Silver Rose

Chapter XIX - Destiny

Lilly yelped as she was thrown to the ground, her aura breaking as her shoulder impacted the concrete hard enough to send pain shooting throughout her body. She lost her grip on Myrtenaster and it slid all the way to the wall. She tried to push herself upright, but her shoulder was in immense pain and she could barely remain conscious, struggling just to suppress the throbbing.

Not good, she thought. My sword arm is useless.

She leaped to dodge an incoming fireball, but without her weapon, all she could do was manage evasion. That was fine. If she could keep this up for the thirty seconds it took her aura to fully recover from its null state, she'd be battle primed in no time. All she had to do was get her weapon back and formulate some kind of strategy.

Planning was useless at this point, however. With all of the Dust attacks headed her way, it was impossible to formulate anything even resembling a plan. She had her back up against the wall this time, both literally and figuratively. But she could not give up, not yet, not with her team relying on her.

She turned to her left. Yuan and Leon had their hands full. Ingrid was nowhere to be found. Lilly had to trust that her partner wasn't dead yet and was somehow managing to evade their enemy's incessant attacks.

Another wave of Dust attacks came at her and she dodged, rolling into a squat, her right arm still dangling uselessly to the side. She spotted Ingrid and went into instant tunnel vision. Her partner was on the ground, unmoving.

"Ingrid!" she yelled, darting to her friend's side. She shook her with her only working arm. "Ingrid!"

Her partner opened her eyes. "What...what happened?" she managed.

"Get up! We have to move!"

Before she could respond, something exploded near them. In a split second, Lilly's hearing turned into nothing more than a loud whine that muffled all other sounds around her. She felt like the world was spinning around her. No, it wasn't the world spinning. It was her, spinning as she soared through the air before crashing hard into something. None of that pain registered in her mind, though. Everything was just a blur at this point, including the part where someone carried her off to only the gods knew where.

As she drifted into and out of consciousness, she intermittently saw visions of her mother. She was always tending to those lilies in the garden, the white and gold ones that grew only in the region surrounding Oasis, the only temperate zone in all of Solitas.

"Mom!" Lilly shouted as she ran to her.

"Lilly," Weiss replied, smiling as her daughter embraced her tightly. "You're home earlier than usual."

"Just wanted to drop by! I've missed you, mom!"

"I've missed you, too, darling. But aren't you forgetting something?"

"Huh?"

"Your team."

"My...my team..."

Lilly opened her eyes wide, looking up into Yuan's jade colored eyes as he supported her. The ground rumbled from time to time from the impact of something, probably bombs. Lilly's hearing was still fuzzy from that blast earlier.

"Where's Ingrid?" Lilly yelled, about to leap out of Yuan's arms before the pain in her shoulder came back full force and she winced.

"Right here," Ingrid said. Blood was streaming down her forehead.

"Are you okay?"

"I was gonna ask you the same. I think we got hit by a bomb."

Lilly closed her eyes to try and regain her focus. Her aura had just been restored, but in the midst of a battle and with real wounds sustained from when her aura was down, none of that meant anything. She took a few seconds to assess their situation. She was with Yuan and Ingrid in some kind of alcove created by fallen debris. She could feel his aura surrounding both her and Ingrid, bolstering their defenses and healing ability. Leon was in the fray, dodging and counterattacking, using his teleportation Semblance in perfect moderation, not too much to be detrimental to his aura, but in perfect tandem with his defense and offense.