The girl continued to tear into Zach, throwing out what seemed to be frenzied punches, but Zach knew there was more to them. There was a certain level of precision to everything she was doing. When he saw an opening, he turned to steel and began fighting back. The rhythm. He was somehow able to perfectly predict every strike she attempted, clashing back against them. Not fighting back, purely a defensive move. If he began throwing out anything that looked painful, he could easily cause even more of a panic. The only current option was to exhaust her and hope he could make a run for it when the opportunity arose. The other members of the group tried to jump in, but a blade whizzed past Serafina the second she tried. When she saw Mia rapidly cloning her sword and sending them towards the rest of the group, Cheng pointed at her and began screaming orders.
"Number one and five can take care of him. Everyone else, kill her!"
The girl looked more and more infuriated with every blocked hit. And then the realization hit Zach. This was Cutter's fighting style. Zach needed to collect his thoughts, if only for a second. He waited for an opening, and just as he predicted, it came very quickly. She raised both hands for a quick strike to the head, just as Cutter always would. So he landed a solid punch to her stomach, leaving her keeled over for a brief second, and followed that with a kick to get her off him.
"Look, I'm sorry for breaking up the fight like this…but you wouldn't happen to know the name Layton, would you?"
The girl looked up when he said that name. She let out a primal scream and lunged forward, like the last strike never registered. She leapt up near the end with arms coiled and ready, but her anger blinded her. Zach was able to grab both hands and push them back, get in close, grab her by the waist, and fling her back to the crowd. Cheng leapt back, almost scalding himself on the tray of hot drinks left by his associate. But Mia watched as Cheng smirked to himself as Aubrey got up, the focus still in her eyes. Zach was in a fighting style that looked hard to beat. So it was time to switch things up. Cheng grabbed the crockery and quickly began throwing them straight towards Aubrey. She punched the scalding liquid, only for both the liquid and the broken cups to wrap around her hand. She leapt back at Zach, with the man holding the cups throwing the tray and running behind her.
Zach turned to steel as the two made their way towards him. The girl, Aubrey, had more vigour than before. And as much as Zach wanted to talk out how much she knew about Cutter, he had to focus on what she and her new ally were capable off. Especially the new one, a scrawny man with permed blonde hair. He was deathly pale, dressed in jeans and a worn out blue t-shirt, and looked like a strong wind could blow him over.
Aubrey threw a sloppy punch Zach easily caught in his hands, only for the second man to sneak in and lay his smaller hands around his. When Zach tried to loosen his grip, he found his hands stuck to Aubrey's. He looked up to meet Aubrey again, and there once again was her maniacal smile, landing a punch infused with scalding tea and shards of porcelain. She undid the wrapping on her hand, and streams of scalding liquid were on Zach's face. The man slid between the two and stuck the streams to his face, just over his right eye. The searing heat solidified in his eye, and his only option was to either undo the metal and bear what came next or try his hardest to stay together. Neither option sounded great, but he eventually decided to undo the metal, if only for a second. It didn't work. The scalding tea was still merged to his face, and it was slowly eroding his eye. But he had to ignore that. Aubrey thrust both hands forward to Zach, pushing his hand against the wall. He quickly turned back to metal, pushing his hand forward for a brief second before the second man jumped in behind her, giving her one final push to keep the steel hand against the metal wall. and the man quickly merged them together.
Zach tried his best to defend himself one handed against Aubrey's punches. She was relentless. Even made of full steel, the pain was starting to kick in. He needed to end this fast and figure out what connection this girl had to Cutter. He tried his best to move his hand from the wall, and managed to feel some kind of movement. Only he wasn't getting unstuck from the wall.
In one motion, the wall itself came undone, still attached to Zach. Aubrey tried to punch him, but with one mighty swing, she was on the floor.
"It's…over!"
Zach shouted, his authority spreading over the floor. Everyone looked towards him, including the people attacking both him and Mia. Mia and the girls ran downwards back to their ship, which only enraged Cheng more.
"Get her, he's nearly done!"
The only people left were Zach, the man who stuck him to the door, and Aubrey. When he looked down, Aubrey was wiping the blood off her nose. She looked dazed, shakily getting up thanks to her friends help, raising her fists.
"I said it was over!" Zach yelled again. Aubrey flinched at the outburst. Her breathing got heavier, and she looked down at the ground.
"It's fine." The man said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "He's dead. Cheng confirmed it. He sent pictures. He was attacked by four people from behind. Ziwadi swapped everyone in, Cheng transferred pain to him, Adya weighed him down, and Daciana killed him. It was the worst death he could ask for."
