THE IRON GIANT WALKS | EMPRESS TETA | CINNEGAR
Bernard split the sea of black just as a bloodied soldier emerged from the eclipse. Ishida couldn’t make out what they were saying over the din of the battle, but for a half-a-heart beat, she felt hesitation’s breathless sting. How to help? Could she help? What would be the cost of help?
She didn’t know the face, just like she’d not known the one on Selvaris. And she never would. It didn’t matter, really. Another bloodied composition of anatomy would be counted up as a statistic of sacrifice at the end of the day.
He who had been limping suddenly became airborne, and Ishida felt all reserves of potential mercy leave her in a rush as she realized the trajectory of the weaponized version of hesitation. What she couldn’t hear before suddenly became sharp, rapid and shrill. Ping—ping-ping-pingpingpingPING!
The hand that had gone for her sabre adjusted, widened and thrust forward with a push against the body’s trajectory toward the soldiers within her tank. It threw it off course, backward a bit, but it still ripped apart when the timer ran out.
Instantly, the offensive hand was joined by her other — two flat palms facing outward to stretch out a gossamer dome that stretched over her repulsortank, and halfway to Bernard’s. The explosion cored through the dead-man-walking, its effects shaking against the force-born shield. Fire stretched over the half-dome, puffing out in orange and yellow plumes where the crescent stopped. The impact consumed the strength of her barrier, and it fell away back to nothing as shadows lifted from the smoke — dark-clad offensives airborne and swooping in for malicious mayhem.
Soldiers more liberally situated than the tank’s confinement sought to track down the airborne targets, firing once they thought they had the silhouettes in their scopes.
At the same time, plasma pounding durasteel screeched overhead and behind her, the Titan aglow with several attacks from a smattering of random locations. Civilian locations that had been compromised to The Maw.
Ishida grimaced through it. More statistical sacrifices.
At the same time, the blueish domes that had captured Ishida’s attention earlier disappeared and the
beasts within were set free to roam. The shapes scuttled from their azure prisons until two-pronged arms crunched into the hood of the tank Ishida was surfing. She was forced forward while the cannon of the machine forced itself at the improvised angle and boomed out an eruption of defensive fire. Ishida rolled with the shift, her sabre activated as she slipped from the turret to the hull, near the barrel of the main gun — part of it had been peeled away like paper, and part of the crew inside could be seen like a cutaway design. Still, despite the random ribbons of uneaten metal, she didn’t stop until she crossed her sabre through a claw of the hungry creature, burning against its barely-charred carapace from the earlier explosion.
Some of the crewmen inside saw the opportunity (or were desperate) and used their personal firearms to discharge through the fissures at the underbelly of the creature. Small swells of colour started to show from the less protected area, but the creature’s self-preservation and hunger made it too quick to kill from a few blaster bolts and a random cut from a Jedi.
It reared, not to retreat from the salvo, but to strike again at the tank. It stabbed and made purchase.
<Optics are lost!> She heard a shout as the machine shuddered.
<Glacis plate is gone!>
At the same time, the atmosphere churned — static sputtered and snapped amidst the dark rolling fog — and a feeling of darkness zoomed and transferred, materializing in a pounding downward thrust to the tank adjacent to hers.
Whatever happened next to her was unseen. Her focus vibrated, hazed, and she slipped. The shock to the path of the tank shook Ishida and made her lose her balance. To stop herself from falling to the ground, she was gripped out wildly, latching onto the canon of the vehicle to swing herself back around it and balance on the main offensive extension in a crouch.
The main gun fired again, regardless of the Jedi balancing on it, and Ishida was shaken, again, back to the hull by the vibrations, landing on her butt and elbows. The percussive blast was enough to give her a few seconds to rationalize the monster situation at least. These were nigh-impenetrable creatures, defeat would be akin to recognizing the sensitivities in the Bryn’adûl’s structures. Typically joints, underbellies, and necks — soft tissues unprotected by their carapaces. The discoloured belly of the one nearest to her helped support her on-the-fly analogy.
While one staggered from the tank’s blow, its companion hungrily and greedily advanced on the empty space — those inside the tank were too busy trying to stabilize and keep on their path to take the same opportunity they’d had earlier. Unhindered, the Seeratteri was prepared to feast.
With a twisting motion of her hands, an invisible gust whooshed from either side of the tank and converged like an arrow at the point of impact. An unseen manipulation swirled beneath the feet of the creatures, lifted them, and tossed the pair — one wounded, one not — back several meters from the tank’s path. It didn’t end them, not at all, but perhaps it would disorient the beasts enough to get the tanks to advance.
And advance they did, despite the one Ishida was travelling on was significantly damaged and its smoke from the impact was starting to fill her lungs.
Throwing the enemy from its course was not a permanent solution, more of a time-buying tactic. Time bought enough to see through the smoke —both the darkside’s clouds and the puffs from the repulsortank’s borked up hull — and glare at the emerging shape.
His face had changed, but the brief overlap on her psyche and its obscure resonance on her memory hadn’t.
A foe she’d faced twice before, interrupted each time. Once Sardun, once Inosuke. A conclusion was surely deserved.
"This is no fairy tale, where the heroine dashes off to get vengeance."
But Master Sardun was not here, was he?
The lithe Jedi pushed herself up on her elbows, then swiftly transferred her weight from her knees to a full stand aboard her crunched-up tank. Her duty was not vengeance today. It was something else.
Her weight transferred, and she leapt from the tank to land between the exposed tank and the mangled Warlord. She stood, and adjusted her footing from landing to something more combat-ready.
With a flick of her wrist, her sabre rotated in a semi-circle behind her before sweeping forward in a gesture that mirrored the one
he’d used the last time she’d met him on the battlefield. A technique that had goaded her into launching first.
A technique worth borrowing if it meant giving her the space to think before acting. Sardun would be proud.
Right?
A lifetime of pride swelled at the base of her throat, and through the chaos around her, Ishida's monofocus took over and labelled the more-machine-than-man as
duty.
"We never got the chance to finish."
NJO | GA |
Bernard
|
Kier Grey
BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW |
Darth Bellum
|
The Mongrel
|
Thomas Barran
Khione
