-Last Time-
"You wanted power so badly Cinder, now you will get to feel power you never even dreamed of!" The aura girl screamed before everything was engulfed in a blinding light.
…
"Kuso! Stay close to me!" Matatabi yelled while getting in front of Nora when she noticed the new formations swiftly approaching their position. Acting fast, the feline waved her tails and summoned forth a vortex of blue fire that the surrounded the whole group.
At the same time, Winter slammed her scarred and now brightly glowing fist into the ground, causing a super dense dome of ice to form inside the fiery tornado. Just in time as not even a second later the wave of crystals hit, the rapidly growing minerals slamming into the barriers, punching through the flames and leaving multiple deep fractures in the ice, before simply spreading over both like a flood.
-And Now-
Pitch black. That was all that could be seen for several moments as a deep rumbling echoed from all directions.
This went on for a while, how long was unsure, but it felt like hours before the last of the noise died away and everything fell silent.
Once it seemed like things had finally settled down, a pair of blue fires lit up on the ends of Matatabi's tails to reveal herself and the others huddled together in defensive stances.
"Well… that was a thing." Yang said as she relaxed a tiny bit, earning herself several dull or disbelieving looks.
"Really? That was a thing? That's all you have to say?" Weiss asked with her patented 'are you stupid' glare.
"Yep," Yang said with a shrug. "Why, what would you say?"
"Oh I don't know, how about WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON TODAY!?" The white-haired girl screamed at the top of her lungs, forcing everyone to cover their ears as the sound bounced around in the enclosed space. "First we have a literal city falling down on us only for it to get blown to bits somehow, we met a talking cat that can control fire, then suddenly giant crystals are shooting all over the place!"
Pausing to inhale, Weiss suddenly spun around to face her sister and jabbed her finger towards the older Schnee. "Finally to top it off you somehow managed to pull a Naruto with this ice dome! Care to explain that Winter!? And don't even try saying that you used dust because I know what I saw!"
…
…
"…You done?" Winter asked calmly, not even blinking from the very loud rant her now panting sister just gave. Not even waiting for the girl to respond though, she walked past her and towards the closest edge of the dome. "We can talk about this later. We still have a child to save last time I checked, and we don't have time to waste."
Her piece said, the woman reached out with her scarred hand as it started to glow again and rapped her knuckles against the cracked ice, causing it to light up in with a similar glow before exploding outwards.
However, as the dust and debris died down from the blast, the entire group couldn't help but stare in awe at the sight they beheld.
The entire previously underground city was now completely covered in crystal of varying sizes from barely a thumbnail big to larger than skyscrapers, some even being tall enough to pierce into the clouds above. Not only that, but several clusters were somehow emitting a soft white light that was refracted through their surrounding crystals into a rainbow of colors.
"…Beautiful." Glynda couldn't help but say as the group slowly stepped out of the dome.
"Understatement of the century Professor Goodwitch, understatement of the century." Yang stated with her eyes as wide as physically possible.
Walking over to a nearby crystal on the ground about the size of an orange that had been broken free from the prior blast, Blake picked it up and looked over the clear mineral curiously, her keen eyes picking up tiny streaks of color inside. Having an idea, she sent some of her aura into the transparent rock, causing it to glow softly for a few moments. "Is this Dust?"
"Possibly," Winter said while looking at a smaller sliver with a critical eye. "It similar yes, but much less potent and more stable than any Dust I've seen… a diluted variant perhaps."
"That's great but sooooo not important right now," Nora said before jumping onto one of the larger crystals that had grown parallel to the ground and running along it towards where the crystals had originated from. "Mama's coming Naruto!"
"Hey! Wait for-" *Shnk* Ruby started to run after the orangette, only to freeze after just a few feet due to one issue, aka the thousands of small but sharp crystals covering the ground, one of which was currently stabbed right through the bottom of her boot.
"Yeeeooooow!" Finally registering the pain, the girl stumbled back and started hopping around on one foot while yelping loudly. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"
"I believe this is the part where someone makes a smartass remark about watching your step," Matatabi said jokingly as she watched the hyperactive redhead hop around before picking her by the scruff of her cloak like a kitten and setting her on her back. "But the vixen is right, the kit is waiting for us."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get going." Blake said while hopping onto the same prism Nora had, with the rest of the group following soon after.
