The wind died down on the plain of grass and dirt that late afternoon. For a good while, it had been blowing gently, covering the scent of those downwind and whispering promises in the ears of those who heard it. Soothing and peaceful, it could pass between one's temple and the shell of the ear and tickle lightly without being too cruel. But like all forms of serenity, it wasn't to last, and nature was to claim the right to giveth and taketh away.
The grass stopped billowing in waves by the time they'd arrived, holding still in the last moments before it was trampled and matted back into the soil. The ground itself would have wept were it able, seeing the inevitable clash and clamor that would pound it further down. The valley below the ledge was already low enough, dipping down as if a river had flowed there many thousands of years before. He'd have to ask his mother if one actually had; when he finally saw her, if he finally saw her, assuming there would be a day to wake up to after this one.
No mountains or boulders provided any cover from the coming storm. There were no more hills or places to hide, not even any trees behind which to take cover. All was out in the open, out on the table, out for both sides to see regardless of how many eyes they had respectively. Moderate sunshine hampered visibility for both sides, once again equalizing the coming conflict. They had both become aware of each other, nullifying any chances for surprise. The ocean lied to one side, and impenetrable marshland to the other; the edges of the valley on both sides sealed off any means for escape. Do or die, winners and losers. Just the way it should be.
Far, far into the air reached the spires of the modest but very functional silithid hive. Scraping toward the clouds like disgusting, putrid fingers, the useless but unnerving claws of the living structures signified the insectoid infestation for all to see. Like the night elves, the silithids grew their living spaces; unlike the night elves, they tore the environment apart while doing so, running through woodlands and wildlife faster than the most overpowered goblin harvester. They'd dug their proverbial pointy heels in, burrowing a good ways into the land and spreading their odious, creeping sludge where vegetation had once grown. Workers, reavers, wasps and scarabs skittered around the complex, warning each other of the looming threat and rallying their ranks. Without a means for ranged combat, they almost sentient bugs would need to simply rush their attackers head on, hoping that the archers and ballistas of the Kaldorei miraculously failed to cut into their thick carapaces before they could reach their targets and blade met stinger.
The living, fleshy hive pulsated in panic as it sensed the sympathetic vibrations of non silithids approaching. The wasps circumambulated around it, whipping themselves up into a frenzy and forming a sort of interstellar looking ring as they found a sort of rhythm that normally would have required the presence of an intelligent qiraji to direct. The reavers lined up, shielding the workers and scarabs who hung back near the burrows and protecting the home they'd wipe out all other life to keep. A few massive colossi waited among them, sending the usually slow and plodding reavers into an irate state and causing chitters to erupt from the waiting line of dark pink silithids.
Encircled by her entourage, Commander Lamia watched, flashbacks of the War of the Shifting Sands likely playing across her mind. Thankful that Captain Soraya had ingratiated herself to the commander enough to earn their unit a spot by the front, Navarion tried to take in all his surroundings. The glaive throwers and ballistae had been lined up next to the commander's entourage on the ledge, prepared to hurl projectiles at an enemy which had no choice but to rush forward and engage. The units of archers stood next to them, ready to move forward and pick off the bugs from afar as needed, stalwart as if they had served nature during the Long Vigil despite the fact that a good deal of them had been born after it ended. Heavily armored huntresses formed the cavalry and infantry, ready to charge alongside the more offensive priestesses and Druids for the initial clash. As if to punctuate the fact that Lamia favored overkill, the mountain giants stood in the middle of it all, covered overhead by members of the Sentinel Air Force. Given the fact that the battle would be on open terrain, thus robbing the night elves of their favored tactics such as sneak attacks and hit and runs, morale was unusually high.
The two sides waited; the silithids warily and the Sentinels patiently. In a battle that size, there would be casualties, but the odds were in their favor; it was only a matter of tending to those who received injuries as speedily as possible. Only the cries of the furbolgs among the many irregulars peppering the mostly regular enlisted units met the silithid chitters, punctuating the stoicism of the night elves. Pointed ears awaited the commander's call, ready to give their lives for their holy land after so many decades of chaos and loss of territory followed by so many years of quiet reconstruction.
