Cutting Them Down To Size
The fight between Spyke, Rick, Ash, and Candi versus Joan, Pierre, and Billy rages on.
“Is that the best you got, Bach?” Rick taunts.
“You wretched fool! I believe it is time to increase the tempo!” Pierre responds as he begins to play even faster which in turn causes the papers to fly even more quickly around him. “Have at thee!”
Not only are the papers even faster, but they are also flying in more erratic and unpredictable patterns.
“You call that an attack, Cupcake?” Rick says as he backflips off the wall behind him and springs forward towards Pierre.
He takes the shape of a ball before slamming into the violinist’s face.
“Not again!” he cries out. “That’s it! Time for my magnum opus!”
Pierre quickly starts playing “The Ride Of The Valkyries” as sheet music starts circling around him at even faster speeds than before.
He soon emerges from the whirlwind of pages and flies above with wings made of paper. He then flies towards Rick and clips him with his wings.
“God Dammit! Get down here so I can kick your ass!”
“My! How uncivilized!” Pierre says as he lets out a haughty laugh.
He flies back towards Rick and slashes him with his wings again, but this time he doesn’t stop there. He dives at him again, and again, and again.
Urchin and Shears are still trading blows.
Spyke aims the pointer finger on his right hand towards Billy.
“Death Spike!” He yells as the finger quickly extends towards Billy’s neck.
Billy defends himself using one of his scissor blades and cuts off the tip of Urchin’s finger using the other one.
“Shit!” Urchin cries out in pain as he retracts his finger.
“Let’s wrap this up.” Billy announces as he sends a barrage of scissor slashes towards Urchin. He is able to dodge some of these attacks, but about half of the swings land and cover Spyke’s chest are arms with lacerations.
“That’s enough!” Urchin screams. “Abyssal Spike Assault!”
Urchin extends the tips of his fingers and hair as far out as they can go in every direction. This sends an unavoidable number of spikes towards Shears. This causes him to tumble backwards, but he slows himself by grinding his scissor blades against the floor.
Urchin retracts all of his spikes and glares at Billy.
Shears quickly gets back on his feet, puts the blades back together, and dashed towards Urchin. He attempts to snip the scissors at him as Spyke dodges the attacks.
Shears then rolls backwards and jumps towards Urchin with his scissors at the ready to strike again.
Spyke sidesteps this attack and grabs the scissors from the side. He then aims the pointer finger on his free left hand at Shears.
“Death Spike!”
A finger extends towards Shears at the speed of light and sends him tumbling back into a wall.
Spyke starts to walk away, but turns his head towards the wall.
“...I’m sorry, but it looks like you didn’t make the cut…” Urchin says before walking away.
“Nice one!” Ash says as he dodges another strike from Joan.
He charges up another large fireball and shoots it at Joan, but Candi accidentally runs in the way and gets hit instead.
“Candi!” Ash says as he runs towards his friend. “I’m so, so sorry!”
Candi looks up at Ash.
“...Don’t worry. I’m fine…” Candi says with a small smile through gritted teeth even though she was hurt. “...Just kick her ass for me, okay?”
Ash nods his head and turns his attention back towards Joan.
“Are you blokes done already? I was just gettin’ started!” the gargoyle taunts.
“It’s not over until it’s over!” Ash says as he starts to charge up another fireball. When he was ready to launch the attack he was holding a massive ball of flames over his head. “Solar Flare!”
He throws the projectile at Joan who dodges with ease. It hits the ceiling and clears a hole right through it.
Joan looks back at the hole and then back towards Ash.
“You rubbish at this mate.” She says with a shit eating grin.
“Shut it Goliath!” He yells out as he steps back to rethink his strategy.
As he is walking backwards he notices that he actually bumped into somebody.
It was Rick who was also currently backing away from his opponent.
They share a glance. Then they look at each other’s opponents before looking back at one another. A lightbulb simultaneously lights up in each of their brains.
“Switch?” Ash says.
“Yeah.” Rick nods as they turn around and walk past one another.
“Hey hotshot!” Joan yells. “Are you really so weak that you had to let your superior take your battles for you?”
“Nope!” Ash says with a smirk. “We're just working smarter.”
“Come to papa, Rocky!” Rick taunts as he quickly extends his arms out towards Joan. She dodges this and flies towards the soldier.
He stretches out of the way as she skids against the ground behind him.
She turns around and quickly flies right towards him.
“I’m gonna knock you the fuck out mate!” She screams as she tries to swing her claws at him.
He quickly stretches upwards to avoid the attack.
As she flies through his legs he quickly retracts them and falls back towards the ground. He turns around and lands right on top of her.
“It’s over stone cold!”
She just spits at him.
“Alright, let’s get this over with!” He says as he wraps his arms around Joan.
He stands back up and starts to extend his legs upwards before leaning back and slamming Joan’s head against the ground.
“Sky High Suplex!”
He gets up and dusts himself off as Joan lies unconscious against the floor.
“...I need a smoke…” Rick says as he takes another cigar out of his belt before walking away.
As Ash begins fighting Pierre, Candi wakes up and looks around. She notices that both Joan and Billy are knocked out.
She then looks over at Ash.
She slowly reaches towards her fanny pack and pulls out three vials of sugar and down them all in one gulp.
Her pupils widen and she quickly gets up like she’s good as new. She then sprints towards Ash.
“Candi! You’re up! Great! I have a plan!” Ash says as he catches his breath.
“That’s awesome! What is it?”
