A Fairly Reasonable Crashout (RWBY Adam SI) ch 20

+++

"Nightmare Grimm?"

Medea nodded.

"They're little devious bastards, that's what they are," she muttered, laying a glowing hand over Adam's chest. Her fingers curled as her skin hissed against the heat, a grimace flickering across her lips. "A Nightmare possesses you and gets inside your head. It builds a prison from your worst traumatic moments, eating your aura. Only one way to free him now."

Sienna tilted her head.

"Violence?"

"Violence from someone who knows him," she said. "The dream will reject strangers. The Grimm survives by convincing the victim that nothing outside the nightmare is real. It feeds on despair. Kill it in the dream...or he dies for real."

Adam convulsed. Something inside him writhed—something not human. A dark, wet lump pulsed just beneath the skin of his sternum like a cancerous heartbeat.

Sienna flinched.

Medea didn't smile. Her hand hovered over Adam's chest, and a gust of wind tore through the room. A ring of floating script ignited above his body, pulsing in spirals.

"That should stabilize his condition. Wait here and don't touch him," she instructed.

And so they waited, watching in tense silence, their expressions grim.

Medea stepped back into view, and this time she carried something in both hands. A staff, tall as a man, twisted like the spine of a dead tree. Vines coiled around its shaft, green leaves trembling. Near the crooked head, a caged metal orb throbbed with dull red light, its surface etched in script too old to name. 

She slammed the staff down.

"I am Medea Argonid!" she thundered, her voice doubled, tripled, as if gods were speaking with her. Her eyes blazed brilliant blue, corneas glowing with runes. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death—I shall fear no evil!"

Tendrils erupted from her back like spears—silken chains of pale fire. They snaked around Adam's bed, coiling tight. The chains pulsed with slow, deliberate strength, and the air warped around them, sour with power.

Medea's shoulders rose and fell as she kept the spell stable. The fire in her eyes didn't dim.

"Sienna!"

She snapped alert.

"What?"

"You've known Adam the longest. If anyone can get inside his dream and kill the Grimm, it's you."

Sienna looked at the sleeping figure on the cot. Adam's breathing was shallow, eyes twitching under closed lids, fists clenched in dreamt rage.

"What about you?"

"I am only the door," Medea said, grim. "You are the sword."

The storm of power subsided slightly, but the air was still heavy, thick like steam. It smelled of ozone and old blood.

"Have one of your muscleboys bring a chair," Medea muttered. "This won't be fast."

Sienna barked an order. Seconds later, a heavy chair scraped into place behind her. She sat, legs spread, arms crossed. Watching Adam like he might grow fangs.

"Now what?"

Medea raised her hand. Another chain snaked from her palm, this one brighter—whiter than moonlight. The chain shot pierced through flesh and cloth, clean through Sienna's gut. A deep hum filled the room.

"Sleep now," she whispered, voice shivering like a bell. "Dream of yonder light-starved shores…"

The world tilted.

Colors bled, light tore sideways, and then—

Blackness.

Then light.

Light bled back into her eyes, accompanied by a scream.

Sienna's boots struck stone. Her vision rocked, blurred, then snapped into focus. Her first breath tasted of soot and sea rot, acrid and vile. Her second breath made her gag.

She stood in the middle of a street—or was it a corridor? Buildings loomed on either side like cathedrals, their walls reeking of salt and char. Above her, the sky hung bruised and gray, its surface painted with a wash of ashwater. The clouds churned sluggishly, thick and clotted like old blood. Between them, a broken moon hung low, leering and mean.

It resembled a city, but it wasn't alive. It was starved. Drained. All the light had been sucked away and replaced with something that crawled.

Familiar shapes jutted out: rusted tricycles with shredded canopies, brutalist buildings with sagging roofs and barred windows, lamp posts flickering coldly with oil-fed flames. But every color had bled from the world. The neon signs above her, once vibrant and alive, now flickered ghostly white, their text illegible and etched in a dead script. A flag flew from a pole, dark vines reaching up it. The flag was torn, its golden sun and stars twisted and perverted.

She turned—and nearly stumbled over a corpse.

It had no face.

The bone was exposed, smooth and pale. No blood. The skin had peeled back, hardened, lacquered like leather. Its fingers stretched out, clawed and inhuman, frozen mid-scrape. Blackened claw marks and trails of soot burned into the concrete around it told a story: it had tried to drag itself out of a fire that existed only in its head.

The streets pulsed faintly beneath her boots. The walls breathed.

