Darkest Timeline AU Chapter 2 [Single]

[Professor W B Copperfield]

"Eellllaaa!" I shouted. My heels dug into the loose dirt, both hands extended as I maintained two hardlight shields at once. My voice was lost in the din of the sound of gunfire, a storm of bullets headed towards me from two sides intercepted only by walls constructed from my will.

Most of the students that got away from Beacon had lead me into an ambush in the Emerald Forest, and a pretty clever one too. Brought me out to the forest to a cave they were hiding out in, a trap right infront of their hideout. They had figured out somehow that I can only create two workings at once. And now with bullets smashing into my shields, bullets that would kill me if I dropped the shields for an instant, I was locked in place. The laws of physics will always have theirs, and I couldn't hold up a shield without being subjected to the forces that imparted on it. Being shot at on both sides with so many projectiles, if I turned to run I'd threaten being pushed too far to one side and falling down. And that could be the end right there for me. There is a reason "He fell" become synonymous with "he died" in olden times. Falling down in a fight just means you get killed.

I could see the students(can you call them students when their school doesnt exist anymore?) beyond the translucent blue shields, yelling their fury as they hammered on my shields. Ahead of me I stared down the barrel of a... well, a damn big gun. Bigger than a .50 cal, a real Grimm killer. The blonde kid who stared down the iron sights wore a Vacuoian cowboy hat. His eyes were... you hear a lot about "if looks could kill". But this look, this look was pure. Unadulterated. The hate and desperation that comes from needing to kill the thing thats threatening your extinction.

"Ela!" I yelled again, wondering where the hell that damned girl was! And I watched the hammer fall on the monster revolver. And the world quieted except for the sound of a single breath. An exhalation.

At the last second possible I activated the Fire Dust in my coat with my Aura. All of it. Enough to turn a city block to a blackened crater. It barely saved my life.

Outwards from me became blackened and charcoal, the trees turning to spent kindling before in a flash, everything was covered in cool white frost and large ice crystals. The gunfire roar ceased. The students themselves were trapped in ice, and the bullet soaring for my head was frozen in mid-air, the cold so bone-seeping of all heat that it stole the damn kinetic energy of the bullet. I watched it fall to my feet, breaking frozen strands of grass as it fell.

The sudden burst of heat from my coat is the only thing that save me from becoming a popsicle like everyone else, and the clash of the massive temperatures soared up, up into the sky where they hit clouds and jumpstarted a freaking rainstorm.

Thunder rumbled and the sky, which had been high noon, darkened as water began to fall.

The blonde cowboy screamed his rage and defiance and began pulling the trigger again and again!

I lowered my shields and tried to raise another but he was too fast, the bullets smashing against my coat and Aura. I was knocked from my feet, the bullets were sledgehammer blows delivered from damn Ursas, and I felt more hitting me as I fell. Then there was a big earth-shaking crashing sound and the blows stopped hitting me. I laid on the ground and tried to get my limbs to respond, everything was fuzzy and staticy. But I knew my Aura hadn't been broken, I was just stunned. And a small mountain stood in the way of the bullets.

Ela was a huge girl, taller than even me. Though you couldn't see a speck of her or her skin, she was so covered in rock she looked like a statue that hadn't been refined by an artist's skilled hand yet. Those monster bullets smashed into her, blowing chunks of rock and dust off her, but I had taught her how to regrow the armor quickly and shield the weak points, spreading out the damaged areas so as not to allow an enemy to keep hitting the same spot. She moved, always keeping infront of me and being the best shield I ever could have asked for. The cowboy changed tactics, using Dust bullets to hamper and hold her down with Ice before trying to blow her up with Fire. But it was no use, and the Lightning Dust rounds he tried were obviously used out of panic or ignorance, as the Earth Dust and rock, Ela's armor, instantly grounded out the electricity.

My legs reconnected with my brain after a moment and I finally started to get to my feet. Just in time to see some short haired kid built like a truck come barreling towards me. I shoved a hand at him, willing pure force to hammer him back. But he made a punch at the air at the right time and somehow exerted enough force to cancel it out, coming to a stop before charging again. This kid, also blonde, had bull horns. Well, some sort of strength Semblance? Fitting.

