[X] Stay silent, and wait for the situation to resolve.
It...
It wasn't safe, Nora decided, through her dulled thoughts. There was too much she didn't understand right now, and if there was a dragon here...
Well, if the old stories were true, the dragon should be powerful. Which would explain how an Intoner was fighting earlier but another Intoner was fighting now. And how it had just flown through a steel structure built as solidly as the Schnee manor. But he point was, dragon. Beasts only spoken of in legends, these days. Terrifying beings, overflowing with so much power that they could lay low a hundred mortal men before getting a scratch. The shadows of their wings struck fear into the hearts of men, and when they went to war, kingdoms fell.
Of course, these were old legends, stories dating back to before technology was as advanced as it was. So maybe a dragon going to war wasn't a kingdom killer anymore. But this beast had obviously gotten this far without being stopped by the military, so it didn't seem like much of an exaggeration.
...In fact, there had been a lot of roaring earlier, Nora realised. And a beast like this seemed like the sort who could give out a roar that rang out with sheet power, like what she had heard. If it had been fighting since the first roar, then it definitely must have gone through the air force at least a bit.
And yet there it stood, unharmed.
It ripped itself out of the wires that was restraining it's necks, a white cloaked figure on it's back slicing a sword through the air in the process. More wires fell apart, and Nora shifted her eyes slightly to trace the falling, vaguely visible lines to the source.
...She didn't quite know what she was looking at, to be honest. It was like some kind of giant baby doll, made out of rocks, covered in glowing purple lights. Notably on the stomach and in the eyes. And there was a lot of them, too. Different sizes, ranging from ones just visible because they were flowing, to ones bigger than Nora herself was.
When they walked, it was with a jittering pace, like they were puppets being pulled by their strings. If the puppetmasters were extremely masterful at making movement blend together, but with a certain ignorance on how human beings actually moved, resulting in motion that somehow looked even worse than if they were just nothing like humans at all. The dragon swept his tail at one of the closer ones, and it detonated. The white clad figure on dragonback raised an arm to shield her eyes, but otherwise, nothing notable happened to the dragon.
Even as the shock of the explosion rang out, though, Nora felt it slam into her. At this distance, it was a strong breeze, not enough to push her back away from the edge and the battlefield. But closer to the explosion, she saw one of the damaged sections of the wall crumble away, breaking apart and blasting away.
The blue light nearby faded a bit, and Nora's gaze shifted, moving to observe it instead. The melodic cry ceased as Two looked up at the dragon, and at the figure on it's back. From this distance, Nora couldn't see what her expression was, but somehow her shocked whisper carried in the wind.
"Zero..."
The moment the words had passed the white woman's lips, the dragon moved. It surged forward, even as the doll monster things started lunging at it. One of the purple dolls grabbed the white dragon's leg, weighing it down as another doll threw it's wires around the first. A dozen others repeated the feat, slowing the dragon and it's descent, and the airship lurking above the battlefield took aim as the dragon slowed.
The woman in white leaped off her perch on dragonback as the airship started it's bombardment, an explosive round slamming down between the dragon's wings as the dolls tried to trip it up. The dragon spread it's wings and flapped, taking into the air in the process as it lunged towards the airship. The doll around it's leg pulled at the wires around it's waste, pulling up another doll as the dragon took flight, before detonating. A purple baby thing hovered in the air for a moment, before the light on it's stomach started to glow.
For a moment, there was a second sun in the sky, burning bright purple as energy swirled around it's stomach for a moment. It took Nora a moment to really notice how bright it was, and as she stared up towards it, she realised her vision was darkening, growing blurry.
The thought was interrupted, though, when the laser struck. The purple beam shot out of the doll monster, ripping through the air and slamming into the white beast like a bolt of lightning. The beam sustained itself for a moment, throwing the dragon to the ground as the airship lowered itself to the ground, and Nora saw Two leap out of the way as she realised the dragon was about to slam into her.
She rolled out of the way just as the dragon hit the ground near where she was standing, and as the collision kicked up dust, the figure in white charged in.
With Two and the woman in white, Zero...
Another number name? Was she related to Two somehow? That would explain how Two knew her name, but that just raised further questions.
But her thoughts were wandering, Nora noted. She was having trouble focusing now. How much blood had she lost? Probably too much by this point. But the situation hadn't changed. She needed to just wait it out, until...
The dragon rose up out of the ground, and sent out a fireball to hit the airship that was hovering by the ground. Behind it, a dozen other airships were converging on the location, circling around so the dragon couldn't hit them all at once even as the first airship shook from the force of just one of the dragon's split second attacks.
On the ground, there was a half dozen Atlesian robots on the ground, guns trailing the dragon as they circled around. The biggest group from what Nora could see, were centred around a girl with green hair and a girl in a white dress. The green-haired girl was carrying the girl in the dress, and looking down for a moment, Nora put together why fairly quickly. It was kinda hard to move on your own power lacking a leg, after all.
...Jeez. A lot of people had been messed up by this attack, hadn't they? Ren had been hurt pretty bad the last time Nora had seen him, there was a girl without a leg over there, and if Three had been taken out of the fight, then Nora didn't think that boded well for Coco or Yang.
...Nora hoped they made it out. The building by where she had been had collapsed, so if there was anyone in that specific bit of the Schnee manor, then they wouldn't be in a good shape right now. Heck, Nora had been on the top floor, with the least amount of material that could possibly come down on her, and she had still been messed up pretty bad to avoid being buried.