Sienna gritted her teeth. Her hand instinctively drifted to the hilt of her whip, half-expecting it not to be there—half-expecting her hand to be mangled, her body warped in this twisted realm. But the leather grip was there, cool and familiar, the dust on it faintly glowing. The glow steadied her.

Then she heard them.

Footsteps.

Not hers.

Up ahead, shadowed in the haze, something moved.

She bolted.

Her boots slammed against the stone, the echoes ricocheting off the narrow street. The air grew heavier, the buildings taller, closing in on her like the jaws of some great beast. Street poles were wrapped in withering, pulsing vines. Tribal masks hung from the walls, nailed and cracked, their surfaces rotting. There was statue of a woman shrouded in blue. It had been holy once, immaculate and virgin, but now twisted and defiled—her face cracked and weeping black tar, arms bent unnaturally as if in torment, and a crown of jagged thorns piercing her stone forehead.

Her eyes fell on a cart bearing what should have been a roast pig. But the effigy was grotesque—mangled, its body warped and perverted. Blood oozed from its mouth and rear, pooling on the cart's surface.

The pig's lifeless eyes met hers.

Her breath hitched.

It blinked.

Sienna tore her gaze away, her heart hammering in her chest.

"Sienna!"

The voice made her head snap up.

It was Medea's.

She glanced around, searching the gray, suffocating haze.

"You're in the Nightmare realm now," Medea's voice echoed. "Find Adam."

Sienna gritted her teeth. "And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"

"The Nightmare doesn't make it hard."

She scanned her surroundings again—and there it was. In the distance, a fierce light shone, piercing the skies like a beacon.

"I think I found it," she called out.

"Then go and—" Medea's voice cut off abruptly.

Sienna froze. "Medea?"

Silence.

Then a new sound joined the oppressive atmosphere: boots scraping against concrete, slow and deliberate. A wheezing breath, rattling as though the lungs were choking. The noise dragged closer, accompanied by a low, mangled voice.

"Nicolasburg..." it moaned. "Nicolasburg..."

Sienna moved instinctively, leaping over a rusted car and pressing herself into the shadows. She glanced up at a cracked street mirror and saw it.

Her stomach lurched.

The figure was Adam—or what had once been Adam. Dark, writhing growths covered his body, their tendrils coiling and pulsing with vile energy. His face was a twisted mask of anguish and fury.

"Bloody murderers..." he rasped, his voice broken and inhuman. "Dust-crazed fiends... No mercy... No mercy... for them... for us."

Sienna held her breath, her fingers tightening on her whip. She waited, crouched low, until the thing that had been Adam shambled away into the haze.

Only then did she rise.

She adjusted her grip on the whip and ran.

+++

Sienna's men stood in tense silence, their eyes fixed on her still form.

Malik Ashina swallowed hard. The wolf-faunus had expected to be halfway to Menagerie by now, not standing guard over what felt like an exorcism. Sienna lay motionless, though her fingers twitched ever so slightly, as if caught between two worlds.

"What are we supposed to do?" he asked, his voice uneasy.

"You?" Medea's sharp gaze pinned him and the others in place. "You make sure no one interrupts this. If someone breaks the connection, both Sienna and Adam will be trapped in the Nightmare realm forever."

Malik's ears twitched nervously at her words. "Who would even try to interfere?"

"Just make sure the house is secure. If any of you are hungry, use my kitchen."

With that, the group exchanged uneasy glances before quietly filing out. Their steps echoed faintly down the corridor.

Malik paced back and forth, his wolf ears twitching with every creak of the floorboards. Onikuma went off into the kitchen, his hulking frame looking out of place in such a cottage-like environment.

Deciding that trying to pace around would be useless, he instead sat on the couch, his rifle on the table.

​"How long do you think this is going to take?" he asked.

"For as long as it will," Onikuma said, moving to prepare food.

"How do you think this happened?" another asked.

"If you were Taurus right now, I am quite sure you would be a beacon of negativity," Onikuma said dryly.

Malik found that fair.

​Onikuma shrugged. "This is a fine town anyway. At most, we can just relax and wait."

And just as Onikuma said that, the sound of trucks rolled in the distance.

+++

This city sucked.

That was Sienna's verdict as she leapt across rooftops, avoiding the streets below. Walking there wasn't an option—not with monsters from literal nightmares prowling the alleys. She moved swiftly, her boots skimming tiles, until she reached the glow.

It came from a church.