They didn't have to wait any longer. Taking a deep breath, Lamia made the call this time, screaming her battle shout from the top of the ledge. Despite the soft spoken nature of all elves, her voice was loud and carried over the entire valley. Hundreds of Kaldorei women met her cry by ululating in unison, even intimidating their men somewhat as they stepped forward. Many of them bounced on their toes, thumped their glaives against their shields or tapped their bows against their armor to create as much noise as possible. It was a far, far different sight than what Navarion had witnessed among the Sindorei across the ocean or even during smaller campaigns he'd taken part in under the banner of the Sentinels. A newfound respect added itself to his already great respect for his mother's people, and he began to understand why other elves viewed the Kaldorei as being more or less the orcs of the elves. A sea of elven steel helmets bobbed up and down as the clamor of the Kaldorei built up to a crescendo, causing the silithids to respond in a yet more agitated fashion.
Instinctual and trapped by their evolution, the bug army charged, making the first move and sacrificing a front line of workers in the kamikaze push. Whooping and hollering, the female Kaldorei became even more excited at the sight, and the priestesses had to work hard to prevent the huntresses from just dashing forward before the numbers of bugs had been thinned out. Intimidated by their own woman more than the silithids, the Druids and handful of male sentinels hung back from the front line, leaving the warrior-clerics of the night elves to handle the restraining of the huntresses from the first wave of glaives. As large in diameter as a dinner table, the glaives launched by the ballistae were originally designed to cut through the ramparts of enemy fortresses, but they cut through the front line of silithid reavers all the same. More excited shouts rang out as the first wave of arrows followed the first wave of glaives, and wasps that formed the silithid version of a crude air force began to fall straight out of the sky. Carcasses from at least two species of silithid littered the battlefield only twenty seconds into the initial charge, and the morale of the Kaldorei troops could almost be felt physically it jumped so high.
Hampered by their lack of ranged combat abilities, the silithids pushed on when the armies of sentient races would have fled. More of the bug people emerged from various smaller burrows in the corrupted soil, replacing the ranks of fallen fighters as the buzzing mass surged forward. Displaying an uncanny ability to reason and a devotion to the survival of the whole, the faster but much weaker silithid workers dashed ahead of the reavers just as the second wave of glaives ate into the front lines. The workers were numerous but small, and it almost seemed like a waste to expend good glaives on such insignificant foes. The second wave of arrows followed soon after, and the reasoning abilities of the bugs proved unable to save them from the archers. Merely flying higher, the wasps failed to escape the elven longbows and many more of the ranks of the most dangerous silithid caste fell to the ground and splattered, bathing the soil in putrid yellow blood just in time for the two sides to meet.
A commanding shout from Lamia was echoed by those of the priestesses, and the archers stood at ease as the huntresses rushed forward. More imposing than draenei and much, much faster, the huntresses of the new generations were chosen much in the same way they had been during the generation of Navarion's mother, Cecilia; by far the physically largest of the night elf females, generally even taller than the men, the huntresses wore armor as heavy as any Orc raider and formed the first line of defense for the Sentinel Army. Infantrywomen rushed forward first and slammed into the huge ravers with their tower shields; the reavers were heavier than elekks but the huntresses had finesse and technique, and angled their drive such that they held their ground and proved an impenetrable wall for the cavalrywomen and balance Druids behind them to move around and flank the enemy. Their tower shield and heavy shinguards prevented even the smaller scarabs from breaking through the line of defense and running amok. Mounted huntresses ran around to the sides, bouncing their glaives off of the large reavers like boomerangs as the balance Druids picked off the scarabs and workers by summoning thorny roots and vines from the ground below. A third wave of arrows picked off the wasps as they tried to dive bomb the huntresses, and those that got through weren't able to penetrate the elven steel armor of the heavy infantry.
As a support fighter, Navarion continued to hang back among the much smaller archers as well as the other ranged fighters, healers and the commander's entourage. Captain Soraya, who had been grinning with delight, pointed to a large disturbance in the corrupt soil behind the last line of reavers though Commander Lamia had already seen it: three colossi had been hiding, buried in the ground and previously unseen. Energy renewed by the addition of three being even larger than the mountain giants, the silithids pressed harder on all fronts. More of the scarabs began to break out of the formation and attack the cavalrywomen and Druids who had been nipping at the flanks of the thousand-strong insectoid army, and the previously nonstop kill count of the night elves was temporarily staved off.
