Michael was bringing out the last of the survivors, when she noticed that Veronica was gone.
He gently placed the woman down and let a doctor check on her. The Dancing Hall was fully aflame at this point. The crackling was really loud and every few seconds something exploded inside.
Only now did he realize that the gas lines were feeding the flames as well, and it could blow up the whole structure at any moment.
Luckily other people seemed to realize it as well, and they quickly cleared the area. From the nearby buildings the residents came out to look at the fire too.
Michael was standing in the middle of the crowd, but he wasn't looking at the fire. His eyes were scanning the people trying to find Veronica, but he didn't see her anywhere.
Suddenly an ominous feeling came over him and his desperation grew. His heart beat quickly and he somehow felt that time was running out.
He spent another really long minute scanning the crowd, but she was nowhere to be found.
In the next moment the building exploded and it lit up the alley next to it for a split second. There he spotted two figures, one of them held a knife to the other one's throat.
It took only a second for Michael to recognize Veronica's crumpled and broken body. The other person was a man and he held Veronica by the hair, about to cut her throat.
There was no thought behind his next action. Before he realized what was happening, his feet moved. In just two seconds he stood at the entrance of the alley.
He took a step inside and suddenly all the sounds became muted. The fire that crackled loudly before, made only a tiny background noise now. He instantly recognized that some item or relic was at play, but he didn't care.
On the ground the man's hand started to move, but before he could cut Veronica's throat, Michael pulled out his gun and pulled the trigger.
The loud bang of the gunshot bounced around the bubble, not letting it leave. It made the sound many times louder, causing everyone's hearing to suffer.
The gray colored bullet moved. It had a small red blood-drop painted on it. The bullet only hit Floyd in the shoulder. Somehow he moved so fast that the bullet nearly missed him entirely.
Seeing his movement Michael cursed under his breath and shot two more times in quick succession.
This time Floyd was prepared. He stepped to the side causing the purple Stun Bullet to miss him, then he did a flip and evaded the green Plant Bullet, so it didn't ensnare his leg.
The Stun Bullet hit the wall and burst into small particles, the Plant Bullet hit the ground, causing vines to start growing out of it.
At this point he was only a few meters away from Michael and with a quick step he arrived next to him.
On his left hand he wore a brass knuckle with small spikes sticking out of it. It had a few rust spots, but it also glinted unnaturally.
Floyd moved in to deliver a devastating punch to Michael's face, but he ducked under it the last moment. His fist kept speed and went straight into the brick wall. Within a fraction of a second he already pulled it out and moved to hit Michael again.
The wall crumbled behind him, bricks falling all over the place. The punch was so powerful it nearly went through the brick wall and into the building.
Before he could punch again, Michael pulled out a small charm, which instantly burst into purple flames. The fire felt cold. He threw the charm at Floyd.
He tried to evade it, but was too late. Suddenly his whole body froze. He was still aware of everything, but he couldn't move, like his being was frozen in time.
Michael raised his revolver and pulled the trigger, while pointing it at Floyd's head.
The wound on his shoulder was constantly pumping out blood. The Hemorrhage Bullet was doing its job well.
The bullet that left the chamber travelled unnaturally fast, even for Retribution –his Ethereal Weapon. The white Speed Bullet hit Floyd's head two times faster than the speed of sound.
It left a large fiery explosion behind it, while hitting Floyd. Somehow the bullet hit his head and made a plink sound, like it hit some metal object. The bullet exploded into tiny shrapnel cutting Michael on the side of the head.
Floyd got pushed back about five meters before hitting a brick wall. The sound of bones groaning could be heard, but it only took him a second to get up. The brass knuckle on his hand fully rusted over, then broke off.
Michael noticed all this and realized what happened...
'His weapon could absorb the damage, but only at the price of damaging the item... He can't use it now!'
In the moment when Floyd was still getting to his feet, Michael loaded another bullet into the chamber.
Unfortunately at that moment his wounds started to catch up to him. His lungs burned from the long exposure to smoke and the small shrapnel was still lodged into the side of his head.
All this caused his movement to slow down a fraction, but that was all Floyd needed.
As Michael raised his gun to shoot, Floyd delivered a kick to his hand, sending the revolver flying. His index finger got stuck on the trigger, so when the revolver went flying, the bones in his finger broke.
He gasped in pain, but had no time to think about it. A fist was heading towards his head, which he blocked, but before he could counter attack another fist slammed into his stomach. He doubled over and got hit in the nose by Floyd's knee.
Michael rolled with the hit and after a quick summersault he was back on his feet blocking another punch, while delivering one of his own.
This back and forth lasted for a dozen seconds. Floyd was constantly bleeding out, but in close combat he was much better than Michael.
At one point he got pushed into the brick wall with Floyd's hands on his neck. His breathing was already hard, but now it was fully gone. As he was getting slowly suffocated something strange happened.
Michael's hearing was fully gone from all the shooting inside the bubble, but he saw something enter Floyd's body and after a moment his wicked grin turned into a pained expression.
...
–A few minutes ago–
After nearly getting killed by the bullet, Floyd took the rainbow-bladed knife and stabbed it straight into Veronica's right side. It went into her undamaged lung, but since he didn't pull it out, it actually plugged the hole, not letting it fill with blood.
It still hurt like hell though, and she instantly passed out from pain overload.
After an unknown amount of time her eyes slowly fluttered open. Her breathing was haggard and painful. The surroundings had changed, there were debris and bricks all around her.
A meter or so away lay a familiar black revolver. She tried to move towards it, but she felt the dagger move and do more damage inside her. The pain brought a bit more clarity to her.
She stopped trying to reach for the gun and instead looked around the alley. It was really dark, darker than it was before and everything had a reddish tinge to it.
I took her a second to realize that her eyes were literally swimming in blood. She felt a trickle in her ear as well, which explained why she heard no sounds.
Eventually her eyes went to the side and she spotted Michael and Floyd struggling. Her barely beating heart skipped a beat, and suddenly every pain in her body got tuned out.
She saw Michael getting pushed into the wall, his face slowly started to turn purple as he suffocated.
Veronica's body moved without her need to command. She reached towards the gun again, but it was still too far... She didn't care...
At that moment, seeing Michael slowly dying something snapped inside her.
She reached out her right hand as far as she could. She screamed without sound as she felt the dagger cutting open her side.
Her hand touched the revolvers handle, but didn't quite grasp it. She felt her other lung filling with blood, but still she moved more.
With her left hand she pushed herself off the ground a few centimeters, then landed heavily a bit closer to the gun.
Her vision went black for a split second as the dagger moved even more. Below her a large puddle of blood spread out, but it didn't matter.
Her hand grasped onto the revolver's handle. With all her power she flipped onto her back, each movement sending a new kind of torturous pain through her whole body.
Her vision swam, and she couldn't quite focus on Floyd. At the wall Michael was starting to loose consciousness. She was also at the edge of the cliff of darkness.
As her whole body screamed in pain from all the struggling, and her mind was fragmented and dazed, the final principle finally revealed itself.
'The Show Must Go On... A dancer continues the performance no matter what happens to either her body or mind... Only when the curtain falls will she stop!...'
She laughed to herself self-deprecatingly, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The next time they opened her vision cleared and her victim revealed itself.
Inside the chamber a concentrated explosion propelled the bullet into Floyd's back. It didn't seem to hit any vital organs, but Floyd still fell over screaming in pain, which caused Veronica to began laughing madly.