Once a sanctuary, it now stood half-eaten by time and something far worse. Its facade, once warm coral stone, was blackened with soot and streaked with rust-red tears. It loomed over the surrounding ruins like a crowned corpse. Baroque curves had twisted into grotesque shapes—arches jagged, windows fused shut with what looked like bone and melted wax. Gargoyles clung where saints once stood, mouths agape, eyes hollow, screaming in silence.

The cross atop the bell tower had snapped and bent downward, forming a crooked X. The bell no longer rang—it hung shattered in its iron cage. Beneath it, a rosary swung from chains, its beads twisted into tiny, screaming faces.

The glow bled from stained glass windows, but it wasn't the fire of faith. Sickly hues of green and violet flickered, crawling shapes slithering across the inner surface. The glass depicted no saints—only things with too many wings and mouths where halos should have been.

The air around the church burned with incense gone rancid. What should have been sandalwood and myrrh now smelled of burnt hair and spoiled fruit. It clung to Sienna's tongue like phlegm.

She dropped to the ground and cursed as her boots splashed into blood. It pooled, dark and viscous, but she pressed on, her steps heavy as she approached the church doors.

They opened without her touch.

The twin panels groaned inward, not like wood, but wet leather peeling from bone. A blast of humid, fetid air greeted her, sweet with rot. The reek of incense lingered beneath it, twisted and wrong. Every breath stuck in her throat, a cloying mix of decay and overripe fruit.

Inside, the Basilica was cathedral-dark.

The pews remained—barely. Some stood splintered, split down the middle as if a beast had barreled through. Others twisted into serpentine shapes, their wood slick with mold. Prayer cushions sagged open like slit bellies, foam spilling out, stained red and yellow.

As Sienna stepped forward, candles flared to life one by one, casting pale green halos across the marble floor. But the light offered no comfort. It only made the shadows writhe, their shapes unnatural. Pillars lining the nave had grown veins—dark, pulsing vines creeping from ceiling to floor, as if the stone itself were alive.

Every statue of what would be saints had been defaced.

Heads melted into torsos. Crucifixes sharpened into jagged, upside-down thorns. One Virgin Mary wept a steady stream of ash from hollowed eyes, her hands fused into grotesque claws.

And then—there was the altar.

She saw him.

Adam.

Crucified.

He hung naked above the altar, suspended on a black iron cross fused into the wall. His arms stretched wide, legs broken and twisted at unnatural angles. Nails the size of crowbars pierced his wrists, ankles, and chest. Blood didn't flow—it oozed, black and thick like ink, crawling upward instead of down. His head lolled forward, horns snapped, jaw slack. Blood-matted hair hung in slick strands across his face.

Above him, behind him, around him—something watched.

It stepped forward.

For a breathless moment, Sienna thought it was Adam again.

But it wasn't.

The thing wore his shape—roughly. It was broad-shouldered, tall, with red hair trailing like a cape of rusted threads. But its body was wrong. Overgrown. Its skin was armored in interlocking plates of bone and chitin, its chest blooming with red, petal-like protrusions that flexed with every movement. Twisted horns curled up and back like a ram's, splitting into clawed tips.

Its eyes were gone. In their place burned twin sockets of pure light—blinding, searing.

It crouched behind the crucified Adam, one clawed hand resting on the nailed figure's thigh, the other stroking its own jaw. It stared down at her.

And then it moved.

+++

Malik knew something was off the very moment the trucks pulled up. Quickly, he rushed, moving by the window, rifle in his hand, as a voice yelled.

"MEDEA TAURUS!"

The others moved as well, weapons in hand.

"YOU'VE OVERSTAYED YOUR WELCOME! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!"

Who the hell were these jokers?

"THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR CORRUPTING MY NEPHEW, YOU FAUNUS WITCH!"

He peeked out and found numerous figures going out of trucks, armed similarly. He could spot something however. A crest. A ship on waves.

Then, they opened fire.

Malik ducked as the first burst of gunfire shattered the window above him, spraying shards of glass across the room. The crack of automatic weapons filled the air, sharp and deafening. He swore under his breath, his grip tightening on the rifle as he pressed his back against the wall.

"CONTACT!" he shouted, his voice barely cutting through the chaos.

The others scrambled into position, overturning tables, dragging shelves, anything to form makeshift cover. The room erupted into motion—feet pounding against the floor, magazines being slammed into place, the metallic chorus of bolts being racked.

"Who the hell are these guys?" someone yelled over the din, their voice tinged with equal parts panic and adrenaline.