Nora still didn't know what the hell was going on, or why. Someone had just stormed into the Schnee mansion and started attacking a lot of people, and they had some kind of dragon supporting them at that. And maybe someone related to Two and her sisters as well. And the were attacking the Schnee because...
Reasons, apparently. Nora never really bothered with having a reason to do things before, but if you're going to hurt people this bad, bad enough to possibly cripple them for life if they survive at all, then having a reason behind the actions which she could understand is something that Nora would have thought was kind of important.
...It was weird, though. She'd been in so much pain a minute ago, but not it was hard to feel it. Or anything, apart from that coldness that was seeping into all her senses. That...
...Was probably a bad thing, Nora noted. Maybe she should-
Two's song echoed through the air again, as a blast of air shook the ground and parted the cloud of dust around the two hidden figures. It parted, to reveal the sight of the blue-haired woman holding her big sword above her head, desperately holding back a downward strike from the woman in white.
"Michael!" Barked Zero. "Get her!"
The dragon, Michael, moved into action on the command. His tail swept around, the bladed tip moving to slam into Two's side, and the Intoner pushed back against Zero with her oversized blade while spinning around.
Blade blocked tail, and Two was thrown back by the force of the attack. Zero lined up her sword to stab Two through the heart as she was forced back, until a wire grappled around her arm and pulled it away. Two slammed into Zero, and both women rolled on the ground as the doll monster tried to pull Zero away.
Cutting herself free with a dagger in her belt, Zero stood, and glared at the white dragon.
"Why are they still here?" She asked, as she ducked under a wild swipe from the purple glowing dolls. "No, nevermind, don't care. Just fucking kill the Angel, Michael."
"And I'll just slot that in while I'm killing everything else you asked me to kill, will I?" The dragon asked, as it flew towards the purple dolls.
"You're talented." Zero replied. "Learn to multitask."
"Zero..." Two whimpered out, her voice oddly loud as she looked up towards the girl in white. "What's going on? Why are you?"
"Ugh." Zero spat out, disgusted. "Again with this why shit. Everyone always asks why. Not even just today, with Six, but all the time. It doesn't fucking matter why."
The woman in white threw her dagger, and Two bowled over as it stabbed her in the stomach. Her Aura flared to protect her, but was blatantly strained in the process. As Zero approached in a flash of white, Two looked up and screamed again, the power of her song pushing back the blue light and forcing Zero away from her.
"Tch." Zero grumbled, as she stepped forward, pushing against the blue light. "You're stronger than the other two."
Other two? Other two what? There was more than two people here, so if Zero had been fighting while Nora had been away from the action, she would have had to fight more than two people. And it would have been obvious how much more powerful Two was by the fact that she was an Intoner. So Zero had to be comparing Two to other Intoners, right?
But Three was the only other Intoner in the city right now, wasn't she? Zero had mentioned someone called Six, but Nora didn't have any clue who that could have been, and if there was some other Intoner related to Two who had returned recently to fight Zero, wouldn't they be making a bigger deal out of it?
Nora blinked, and it was a struggle to get her eyes open again. Her vision was getting worse, and she could barely follow the action at this point. A blur of white was forced away from something burning blue, and something else white was tearing through something purple. Zero, Two, Michael, and the doll Angel things respectively.
The clashing and clattering of the battle sounded so distant, even though Nora hadn't moved and the other parties didn't seem like they had strayed far either. A sense of dread welling up inside her, Nora tried to move her arm. It was a complete wreck, and should hurt a lot just trying to move it, even if she failed.
So when she didn't feel anything from it, she started to worry.
Why...
Why was it getting so hard to think?
Was she losing blood, now? Was she...
She opened her mouth to try and scream, to call for help, but all she could manage was a pained moan. She could barely hear herself, let alone anyone else, and there wasn't anyone looking at her right now. She didn't have any way of getting attention, right now...
Damn it. She just felt so cold, right now. So tired. Tears were leaking out of her eyes, and she could barely feel them rolling down her face.
...She hoped Ren was alright. It had been a while since she saw him, it felt like. Even if it was like an hour ago at most. He had been so hurt, when Nora lured him away, and she hoped he wasn't too hurt right now.
It had been just Ren and Nora for years at this point. It had only been earlier this year that the two of them had met Two and Yang and gotten into Vale and started preparing for Beacon. It was nice, living in the Kingdoms for a change. The food was great. The people were cool. There were things that mad her worry, but even her most stressful night in Vale wasn't much worse than what she'd gone through outside of the Kingdoms. Before that, it felt like the only thing she and Ren had were each other.
It'd been a few years, since Nora had thought about the possibility of her and Ren ending up separated, with one of them being alone. That was a scary thought, really. She spent a few days alone after her parents had died. Even after getting to the village, she was shunned and alone enough that it wasn't for a few days, when she had first met Ren, that she stopped being on her own.
Being alone sucked. And right now, the fact that there was nobody by Nora's side was enough of a reminder of that. Maybe someone would see her soon, maybe there was still time, but...
Her vision blackened and her thoughts faded, as Nora Valkyrie hoped that someone would be there for Ren if she couldn't.
The tragedy winds to a close, as the cast depart from their roles. Only one actor remains on stage as the final scene of the act approaches...
[X] Two fights to reach understanding, trying to subdue Zero to talk with her.
[X] Two fights to protect those already hurt, driving Zero off so they can be cared for.
