Twilight Crusade Book 2 Ch.4, Crown Jewel

“Wait, you’re planning on fighting all the grimm alone?” Greyson questioned, glancing nervously upward as a nevermore tore through the sky.

      “Nope. I mean, I probably could if I wanted to, but here,” Alexandra replied. She raised her arms in front of her, over an open patch of dirt. She closed her eyes in focus, and twelve knobs of stone, each about an inch and a half across, broke from the soil, along with what looked like the edge of a dinner plate. The knobs rose out of the dirt, a trail of stone under them. The trails widened in one direction, and flattened in the other. Two eventually took the form of Blitz and Nimbus. Two more made up the halves of Azure’s Moonbow. Four resembled Ember’s daggers. The last four stone forms almost exactly resembled Raven’s xiphos, Dustyn’s Boomstick, Ezelia’s Grimm Cat, and Kenakuma. The rounded edge of rock rose from the dirt, taking the form of Raven’s shield.

      “They don’t shoot, but they should be about the same size and weight as your weapons,” Alexandra explained. She turned from her creations to Rusty with a sheepish grimace. “I, uhh... I didn’t know how to make your thing. Good luck!”

      Ember grabbed the handle of the first stone dagger, and tossed it to Rusty. He fumbled it through the air before clumsily securing it.

                “Here. Protect yourself. Stay close to Raven and I if you need to,” Ember ordered. She balanced the second dagger on her palm, flipped it into the other hand, and flung it between the eyes of a charging beowolf. “Well balanced, sharp, and light for a rock,” she noted. “Not bad.”

       Alexandra snapped her left arm to the side,  instantly impaling an ursa with three stony spikes. “Thanks! I’ll be too busy to make more though, so try to keep track of ‘em.”

     Ember took off running, sprinting forward to retrieve the dagger. She ripped it from the beowolf’s head, finished off two more, then turned to attack a pair of ursa. Raven jumped in to help with stone weapons at the ready, and Rusty tailed behind anxiously, holding the dagger in both his hands like a tiny sword. Greyson led Azure and Kita up toward the food stands, where the terrified crowd tried its best to escape the deathstalker and a handful of smaller grimm. Dustyn and Ezelia made their way to the picnic area and vendors’ stands, hacking through any grimm that got in their way.

      Alexandra raised her right hand outward, and a wall tore up from the dirt between the beringel and the group of terrified teenagers. As the beast jumped atop the wall, she cracked a grin and ripped her hand sideways, sending dozens of needle-sharp spikes of stone through it. The monster screeched before fading away.
Next, Alexandra turned her focus to a beowolf that came too close to a large family near the center of the amphitheater. She conjured another wall before destroying the beast with a barrage of spikes from below.

      Alexandra dodged backwards as a griffon dive bombed her. “Stone again is too boring,” she thought. She looked around, spotting a plethora of cups that had been left half-full in a panic by festival customers.

      “Perfect.”

      A flurry of ice crystals, the colors of all the drinks left behind, surrounded Alexandra and coalesced into a rainbow of icicles. The icicles floated for a split second before barraging the griffon in a furious hailstorm. Alexandra heard several simultaneous screams of terror. Whipping her head around, she saw a massive nevermore diving a group of six women. Alexandra snapped her fingers as she pointed to the huge, avian beast, and a wicked bolt of lightning struck down from the clouds with a deafening clap of thunder. The beast vaporized. Alexandra grit her teeth as she stuck both hands out, forming the lightning into a ball of focused dust. She flung it at the second nevermore, watching with satisfaction as the creature fell.

      Within another minute, Alexandra and the others had defeated all the grimm too dumb or too proud to retreat back into the forest. Several humans were injured, but miraculously, nobody had been killed.

      “So. How strong are you?” Greyson asked as he walked back down the hill with Azure, Kita, and Twilight Crusade’s weapons in tow.

      “I’d say I’m not too bad,” Alexandra humbly answered. “Really, most of it is the Crown Jewel. It’s like a microphone, it amplifies my dust-using powers to this level. Without it, I’m... honestly pretty weak!”

      “There is no need to be so humble,” Kita argued. “You helped saved many lives today. There is no telling what would have happened to us and the others without you.”

     “Oh. I, uh... th-thanks...” Alexandra replied, her voice faltering until it was barely audible.

     “Hey, before we celebrate?” Ember called. “Might want to deal with the bombs, or get our asses out of here.” She held up her scroll. “Three minutes. Make a choice.”

    “W-We don’t have enough time, we should leave...” Raven warned.

        “Wait, I... I think we can pull this off,” Greyson declared. He rubbed his forehead and looked to the ground, seemingly deep in thought. “I think it’s my semblance, but I know where the bombs will explode. If we cover them in enough stone, we should be able to save the park, and everyone’s stands. Everyone but Alexandra, go.”

      With varying levels of reluctance, the rest of Twilight Crusade left Greyson and Alexandra down the hill as they ran toward the parking lot.
“So, what’s the plan again? You want me to cover the bombs?” Alexandra asked.

    Greyson nodded. “Yeah. There are five, and the first will explode right here,” he predicted, pointing to the third row in the amphitheater. “Try to get hard stone, if you can.”