Malik peeked out from the edge of the window frame, his heart hammering against his ribs. The trucks had parked in a semi-circle around the building, their headlights cutting through the gloom like spotlights. Figures darted between them, rifles raised, moving with precision.

Another burst of gunfire ripped through the air, sending chunks of plaster flying from the wall beside him.

He glanced up.

Sienna...Hurry!

+++

She sidestepped, her whip snapping upward in a blur of motion. It struck the creature's chest with a wet crack, the barbed tip hissing as it tore through flesh and armor alike. Black ichor erupted in a geyser, splattering the altar tiles in smoking, corrosive arcs. The corrupted Adam staggered, his grin flickering for the briefest heartbeat—then twisted wider, hungrier, as though pain were a gift he craved.

It roared.

They fought. 

Glass exploded from the stained windows in glittering bursts. Pillars cracked, belching plumes of pale dust. The pews groaned, splitting open as tendrils of red, pulsating vines slithered free from their seams. The stone beneath Sienna's feet quaked, but she didn't yield. Her boots dug in, grounding her against the chaos. Her whip flared to life again, its coils glowing with molten Dust-light, cutting through the nightmare-drenched air with sharp, deliberate arcs.

The monster bled and laughed and bled more.

Then, the voice began to speak.

Not from the creature she fought, but from everywhere else.

From the walls.

From the cross.

From the altar.

From the gaping void.

"YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM."

"YOU CANNOT HOLD HIM."

"HE BELONGS HERE."

"HE DESERVES HERE."

Each word pressed on her like a tide of crushing gravity, bending her world and her will. The air grew thick and heavy, the light dimming as though the chapel itself were being swallowed. The floor cracked beneath her, pulling her toward the altar where Adam had once hung. The voice didn't sneer or mock. It whispered with a certainty that chilled, a finality that demanded surrender.

Sienna gritted her teeth against the weight.

And she spoke.

"Adam," she said, her voice low and steady, cutting through the suffocating dark like a blade. The whip hummed beside her, as though it, too, was listening. "You're there. I know you're there."

The thing lunged.

She ducked, rolled, and came up swinging—steel biting bone, sparks cascading as her whip slashed across its horned face.

"You think this is justice?" she shouted, her words sharp and unrelenting. "You think this decay—this silent ruin where you drown in your own guilt—is where you belong?"

The creature hissed, its claws slicing through the air, long and sharp as knives.

Sienna leapt back, her boots skidding on fractured tiles. She caught her momentum and turned it into fury, snapping her whip forward with crackling precision. The blow struck its knee, and the beast howled—a sound too human, too raw to be entirely its own. It reeled, ichor dripping from its torn joints like venom.

"I need you," Sienna called, louder now, her voice rising above the groaning stone and splintering wood. "Not as a fighter. Not as a soldier. Not because you were strong."

She darted left as rubble fell from the ceiling, tumbling behind the shattered remains of a saint's statue. The creature followed, its movements erratic, like a puppet with frayed strings.

"I need you, Adam, because you stayed when they would be broken! Because you survived when everything else fell apart."

The monster faltered.

Not long.

But long enough.

Its claws twitched, its grin wavering as though her voice struck deeper than the whip ever could.

Sienna stepped out from behind the statue, her eyes locking onto the thing's burning gaze. She wasn't speaking to the beast. She was speaking to the man.

"They're gone, Adam," she said, her voice quieter now, but no less powerful. "All of them. You couldn't save them, yes! But you lived! You carry them!."

The whip coiled behind her, its light burning brighter, feeding on the Nightmare's essence as if drawing power from the darkness itself.

"If you stop now—if you give up—you let the Grimm win. You let their deaths mean nothing. You let this bastard steal your soul!"

The corrupted Adam roared, the sound shaking the chapel to its core. It surged toward her, a storm of claws and hate and hunger.

But Sienna didn't run.

She planted her feet, her teeth bared, and her voice cut through the chaos like a sword:

"YOU SURVIVED FOR A REASON!"

Her whip lashed.

Right across the creature's open chest.

"YOU'RE STILL HERE!"

Another crack, searing across its horned face.

"I'M STILL HERE!"

A final blow, snapping straight into its heart.

"And we're not fucking done yet!"

The creature screamed. Not in anger. Not in defiance.

In agony.

The altar erupted in a burst of light, golden flames consuming the Nightmare's taint.

The crucifix behind it blazed, its chains disintegrating like ash in the wind.

