[b][h3][color=ABABAE]Rhy̢thmia L̛ap̢şe҉u͘s[/color][/h3][/b]
[i]Moving through the Tower's wreckage[/i][hr]
For a moment, neither thoughts nor breath moved through the two Lapeseans left behind in the broken bedroom. Melodia had gone through the portal - or what [i]might be[/i] a portal but very well could have been some kind of miniature collapsed star that tore her molecule from molecule. Rhythmia and Vati stared at the dark void, speechless, before a distant scream from somewhere brought them out of their stunned bewilderment. 

[color=forestgreen][i]"My... my lady - !"[/i][/color]

Vati made to jump in after his mistress but the remaining Lord of House Lapseus snatched him by the collar and threw him backwards into the room. She used a little more force than she'd intended, and the raven haired man was flung hard and landed among the busted furniture with a pained grunt. Without checking to make sure he was okay, Rhythmia looked back and forth between the portal and the vertical drop. Her body was tense and she breathed out hard through her nose, forcing herself to calm down. Her sister was alive. Even if she wasn't (she was), Rhythmia couldn't let Vati throw his life away, and she couldn't throw hers away either. It would be an insult to all the sisters had worked for over the years. It was worrying that Melodia didn't return, but it was alright - she was alive, somewhere. They were twins. She'd know.

Right?

[color=forestgreen]"Lady Rhythmia!"[/color] 

Ah, apparently Vati had climbed out of the pile of debris and was back at the doorway. He looked halfway between affronted and panicked, moving suspiciously toward the portal again. [color=forestgreen]"We need to go after her! She-"[/color]

[b][color=ABABAE]"No."[/color][/b]

[color=forestgreen]"But - !"[/color] His voice was pitched with emotions; disbelief, worry, obligation, even anger. Vati kept his eyes on the spinning black mist until Rhythmia clamped a hand on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. When he looked at her, she silenced him with her dark expression. He swallowed thick and stood down, giving Rhythmia a short nod.

[b][color=ABABAE]"Okay. Hold on."[/color][/b]

[color=forestgreen]"What - "[/color]

Rhythmia shifted her gun onto her shoulder, a comical sight given how large it was when compared to her. Then, she grabbed the bodyguard and threw him over her other shoulder and stepped out of the room, plummeting down the corrupted residency hall. To his credit, Vati didn't let out so much as a gasp beyond his initial confusion. He clung to Rhythmia's back as they fell. Mercifully, the Tower being so disjointed meant that they didn't need to fall all the way down at once. The borders of rooms jutted out into the hall, and Rhythmia landed on cracked stone or crumbling wood before jumping down again and again. The final stretch was the longest - the Lapsean shifted into a more lateral fall and when the bottom of the tower came rushing toward them she landed hard on her prosthetic limbs, letting them absorb most of the impact. She could feel them creak as the stone below them split open, and the flesh-covering of her deep black arm was shredded, but they held. It would have been a surprise if they didn't.

On solid ground now, Vati let go of his impromptu ride and stood up straight at attention just before bringing a hand up to cover his nose and mouth. There were corpses everywhere, people that fell from the hall as it twisted skyward. Among them were survivors: some unconscious and breathing, others barely awake and writhing with sickness. It was horrible.

The duo didn't stop to tend to any of them at all. They stepped around the dead and suffering alike, not bothering to wake any that were unconscious, they'd die soon enough. Even crumbled, twisted and destroyed they could tell that the large area was the Grand Hall - or what was once the Hall, anyway. Outside where light was filtering in from, they could hear the shouting of others. Desperate screams and urgent orders. They ignored them, as their goal was still somewhere inside the tower. 

As the two Lapseans turned away from the exit, the sound of scraping caught their attention. A large collapsed portion of a wall was pushed outwards and from behind it stepped a beautiful woman. In a crisis like this, Rhythmia would have probably ignored any mages, but something about the woman caught her eye: the bright red hair that was the tell tale sign of those born in the North. She was vaguely familiar, hovering around one Southern heir or another, but she looked as if she'd come from deeper inside the Tower. Maybe she'd seen something. With a jerk of her head, Rhythmia sent Vati over to her and followed behind him a bit, casting her gaze about for anything... well, [i]everything[/i] was out of the ordinary, but she looked for anything or anyone that might have been the cause of the explosion.

[color=forestgreen]"Hey,"[/color] the bodyguard called over to the woman, intending on seeing what she knew, [color=forestgreen]"where did you come from, what's going on?"[/color]

[right][sup][@Meleck][/sup][/right]