The high ranking Legion members stood stunned as Cheng struggled to get up. Zawadi swapped him with a random legion member behind him, who took a metallic punch from Zach straight into the face.
"Ignore him, he's not important!" Cheng yelled, trying to cover up his bloody nose. "Kill the others!"
As soon as he gave the order, the fifty or so Legion members and their five top ranked commanders rushed out to attack everyone left in the arena. They passed Zach, who knocked three out as they tried to pass him.
Cassandra put her fists up as soon as five people rushed to attack her, alongside Serafina.
"She can heal herself! So remember to go crazy!"
The five people all began brandishing weapons. Two wielding daggers, one with an axe, one with a sword, and one sticking with their fists. Besides the axe, none of the weapons were in good condition. All rusted, with the axe looking especially bad. She quickly landed a punch towards the fist fighter, grabbing them and using them as a human shield towards one of the dagger user. The screams rang out as the pugilist got a knife in their midsection, only stopping when Cassandra kicked them in the back and left them to bleed on their stomach above the first dagger user. She ducked down below the swing of the second dagger, kicking it out of the users hands. The axe user unleashed a clumsy swing, which any decent axe user could see past. She got behind them and issued an elbow strike to their back, causing them to drop the axe. She picked the axe up, slicing the rusty sword in half with a single mediocre cleave. As more surrounded her, Luca and Willow both got behind her.
"Okay, you got this?"
Luca didn't respond, merely leaping forward in an upwards arc with one sword, effortlessly cutting through Serafina, who jumped over the shoulders of two Legion members to get to them. She turned to dust, only for six more clones to attack. Two each, but Jade's clones all dove in and tackled the real one to the ground, dissolving the rest of them into a trail of dust that led to her. Two Jade clones hoisted her into the air, while two more hoisted the real Jade upwards to land an airborne uppercut directly into Serafina's stomach. But she was quickly swapped with a random Legion member before she could hit the ground. Einer quickly dove in and froze them to the wall, effortlessly dodging the spear being thrusted behind him, hoisting the now terrified holder to match eyes, and quickly adding them to the wall. He and Hikaru then faced Zawadi, who clapped his hands together in excitement. Hikaru drew a ring in the air, which quickly surged into a ring of electricity in front of them, they pushed it towards Zawadi with one mighty push, and he quickly clapped his hands to swap with Einer. Einer already ducked, touching the ground to create a trail of ice for Ziwadi, who barely managed to escape it. He looked at Einer. He looked more aggressive then he did a moment ago, diving towards Einer and throwing a punch. Einer coated his left arm in ice and blocked the attack, giving Hikaru the time to draw another above him and shove it downwards, causing Ziwadi to seize up, letting Einer trap him in a wave of ice.
The new girl, Daciana, was effortlessly facing off against Fiorella, Adrianna, and Capri. She summoned a two handed double sided blade, similar to the ceremonial blades used in ShiShi performances, only she was using it to it's full potential. She weaved through the two of them with ease, dancing with her blade through the crowds as they all got more and more frustrated. Adrianna tried her best to weave her own path to her face, but she'd quickly throw her off balance and throw them to the hungry yet scared Legion members. They'd try to fight her, but she'd viscously leave them with broken noses.
"Girls, step down." Fiorella requested. "Make sure I'm not hit."
The girls did as asked, with Fiorella swinging her axe in a circle around her until it clashed against Daciana's sword. The two of them exchanged blows without any side managing to land a solid hit. But Fiorella de-summoned her weapon, getting into a handstand and barely managing to scrape past a swipe from Daciana's weapon. She leapt up off her hands, narrowly avoiding a panicked swipe from the blade that only managed to graze her leg. She stomped her head, quickly snapping her finger towards the others. Adrianna came in with her arms already covered, throwing a series of punches to a disoriented Daciana, which she was forced to block with a succession of rapid strikes. So by the time she saw her Legion soldiers running away, all she could do was look on in horror as the shadow on Capri's mallet slowly got smaller. She was quickly crushed underneath it, and her weapon was de-summoned. She stood up with desperate fists raised, and Adrianna landed a fully crystalized punch to her face. When the mallet was shrunk down to it's original size and Capri was ready to go back on the offensive, she quickly commanded the ten or so men surrounding her to attack them as she scrambled back on her feet to get back to Cheng.
"Adya!" Cheng yelled. "How are you doing?"