I stood up and flung another wall of force at him, which with another major effort he was able to cancel. He was maybe 20 feet from me now, and he didn't stop. "Toro! Toro!" I called as I flung wall after wall at him, making him expend his Aura and strength against mine. He gained a step every second or so, but I wanted that. This kid was strong, but a noob. If he had been able to get through his whole schooling he might have been somewhat of a threat. But all I needed for him to do was...

He was within arms reach, and in his desire to hit me in the face he jumped, arm already moving up to slug me and knock my jaw through my spine. I smiled.

Low to the ground where he could exert power he was tough and there wasn't a whole lot I could do to him. But off the ground, he was simple mass x acceleration. He could do nothing. I ducked and twisted out of his reach and slammed him again with force. "Toro!"

He went sprawling and rolling on the ground towards Ela. He reached out to her leg to pull her down, but I sent a surge of force down, slamming into his side to drive the wind from him and his hand into the mud. Ela didn't need to be told. She turned away from the cowboy, lifted her foot, and brought it down. I made sure the bull stayed on the ground. His Aura broke as the massive girl broight her weight down on him, the bottom of her feet lined with earthen spikes. And his head flattened with a wet crunching sound.

The cowboy screamed again. "Everyone! Get inside!" There werent a lot of these kids left that weren't frozen or feeding the earth, but those that could move did their best to enter the cave, fleeing the cover of the trees. The cowboy stood tall in the entrance.

"Kill him." I commanded. Ela launched herself at him. The first hit should have knocked his head and shoulders from his body, but in a flash of golden light he remained. Standing there, just as he was. Ela slammed into him with thunderous blows but they simply hit an unmoving wall. The rock of her armor started to shatter with the sheer force that Ela was imparting, slamming and breaking and regrowing again and again. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! A student ran past her into the cave, and Ela changed tactics, moving to grab the girl.

But the cowboy spoke a word and thrust his hands out. "NO!" Golden sandy light became a wall that blocked the entire entrance to the cave. Ela's hand was repelled, rock armor shattering completely away from her arm and blowing her back. The cowboy's own eyes widened at the transformation of his Semblance, but he steeled himself and set to keeping the wall. Other fleeing students rushed in and were able to pass, which made my eyebrow raise. I sent of flicker of force at him, but it hit the wall and scattered into random energies. I kicked a rock and it had the same results. Ela stood and repaired her armor, but stayed where she was, awaiting orders.

I frowned and looked around me. There was one tree fully charcoaled and then frozen, the rest were icicles stretching to the sky. The cave the students fled to was topped by a mountain. I could have tried to bring it down with Gravity, but mountains were incredibly solid pieces of architecture. It would take an immense feat and some luck to bring it down on them. I could have melted the rooftop of the cave to liquid, but I was about out of Fire Dust. I looked to the burnt tree.

"Keep hammering that shield, weaken it as much as you can." I ordered. Ela obeyed, as she always did. With a battle cry she began slamming and hammering the shield, the cowboy having to strain to hold it still.

I brought the barbequed tree down and got to work with gravity.

It took a minute, maybe longer, of intense concentration and most of the Gravity Dust I had on hand. And it was the first time I had ever done something like this. In another life, maybe I would have done this for a wife. Of course it wouldn't have been that rough or filled with those imperfections, but for this purpose it was good enough.

"Ela, move." I said, and with another earth-shaking blow that made dust fall from the cave she backed off.

I can still remember the white of the cowboy's eyes as he realized what Ela had been stalling for. When he realized he had only one chance. And that even that could spell his death. I'll give him this much, he had balls to choose to stand and try and block what I had just made.

Charcoal is basically just carbon. From a flash-burned tree there were some imperfections, especially the water that came from Ela's ice-breath attack. But carbon, even with imperfections, under immense pressures and heat, create something beautiful. Possibly the strongest molecular structure in our world, even. The molecules pretty much just shake into their places and lock together. And the black dust turns to sparkling crystal.

I hurled a spear of diamond made from a oak tree's mass with my best Forzare pitch.

The rest of the kids in that cave fell pretty easily once that shield shattered like so many grains of sand.