WHACK! A bullet misses her foot by inches. Either a shooter has seen her or he's just lucky. Janet's instincts tell her to freeze in place, but that may not be a good idea.
Sky unlimbers his rifle and looks for an unburning tree into which he can travel, preferably one where he can draw a bead on the sharpshooters. If he cannot find a tree, he tries to find a rock.
His plan is to shoot at the guys shooting at him.
He shouts, "Can someone douse that flare? Who here got icy powers?"
Zzoosh! The flare goes out, smothered. The soldiers on the cliff are now backlit by burning trees, shooting into the dark where the Grimnoir hide.
Nick Voinovich scrambles out from behind cover and slides on sheer ice fifty yards to another hole. The tree he left remains upright, sealed in a block of ice.
The front of the ice is splintered from bullets.
"Thirty-three inches," Nick says, "in case anyone needs to know."
Sky picks off the shooters on the cliff face. He runs through ten shots and reloads, but the survivors do not retreat. So sky shoots some more. The Imperials try to shoot back at his muzzle flashes, but they can't seem to pick him up. Unlike Great War vets, these young men are not used to fighting at night.
Unless Belle objects, Kaze gets her away from the flare's glare.
"I know some of these," she whispers. "They are... were my classmates. The tall one, Kujiju-san, is a massive--unstoppable as far as we know when his power is on. Yurasu, she with the bracelets, is a brute. The strongest we've seen. The young man against the rocks is Kasai, as his name implies, a most impressive Torch."
Richter, Sonny-boy, Michael, and Christine Tane remain in the briar-hidden hollow. They can see the cliff top, but they can't see the valley, where the Iron Guard now are.
"Christine, give me Crackler," Richter orders. "Got to keep their heads down!"
Christine makes a fist and pulls it in toward her heart. Richter's hands and hair light up with electricity.
"And while we're at it," he says, "let's get the rest of these kanji off that leg and out where they can do some good!"
She touches the leg and starts transferring kanji to Richter. He howls in pain as the tattoos bite.
Janet goes grey just long enough to get to the nearest cover. Then returns fire with her gun as best she can.
ReplyDeleteMichael stares at Richter taking more kanji for a couple of seconds before moving (while muttering about more kanji being a bad idea) to a better spot to shoot from, and opens fire.
ReplyDeleteSonny-boy moves in closer, going from cover to cover as well as He can. When He's in range He'll fire, and if gets a chance I'll use His power. And as He's going He thinks to Himself how much easier this without barb wire.
ReplyDeleteTrying again, since my previous post did not post.
ReplyDeleteBelle first tries to push away the smoke that the opposition is following, so it is not near them.
Then, she tries to hit the cliff with a series of twisty, gale-force winds, so anyone who is near it, on top, on the side, at the bottom but not nailed down, will either get swept off or smashed into it.
She also looks out for more flares or such and tries to make sure they get blown away before they get close.
She only has a small gun, so she can't shoot unless the enemy gets close...and she's not fazed, but she'll have it ready, just in case.
Kaze stays close to Belle ... and remains alert for anyone sneaking up and/or Traveling.
ReplyDelete