Risále wasn't sure how things had gotten this bad this quickly. She didn't know exactly what Hyunwoo had done, but she was sure she didn't want Julian anywhere near her boyfriend. Before she could step up, though, Kaedan, Xander, and Elliot were already in front of him.
Quickly, it devolved into those three and Chaewon staying back to deal with Julian while Risále and the others got out of the castle. She wasn't sure she liked that idea, with how things have been going so far, she didn't think it was a good idea for them to split up at all.
But there were still four people in each group. As long as they didn't split up again, Risále thought they'd be fine.
"How exactly are we supposed to get out if the entire south side is being bombed?" Ni panted as they all kept running, "I hate to break it to you guys but if we run into an explosion, we will blow up!"
"We'll figure it out when we get to it," Hyunwoo replied, "Right now, we just need to get to the south side—Risá?" It took her a moment to realize that she herself had stopped, "Are you okay, love?"
Risále hummed before grabbing Hyunwoo and pulling him to the side, Val and Nia following them, "Give me a minute to think," She muttered, closing her eyes and furrowing her eyebrows. She certainly didn't have Leon's level of memory but if she could just remember…
Her eyes shot open, "Hey, Risále, I'm sure you're doing something but we really need to go. The others are stalling for us and Zera, Jaeyun, and Roshan are currently bombing the castle—" Val began to say, but Hyunwoo quickly covered their mouth.
"Keep going, we'll stay quiet," He said to her, nodding his head. It seemed like he had noticed that she was starting to come to some sort of realization.
"You three, stay here," Risále said, sounding a bit far away as she stepped out of the small hallway she'd pulled them into. Looking around, this was one of the major hallways, directly below the second floor. If her memory was doing her justice, then she had an idea. Running back to the others, she used the corner of the wall to swing herself around into the hallway and not overshoot, "Follow me!"
Nia and Val looked at each other, "What the fu—"
Hyunwoo interrupted them, "Just follow her!" He ran after her and Risále had to admit that she was really quite touched that Hyunwoo trusted her so much that he'd follow her words without even knowing what she was thinking.
The two younger ones didn't hesitate, following him, "Um, Risále?" Val called out, "I hate to be the one to say it but…Do you really think that running directly towards where the explosions are coming from is a good idea?"
Risále didn't respond, instead, she took a sharp right at a seemingly random place which led them into a smaller hallway with a huge oak door at the end of it. She didn't hesitate, grabbing the handle of the door and tugging, "Oh, fuck, this is heavy."
Hyunwoo stepped forward, his chest against her back as he grabbed the handle with both hands. It was only with both of their combined strengths that the door began creaking and Risále stopped, "Oh. It's locked."
"If we tug a bit harder, I think we could break the lock," Hyunwoo offered.
"Or," Risále grinned, "Anyone got a hairpin?" Val slipped one of their hairclips out of their hair and handed it to Risále, who quickly set upon bending and twisting it one way or another, "Sorry, Val, this clip's going to be unrecoverable by the time I'm done with it."
Val huffed, "I think we have bigger things to worry about than a wonky hairclip, Also, how the hell are you bending it so confidently?"
"There's three locks, right?" Risále explained, pushing the hairpin into one of the keyholes and fiddling with it a bit before letting out a sound of satisfaction, "Yes! Okay, that's one down—Anyways, about what I was saying before, each of these locks is a different type of lock. If you can recognize it and make the hairpin look like the shape of the key of each lock, then you can just kind of fiddle around with it until it unlocks. That first one was Schlage C-K. This one I'm working on now Kwikset and that top one is a Corbin 60."
Nia stared at her before turning to look at Hyunwoo, "Is this a cyborg thing?
"Partially," Hyunwoo responded with a proud smile on his face, "Risá's always been a bit of an engineering person, even before. She always had an interest in it and she was good at it. Yes, it's the cyborg thing that helps her identify the locks so quickly. But making the key shapes? That's all her."
"It is?" Risále stopped and looked back at him, "I…Is that why I felt like making that USB came so naturally to me? And when I took apart that safe so that we could see how it worked?"
Hyunwoo hummed, "Well, that safe probably came naturally to you because you were the one who created it, but yes."
"Right, I forgot about that. I guess Chaewon was right in saying that I'm kind of 'the creator' or something."