Traversing the newly made landscape as quickly as they could, which was actually pretty slow by their standards due to constantly slipping on the smooth frictionless surface of the crystal causing them to slip and slide like on ice. This had led to almost all of them nearly get impaled numerous times, with the exception of Winter and Weiss who were used to icy terrain from living in Atlas.
Even Glynda had trouble keeping her footing, much to the silent humor of the rest of the rescue team at seeing the normally composed woman slipping around while quietly swearing under her breath.
It also didn't help that they kept getting distracted by the increasingly amazing sights all around them as they got closer and closer to ground zero. The smaller crystals on the ground went from finger size to person size, the glowing clusters were easily larger than most houses with much more intense light, and the destroyed buildings that had been speared through or grown over.
Yang even stopped to look at her reflection when she noticed that it had red hair and a greenish toned skin which was due to all the refracted light combined with the reflectiveness of the crystal. 'Huh, so this is what I'd look like as a redhead. Not bad, might give it a try later.'
Finally, after several minutes of tedious travel, the group reached the center of the crystallization event, evident by the massive prism pillars that formed a jagged circle with only a few narrow gaps leading inside.
Rushing ahead once more, Nora headed straight for the largest nearby crevice and quickly squeezed through it. As she popped out the other side, the orangette looked around frantically before her gaze locked on a pile of red and yellow.
"Naruto!" Nora cried out in worry upon seeing her adopted son laying on the ground wrapped up in his now four-foot tails and didn't even hesitate to run over and scoop the boy into her arms. Placing an ear to his chest, the young woman immediately felt relief run through her upon hearing the steady beat of his heart and breathing.
"Oh thank Oum you're okay… I was so worried about you… I'm never letting you out of my sight again… never ever ever again." She muttered while hugging Naruto tightly to her chest, tears slowly falling from her eyes despite the smile on her lips.
Collapsing to her knees as she mumbled soothing words to both the boy and herself, Nora didn't even notice the crystalized remains of Cinder laying in the exact middle of the 'room', her face was frozen in an expression of pure terror.
Nor did the orangette notice as a certain scythe wielder sliced out a chunk of the crystal walls so she and the rest of the group could run inside without an issue. However, upon seeing the crying mother, all of them stopped and stayed back to give her some space to reunite with her child.
Instead, Glynda pulled out her scroll to call their ride while Yang walked up to the statue that was once Cinder and rapped her fingers against its head. "Damn, talk about being scared stiff."
"…I'll admit, that one wasn't so bad this time." Blake said making the blonde look at her with an affronted look.
"What do you mean this time? My puns are always awesome, just like how we're having a rocking time right now," She punned with a grin, only for it to quickly turn into a frown when everyone else palmed their face and/or groaned. "Oh screw you all, that was pure comedy gold."
"Says the one who's gotten banned from every stand-up comedy bar on Patch." Ruby said while rolling her eyes before yelping when her sister grabbed her in a headlock and started giving her a noogie.
"What was that little sister?"
"Gah! Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!"
Ignoring the sibling antics, Winter approached the crystalized corpse as well and looked it over thoroughly, noting several distinct details. Whereas the surrounding crystal was mostly clear with a few flecks of color, Cinder's body was a pure pristine and solid white, almost like snow or marble, with multiple spikes of pure dust of various types covering the lower half and erupting from random parts of the upper body.
'I'll have to report this to Ironwood as soon as possible,' The elder Schnee thought while pulling out her scroll and taking several pictures. 'The knowledge we could gain from this could be world changing.' "Ms. Goodwitch, how long until our ride returns?"
"Five minutes, give or take." The buxom blonde professor said dully while holding her scroll as far away as she could from her head as 479er swore up a storm that would make a Sailor pass out in fear.
"Then it would seem that it is time for me to take my leave," Matatabi said, getting everyone's attention as she walked back towards the hole Ruby had made. "I've got places to be and a chickling to tease. Though we should hang out again sometime, it's been a real… blast."
With her piece said, the massive fire cat rounded the corner and vanished, leaving the group in a somewhat baffled silence.
"…Coolest cat ever." Yang said with a wide grin.
-End Chapter-