Everything just stopped.
A singular moment, frozen in time, captured by all of them.
Alhen's face was a mask of grief, Vulen was terrified, Charlotte was in shock, Soliana paralyzed, and Catra just stared at it with the worst horror she'd ever witnessed: How Harold's body slowly fell.
They couldn't believe it. Their minds screamed in denial, but the horrible sight was right there. And even if Catra couldn't breathe, Alhen had it just as bad as her, if not worse. Her husband's last words repeated in her mind again and again, like a silent echo.
"I'm so sorry… I've always loved you…"
It forced her to unleash a shriek ripped from her very soul.
"HAROLD!"
Behind her, both Vulen and Charlotte looked at their father's body now slumped lifelessly on the ground.
"FATHER!" the boy exclaimed while trying to reach out for him, only for his hands to fall into a pool of blood.
"Well… at least he died like a brave prey, didn't he?" the Spearhand gloated.
Charlotte just stayed still until an unbound wail erupted from her core. Unlike her though, Soliana looked at him in silence. She didn't know what to do nor what to say… she was just… hopeless.
In the distance, the small white fox watched with unforgiving eyes.
"That's how it felt…" she whispered and walked away, "Kill the rest of them."
The Spearhand poised over Harold's body shook its right arm and let the blood drip away, leaving its limb clean. It then prepared to kill the children.
"With pleasure."
When making its way forward, Catra thought she would break down any second.
Harold's bloodied body was the only thing she could focus on before hearing the screams of his family. She looked at Alhen, Charlotte, and Vulen huddled together, their faces contorted in grief and their tears appearing like a torrent.
Suddenly, it hit her. A sharp pain… almost like if her string of clarity and morality were abruptly cut with invisible scissors.
Her mind replayed one scene that was eternally engraved in her memory: The moment she and her father embraced after Elena's passing. She couldn't help overlay that memory with the reality unfolding right there, imagining Charlotte was her smaller self and Alhen was her broken father.
"No… no, no, no, no, NO, NO!, NO!" she shrieked.
That memory finally awoke something deep inside her. Something fierce… something that made her body move.
She stood up, grabbed her pistol, and ran directly toward the Spearhand. Her mind was empty: devoid of all thought, all fear, all pain. Only focused on one singular objective: saving them.
The girl moved faster than she had ever gone, pushing her speed beyond the known limits and ignoring the pain that screamed from her shoulder to every muscle.
Once she was just a few meters from the entity, Catra lifted her hand and pointed the pistol at the beast's head.
"Huh?" the creature barely managed to utter while its eyes widened in surprise.
The world around her dissolved, fading into a silent abyss where only she and the Spearhand existed. This was it. Her last chance to save them. To prevent more bloodshed.
She recalled her own words back when the Ice Giant attacked: the rigid moral code she'd always clung to.
"Killing is wrong!"
"You can't just take away a conscious life!"
"Killing others will never be justified!"
Just as forcefully, she remembered the voices of Lofo and her father.
"Sometimes good people have to do bad things to protect the common good."
"Sometimes in life, you have to do ugly things to save people… To protect the ones you love."
It caused her to close her eyes and hesitate for a split second… before…
BANG!
The weapon roared to life in that moment and the bullet traveled faster than the speed of sound, hitting the head of the Spearhand in a perfect shot.
Alhen watched how the monster stumbled for some seconds and fell onto its side. Then everything froze. After its form hit the ground, all the other Spearhands abruptly stopped their assault and turned in unison to the body of their fallen brother.
It wasn't just them who were dumbfounded. The deafening sound of the gunshot also caught the white fox completely by surprise.
In reality, she never expected Catra to do it… To cross that boundary, especially due to their interaction. She thought she had figured her out: That she was just a naive girl stuck in a neat box of moral weakness…. She was wrong. Terribly wrong.
"Brother…" some of the Spearhands murmured.
"RREEEEEEAAAH!" they all screamed in a chorus of anger and sprinted towards the cheetah girl with killing intent.
This was it… a chance to make things right. Catra just looked at them, gazing at the whole scene: The blood-soaked ground, the bodies, the pain…
"Go…" she commanded Alhen and the others, "I won't let them get past me… so go…"
Catra quickly knelt and ran forward, ready for a battle that would define her as not just a warrior, but also a hero.
"RUN AND DON'T LOOK BACK!"
She had completely changed… she did not feel fear nor empathy… not anymore. Her heart was hardened by necessity, and it pushed her to depths she couldn't have anticipated.
The girl sprinted and was just about to attack before catching a blur of motion in the middle of the air. A bullet. It flew right through the side of the first Spearhand, penetrated its head, and exited cleanly on the other side.
Her head immediately snapped to the left and saw Rod. He was firing a rifle, leaping off one of the rooftops and into the battlefield.
After landing in front of Catra, the Gun Hero aimed at all the beasts running toward them and began shooting. One by one they fell, until the horde was far too close for comfort.
That's when he returned the rifle to his interlink and generated a pistol. He grabbed one of the vials Ascal had given him earlier and hurled it underneath him.
"Speeto!" he exclaimed and sprinted forward with a surge of superhuman speed.
The first Spearhand was now directly in front of him and prepared for a killing strike, yet it was just too slow. The spell vial infused Rod's body with a speed buff, making him faster, though not quite as fast as his full power.
Even still, the Hero effortlessly dodged its attack and positioned the pistol right underneath its head. The weapon roared, delivering a fatal blow.
While he was fighting the remaining Spearhands, the Foxton observed how efficient Rod was.
"No…" she whispered and began to retreat.
Ascal stopped her. She hadn't noticed him approaching from behind and was now looking down at her.
"So you were the one behind all of this…" the elf murmured, looking at the massacre around.
"You…" the fox snarled.
Ascal quickly threw two flashing daggers at her.
"GRAH!" she exclaimed and stumbled to the ground.
The old elf simply walked closer and knelt, looking at the fox's now bloody white fur. She tried to move... to escape, but her form was weakening rapidly, bleeding out.
"Why would you do this?…" the warrior asked, grieving the many fallen civilians.
"You elves took away everything from us… we're just returning the…" she tried saying until her voice faded into nothingness.
Those final words compelled Ascal to watch her, close his eyes, and pity her. He completely understood the deep feeling of revenge that had consumed the little animal.
"May you rest now, beast. May you find your peace."
The battle continued a few meters away, with Rod avoiding another piercing attack from a Spearhand and his body becoming blurry.
He quickly moved behind it, held his pistol to its head, and pulled the trigger. With the last monster down, the Hero finally allowed himself a ragged exhalation.
Rod looked at the bleeding forms of the Spearhands sprawled on the ground. Then, he looked up and met Catra's own gaze.
Everything seemed fine, like a temporary peace that dawned on the civilians and the Hero. It all changed when Rod truly looked at her face. It looked messy and streaked with mud, though what caught his attention were her eyes. They were wide… as if she were in a state of shock.
"Kiddo-" he whispered, noticing the reality that surrounded him.
Blood was everywhere. A red liquid that stained the ground and the bodies scattered around. It wasn't just a murder; it was a massacre.
He watched how a few stained survivors started walking forward and mourned their dead.
Then, he focused on his daughter again, finally seeing what was behind her: a dead Spearhand lay lifeless with a distinct bullet wound on its head. That's where it all clicked. She killed it… She had taken a life.
He wanted to go to her, to say something... anything. Yet, before he could, Ascal's authoritative voice cut through the quiet and captured everyone's attention.
"The beasts outside the emergency barrier have been slayed by me, and every Spearhand inside by the Gun Hero…" he exclaimed, trying to instill a sense of safety in the survivors.
"We have won."