Strategy changed quickly in reaction to a move Lamia had already anticipated, and finally the retinue of the Sentinel Air Force took to the skies. Dozens of hippogriff riders led the charge, followed by a few chimaera and even hired Orcish wind riders from the Barrens as the wasps found themselves besieged in the air, their advantage of higher ground nullified and their attention quickly preoccupied. A different battle cry rang out as Lamia gave the order for the irregular soldiers hired from mercenary camps - save support fighters like Navarion - to join the fray. Technically more experienced than the relatively young ranks of night elf sentinels, the mercenaries found themselves sent in for the most dangerous part of the job in the skirmish: the cleanup. More scarabs and even a few stray reavers and wasps broke formation and chased after the cavalrywomen and balance Druids, failing to actually kill any of them but putting them on the defensive and causing them to flee in circles, kiting in an attempt to avoid being overwhelmed. Most of the mercenaries were also night elves but without uniforms, and when mixed in with the large numbers of furbolgs, tauren and draenei, they blended in and looked like any other outlanders who fought for the highest bidder. Hooves, paws and feet kicked up dirt as the irregulars lived up to their title and attacked the stray silithids and even besieged the flanks of the main body that clashed with the first line of huntresses. Finding themselves in better position when functioning as independent hero units, the mercenaries took the brunt of the damage but also felled the silithids at an even faster rate than the regular enlisted soldiers.
Just as the three massive colossi were about to crash into the Sentinel flankers and even their own insectoid brethren, they were given pause when staring down immovable objects of pure rock. Three mountain giants stood in their way, thundering onto the battlefield wielding entire trees as clubs and shouting taunts at the confused ultra-bugs. Encouraged by the sight, the huntresses on foot pushed and cut through the entire second rank of reavers with their elven lances. At the prompting of Lamia through her priestesses, the guardian Druids shifted into bear form and joined the cavalry and balance Druids, holding on to aggro as more of the scarabs and workers were cut down. More waves of silithid emerged from the burrows after the colossi as if they had been buried beneath the massive juggernauts just in case the hive were ever threatened. The last wave of the Air Force joined the fray above, completely preoccupying the wasps and leaving the ground forces in a completely separate battle of their own.
Her loud voice no longer sufficient to give orders, Lamia pulled a few archers forward as flag bearers to wave cloths of various shapes and colors around to those on the battlefield; she had assumed, as skilled as they were, that the mercenaries would be used to the Kaldorei war communication system after having already served in so many other militarized and guilds.
At first, she ordered the flag bearers to give the signal for the irregulars to join the mountain giants in squaring off against the colossi behind the main ranks of the silithids. Scarabs and brave workers huddled beneath the massive juggernaut bugs, emboldened by their presence. A few of the irregulars responded to the signal but not enough, the main body of them either failing to notice or even understand the various color, shape and wave combinations that night elven soldiers considered as easy and natural as one's own mother tongue. As a minority of the mercenaries pulled away from flanking the mass of hundreds and hundreds of silithids in the middle of the battlefield, the overall position of the Sentinels was weakened without much of a tangible benefit to the giants. Those who rushed to the big stone beings' aid found themselves greatly outnumbered by the scarabs and workers who immediately charged for the lone irregulars, cut off from aid as the giants' tree clubs met the colossi's pedipalps and beetle-like horns. A few of them ended up being inadvertently stomped flat by the giants as the colossi trampled over the workers, all of them tiny beings amidst a sea of gigantic feet. Those mercenaries that failed to heed the signals of the flag bearers found themselves put as a disadvantage as the numerical superiority of the silithid flanks grew. The cavalrywomen and bear Druids found their work load doubled as they had to protect not only the balance Druids but also the various draenei vindicators, tauren braves and furbolg totemics who found themselves unaware of the tide of battle due to misunderstanding the flag signals.