"Since you know about that, I'm assuming she also told you about our theory that there was someone before Bella?" He asked.
Risále nodded, "Yeah, but—Oh, hell yeah, second one down. Damn, I really am fucking amazing when executive dysfunction isn't kicking my ass—Back to the topic, do you guys have any idea who it might be?"
Hyunwoo shook his head, "If we did, we would have done something about it by now, whether it be recruiting them or getting them to give up the chip one way or another. We have no idea," The building shook from the force of the explosions. Risále stumbled slightly and Hyunwoo grabbed her with one arm, pulling her back towards the door easily, "I'd love to keep talking about this sweetheart, but if you don't hurry, I get the feeling we're going to get blown up," He urged her.
"Working on it, Hyun," She frowned, sticking the key into the final keyhole and shaking it a bit, hoping it would slide into place. Luckily, it fit in almost immediately and it unlocked, "Aha! Got it, alright, time to go!"
She stood up and tossed the hairpin aside, grabbing the handle of the door and swinging it open.
As they ran outside, Nia gaped, "How did you—There is no way you just randomly guessed that this hallway's door wouldn't lead to us falling straight into the moat!"
"Structure-wise, they would avoid putting a bridge or stairs over the moat in a foundation pillar," Risále said, but her voice was breathless, "That's why there would be a way out through one of the foundation pillars that weren't integral to the structure, but…Jesus…"
Hyunwoo let out a sharp breath, "Jesus, indeed. This is…This is a fucking bloodbath," Nia and Val fell silent as they looked around.
The rebellion had indeed brought their backup, and while they seemed to lack numbers comparatively to the army, they were much stronger and better trained. They seemed about evenly matched but it seemed like every second, a body fell to the ground, dead.
Nia shivered, "It…Feels like Ryoshigarh all over again," She muttered.
Risále completely agreed.
Taking a deep breath, Hyunwoo seemed to collect himself before turning to look at the other three, "Alright, Val, Nia, which one of you has the Wings?" Val raised their hand, "Alright, let me keep it."
"But…" Val looked down, "It might be better if I kept it. They wouldn't expect me to have it, to them, I'm just a little girl, aren't I? They'd expect someone like you to have it."
"Don't sell yourself short, Val," He chuckled dryly, "I don't think anyone thinks that you're just a little girl. Your reputation proceeds you. If anything, you're more likely to be high on their list of targets. Just…Let me do this, please," He added softly, "You're only just recovering."
Val seemed to want to argue but just looking at his face, they knew that they couldn't argue. Sighing, they subtly handed the device key in their pocket to him, "...Just be careful, alright?" They murmured.
Hyunwoo nodded, "Alright, we need to get this out of here. When we get down there, stick close to each other. If we can get to the tree line, then we're probably safer, but don't let your guard down," He loaded his gun, "Are you guys ready?"
"As ready as you can be for something like this, I guess," Nia muttered, pulling her daggers out from the side of her boots.
Five minutes into entering the fray, Risále found herself once again thinking that she wasn't sure how things had gotten this bad this quickly.
They were fine in the beginning, it hadn't been too hard to defend themselves, though the sheer number of soldiers in the army did make the exhaustion seep deep into her bones, so much so that she knew if—When they got out of there, she was going to simply collapse or pass out.
She couldn't think about "if" here. They couldn't afford that.
Then, right as she swung her battle mace into the side of a guard's head, she heard Nia yell out, "Val?! What are you doing, come on! Keep moving!" She turned to see Val, completely still and staring to their left. For a moment, she couldn't decipher the expression on their face.
Hyunwoo noticed Val's strange behavior and was over next to them in a second, "What's wrong—" Instantly, he froze as well when his gaze drifted to the same direction that Val was looking in, and his face turned completely pale.
Risále finally looked over to where they were both staring and her heart dropped into her stomach, "Oh, fuck," She cursed.
Veronica.
Hyunwoo stared at her, his hands trembling. He opened his mouth to save something, but his eyes quickly noticed Val, who was shaking, "Val, are you—" His eyes widened as he realized that they weren't scared, "Val, no!"
But before they could do anything, Val charged off in that direction.
"What the fuck!" Nia yelled, slashing at the chest of one of the soldiers and kicking them back, "Okay, you guys get out of here, I'm gonna go after them—"
"No!" Hyunwoo returned, spinning around to face Risále. Then, he carefully took the Wings out of his pocket and handed it to her, "Keep this and get out of here, I'll go get her!"
