Surprisingly despite wearing high heels, the Rogue is athletic and mobile, though there is still decent space between the two for her to need to cover, space that’d take a few seconds.

That was far enough time for the Vanguard to simply straighten her neck, her black pupils heating bright white as electric arcs spread over her irises, and for her to aim her loose hand whose fingers begin emitting pink sparks.

Those pink sparks evolve in an instant to whole long arcs of pink lightning, a swarm of them which all reach the Rogue, instantly freezing her in place several feet from her target, suspending her whole body to be stuck in the middle of her charging pose.

Gritting her teeth in agitation to the freezing, the Rogue first shows surprise at the ability as her body quakes in struggle to move before finally giving up, her only movement being the sigh from her mouth and the lowering of her head as that’s all she can do.

She raises her head back, smiling once again and applauding oddly enough, “Huh, so you can actually freeze things outright? That’s kind of interesting, I thought it was just lame regular blasting like most electricity users.”

Sustaining the channel of electricity off her hands, Kokei stares still with reservation, not particularly fearful as she is calmer now that she’s frozen her opponent, allowing her to speak back with the confirmation: “I guess so.”

She then pulls her arm back before throwing it forward, commanding her swarm of electricity to toss the Rogue back down the bathroom, her body crashing into the floor just as a thin layer of smoke envelops it for the very instant of collision and sliding as the pink arcs are dispersed, the sparks surrounding the target flickering before vanishing completely same as the smoke.

Staring down the aisle between stalls, the Vanguard lets out a sigh and glances around the bathroom while wondering, “How do you get out of here? This is such a weird layout anyways, why is the bathroom its own floor?”

However, her focus is again moved towards the Rogue who slowly stands up to her feet, to which the Vanguard tilts her head in perplexion. She asks further in curiosity, “I thought I threw you hard enough to get just knocked out, that’s how hard I usually throw so I avoid breaking any bones.”

Wiping her mouth as she begins to casually walk forwards, the Rogue chuckles before thanking in a calmer though still arrogant tone, “I appreciate it, that’s actually really sweet of you. But you shouldn’t worry so much about your opponent,” as her pupils flare yellow and her body begins emitting yellow sparks before it dashed forward in a yellow blur.

Stationarily the Vanguard faces forward, though her perplexed gaze immediately shifts to a horrific dread as behind her appears the Rogue who advises, “Especially one who won’t worry as much about you,” as she swings her lightning dagger for a backstab, only for that back to immediately launch a barrage of pink arcs that envelops her body and tosses her backwards in the air before suspending her entirely, again freezing her.

The Vanguard turns around and staggers back, astonished by the speed so quick it seemed almost instantaneous. Though she’s now again safe, holding the Rogue up as the arcs coming from the back stop emitting and are replaced with ones coming from her left hand, maintaining the swarm but diverting control.

Now again holding the swarm, the Vanguard doesn’t make a retort as her face shows more concern, realizing she can’t think so casually until at least she knows the opponent is neutralized.

Focusing on her primary objective now, the Vanguard raises her arm up before throwing it forward, commanding her lightning to throw the Rogue down at an angle towards the stalls though her body is enveloped in a layer of thin smoke in quick repetitive bursts the instant of every crash as she slams into the stall edges where the door hinges would be, not only one but many as her body is driven along the row of stalls with greater strength, being forced far as though the intention is to drive her all the way to the end of the hall of stalls.

Crashing into every hinge along the way, the Rogue is successfully being moved, but on her way down she smirks before her entire body emits a burst of smoke, or rather a small cloud which completely covers sight of her from the outside.

Shock hits the Vanguard’s face in the form of her eyes expanding, not having vision of her opponent she was trying to direct away.

That shock worsens though as the dark cloud dissipates, revealing that the Rogue was nowhere to be seen, and the stream of arcs had been cut short from where the cloud was.