Although a measure of shock settled within the ranks, Lamia hardened her expression and her priestesses down on the field of battle itself followed suit. Navarion tried to shoot Soraya a sideways glance, but she pretended not to notice and Thresha and Calil - forming a sort of backup for the unit considering the importance of any unit with a healer - stared blankly but without confidence at the change before them. Even though the huntresses lanced the reavers and the giants clubbed the colossi as quickly as they could, a marked sense of urgency manifested into what should have been a quick and simple cleanup job at the site of a minor hive. Salvaging what she could, Lamia formed an impromptu strike force of the archers and feral Druids and sent them forth, keeping only the most basic support and healing units with her on the ledge overlooking the small valley. Rushing to the aid of those on the flanks, the strike force had the extra difficult task of not only taking out the silithid skirmishers but also getting the confused and the wounded among their own allies out of the way. Sprinting in feline form, the feral Druids ushered the more overwhelmed of the irregulars and the more injured of the balance Druids out of the way just in time for volleys fired by the archers to price the carapaces of the silithid scarabs. Precision and accuracy were the key, though more than a few mercenaries were injured beyond recovery by the horn thrusts and mandible chomps of the swift scarabs.
When the first hippogriff rider succumbed to the onslaught of the wasps and fell to the ground, there was a noticeable shift in the air. The silithids were dropping like gigantic flies, and wasps rained like large hailstones at a far faster rate than the night elves were. Regardless, the fact that they had been able to inflict casualties on the Sentinels drove them, and wings buzzed in renewed fervor as the reavers pushed forward with a second wind. At least one unit of the archers and feral Druids were martyred as the scarabs swarmed over them, but the real sense of urgency came when only two of the mountain giants succeeded in their battles against the colossi; the third, fighting to the bitter end, shattered into pieces with a loud crash as its battered opponent stabbed it in the throat in a killing blow. Exhausted by their own victories over the massive war machines of the silithids, the two surviving mountain giants struggled to knock away the irritating scarabs, avoid stepping on any more mercenaries or bear Druids and chase the scampering, wounded but very much alive colossus all at the same time. With the infantry preoccupied by the nearly depleted ranks of reavers and the cavalry and strike teams up to their necks in scarabs, little stood between the last limping colossus and Commander Lamia's entourage in the ledge. Constantly streaming down like a spring shower, the corpses of wasps rained down in the hundreds, peppered with a dozen or so more airborne sentinels as if to punctuate the hard, gritty climax of what wasn't supposed to have even been much of a battle.
Not wanting to give the colossus the gratification of stabbing into the unstable, earthen ledge they perched on, Lamia ordered her entire entourage down the slopes to the right and left and onto level ground. Surrounded by healers, buffers and a handful of archers and infantry, Lamia reached the field proper and faced the charging colossus. Pieces of its carapace hung to the sides like a broken chocolate candy egg, yet as the juggernaut bug gained momentum its limp almost seemed to improve. A few workers reached them first, and despite her extremely advanced age, Lamia quickly drew her sword and cut them down before her younger officers had a chance to. For good measure, Navarion threw his stasis trap wards down to protect the healers, though even with their amount of voodoo power he wasn't sure if they'd remain embedded once the colossus crashed into them. Under the commander's orders, Soraya, Thresha, Calil and a number of other infantrywomen broke formation and stood in a half crescent to the sides, ready for the impossible task of intercepting such a massive creature. The colossus was bigger than the mountain giants, at least the height of a two story treehouse and much, much wider. The very ground beneath their feet shook as it approached and increased in excitement. When level to the rest of the battlefield, Navarion had no means of seeing the progress of all the huntresses, strike teams, irregulars or mountain giants and as far as he could tell, he and everyone else in Lamia's entourage were in their own. They braced themselves, prepared to absorb the brunt of the collision as the archers further wounded the great bug but failed to stop it.
Shocking the fel out of them all, the colossus tripped and stumbled, smacking into the ground face first, cracking its carapace a little bit more and knocking over the silithid workers in the area due to the shockwave. When the dust settled, the image of Ragnar became clear; Lamia's dark troll bodyguard, despite being perhaps the least stealthy person on Azeroth, had somehow managed to sneak behind the stampeding colossus just in time to grab it by one of its five remaining legs and pulled so hard that he single handedly tripped the massive monster. In a stunning role reversal, the mammalian sentinels swarmed all over the insectoid colossus, quickly cutting it to pieces in retribution for the fallen mountain giant. This time the renewed fervor swept up both sides in the conflict, and the remaining reavers broke formation entirely to chomp on whatever mammal they could reach without worrying about protecting themselves. At the sight of all three of their champions having fallen, the silithid wasps ignored the Sentinel Air Force and dove. Hippogriff riders picked off a great number of the wasps in the process, but by that point the entire insectoid force had been overtaken by a suicidal craze, throwing themselves at the Sentinels and mercenaries alike in an attempt to take down as many as they could, knowing the battle and the hive had more or less been lost when the last colossus writhed helplessly on the ground as its limbs and even jaws and horns were severed.