Eyes opened.

Bright blue eyes.

+++

[SPOILER="Devil Trigger"][URL unfurl="true" media="youtube:-WpnPSChVRQ"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WpnPSChVRQ[/URL][/SPOILER]

The fight hadn't taken long.

Now the Faunus lay scattered across the floor, twitching, groaning, their breaths shallow and broken. Some were unconscious, their bodies sprawled amidst cracked tiles and overturned furniture. Others bled slowly, their blood pooling dark and sticky beneath them. Smoke curled in lazy ribbons through the shattered remains of glass and wood. 

Pelias Argonid stepped through the wreckage like he was strolling through his ancestral garden. 

It would take time to cleanse it of their stench but it would be done. The walls would be scrubbed. The floors polished. The filth and shame erased.

The Color Revolution had upturned the world, yes—but only the surface. Beneath it, the roots of the ancien régime remained, burrowed deep. He coup would be quick and Cius back under his control. Already, his household retinues were rushing through town. The townsfolk could protest, of course, but what could Mistral do? That council of eunuchs and pretenders? 

Mistral was far. The world did not come running for backwater towns.

A voice, hoarse and wet with blood, rose from the ruin.

"Damn you! Damn you and your name! Damn you and five generations of your cursed blood!"

Pelias paused, turning lazily toward the sound.

One of the wolf Faunus lay barely alive, his body battered, jaw crooked and broken. Still, he snarled through split lips, defiance burning in his eyes.

A boot came down on his head.

The sound wasn't loud. But it silenced the room.

A low growl followed, rumbling from deeper in the wreckage—feral, threatening, alive.

Pelias turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing, then lighting up.

"Ah… Argo," he said softly, almost purring the name. "How I missed you."

The dog lay bound in chains, his body covered in scars and fresh welts. His fur was matted with blood, his ribs visible beneath his skin. Yet despite it all, his teeth bared, lips curling back in a snarl that promised violence.

"Did you miss me?" Pelias asked, his voice smooth, like silk dragged across rusted nails.

The dog growled deeper, low and guttural.

Pelias nodded toward one of the soldiers at his side. The boy obeyed without hesitation, slamming his boot into Argo's ribs.

The dog yelped, the sound cutting through the smoke, and curled in on himself, whimpering.

Pelias didn't stop walking.

"Where is the witch?" he asked, his tone casual, as though discussing the weather.

"In the master's room, sir," one of the soldiers answered quickly. "Doing… something."

Pelias arched an eyebrow, his lips twitching faintly in disapproval.

He strode forward, unhurried, as though the house itself wasn't groaning beneath the weight of what had been done to it. The hallway bent strangely, the air warped and trembling with residual power.

Light seeped through the cracks of a door up ahead.

Pelias pushed the door open without hesitation.

And there she was.

Medea stood before an occupied bed, her staff raised, her body taut with concentration. Ritual circles glowed on the floor beneath her, their lines precise and humming with faint, otherworldly light. The acrid scent of burning herbs clung to the air, clawing at the throat. Symbols hung suspended like fireflies, flickering faintly. Near her, an unconscious tiger Faunus was motionless.

"You," Medea barked, her voice sharp and venomous as she caught sight of him.

"I warned you to leave," Pelias said, his tone mild, almost bored, as he stepped further into the room. "But you just wouldn't, would you?"

"This property belongs to me!" she spat, her knuckles white around the staff. "Jason gave it to me!"

Pelias growled, his calm veneer cracking for just a moment. "Jason was a fool! He was raised better. He knew better. And he threw it all away—for a filthy cow!"

He raised his hand, and the sound of steel sliding free filled the room.

The sword gleamed as it caught the light, polished and sharp. It trembled faintly in his grasp as he lifted it.

"Don't you dare!" Medea screamed, her voice raw with fury.

"Oh, but I do," Pelias said, his lips curling into a cold smile.

This was the moment he savored—the moment before order was restored. His order. No more mongrels defiling the stone. No more illusions. No more witchcraft. This was justice. 

Then—

A flash.

It wasn't light. It wasn't sound. It was pressure—sudden, suffocating, like heat detonating in the gut, like gravity snapping its leash.

Before Pelias could react—before he could even think—Adam surged upward.

The Faunus's fist slammed into Pelias's jaw with a crack that echoed like a gunshot, the impact exploding through the room. Blood sprayed from the old man's mouth as his body was hurled sideways, crashing into a cabinet with a deafening splinter of wood and glass. He crumpled to the ground, limp and unconscious.