First disengaging the swarm, the Vanguard shifts focus as she’s at greater alert, sliding her foot back as she raises both hands, unsure of where the Rogue went and how she even managed to escape. She aims both hands in different directions, anticipating a strike with no idea where it could be coming from.

Standing alone in the center of the stall hallway, the Vanguard nervously freezes up knowing there wasn’t any direction she could run that’d be considered safer given the lack of a discernible position of the enemy’s presence. That however changes as she suddenly hears an aggressive sequence of footsteps coming from ahead of her in the general direction the cloud was deployed.

What’s odd though is that the sound isn’t coming entirely forward, but to the left slightly, coming from past the stalls. The Vanguard turns her gaze in that direction, hearing the footsteps gradually get closer, but there is still no target in sight for her to set aim to.

That is then when under the stalls, there can be seen a pair of black heels worn by someone sprinting, though they’re not seen as being inside the stall but rather on the other side. That sight is captured by the Vanguard, who promptly aims both hands in that general direction, now understanding the enemy to be moving around the corridor with the likelihood that she’d try conducting an ambush.

Preparing for the attack, the Vanguard turns her body to the left and takes a few steps back, waiting for the inevitable.

Breathing heavily but keeping it quiet, the Vanguard waits while standing in place separated fairly well from the left stalls, tracking the footsteps and the running feet to reach all the way to be nearly in front of her before they vanish, and above the wall of stalls emerges the Rogue, gripping her lightning dagger arched back in preparation for an aerial strike.

There is still a decent length of space for her to bound, and given she was in the air, her leap had preset her trajectory with no discernible ability to change course. While she had closed some of the gap, she left enough for the Vanguard to exploit, both of her hands already aimed as all she had to do was expel the surges of pink electricity off her fingertips, the great swarm immediately reaching the Rogue and capturing her in the air.

As desired, the Rogue’s body suspends again, unable to move, for as long as the Vanguard could get a solid aim she was capable of practically countering any advance.

Again holding the Rogue in the palms of her electric hands, the Vanguard grits her teeth as she raises both of her arms, prepared to slam her into the ground in another attempt to put her down.

Watching the readying of the attack as her body is held up, surrounded by dancing arcs restraining her, the Rogue does nothing but smirk deviously.

Then just before the Vanguard could throw her arms down, a cloud bursts out of the Rogue’s body, again covering her and cloaking her body from the Vanguard who desperately drops her arms down to execute the hit, and technically the Rogue does fall from below the cloud as anticipated.

However, there is one key note in that the Rogue is not being swarmed with electricity, and her body is animated free from restraint, allowing her to land on the ground and launch herself straight at the Vanguard as many more yellow sparks draw to her hands to develop another weapon like a dagger, though this single weapon is far longer as it’s instead to the length of a pole, like a bo staff. Equipping herself with this long staff, she spins it before then swinging it straight into her opponent’s stomach, which flashes blue.

Immediately, the Vanguard coughs with an agonized expression as her body flies backwards being thrown through one of the stalls but furthermore slamming into the wall so hard her body breaks through it and continues flying through to the other side, hitting the toilet bowl of the stall behind the one she was thrown into, causing her to bounce before dropping on the floor where she slides back a few feet.

Coughing a few more times, the Vanguard shakes her head and grabs on her stomach where the punch landed, though she confirms to herself a lack of injury. She then grabs the floor and pushes herself back up to her feet, protected but still shaken up, stumbling back and forth as she finds her footing again. She faces forward, wiping her mouth as she’s now clearly more distraught and confused, unsure of how she lost her tenacity when she very clearly had her opponent in a bind.

Now she stares forth at that opponent who steps off the stall she flew out of, already in this next corridor, pacing casually with her orange hair swaying with every step.

Mischievously she smiles, commenting to herself in delighted observation: “For a second I was worried since it’s not exactly instantaneous, but it still works. I have to hand it to you, that’s some fascinating power.”

Gritting her teeth in irritation of her opponent’s odd durability, the Vanguard just stands her ground, raising her head up as strands of her long hair part from her face.

