Lapis stood there, her arm tingling as she stared down at Noct. He already had his hands on the ground pushing himself up. A sly grin spread over her face. “I do love it when my men can last for a second round.”

Noct thrust himself up onto his two feet and although he looked wounded, it was obvious that he was very much uninjured. Lapis made sure she had some good distance between her and him, because she realized just what would happen should he land a blow on her. Right then she knew the goal of this battle wasn’t to defeat him, that was likely impossible for her, but rather to keep him distracted until stronger forces could arrive.

The ground shook beneath her as Noct charged forward. Each one of his steps cracked the concrete beneath him. Lapis threw up her arms and conjured a tentacle in front of her to wrap around one of Noct’s ankles. It wrapped around it just fine, but Noct simply kept running ripping the tentacle out of the earth and destroying it without even slowing down.

Lapis prepared herself to jump out of the way of this charging behemoth when a ball of white light flew forth from Wonder’s wand and landed in Noct’s face. Instinct kicked in and Lapis closed her eyes as the world exploded into bright white energy. She heard and felt it as Noct changed direction and slowed down significantly.

Lapis took the opportunity to open her eyes finding that she was still able to see. She threw both of her tentacle arms forward with all the strength she had. The twin appendages whipped hard into Noct’s chest throwing the stumbling blind giant back off the ground and once more onto his back.

Lapis then threw up her arms and summoned a swarm of tentacles out of the aether and smothered the giant in them. If she could restrict his movement entirely he would have no power to break free. It only took a few seconds but she had indeed succeeded in restraining him.

Wonder was now at her side. “Did we do it?”

Lapis grinned. “Yep, we captured one of them. Now if we take him back to our base, we can interrogate him. Just have to find Rita first.”

Wonder sighed. “I was scared I would die.”

“Oh like a little death ever killed anyone.”

The air near Noct exploded into a dark smoky shadow. Nightshade and Mind Sliver stepped out. Nightshade’s voice purred. “Oh, I’d beg to disagree.” Over one of Nightshade’s shoulders rested a limp and unmoving Rita.

It started like fuses being lit in Lapis’s mind, which then led to a dynamite explosion of rage in her heart. Every ounce of Lapis’s muscles burned with fury and power as she saw Rita there. Lapis drew in deep and dragged forth every ounce of power and energy she had within her. The aether energy inside her wound so tight she could hear the buzzing sound in her ears. The pain exploded across her forehead as she turned to face Nightshade.

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Lapis threw her arms forward and the air exploded into a mass wave of tentacles. Her scream pierced the heavens themselves as all the anger and pain from seeing Rita defeated by this piece of trash. Nightshade for her part did a good job of reenacting someone standing on a beach looking at a two hundred foot ocean wave coming straight for them. She stood there with her mouth simply agape.

The mass of tentacles slammed into Nightshade and Mind Sliver and continued past without exception. The rest of the restaurant wall was also hit hard and the wall disappeared in Lapis's wraith. Lapis continued pouring forth the strength she had into the attack, screaming as she did. It was unrelenting, unstopping, and most of all disgusting.

Some part of her could feel the different bodies within the mass of tentacles. She felt the cold and broken form of Mind Sliver, whipped and beat the body of Nightshade, and wrapped around the small frail form of her heart’s possession. The energy was quickly leaving Lapis now and she used the rest of her power to grab Rita with hundreds of different tentacles and to drag her out from the pile and throw Rita’s body back towards hers.

Rita’s body flew out of the top of tentacle mass and Lapis caught her, mostly with her chest. The force of the impact knocked Lapis over onto her back but she quickly wrapped her arms around Rita’s head keeping it close to her chest to keep it from hitting anything. Once Lapis was down though she was down for good and she knew it.

The mass of tentacles disappeared one by one fairly quickly. Once they were all gone all that was left was the ruined restaurant and a sea of slime. The trio of darkness were gone from sight, and judging by Mind Sliver’s ability, it was not really a question of how they got away, but where they went too.

Rita breathed slowly against the nape of Lapis’s neck sending shivers of delight through her entire body. The metallic taste in her mouth mixed with the exploding headache, were enough to ruin the experience for Lapis. Every one of her limbs went numb as she lay there, it was a struggle just to keep her eyes open and to fight off the darkness.

Rita’s voice came out weak, but stern. “I realize that I am currently lying on top of you, in your arms, and unable to move a single muscle.”

Lapis grunted in response.

Rita continued, “But if you so much as THINK of touching me inappropriately right now, I will light your entire bedroom on fire.”

Lapis couldn’t help it, she laughed. Moments later, Rita joined in as well. Wonder stood there staring at the two of them and her voice was near panicked as she asked, “How could you two be laughing at time like this! You just nearly died and the bad guys got away! Now you're both unable to move on top of one another! Whets wrong with you two?”

That just made them laugh harder. So hard in fact that Lapis began coughing. The coughing grew worse and Lapis quickly found herself hacking and wheezing as her insides hurt. Something wet came up from her mouth and splattered red against Rita’s face.

For several seconds everyone was silent. The darkness was encroaching on all edges of Lapis’s vision. Her mind was beginning to slow down. All she could think of was the last thing she had to say. “Lulu, my purse… Rita’s antidote…”

With that said Lapis fell into the deep dark.