His sword skittered across the floor, spinning to a stop.

Medea stood frozen, her eyes wide with shock.

Adam.

Breathing.

Alive.

"Hello, Auntie," he greeted her, his voice calm.

"Uh… hi," Medea managed, her tone uncertain.

"You don't mind if I borrow this, do you?" Adam asked, gesturing toward the sword.

She shook her head dumbly, unable to muster a reply.

Adam straightened, testing the weapon's balance in his hand, the blade catching the faint light that filtered through the wreckage. He turned it once, twice, as if reacquainting himself with the sensation of steel.

"I'm going to crash out now," he announced casually, his tone almost conversational. "Might break a few things. Do I have your permission?"

Medea blinked, then nodded again, her reaction automatic.

Adam didn't smile. He didn't speak. He simply moved.

The sword gleamed faintly in his hand as he turned toward the door, its edge catching the dim, flickering light from the ritual circles still glowing on the floor. He didn't look back at Medea, didn't pause to explain or reassure. Words weren't necessary.

The sound of his boots echoed in the hallway, steady and deliberate, crunching over shattered glass and splintered wood. The air was thick with dust and the residue of magic, the walls groaning faintly as if the house itself resented its desecration.

The first soldier never saw him coming.

Adam's sword cut through the air in a single, precise arc, severing the man's rifle in two with a sharp metallic clang. Before the soldier could react, Adam drove his boot into his chest, sending him crashing into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster. The man hit the ground, coughing and clutching his ribs, already out of the fight.

The others turned, panic flashing across their faces, rushing out of the farmhouse door.

He glanced up. The others joined their fellows in a firing line.

"OPEN FIRE!"

The muzzle flashes bloomed like dying suns.

He ran straight into it.

The wind howled past him. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. The sword gleamed white-hot in his hand.

By the time the front line noticed he was closing the gap, it was already too late.

The first gunner tried to pivot the barrel toward him—too slow. Adam's shoulder hit and the man staggered, Adam grabbed him by the throat, yanked him forward—and headbutted him so hard his helmet dented inwards with a clang like an iron drum. Blood sprayed from his nose and he dropped with a twitch.

The next one, Adam grabbed him by the front of the vest and threw him backward into the truck grill behind them. The man's spine bent around the chrome bumper with a wet crack, legs twitching as he slid to the ground.

"Fan out! Fan out!" one of them was shouting, voice high and shaking. "He's right in—he's right in the line, he's in the—"

Adam's sword slammed into the man's chest.

The soldier scream was a bloody gurgle.

Then as he fell, Adam stepped on his neck.

Crunch.

The next came at him swinging the butt of a shotgun. Adam ducked, grabbed the man's arm, and twisted—an audible pop as the elbow dislocated, then Adam slammed his forehead into the man's face. Again. Again. Again. Each impact wetter than the last. When Adam let go, the soldier dropped with his jaw hanging half off.

Adam stood there in the aftermath, blood sluicing from his knuckles, from his blade, from the faces of men who thought they could kill and get away with it.

The ground around him was red mud now, spattered with teeth and shell casings and boots turned the wrong way. His chest rose and fell slowly, steam puffing from his lips.

The remaining Argonids shook.

"Are you really willing to die for whatever your boss is paying you?" Adam asked.

One of them, braver or more foolish than the rest, ran. Adam thought he was going away but he bolted for the truck.

"EAT THIS, ANIMAL!"

Adam's gaze locked on the rocket launcher. His fingers tightened around the sword's hilt.

The man fired.

A bloom of smoke erupted from the launcher's rear with a deafening roar. The rocket screamed toward Adam, trailing fire and chaos in its wake.

Time slowed.

And the world erupted.

A wave of energy, brilliant and blinding, tore through the air. A crescent of pure, destructive force, shaped like a blood-red moon, soared  It grew and grew, until it enveloped into a wider crescent.

The rocket met it mid-flight.

For a heartbeat, time paused.

Then—detonation.

The missile split in half, each half curling outward like peeling fruit. The warhead's payload detonated away from Adam, split by the arc of crimson energy. The arcs moved, blasting forwards in pure energy.

The soldier on the launcher was gone.

Adam stood untouched, wreathed in smoke, his blade glowing faintly red.

He turned to the remaining men.

Their weapons dropped in surrender.

+++

A/N: BANG BANG BANG. PULL MY DEVIL TRIGGER.