All the sudden the Rogue stops in place, a raised eyebrow indicating an abrupt curiosity. She stares with a dumbfounded face and contemplates in a more sincere tone, “Huh…wait a second I feel like I should know you. You’re familiar somehow…but I can’t remember where from ....”

Now puzzled by the strange tangent being brought up, the Vanguard scrunches her eyebrows before assuring in a voice battered and exhausted: “I definitely haven’t met you before, not unless you’ve visited Earth 50, but I’m sure I would’ve heard about a pirate invasion if that happened.”

Despite that rejection, only more intrigue sparks in the Rogue’s face as her tone fully transforms into one of meditative calm as she reflects, “Wait, Earth 50, okay no I haven’t met you then but I’ve heard about you…I definitely have. Pink hair…short…it was a while ago but I definitely heard about you. Just give me a second here, I just need to remember.”

Even more puzzled, but in a manner that develops to anger, the Vanguard raises both of her arms up and aims forward as she rejects, “Excuse me, I thought you were the one saying I shouldn’t go easy on you, and I have friends who are here trying their best to fight. Hell they’re probably better fighters than me, so the last thing I should be doing is sitting here waiting for a joke like this.”

Sparks of pink electricity flicker off the Vanguard’s fingers as she declares, “I’ll finish this fight soon and go rejoin them,” before then firing a swarm of arcs off her hands, this one far more intense, sized more appropriately to combat an army as she spreads them over a larger field to ensure a hit.

Just before the arcs can reach the Rogue, her body expels another cloud, though this one much larger as it covers vastly more area and even nearly reaches the Vanguard, albeit at the expense that it’s not as dense thus she’s still visible inside. This visibility furthermore allows for the observation that the arcs inside the cloud start to flicker and disperse prematurely, as if being extinguished in such a way that lets the Rogue charge straight at the Vanguard without being swarmed. She more so is able to deploy her own lightning as sparks flicker everywhere in the clouds, some even hitting the Vanguard who stumbles in pain before being hit from behind by another, constantly being jolted by many small bolts that function as needles. Each strike causes the impact point on her body to flash blue, with more flashes covering her everywhere.

‘ She slaps different parts of herself where the bolts land to try easing the pain: her wrists, her arms, her back, yet with so many hitting her all at once she’s unable to stop any of them, but most importantly she loses focus of the greatest threat: the one sprinting right for her who smiles fanatically as she exclaims: “I knew something was off, you’re shielded! Cheater!” while equipping herself with two lightning daggers, one in each hand.

Instantly the Vanguard becomes terrified in the exposure, dropping her jaw aghast as she shifts focus, but without enough time to stop the Rogue from slashing her with both daggers simultaneously, which tosses her body backwards out of the clouds.

She flies down the hall to the other side where there indeed is a wall with a long mirror screen, and below it is a row of sink plates one of which the Vanguard slams into, causing the plate to break off and for her to groan in pain as her whole body flickers blue twice.

Regardless, she hustles to hoist herself up on her feet again, raising her head as through the reflection behind her it can be seen that the Rogue launches herself out of the dissipating cloud, racing straight for her opponent with the two daggers still in hand, swinging one of them in hot pursuit.

The Vanguard uses her grip on the surrounding sinks to throw herself to the side, dodging the swing which instead slashes through the sinks, cutting a line straight through them which causes it to split in two and collapse, serving as a reference for exactly how hot these blades were and how lethal they’d be if they contact unprotected skin.

Knowing this horror, the Vanguard stumbles backwards and turns around to begin running the other direction, realizing she was becoming the prey in a battle where her only ability was being rendered obsolete.

She runs several steps down the hallway to make more space as the Rogue steps back from the cut sink, and as she turns to face her prey, that prey also turns around with her hands raised up.

