122: For The Sake of Love

While the fighters below blew away the automata and escaped through the now-ruined remains of the Institute’s administration building, the situation Nyssa had been stalling for unfolded in a matter of seconds. Roxanne’s dragon flickered. Roxanne fell from the sky. Her dragon reappeared, catching her and swooping back upward.

All before disappearing one last time, sending Roxanne hurtling to the ground.

Nyssa’s eyes flashed as she tracked Roxanne’s falling figure. With her eyes darting around, she sent a wave of attacks to push the five mecha fighters off of her before slimming down her transformations and lunging forward through the air. Squinting her eyes against the wind, she stretched her arms out.

“... Oufh-” A groan left her mouth as she embraced Roxanne’s bloody figure. Diving downward through the clouds as lasers roasted where she had been, she re-formed the halo above her head and sent a wave of energy through her fingers into Roxanne’s torso “I... got you. Wake up.”

Light emanated from her fingers, staunching the blood and scabbing the wound over. Color began returning to Roxanne's face, and once she blinked her eyes open, Nyssa stopped. “Sorry I need to save my energy to run-”

“You’re... fine... thank you,” Roxanne murmured as she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Nyssa. “You’re lovely, I hope you know that. You’ve truly grown up so fast.”

“Thank... you,” Nyssa pushed out as she twirled through the air. Weaving through the air between the buildings, she scanned for reinforcements, only to furrow her eyebrows. There are enemies everywhere, everyone’s going to be occupie-

Before she could even finish the thought though, a blurry figure with white wings flashed by her, pouncing on one of the mech suits and midair. Turning back for a half-glance, Nyssa’s eyes widened as she watched Angelica tear the mech suit apart with her bare hands. A shoulder plate got thrown to the side. The mech’s arm got twisted at the elbow, and as muffled screams came through the mech’s helmet, a kick to the torso shattered the body of the mech, sending it to the ground.

Floating to the ground where a number of other battles took place, Nyssa’s mouth dropped open as her eyes stayed glued to Angelica.

She... just... she just... she just tore them apart.

How?

I was trying so hard to do that... And I’m sure I was stronger than her earlier.

Angelica soared through the air with an unnatural nimbleness. She reacted to every attack the instant it came flying at her, weaving and bobbing through a forest of missiles and lasers. None of them, though, slowed her progress as the smooth flow of her movements took her to her next target. A twirl. A dive. A short burst forward. Her white feathery wings curled up behind her once she wrapped herself around another one of the mechs.

Screams.

The crunching of metal.

As the mech suit began sinking out of the sky, a missle—coming from one of the assassin’s allies—connected with the assassin and enveloped both Angelica and the assassin in a ball of fire and smoke.

Angelica, unfazed, came streaming out of the smoke and pounced on another assassin, dismantling it the same way as the first and second. Violent tearing, some panicked screaming, and a kick towards the ground. One-by-one, Nyssa watched as her homeroom teacher took care of the problem she had struggled against for who-knows-how-long with both overwhelming skill, and unfiltered emotional rage.

Kaiser, at some point, jogged over while covered in sweat with all his clothes torn, but muscles bulging as steam came off his body. “Nyssa! Roxanne! Everything alright?”

“I’m... fine, actually,” Nyssa snapped out of her trance. Staring at her hands, she ran through a couple transformations. “It feels really fluid. Everything does. I don’t know what happened.”

“That’s good,” Kaiser patted her on the head before taking Roxanne and helping to lower her to the ground. “It seems like this event helped you improve a little, but I assume you’ll be feeling the effects of that amount of energy exertion sooner rather than later.”

“Oh,” Nyssa mumbled, “Is that usually what happens in these scenarios.”

“I’ve never seen it not happen at least,” Kaiser guided Nyssa to a bench where they sat down. From their position just a couple paces away from Roxanne, they watched over her as she laid on the grass, half-awake while watching Angelica fight. “Good job for helping your sister though, I’m truly proud of you, you made this situation a lot more dangerous than it otherwise would’ve been.”

“I guess... I think she would’ve been fine regardless though...” Nyssa watched as green sparks ran down Roxanne’s hair as her eyes began glowing with a faint green hue. “You all would’ve been able to save her from the assassins.”

“Probably, but, even then, she most likely would’ve been incapacitated for weeks, if not months,” Kaiser smiled as others began walking over, having finished cleaning up the last of the rogue automata. “So give yourself credit.”

“I’ll try...”

By now though, Angelica too wrapped up her battle, sending the last of the assassins crashing to the ground from the sky. Covered in cuts, her hands had lines of blood dripping from every crease of the skin while her clothes had been half-singed, revealing a bodysuit underneath.

Returning from the sky in a slow descent, she landed on the grass with a light “thud” before falling to her knees beside Roxanne. “... I’m here, my love... it’s alright now.”

Struggling and propping herself up on one elbow, Roxanne reached out with her other hand to clasp Angelica’s shuddering hands. Even with Roxanne’s support though, the shuddering spread up Angelica’s arms as she hunched over and rested her forehead onto Roxanne’s. Her whole body seemed to shiver as her wings folded down to shield her and Roxanne from the onlookers.

“Why did you do this...?” Roxanne whispered while listening to Angelica’s ragged breaths. “Didn’t I tell you to never use these drugs again? I was going to be okay, even if you didn’t...”

“Because I love you,” Angelica choked out as a couple of tears streamed down her face. A pained smile spread across her lips. “For you, I’d break any promise. I couldn’t just stay behind after seeing you hurt.”

“Just... don’t do it again, okay?” Roxanne let herself fall back to the grass before reaching up and pulling Angelica down. Though her own wound had reopened, leaving fresh blood to water the grass, she frowned as she hugged Angelica.

Angelica’s entire body shuddered as her eyes lost focus, her hands had frozen over while her body and head burned up in feverish fire.

“What price did you pay? What are the long term effects going to be? And what did they demand of you?” Roxanne’s voice stung with pain as she ran her hand along where Angelica’s newfound wings had sprouted out of. “And how painful is this?”

A faint silence hung between them, and only after half a minute did Angelica’s hoarse voice whisper into Roxanne’s ear. “It’s... fine, as long as it's for you.”