Mallea aimed the front tip of The Salvation at a war blimp, having popped several already. Their ship’s own mobility wasn’t the best, so she could only target the slower moving aircrafts, limiting them to blimps and skycrafts with heavy payloads. She was rather thankful for the barrier. Otherwise, The Salvation would have blown up on impact a few times as the bombs slated for Last Bastion exploded in the air.
What really was a pain in her ass were the small skycrafts and helicopters buzzing around their airship like annoying bugs. Since they couldn’t actually damage The Salvation, it seemed their intention was solely to serve as a distraction.
The woman smiled as one in particular that had been annoying her from the start suddenly had its windshield pierced through and the pilot shot and killed, literally sniped out of the air, the ship sent careening down into the ocean. Ipucco pulled back his smoking sniper-cane to reload it as he stood on the deck of the ship, briefly turning to give Mallea a knowing nod.
Down below, Nachi was manning all the cannons herself. She had her headphones on and a good rhythm going, dancing between each piece of artillery. While the woman surely would have preferred fighting on the ground, tearing her enemies apart in the trenches, she was the most effective at handling the ship’s weapons while costing them the minimum amount of manpower.
All on her own, she was loading the old style cannons and lighting the fuses, dancing over to the laser cannons to fire after they’d locked onto their targets, blasting emp cannons at the most advanced aircrafts, sending them spiraling to the ground. It had basically become a game, and she was certainly going for the high score.
But it was doubtful she’d overcome Xard, acting as a full battalion of anti-air artillery all on his own. The man had the firepower to overcome the toughest hulls with the agility to zoom around without taking the slightest knick of damage. His job was to take down what snuck through the cracks, whatever those on The Salvation couldn’t handle on their own. And for the most part, their small group had been doing fantastically.
There had only been one incident where a single bomb was dropped out of an already exploding skycraft. Xard managed to swoop down and grab it just in the nick of time, and then went and dropped it on top of another skycraft in a twist of irony. So far, they’d been unstoppable without incident, at least until Phon called out over the comms.
“Xard, there’s a Fiend headed your way,” was all the notice he received. “He took a while to find them, expecting them to be coming up from the ground or riding in a helicopter. But no, he eventually set his sights on the woman, berating himself for ever being able to overlook her in the first place.
She was wearing an outfit that looked like she'd robbed it from Chorus’ wardrobe, though a bit tighter and more athletic than the eccentric’s usual tastes. As the woman sped closer, Xard figured out that it was actually an ice skater’s outfit, complimenting the matching blades she had strapped to her shoes. Somehow, the woman was skating on the very air itself.
And it appeared that Xard was her target. She rushed towards him at blazing speed, not quite as fast as his own flying, but enough to rival the aircrafts around her. The man dodged her first attack, skirting a few feet away as she spun in the air, slicing the space where he’d just been hovering.
Xard sent a warning shot at her in retaliation, but she didn’t just dash out of the way. No, she spun out of the way doing more pirouettes than the man could count. Clearly, she was rather skilled, skating almost certainly her profession before becoming a Fiend. And in one graceful, fluid motion, she skirted through the air back towards him, attacking before he even realized it.
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The man dodged again, and his next retaliation was more direct. He tried to shoot one of her legs, but she slid past the attack effortlessly and kicked her limbs again, trying to slice the man. This time he let her go through with it, to see what would happen. As expected, she sliced into his chest, but there wasn’t any real damage since he absorbed the energy. If he could keep his distance, Xard would win this fight, however long it took.
But time was the problem. This song and dance had already distracted him for long enough, and skycrafts had already zoomed past them on the battlefield. Those on The Salvation could still shoot them down before they reached the cocoon, and in all likelihood they wouldn’t do any damage even if they weren’t stopped, but he didn’t want to risk it if there was any chance he could stop them.
Xard had blasted a good distance away from the Fiend so he could take a glance at the current situation and get a count of what he needed to handle, but when he glanced back, the Fiend was gone. His eyes went into a panicked frenzy, trying to find her again, unsure what she would do if she was left alone.
And that’s when he spotted her, right under his nose. Well, a little uncentered and standing plainly on the side of his arm. The man tried to pull his arm away from her, but she came right with it, as if her skates were glued to his skin. Then no matter how much he flailed, he couldn’t get rid of her, like an annoying parasite that was determined to suck out every drop.
The man finally gave up on the idea of escaping and instead raised his other hand to fire at her. But she just snickered at him and then jerked her legs. Both skates slashed in opposite directions, cutting deep into the man’s arm. Golden blood rained down on the fighting below as Xard writhed in pain, pushing through it since he was finally able to separate himself from the woman and fly away.
Ah zjik, he then noticed a large bomber skycraft that had slipped past while he was preoccupied. Unlike the other small few, that one could actually be a problem. He’d have to ignore the Fiend for the moment to take care of it and pray for no more surprise attacks. Though his attention wasn’t diverted for long.
To Xard’s surprise, likely along with all those that witnessed it, one of the largest vines on the top layer of the cocoon suddenly shot skyward. The black floral limb wrapped itself around the skycraft before it could open its bomb doors and drop its payload. All the skycraft could do was try and wrestle itself free, but it wasn’t budging. The vine snapped the aircraft in half, as easy as breaking a twig. It then laid back down, morphing itself back into the protective structure.
That crisis averted, Xard whirled back around to focus on his assailant, only to narrowly dodge a slice to the throat. He blasted himself to make some distance, but the woman kept right on him. What followed was a dance in the sky. Xard kept trying to fly away from her, and shooting back when he could, but she was just too nimble. The woman could dodge whatever he shot at her, all without losing her momentum, never letting him get more than a few feet away.
The part of him that wasn’t aggravated was honestly a little fearful, since a woman had never pursued him so aggressively before—only solidifying his tastes further. She just wouldn’t leave him alone, no matter how much he tried to shake her. Xard got fed up, eventually stopping in midair and blasting energy in every direction.
After that explosion, he tried to find the Fiend again, but there was no sight of her. He started scanning the ground, to see if she’d fallen, only to be met with a shadow looming right between his eyes. The next thing he knew, his vision was split by one of the woman’s skates pressed into his face.
Before he could even try and retaliate, he felt the sharp burning pain as his skin was slashed open, right between the eyes, down the side of his nose, and through his mouth. Xard recoiled and started falling to the ground himself, having lost too much focus to keep himself flying.
He managed to recover his stall, and glanced up at the smirking Fiend staring down at him. One of his hands pointed in her direction, to try and blast the woman again while his other clutched his throbbing wound. But it was simply shaking too much from the pain, and the panic that he’d finally met his match.
“Xard, fall back,” he suddenly got the order from Phon on his earpiece. “Focus on defending the cocoon. I’ll take care of her.”