Risále looked at the Wings in her hand and then back up at him, "No, absolutely not!" She yelled, "It's already bad enough that we split off from the other four, we can't split up again—"
Hyunwoo grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in, hugging her tightly and burying his face in her hair, "I don't want to do this either, trust me," He said, his voice shaking, "But this is the highest chance we have of getting this thing out of here and that's our priority right now. Take this and get out of here with Nia. I'll bring Val back, I promise."
Risále could feel her eyes burning. She didn't like this, she really hated this.
Grabbing him by the collar, she pulled him down and connected their lips, before pulling back and swiping at her eyes, "You'd better come back, both of you, got it!" She said. Hyunwoo gave her a half-hearted smile before turning on his heel and running off in the direction that Val had headed in.
She turned and Nia opened her mouth, "We can't just—"
"Please, Nia," Risále said, her voice shaky, "I hate this as well. Let's just…Go. We have to do this."
"...Fuck," Nia covered her face, "Fuck, okay, let's—Let's go."
Unfortunately, they'd gathered quite a bit of attention when figuring out what to do, and some of the soldiers had noticed Hyunwoo handing the Wings over to Risále, "Over here! The girl over here has the Wings!"
Risále cursed under breath as she and Nia were surrounded by about ten soldiers, "Are you fucking serious? There's a whole ass battle going on and they managed to notice him giving it to me?"
"What do we do, Risále?" Nia asked as she stood back to back with the taller woman. She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Nia started to get concerned, "Uh…Risále—" She cut herself off as she felt something fall into her pocket, "What—"
"Go," Risále said quietly.
"Wait, what—"
"I said, go!" She yelled, pushing Nia away. The younger girl stumbled and realized what Risále had done, "Go get help, I'll keep them occupied. If they want the Wings, they'll have to get it from me!"
Nia tried to move back towards her but Risále threw her a desperate look, practically begging her to go. For a moment, Nia paused, before taking a deep breath and wiping at her eyes, "Don't you dare die, you hear me, Risále?!" She yelled before running off.
Risále let out a quiet laugh, "I'll try my damn best," Her eyes changed as she centered herself, raising her battle mace, "Alright, who's first?!"
She got off to a good start, even though the soldiers had armor, the metal of her mace was much stronger and she was dealing quite a bit of damage with every attack she managed to land. The first two soldiers that attacked her underestimated her speed and were both on the ground, dead within seconds from a direct hit to the head.
Seeing this, though, it seemed that the soldiers were learning from watching each other fight with her. The next three were much harder to defeat, and their strategy was to tire her out.
Unfortunately, it was working.
She had already been at a disadvantage with the soldiers that she had to defeat with Chaewon earlier. Her movements started slowing and her attacks weren't as accurate or forceful. She knew she was in trouble.
By the time she had gotten to Guard #6, she was on the verge of collapse. There was absolutely no way she could win this.
But something occurred to her.
She couldn't win this. But someone else could.
"Fuck, I didn't want to have to do this," She muttered, "But I think it's the only option I've got now."
Are you sure? If you let me go all out now, it's going to be killer on you later.
"We'll deal with it later. Our priority now is killing all of them and staying alive," Risále replied, swiping her mace and breathing heavily, "Fuck, I can't…
Alright. That's enough from you. Take a break, I'll handle this.
When Risále looked up again, her irises were as red as blood. Her posture and presence as a whole were completely different. She hummed to herself as she looked at the mace in her hand, tossing it lightly in her hand and gauging its weight.
"Not my usual style, but definitely manageable," She said.
The soldiers seemed to notice something was off, "What…Who are—"
She tilted her head slightly, before lifting the mace with one hand and easily throwing it like it was weightless. It hit the soldier straight in the face, there was the sound of metal spikes sinking into skin and pained screaming.
There was no reaction from the woman as she stepped forward and pulled the mace out from where it was embedded in the soldier's face. Then, she turned to face the remaining soldiers.
"Right. I hope you all understand that the only person allowed to mess with the shortie is me," Apocalypse said, cracking her neck, "And I don't take kindly to people picking on kids. So, would you rather apologize here before you die or apologize to me in Hell after I kill you?"