      Alexandra raised her arm toward the bench in the third row, and sheets of stone began to cover it. In just a few seconds, the surrounding concrete had been melded into a protective dome over the predicted explosion site.

     “Now where?” Alexandra happily inquired.

      “Under that tree to our right. I don’t think we can save the tree, but do what you can,” Greyson urgently told. He and Alexandra ran off in the tree’s direction, and covered the base in a four-foot thick dome of stone. The two then ran off to the vendors stands and picnic area, where they covered two more. Greyson looked at his scroll.

      He swore.

        “Less than a minute. The last one is... up by the food stands! Right in the middle! Let’s go!” he commanded as he began to sprint up the hill. Alexandra followed.

      Greyson pointed at the ground in the middle of the now-barren area of food stands. In the middle of the concrete was a single backpack. Inconspicuous enough in a crowd as a lost bag, but much more deadly.

      Without a word, Alexandra raised her hands forward. The surrounding concrete piled on top of the bag as if it were freshly poured. Alexandra lowered her hands.

      “So, how do we know if we were successful?” she asked, looking sideways up at Greyson.

      A dull thump emanated throughout the park. Loud, but muffled.

      Greyson smiled with relief. “I think that’s how we know,” he stated proudly. “Nicely done.”

       As Greyson and Alexandra walked to meet their friends in the parking lot, a procession of police cars and media vans poured in. The police cars formed a line at the edge of the lot, and the police stepped into the park.

     “We’re getting word that a group of huntsmen have come and diffused the situation!” A neatly-dressed news anchor reported as she ran toward Twilight Crusade with her camera crew. “I have some eyewitnesses here that were in the park at the time of the incident, what can you tell me about what happened?”

      As Greyson promptly left to talk the incident over with police, the microphone was pointed in front of Alexandra’s mouth, and a massive camera was shoved two feet from her face. She froze up, eyes going wide in the camera. She took off Crown Jewel, hiding it behind her back.

       “Well, we were just watching a performance, and the microphone cut out,” Alexandra recalled. “The Phantom hacked in, and there were grimm everywhere but my friends and I took care of it...”

       “So, you’re saying you were the ones who stopped the attack?” The reporter asked excitedly. The microphone was shoved so close to Alexandra’s face that her lips nearly touched it.

       “Yeah... look, I’m sorry, but I really have to go,” Alexandra hurriedly replied. She walked off in the direction of Twilight Crusade’s airship, hiding Crown Jewel from the cameras. Confused, the rest of Twilight Crusade followed.

     “Hey mom!” Rusty called to the cameras before going with the others.

       Greyson provided an account to the police and went through further questioning for the next ten minutes. An unwanted, in-depth interview with the local news station followed. He was surprised to see the his friends gone after leaving, but after a call to Rusty he joined the others at his airship. Alexandra flopped onto a seat in exasperation, stretching her arms behind her head and letting out a sigh.

        “Damn reporter kept me there a lot longer than I wanted, sorry,” Greyson explained as he inserted his scroll into the airship’s dash.

      “You and me both, I guess,” Alexandra replied.

       “Yo,” Dustyn called as he sat nearby. “What was the deal with the newslady back there, huh? You camera-shy?” he asked nonchalantly.

        “Well, I’d like to keep Crown Jewel in hiding...” Alexandra said.

      “But you wear it all the time. What do you mean?” Ezelia cut in.

     “When I wear it, I can choose when to take it off,” Alexandra reasoned. “I can’t choose who watches the news, so I just have to be careful. I can’t let anything happen to my Crown Jewel.”

     “There’s nothin’ else like it, huh?” Dustyn replied. “I can understand that.”

     “That’s true, but there’s more to it,” Alexandra said. She sighed again.“Crown Jewel is why the Inyan were killed. It’s the reason why I’ve been alone all these years.”

     “Wait... what?” Rusty questioned. “Why would you carry something like that around with you?”

      “I should be more specific. Someone who was looking for Crown Jewel was the one who killed my tribe. I was the tribe leader’s daughter. I knew almost nothing about dust-wielding at the time, but he entrusted Crown Jewel to me as his last wish,” Alexandra explained. “The killer left the tent after my father said he didn’t have the crown. I was hiding with Crown Jewel. With his last breath, my father told me to take it, and protect it at all costs.”

“Th-That’s horrible...” Raven commented.

     Alexandra nodded. “It’s... actually pretty scary. I’m weak without Crown Jewel, but it amplifies my strength to what you saw today. The one who wanted Crown Jewel had... apocalyptic power. She froze time itself. It’s terrifying to think what she would be like with her powers amplified.”

      “D-Do you remember what she looked like, a-at least?” Raven asked.

      “Yeah. Clear as day. Black hair, pale white skin, icy blue eyes and this wicked red smile,” Alexandra recalled. “The image of her burning and freezing my tribe mates alive as she grinned from ear to ear has never left me. Something tells me. Someday, I’ll see her again.”

      I guess I should confirm something now to avoid speculation. Alexandra is NOT a maiden. I wanna stay away from super-important canon stuff like that. And another note, Alexandra’s backstory actually came to me in a dream. It was a pretty crazy nightmare.