Musser strode forward, one hand reaching up to tear off his sweater vest, the broken fabric swept away by the wind and stolen down into the Abyss below, where the survivors of Kennet lay, resting.
Charles, broken and wracked with guilt by the horrors he wrought, unsteadily rose to his feet, abs rippling beneath the furs of his defeated predecessor. As disheveled as he was, the blood and gore gave him an attractive bent to the way he carried himself, in a disgusting, gory sort of way.
“You son of a bitch, I’m in,” Lucy said, pulling out her glock and aiming it at Musser, rather than Charles.
“Buy me time,” Maricica, whose appearance could not be accurately described, ordered everyone. “I have enough energy for one more attack, so long as… gah, there’s no time!”
“Bruh.” Avery touched Mari by the shoulder, Snowdrop following after. The trials the Witches of Kennet had endured had strengthened their bonds such that the one-note phrase communicated everything Avery had wanted to tell them.
Veronica meowed.
Charles and Musser clashed at the center of the Tower of Kennet, the air crackling under the might of their Practitioner energies. Stat boxes flashed across Lucy’s vision as she tracked the epic struggle.
Charles afflicted with Enslavement.
Charles afflicted with Despair.
Charles afflicted with Enfeeblement.
Charles wouldn’t last long, Lucy knew, and part of her wanted to sit back and let him die for what he allowed to happen earlier that summer, for what he did to them, but she knew she had to do the right thing, if only she could time it…
Charles crashed into the pavement, throwing up pavement that threatened to strike Lucy. Several pieces of rock struck Musser, but he merely batted them aside with an unimpressed look on his face.
Charles afflicted with Disabled.
Lucy aimed her GLOCK 17 at Musser and pulled the trigger.
Immediately, Musser faded from view, but thanks to her Sight, she could follow the bloody trail of swords and crimson as it trailed an arc behind her.
Veronica hissed and swatted at nothing.
Musser reappeared. At a glance, nothing had happened, but a scratch on his leg had appeared.
“Hmph.” Musser said. His cerulean orbs flicked between the two girls. “This is the most I’ve been pushed. Perhaps I should give you a taste...”
Musser raised his hand.
“...of my true power.”
He swept his hand downward, raven feathers sliding from the wrist, up the arm and clinging to sweat that had already gathered. As the feathers congregated, the katana grew in length, until it became twelve meters in length. Musser pointed it in the duo’s direction, and a final, black angel wing sprouted from his back.
He swung. A wave of crackling, electric energy swept across the rooftop to the girls. Lucy dispelled the glock and touched her backpack, turning it into an AK-47. She blasted at the energy wave, each shot plinking away at it, to no avail.
She braced herself for impact when suddenly, the world went still.
Charles. Smoke rose from his back, where the blast had struck, his eyes wide, blood spilling from his teeth.
“I’m… sorry.”
Charles died.
Lucy shook her head to clear it, then strode forward, Veronica already pawing at Charles’s back.
She had to focus.
Musser raised the sword again.
Lucy fired at his wrist to stop it, only for a wine glass to intercept the bullet.
Raquel. Tears in her eyes, she stepped off to the side, unable to meet Lucy’s eyes.
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Again, Musser brought down the katana. Again, Lucy shot at it.
It didn’t work. Raven feathers parted to reveal he’d swapped his wrist with Reid’s. The bullet went through him and into whatever corner of unreality the idiotic boy’s wretched existence occupied.
Warning: Rule of Three, activated.
Lucy dropped her AK-47 and reached out for her mask, drawing her own knife.
“Veronica,” Lucy began. “Avery. John. Snowdrop. Miss. Booker. Jasmine. Wallace. Heather.”
Lucy put on her mask and drew her knife, her hair growing pinker and longer, the ends congealing into black spheres that skimmed the length of her hair, settling on the sides fo her head.
The knife extended, a giant piece of metal, key-like in shape.
“My friends are my power!” Lucy declared.
This time, she didn’t interrupt Musser’s swing, instead intercepting the wave of energy with her key-shaped blade. Her feet dug into the ground, struggling to halt the advance of Musser’s energy.
“No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me!”
Snowdrop, curled into a ball, struck Musser, ending the tidal wave of energy. She bounced off him, backflipped, grabbed Raquel’s wrist, and flashed-stepped over to Lucy, Veronica, and Avery.
Snowdrop, painted blue, shoved Raquel in Lucy’s direction. Acting fast, Lucy brought her sword up and stabbed Raquel in the chest, then removed it.
“Thanks,” Raquel said.
Musser had started walking toward Charles, who’d been blown away by the dust.
Veronica jumped on Lucy’s shoulder. Snowdrop curled into a ball and jumped up and down. Avery punched her hands together.
“Hey!” Lucy cried out.
Musser halted.
“I ain’t hear no bell.” Lucy leveled her sword.