From the Vanguard’s perspective, the Rogue stares head on and begins to make chase again after dissipating her daggers, so the Vanguard raises both arms to emit another swarm just as the Rogue makes throwing motions with both of her arms just as yellow flashes appear in her hands, those flashes transforming to constructs that fly straight forward.

Off sheer instinct the Vanguard dodges, narrowly avoiding two small lightning bolts used like throwing knives which could’ve easily struck her head, shocked by the sudden alternative use of her abilities made so fast that the Vanguard nearly falls into a curious trance before she moves her focus back at her opponent who has already bridged the gap, wielding two daggers again which she starts slashing at the Vanguard rapidly, making countless cuts, each one triggering another blue flash which only ends when the Vanguard projects a swarm forward to immediately push the Rogue backwards, throwing her off as her whole body flickers blue a few times, and as it does there flickers something else on her body, though not a light but instead a physical thin, small silver disk on her chest over her heart which has a flashing blue dot in the center. The disk vanishes in a flash as the Vanguard turns around and resumes running along the hall.

Panting tiredly, the Vanguard clenches her teeth as her body flashes a few more times, indicating sustained damage to the shielding, but all the Vanguard could do was continue to run down the hall as her reflection runs too with the same desperation as seen on the long mirror screen beside her.

Behind her down that reflection also shows the Rogue who’s recovered from the push and resumes her charge, smiling devilishly as she exclaims, “Come on, at least try again!” to which the Vanguard again turns around and aims both hands, firing another swarm immediately without even letting herself interpret the scene behind her, moving on desperate instinct.

While that swarm is expelled and does reach the Rogue, she parries with a swift cloud burst that doesn’t reach very far but nonetheless erodes the arcs that freezes her though only for a fraction of a second, freeing her to leap high in the air above the swarm, up in the air where she begins rapidly making throwing motions while generating more lightning throwing knives down which the Vanguard attempts to suspend by raising her right hand up, though upon contact between her pink arc and the yellow bolts there erupts an explosion that blasts her further back yet leaves the Rogue unharmed given her greater distance from the collision.

Sliding back on the floor again as the Vanguard’s body flickers more, she pulls herself back up to her feet now at the end of the sink wall, which does reach a wall though it’s not the furthest as there’s a wide open doorway behind her leading into what appears to be a large shower room given the many heads sticking out of the walls and ceiling inside the otherwise open room.

She raises both hands up which sparks to prime another shot, though just as she does a chilling scream above her with a heavily synthetic accent that automatically identifies the speaker followed by a heavy boom that shakes the floor, causing the Vanguard to stumble with her focus offset.

Even without sight of the action above, it’s immediately clear what the general event was coupling the identifiable cry and the heavy impact. That cry wasn’t one made like a battle roar either, but a cry made in response to agonizing pain, pain coming from the ally and friend who was so close and yet too far to help, the one who she wanted to reach but was prevented in every attempt to the point where she was now much further from the breach needed to make contact.

There was no real physical action that could be taken to remedy the action above her therefore practically nothing helpful she could achieve, and yet against all logic her next actions are overridden with the raise of the head and the frantic shriek: “GET AWAY FROM HER-.”

That one act made entirely out of blind instinct was enough to give the Rogue the time to reach her opponent and and stab her straight in the heart with a lightning dagger, and right as she does the small silver disk reappears in a flash right in the center of the impact point, as the Rogue had taken notice to its decloaking prior. From a combination of the pinpoint strike along with the sustained damage already made, the Vanguard’s body flashes blue a few times followed by red flashes as the flickering blue dot on the disk turns red, and suddenly that disk ignites its own spark just as it detaches off the hoodie, having finally been overwhelmed to the point of being burnt out.

Before the Vanguard can even react, that recreated lightning staff is swung straight into her stomach yet again, now making contact on a truly defenseless body which is zapped from even touching the weapon, all culminating in a force that sends the Vanguard flying straight through the doorway into the shower room where she crashes straight into the wall on the other side, resulting in another great boom that blasts smoke and dust so far it reaches past that same doorway.