It was true. They were talking about Cutter.
"What did Layton do?" Zach yelled. He needed to know just how he messed the girl up this badly, and if maybe, just maybe, Cutter's killing had something that resembled a valid reason behind it. When the question reached Aubrey's ears, she snapped back to a fighting position.
"Do you even know?!" She screamed before leaping back into Zach, stepping back when Zach swung the wall at her, leaping over it and dropkicking him. When Zach was on the ground, she climbed on top while she pummelled him.
"Don't act like you didn't know about me! I refuse to believe he didn't mention me once!"
She was trying to cling to her anger, but tears were slowly filling up in her face. "He never mentioned me, or the beatings in disguise he called training? Or leaving me to defend myself and my mother when the Legion attacked to 'see what I learned'?"
"Wh-where's your mother?" Zach asked. It was the only thing he could ask at that point.
"She's dead!" She yelled as she landed another punch to Zach's face. "He killed her! You killed her!"
Zach managed to swipe forward, hitting Aubrey off him with the wall, causing her to scream in agony. She landed another flurry of punches until Zach was at the end of another wall, and then her friend came in to merge them too. It was too late for Zach to turn back now. he once again used what was left of his strength to tear it off. It was harder, but he was able. The man whispered to Aubrey, and she chuckled at whatever was said. She leapt once again, kicking the wall and forcing him back. She jumped into the air, stomping him down. The friend was launched towards him on the floor, merging his arm with the entire floor. To their surprise, it only took a few seconds of struggle before the metal floor panel was uprooted, but he was a level below them now. He was in an empty bedroom, his arm now too big to fit through the door. Aubrey's friend ran to Chelic's room, grabbing a bunch of sharp objects from around the place, telling Chelic it was important to beating Zach. He threw them to Aubrey, who threw them all down with enough speed to pierce Zach's body. He tried lifting his arm, but the floor made it too heavy for him. And he couldn't block everything. One thing got lodged in his arm, but he had to keep going. Another in his leg, he had to keep going. Another in his already wounded eye. He let out a roar, to remind himself that he was still alive. But he needed to fight.
And then something hit his heart.
He didn't see it coming. He looked down, and his hazy vision just barely managed to make out something lodged inside him. Aubrey jumped down, tearing it out and landing one more solid fist through his chest. Zach looked at her through the haze, the metal forcing him down until he slumped over.
"I'm sorry…that it came to this." Zach whispered meekly, trying to look up at Aubrey before his head fell back. Aubrey took a deep breath and sat down on the bed. Her friend jumped down to access the damage, giving her a high five before joining her.
"So, we joining the other guys in killing the other one, or?"
"Nah, we did good enough here."
Mia managed to get to the bottom of the cluster with the girls in tow, with the other eight chasing after them. Either she managed to hold them off by sending duplicate swords at the Legion members, or Capri would quickly expand her hammer to send them back. Their ship was in sight. Once they got there, all they had to do was defend the ship until Zach got back. They were in spitting distance, less than ten seconds of running and they were free.
Mia suddenly found herself behind another man. The muscular black man had swapped their places, and she only barely managed to dodge the woman's sword strikes, swiping her fingers across her sword to produce a set of astral replicas which she sent forward towards her. There was just enough force to stop the sword in place and duck underneath her. When she tried once again to get to the ship, the black man had thrown Capri into Fiorella into the ground, and both were weighed down by the girl at the tournament. She was swapped once again, with both the girl with the double sided blade and the short girl in a varsity jacket striking her, the latter making replicas of herself to land punches and disintegrate again out of what seemed to be nothing but pure mockery.
"Hold it!" Cheng said, checking his phone. "And hold her."
Sword girl grabbed Mia, and Cheng showed an image on his phone. The quality was awful, but there was no mistaking. It was Zach, laid out on the ground with what looked to be several sharp edges sticking out of him.
"What…what's that?" She asked. There was another answer. No way two people could defeat Zach, let alone kill him.
"You should have given us the real weapon when you had the chance." Cheng chuckled. "And now, all of you die too."
Suddenly, a shockwave made it's way through the floor. Everyone was floating in the air, all frantically looking for who was responsible. A figure grabbed Mia and threw her into the ship, commanding Fiorella and Capri to get in too. The three got inside, and the figure landed next to them.
"Go, quick!" She commanded.
Mia quickly grabbed the controls and sent the ship flying through the air. The figure sat down on the ships couch, clutching the weapon, and Fiorella and Capri got a good look at her.
"Sorry if this is sudden, but I'm Priyanka. And I'm here to help!"