“Alright!” He claps his hands together. “If you run around him really quickly you can trap all of his pages in a tornado. Then I just send a fireball his way and…that’s it! Easy win!”
Candi shoots him a thumbs up and runs towards Pierre.
“Hey Beethoven!” Candi says in an attempt to distract Pierre.
He turns his attention towards her.
“Classical music sucks eggs!”
“You uncultured wench!” He cries out as he flies towards Candi.
Candi dashes away from him with ease.
“Na na nana na! You can’t catch me!”
He grunts as he sends sheet music flying towards Candi’s new location.
She quickly dodges again.
“You know you’ve gotta be quicker than that!”
“You brat! Stay still!” He attacks again.
Candi dodges it yet again.
“You’re too slow!” She says as she waggles a finger at him with her tongue out.
“That is it! Time for the grand finale!”
He starts to play Swan Lake at a quickly increasing tempo as the pages turn into a giant swan.
It starts to peck at Candi.
“How cute! What’s his name?”
“...Thanks for asking. He actually does have a name. It’s…wait a second…stop distracting me!”
“Okay!” She says as she slowly walks away with her hands behind her head.
Pierre looks down at her with a confused expression as he notices a bright light suddenly appear behind himself.
As soon as he turns around to look he is directly struck with a massive fireball.
“Yes! Direct hit!” Ash cheers as he pumps his fist. “It looks like…fire beats rock!”
He looks over at Candi.
She is just looking to the side while whistling with her hands behind her back to avoid his gaze.
“Come one that one was…whatever…” He says as he looks back towards Pierre.
“That’s it! No one makes a fool of Fortissimo!” He gets his violin ready to start playing again.
Before he has the chance to play he looks down at his hands and notices that the violin is gone.
“Hey Amadeus!” Candi says while holding up the violin. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
“How dare you! It is made of the most finely crafted boxwood! Be careful with that!”
“Don’t worry, I'll be careful!” She says as suddenly pretends to trip before smashing it against the ground.
She turns towards Pierre.
“Sorry, it slipped!” She said with a shrug and a smile.
“...You…you insolent child…do you have any idea how much that cost me? That violin is worth more than you are!”
“Sorry…” Candi picks up the two biggest remaining pieces. “... But I don’t think anyone is going to pay that much for a broken violin.”
“...How dare you…HOW DARE YOU!!!” Pierre says as he unsheaths a blade that has been hidden in the bow of his violin the entire time.
“...I am going to make you pay for that! With your life!”
He runs towards Candi, but Ash jumps in his path and throws a fireball right at his face.
“Aui!” The composer cries out. “My face!”
He rolls around on the ground in agony.
Ash dusts off his shoulders as Candi walks towards him.
“Even though he was a musician…you were fire!” Candi says with her hands comedically placed on her hips.
Ash rolls his eyes with a small grin on his face.
Rick and Urchin walk towards the door as the students follow.
“Let’s keep going.” Urchin says as the others follow him out of the room and deeper into the hideout.
Andy, Love, and Maka were walking towards the middle of the building.
“Alright, we should almost be towards the middle of the complex!” Andy says as he looks at his current coordinates on a small handheld device.
Maka looked over at Love and noticed that she was looking at the floor and had her hands stuffed into the pocket of her hoodie.
“...Hey Love, are you alright?” Maka questions.
Love briefly glances over at Maka before looking back towards the ground. She shakes her head no.
Maka takes a deep breath.
“...Look…It's just that…I don’t like sitting around and doing nothing if I know that there is good I can be doing, you know?” Maka says as she looks at Love with a concerned look on her face.
Love looks at Maka again.
“...I…I guess I can understand that…”
Maka sighs.
“...I’m…sorry…”
“...About what?”
“...You know…” Maka gestures around herself. “...For getting you into this mess…”
“...Hey…don’t worry about it…” Love says while looking forward again. “...I did agree to come here with you…”
“...I know…It’s just…” Maka rubs the back of her head. “...I know you don’t like stuff like this…”
Love cocks her head to the side.
“...What I mean is…” Maka puts her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “...That you aren’t the violent type…I honestly thought that you were a pacifist for a bit, but then I figured out that you…just hate conflict…”
Love nods.
“...All that I’m trying to say is that…I’m glad that you agreed to come…” Maka says with a slight blush. “...It means a lot to me…”
“...Uh…you’re welcome…” Love says as she looks forward with a large blush quickly covering up her face. She pulls her hoodie strings to hide her embarrassment.
They looked away from each other now with an awkward tension in the air between the two of them.
“...And…here it is!” Andy announces as he walks towards a room.
He opens the door and walks in.
“This room should create a big enough radius to cut off all of the power in the entire hideout. Just keep a look out as I set this up. It might take a few minutes.”
Love nods while Maka gives him a thumbs up.
“Great!” Andy says as he gets to work.
Love and Maka walk out of the room and into the hallway.
They glance at each other, blush, and look away again.
“...Well, well, well…Look who we have here…” A voice says from down the hall.
A chill runs down Love’s spine as she glances towards the origin of the voice.
‘Wait…I thought that he…was dead!’ Love thinks as she slowly starts to back towards Maka.
“Hey Love, what is it?”
Love backs up all the way into Maka arms.
She doesn’t say a word. She just stares into the darkness of the hallway. Out of curiosity, Maka glances over as well.
A figure started to appear from the shadows.
“...So, we meet again…” Noir says as he walks fully into the light.