Tilting At Windmills
-
”You don’t know that! So people have warned you and you refuse to listen?” Their gaze couldn’t help straying to Rock while they argued with her operator. This wasn’t Rock’s fault, It seemed like there was some merit to Ellen’s concern about Lan herself after all.
“Why won’t you just listen then!? Your stubbornness is putting your navi at risk, not just…” Aon squinted at the smoke and trailed off. Even if it wasn’t the same, that reaction after using Lightwave was enough confirmation that there was much more to what was wrong with these two.
“Fine.”
At Rock’s running lead they took to running to meet her, veering to their left slightly to keep the blades in their field of view. They weren’t about to let her get too close though, kicking out as she slid forward while they loaded the next chip.
With a growl through grit teeth Aon’s free arm began reforming, elongating, bursting into a stream of familiar iridescent black goop that stretched forward and enveloped Rock. Sludgy tendrils constricted around her middle pushed her back and swung her into the trajectory of one of her own blades while Aon stayed in place.
-
It was Rock who spoke up first, with Lan being too stunned and annoyed to think of a coherent response. With a twitch of her eye, she snapped back, "The kid's not trying to put me at risk, let's make that clear! We wouldn't be here if we were hurting each other, y'know that?!" She stopped just short of listing what kind of bad things might've happened to them if they weren't so close, because describing the danger they'd been in would be a surefire way to make Aon trust them even less.
"Yeah! Exactly! I don't get it! Nothing's actually happened!" Lan shouted back at Aon. "Do people just not have any faith in me?! As if I'm just going to start running around and killing people or whatever!!" She stewed within her own rage for a few seconds, before she indignantly stomped her foot. "I'm not evil!! I don't want to be evil!!"
Both Lan and Rock were stunned into silence, however, when Aon loaded a chip that they'd never seen before. Lan was utterly clueless as to what the chip entailed, but as soon as the goop lashed out at Rock and slammed her into her own blades, an all-too-familiar cold feeling enveloped her. She writhed against the tendrils' grip - the same ones that had nearly subsumed her when they fought the Conductor - and could have sworn that, for the smallest of moments, she felt a strange sensation in the back of her mind.
"K-kid- that's-" Rock shouted, trying to recall her blades to slice through the tendrils. Her eyes flickered red again, like she was trying to send some kind of signal to her operator. "Wh-why do you- have this-"
Lan narrowed her eyes, then leaned forward once the dots finally connected. "Th-that's-" she began to blubber, narrowing her eyes. "Why are you yelling at me when you have that?! Th-that's- that's what the Conductor used, right?!" Slowly, she realized how Aon got that. "Idiot! I threw that away! Why did you keep that?! It's the Conductor! You hypocrite!!"
-
Nothing the pair said afterwards really registered anymore, until they were called out. Aon started, briefly stunned that it had finally happened, and not even for the reason they were trying to hide– directly anyways.
“Don’t! question me!” They argued, their voice raised in an uncharacteristic guttural bark.
Their footwork was messy in the fight, they were losing control of themselves, they needed to reign control back into their favour. They had to convince themselves in the same breath that this was on purpose and not the same.
“You are the ones being tested. You are proving yourselves to Me. Not. The other way. Around.”
Some of the tendrils sloughed off after impact with the blades, but that only caused Aon to try and tighten their grip with what remained. The goop rippled and a white glow began to creep from Aon’s end toward Rock as they forced their element into the attack. Their teeth ground together as if it was hurting them to do so.
“Show me that you can overcome it this time! Or don’t! Let it out for all I care!”
-
If Lan and Rock's synchronization would have wavered before, it certainly wouldn't, now, with the both of them united by their surprise at Aon snapping. Rock couldn't exactly bark out a response, however, when Aon tightened their grip and channeled a glowing energy that made it hurt even more. She screamed, trying to kick the white aura away as if that was even physically possible. "Th-the hell is...?!"
"What are you doing?!" Lan shouted, tensing up for a moment before she began to squirm in a strange way, almost as if she was trying to free herself from Aon's grip, too. "Wh-where is this even... why are you..." she blubbered as she attempted to rationalize Aon's sudden change in attitude, before something snapped all sense dived off a cliff. "You tricked us! Wh-what's this even about?! Was this ever going to be a fair fight?!"
Rock's eyes flickered as she tried to dig her blades through the remaining goop tendrils before whatever Aon was injecting into them could reach her. A burning sensation was growing in her emblem as she did so, however, and Lan's presence behind her grew stronger by the second. "D-damn it-" she growled, leaning her head forward as smoke began to surround her.
"I-if this is about overcoming this stupid Alpha crap, then it doesn't matter anymore! We can overcome anything!" Lan hissed, only forcing herself not to shout just because she was outside. "Y-you just wanted us to fail, didn't you?! Jerk! Jerk! I hate you!" She stomped her foot on the ground as her eyes, too, flickered a deep red. "You'll regret this, you'll regret this, you'll... you'll..."
It was concerning how much of a routine this had become, and it was clearly exhausting to both Lan and Rock already - but Rock exploded with energy and entered Shadow Trance once more, slicing her way out of the tendrils with her enlarged blades. She let the Roller Blades whirl around her for a moment as she glared at Aon. "Why?" she couldn't help but ask, before scoffing. "Just... whatever."
A second later, Rock was in Aon's face, grabbing one of her blades out of the air and holding it to Aon's throat. To stop them from escaping, Rock's shadow detached from her body and slithered beneath their opponent, jumping up to grab them by the neck.
-
“I stated what I wanted to see from the start! Why are you surprised?! Is it because I’m not coddling you like everyone else?! Letting you think it’s all fine?!”
Aon struggled to keep their hold while they argued, bracing their arm with their other hand attempting to pump more of their vaccine toward Rock.
“You’re arguing what I’m doing isn’t fair? After using illegal chips on me, and now this?” They knew they were going to be dealing with whatever this Shadow Trance was, and in all truth they hadn’t made any kind of plan for it, not even this.
But now here they were, unable to take it back. They could only attempt to excuse their way out of it.
“What’s with the double standard? First it’s ‘no one told me so it’s fine’ but it’s not fine when it’s used against you. Is it? I haven’t said one thing I didn’t mean!”
Their gaze meandered to the screen to glare at Lan, taking note of her reactions. It left them off guard for the sudden transformation and the swiftness of Rock breaking free, appearing directly in front of them and the shadow from behind,
They struggled briefly, slacking when it became evident they were far outmatched. They could barely keep up with these two as it was, this new form was as Ellen put it ‘Frightening’ but not fun by any means.
They couldn’t do anything about this, no matter how badly they wanted to.
“I’ll take the hate. I’ll take it all! If you brats would. Just. Get it!!” They hissed through their teeth, tilting their head up and to the right against the blade to shoot a direct glare at Rock with their good eye from under their visor.