Adya was trying her best to dodge everything Ryland was throwing at her. She was quickly avoiding all manner of punches, each one getting more ferocious and erratic. Her only option was to unfreeze Rodrick and Siena, but neither of them sounded like good options. Rodrick would pull out something extremely useful, and Siena would boost Ryland and make the situation even worse. As Ryland grabbed the head of a random Legion soldier and threw them full force at her head, she came to the conclusion to clench her left fist, unfreezing Siena and setting a vortex just in front of her face. Ryland's fist got caught in it and stuck him in place, with three Legion soldiers getting behind him and kicking for good measure.
Cheng looked around at everything that was happening. No! The surprise attack was supposed to work better! We had a fifth of the Legion's forces working on it! He looked at Daciana, trying to keep the blood in her nose and quickly losing energy, Adya desperately trying to fight off her opponents, Ziwadi having to keep swapping out Legion members to save himself from the weapons attacks, and Serafina was doing the same with her clones, only she was looking much worse for wear.
"Okay, plan B!" He screamed.
Instantly, the vibe around the arena changed. Hordes of Legion members started scrambling towards the remaining ships, which Zach immediately jumped on and began tearing apart. Several of them started running towards the ships furthest away. The heroes all gave chase, tackling and taking down several remaining Legion members. But all the top fighters in the Legion managed to get onto one ship, which was quickly trying to take off. The three girls got into the living areas while the men watched outside. And just as nobody could reach them, a Legion grunt was swapped out with Cassandra.
"Wait, where am I-"
Cassandra could barely let out a confused sentence before four Legion members tackled her to the ground. Cheng smirked above her as he held out a pair of handcuffs and carefully applied them.
"Careful now." He said calmly, observing the other airships getting airborne around him. "As long as she's in one piece, we'll face no penalties for our mistakes."
Cassandra forced herself on her feet, headbutting the soldier who was trying to hold her down, running to the edge as the ship left the arena, and she stood before crowds of horrified onlookers. And the most horrified looking was Julian, who locked eyes with her as she was carried off.
"Cassandra!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, running underneath the airship, hoping a sudden surge of genius would explode into his mind. But the airship left his view before he could do anything.
He fell to his knees, the world beginning to spin as he lost the sensation from his legs and he hit the ground, defeated. The only thing his body still knew how to do was scream.
"Cassandra!"
Cheng looked over the deck of the ship, seeing a sole ship approaching Fightston. It looked important. A lone woman stood at the front of the ship, unsheathing a sword.
Mia Burri. Her gaze was coming into view, cutting through him. And he didn't feel like seeing what other cutting she was capable of. Cheng got everyone into the living area except Cassandra, who he pushed over in plain view of Mia.
"Everyone, get this going as fast as possible!"
Mia locked eyes with a desperate Cassandra, tearfully shouting something she couldn't hear over the wind. The ship was off limits. But she slowly pressed a hand on her sword, and with one hand wave, she had five astral copies of the swords ready to go. She sent the swords forwards with pinpoint precision, with each one hitting the engine of the ships it was aiming at, and each one fell below the clouds to the world below. The other ships all sped up at this sight, all blitzing past and attempting to ram her ship. She had to hold onto the railings for dear life, but she did make it out alive.
In the arena, everyone was checking up on each other. The gatekeepers were convening with their groups, and the Maximos were also seeing what was up. Arden and Roxanne exited the hotel to see for themselves what had happened.
"Hey, is everyone okay?" Samuel asked.
"They got Cassandra." Willow whispered, trying to suppress the maelstrom of emotion building up inside her.
"Wait, what?!" Roxanne asked, taking a panicked look around the arena. "Where's Julian?"
"He tried running after them." Willow said. "I don't know where he went."
Roxanne tried calling Julian. He answered, struggling to say anything through a haze of raspy noises. She eventually got his rough location, and Fiorella ran out of the arena to get him.
"So is everyone gone?" Adebayo asked.
"Think so." Caoimhe nodded.
"Anyone check the halls to the hotel?"
"For what, some straggler to get info from?"
Adebayo nodded calmly, going to the hallway he walked to get from the arena to the hotel. There was a figure approaching him. He couldn't make the figure out as they sauntered towards him. Adebayo casually rubbed his hands together, just in case. The figure raised their hand, emitting a blinding light. Adebayo put his hands to his chest to guard the attack, calling out for help. He forced himself to face the light, with one getting brighter in the middle for a brief second, before a beam of light shot straight through his heart. He let out one last scream for help as his consciousness faded.
Caoimhe and Capri ran into the room, seeing Adebayo's dead body.
And when they looked ahead, it was nothing but an empty hallway.