Musser sighed, dropping the sword and raising a hand to his glasses. “Perhaps I should show you… my true form?”
“Don’t,” Raquel said. “You… it’s too powerful, you’ll-”
“Raquel,” Musser said. “You stand with them?”
Raquel reached out to hold Avery’s hand.
“You’ll die first,” he ordained.
Musser removed his glasses.
When they’d chipped the glasses, Lucy had thought it was a good thing that damaged Musser’s standing with the spirits. Now? She knew…
Battle-damaged Musser.
The shockwaves around Kennet intensified. The sky shifted black, then red, a tapestry of nothingness that demanded attention. Musser’s body swelled, not becoming fatter or bloated, but massive, as if his mere existence had a weight to it that the spirits had to acknowledge at its own peril.
Musser glanced at Raquel, the spiritual makeup of his daughter niece buckling under the spiritual weight of that gaze.
To Lucy’s Sight, Musser was a sword in and of himself. Her vision blurred, and it became harder to separate Sight from sight.
Raquel began to disappear.
1:00 remaining…?
“Avery, you were always… my dearest friend.” Raquel hugged Avery.
Veronica mewled.
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Guys, I think… this might be it.”
“Hmph.” Maricica fluttered down onto the rooftop. “I thought I wanted to escape my home… but it turns out, all I wanted to escape… was loneliness.”
“Wha-” the gang simultaneously began to ask.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”
Cherrypop fell from the folds of Maricica’s outfit, directly onto Raquel, rock in hand.
A notification popped up.
24 hours remaining…
Raquel stabilized into Avery’s arms.
“Hmph,” Maricica tittered. “That’s all I can do for you, fools.”
Musser frowned.
“And by all I can do,” Maricica continued to titter, “I mean… goodbye Lucy, Verona, Avery, and even you, Ch...errypop.”
Maricica shined red.
“Hate to cut and run, but-” Snowdrop spin-dashed around the group. “-wait, no, that’s a lie. Run!”
A blue light surrounded the trio and their allies.
Musser frowned.
The light flickered.
Maricica became a blinding, radiant red light, and the blue tornado swelled in strength.
Lucy raised her blade.
Avery fist-bumped the sword.
Veronica meowed, hearty and free.
The bonds between the trio, and between them and their friends, became their strength in the end. A line that went from Charles, to Maricica, to their friends in Kennet, to their friends beyond Kennet, to the world beyond.
The witches of Kennet appeared in a parking lot. In the distance, the storm above Kennet proper had intensified, watercolor leaking from the undercity into the clouds above, blossoming out and funneling into a point within itself.
“Yup,” Avery said.
Verona meowed.
“Fuck,” Lucy said.
They found their friends waiting for them.
Avery and Raquel, still holding hands as friends, went over to Zed, Brie, and Liberty, sharing a five-way chest bump. Snowdrop homing attacked in on Avery’s head, while Cherrypop continued to rest on Raquel’s head.
Veronica prowled over to Tashlit, Peckersnot, and Sir.
Lucy glanced back at Kennet.
The swords that showed her violence since the day she had awakened still showed that violence reigned in the storm above Kennet. There were loose ends to tie up. Raquel was in danger of evaporating, Charles and Maricica still had to be shot, and Musser… the king of all swords still tainted her vision, even when she had her Sight off.
It wasn’t over, but at least they weren’t finished.
“I don’t know what tomorrow may bring.” Lucy leveled her keyblade at the sky. “But my friends are my power, and I know that, with them by my side, we can do anything.”
Everyone glanced over as a white light built at the tip of her sword.
“We can’t beat you now, but just you wait,” she said. “Next time, we’ll be together, next time, we’ll be stronger.”
Light burst from the tip of her sword, zooming into the skies above Kennet and striking a blade that could never be broken. Because Lucy finally understood that her Sight had a hidden aspect to it. Yes, she could see violence and danger, but was that all she could do with it?
No!
Practice was about finding the ‘cheat codes’ hidden in reality, and the Kennet Witches were better at that than anyone else. Had they survived their trials and tribulations by something as petty as fate?
No!
Their friends really were their power, and to Lucy, that meant she had the power… to protect.
With a flourish, Lucille Ellington excised violence from the skies of Kennet. White light filled the flash in a thunderclap of beauty, then the clouds vanished quicker than they had appeared.
It was over.
Not quite.
John’s ghost appeared one final time to wish Lucy goodbye. Reid’s spirit, lacking a wrist, awkwardly said goodbye to Raquel and wished her and her best friend Avery well in whatever the future may hold for them. Moths showed up for Maririca, to convey the fae woman’s final message to Alpeana, but whatever it was, only Alpeana understood the true meaning behind their words…
Charles? He, Musser, and Maricica were somewhere else for now. They’d have to train if they wanted to prepare for him, but… Veronica had some plans for that.