RWBY Through Worlds

116: Shaking and Pacing

While the girls were having a cheerful time, Wally had been mostly left alone.

Victoria didn't seem that interested in him. She ran some tests, and, for whatever reason, his speed ability didn't show up on them as anything except accelerated calories burning.

She couldn't understand how he was able to move as fast as he did--scientifically it made no sense. And Aura didn't compensate for the amount of burn it would cause.

She said she'd deal with him later.

Wally annoyed her by making some quips about her hobbies, and so she'd told him to shut up--and then zapped him when he didn't.

Wally just wished she'd give him snacks if she was going to keep him in a zoo cage like this. Now he knew how Grodd had felt.

He was pretty sure Shine was there somewhere, but she was way out of his line of sight.

The Aura-zapping had not worked on him for very long either, but the fact that it worked at all freaked him out.

"I must have adapted to this world," he mused, while sitting against the wall. "She warned me that happens eventually...but does that mean my power won't work without Aura? I still feel like I can move fast, but I feel weirdly tired too."

He tested it by running the circles, and, after seeing how he felt, he concluded that he could still use his Speed Force, but it was taking more of a toll than before on his Aura. However, like Shine, he had extra Aura power, and that was unaffected.

Curious, he wondered if he could switch gears...rely on just one kind.

"Help me out here." He looked upward.

Trying again, he tried to purposely lean into one kind... He didn't know how to do this, except just thinking it.

But perhaps sometimes over-complicating things is not wise, because his impulsive idea actually seemed to work. He felt different.

"Well, now we're talking!" He ran a few very fast laps.

Luckily, Victoria was distracted at the time.

Now that he was back to full speed, Wally knew he could escape.

He put his finger on the glass and started to vibrate it.

He had to focus on not using any but his extra Aura, or the cage started to zap him...but he got so fast, the cage couldn't even detect it anymore... The glass began to tremble...and then it cracked and shattered.

Bingo!

Wally dashed out before anyone could see.

The alarm system went off.

Raven and Winter, still trapped, covered their ears.

Then they found out that Victoria had put a little safety mechanism in place in case this happened. The floor of their cages began to suck their Aura out.

Raven went grey first and fell to her knees... The machine stopped just at the point where it would have been fatal.

Winter was only a moment later.

Over where Cinder and Shine were, the same thing happened to them.

Cinder screamed as her Aura dipped, and her magic did nothing to help it.

Instead, it made the effect to already being drained worse.

But Shine suddenly realized that the walls around her lost their magical charge as Cinder's body, and perhaps the other two, were trying to compensate for the lack of Aura instead of outputting it.