Destiny No More

Chapter 25

The moments after the explosion were a blur. Pyrrha, along with Fox and Velvet, had all been thrown from their feet as the building exploded outwards in a mixture of elements that was no doubt visible across the entire city. A distant part of her brain acknowledged how bad that was, not failing to put together the details and the fact that the Headmaster would almost certainly know something was up.

It took her mind a moment more to realize that the authorities would also have been notified and were no doubt scrambling to arrest them at this very moment.

Shaking her head as she sat up, Pyrrha realized she couldn't hear anything aside from an intense ringing in her ears. She looked around slowly, first searching for danger and, once she knew the coast was clear, began looking for Team CFVY. She spotted Velvet and Fox layed out a few feet away from her, both clearly still alive but in similar states to her own but in the process of getting to their feet.

Looking towards the remnants of the building, it wasn't hard to tell why. She hadn't certain what kind of dust the Atlesian Paladins ran on, but from what she could see it was likely a mix of several different kinds. The building, what was left of it that could be called such, was entirely engulfed in flames and there were several new rock formations that were clearly neither natural nor used in the construction of the building, judging by their odd shapes and sizes.

"Vel, Amber, you two all right?" Despite the ringing sound, she could hear Coco clear as day.

"I'm fine." Pyrrha mumbled softly in response, only realizing after the fact that Coco had sent her message not spoken it. A quick glance around showed no sign of the girl. Locking eyes with Velvet, Pyrrha nodded her head once before looking away.

"We're fine coco."

"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Fox sent, for the first time since she'd met him actually sounding something aside from teasing.

"We wouldn't be communicating if you weren't Fox." Yatsuhashi explained.

"So you can wipe that look off your face." Coco added.

Looking over, Pyrrha watched as the pouting look on his face fell away and was replaced by a slightly embarrassed expression.

"Well... you could have at least asked."

"I'm sorry. Fox, are you all right?" Coco's voice cared the tone of a mother giving her child the exact attention they seemed to be craving.

"I am, thank you for asking."

Velvet approached her slowly, offering a hand and helping Pyrrha to her feet with a surprising amount of strength. That was when she realized how sluggish she felt, the drain from having used the Maiden powers having finally caught up with her. While it wasn't enough to knock her out fully, she knew she didn't have much more to go for that became a serious risk. Her rather liberal use of her magic having been far beyond anything she had trained for.

Looking around, she managed to find her weapon, taking a few shaky steps over before getting her bearings and slowly leaning down to pick the blade up. Pyrrha sighed contentedly at the knowledge that they had won. There was no way anybody could have-

"We have a problem!" Coco sent in a panic, causing both Pyrrha and Velvet to jump in surprise.

Pyrrha was about to ask what the problem was, only to remember she could. She turned to Velvet, who seemed to get her idea well enough. Just before she could send her message however, there was another, much smaller and more controlled, explosion from the other side of the building. Along with gunshots. A lot gunshots.