Cloudy Sky: The Unlucky Thirteen

Epilogue - Striking Streak

Four of the Thirteen have a natural gift for speed that they're now required to hone by the Shadowstalkers. Gemi, Nia, Aquaria, and Leilani are the fastest of the Thirteen by far. There's no catching up to Leilani, who can also add onto her speed with her abilities. She doesn't bother wasting them. Carina isn't going to chase her.

Leilani finds the exit, a pair of heavily barred doors that have been flung open for this conflict. She grins as she sprints past Aquaria, running inside. They both pause to exchange information. "Carina's inside, I knocked her out, and I saw Pisces and Nia earlier, but Pisces escaped."

"That's fine, I can find Pisces before he blinks," Aquaria mentions. "Sagittaria's hunting Taurus out here and Ari just saw Leo heading inside."

With that quick exchange over, Leilani leaps into the air just as a thick branch arrows in her direction. Taurus is still in the game, Leilani thinks with a sigh, slamming the ground with a gust of air as she searches for possible places where the brown–haired Hell Zoner would be. He seems to be invisible. The blonde releases a frustrated sigh as she glides higher, out of the range of attacks.

Aquaria is navigating through the inside as she immediately darts for a staircase, ducking under a chain that sections off the back of the staircase, where there's an entrance to the old Shadowstalker tunnels. Descending the ladder into the tunnel, she sprints through it as quietly as she can, but she can swear she hears footsteps behind her.

Pausing, she stops abruptly, but the supposed footsteps stop exactly when hers do. This tunnel is particularly long, since it heads back to the old Shadowstalker headquarters. Aquaria doesn't want to be caught before she reaches it, so she supposes she can boost her speed with her abilities. Though that would give her away as someone with wind powers, it wouldn't give her exact identity away. She doesn't know who's following her.

Aquaria shoots through the open double doors into the Shadowstalkers' old general storage room and crouches down behind a stack of boxes to regain her breath. She expects a few minutes before her follower shows themselves.

It takes only ten seconds, which startles Aquaria drastically. Seeing who strides into the room, Aquaria wants to stand up and nope out of her quickly concocted plan. It's too late; she can feel something fuzzy poking at her brain. The other advantage to Scorpio's insanity–causing ability is that he can tell if anyone's in the room with him by reaching out to their minds with a nightmare.

Standing up before her mind decides to march her in the opposite direction, Aquaria steps away from the boxes and fires a bolt of wind at the Darktale, but Scorpio easily ducks that, prodding at Aquaria's mind again, which distracts her enough that the brunette can grip her wrist, angling her palm down towards the ground in order to prevent a blast to the face. A pained grimace stretches her lips as she attempts to snatch her wrist away and blast him with the other hand. Scorpio lets go of her hand, stepping away as he watches Aquaria regain her balance clumsily.

"Fuck you," the bluenette hisses as he dodges yet another blast, annoyed.

Scorpio's eyes run over her analytically in a few split seconds before he steps towards Aquaria's left side. "If you watch me."

Aquaria grits her teeth, mild disgust flashing over her face. That's just enough to distract her as Scorpio leans in from where he seemed to be a good distance away, proving that he's been gradually edging closer. Quickly with a swiping kick, he trips the blue–haired Deadpool. She reacts faster than he'd assumed, tucking her legs under her in order to spring back to her feet, but that doesn't matter as he perches himself on her legs, a hand pressing down on her throat.

Aquaria's lip curls as she limply turns her head away, refusing to make eye contact. "You know, you could always surrender and make this a lot easier," Scorpio suggests.