Hanging back in a circle around Commander Lamia, Captain Soraya ordered Navarion and any other healers or buffers who wore armor and could survive a fight with a silithid to rush forward. The addition of wasps complicated the final sweep of the silithid forces considerably, and the hippogriff riders found their hands full as they had to get to close to the ground to chase down the wasps that they exposed themselves to the spines and spikes of the reavers. The presence of the large mountain giants and chimaera precluded most of the offenses of the archers as well as the balance and crow Druids, forcing the night elves and their allies to fall into a loose skirmishing formation to deal with the great mess of silithids. Pandemonium ensued as the Sentinels dominated the silithids but without their usual finesse; this fight was nasty, up close and personal. What had once been more than a thousand insectoids dwindled to just over a hundred, but interspersed with confused mercenaries and young, relatively inexperienced enlisted regulars, and the healers found themselves restricted by the radius of Navarion's wards, the lack of a clear view of who was wounded where and their own relatively short experiences overall.
One of the few ancient healers, Pontus waded into the thick of battle, shifting into a sort of bark skin form as he pulled numerous young night elves and allied races from the brink. So unafraid was he that Navarion had no time to reload his gun are the first few shots and holstered it, slashing at random silithids instead as he tried to follow the foolhardy old healer right smack dab in the thick of the battle. Gleaming gold and one and a half horns signaled that Zhenya was there with the rest of her and Pontus' unit, also trying to catch up to the devoted restoration Druid. Ignoring the flutter of his heart at seeing the paladin thirty yards across from him and the sinking in his chest at a pained grunt from Commander Lamia far behind him, Navarion stepped his nerve, telling himself to be objective and repeating the fact that the battle was basically won already and it was only a matter of containing the rampaging silithids and protecting the vulnerable and weakened.
Because his sickle blade was only the length of his own forearm, the half night elf had to wait for the silithids to practically jump right on top of him and dispatch them at short range. That proved no trouble for him, but it slowed him down greatly and left him at the whims of the crazed, unfocused insectoids and their erratic movements as he dodged their pincers, stingers and friendly fire from desperate archers to follow his charge. Just as he regained sight of the resto-Druid's antlers across the crowd, an unfortunate furbolg ursa totemic took a wasp stinger to the heart and fell right on top of Navarion. One of the few people present who was equal to him in size, the large bear man toppled him over, bringing him to the ground along with the wasp whose stinger remained embedded in the furbolg's chest cavity. One quick slash of his sickle split the wasp's disgusting head down the middle, but the death groan of an older, pureblooded Kaldorei male caused Navarion's back to arch in anger as he realized he'd failed in his protection attempt. By the time he shoved the totemic off of him, he saw Pontus hit the ground, clutching his throat, chest and abdomen as blood gushed from the very wide wound of a full on, flush bite from one of the larger reavers. The bug had already let go by the time the half elf jumped to his feet, crunched inside its own carapace by a huntress on foot and a tauren brave working in tandem.
Pushing the sorrow and sense of loss out in the midst of battle, Navarion utilized the residual anger to cut and slash a path through the last buzzing bug wave, trying to save who he could. Despite having been treasured as a buffer, he found himself unable to fulfill his main duty. His big, bad voodoo spell was incredible and rendered his allies immune within a certain radius for a certain amount of time, but it was based on a war dance that required time to charge up; he wouldn't survive the initial moves and thus found himself relegated to hacking, slashing and throwing out heals the best he could. Unlike Pontus, he wore a combination of leather and chainmail that provided some protection, though even he sank when one of the wasps managed to sting through his jerkin and into the side of his abdomen while in its death throes. His blessing of Elune protected him from the poison, but the stinger itself opened up a nasty puncture that he didn't have time to heal completely as he wrestled with a reaver that saw the opportunity to strike. A half heal and his regeneration would have to do as he ignored the pain and the strain, grabbed the reaver beneath the lower jaw and sliced its head open only to find himself set upon by another.
Tide turning completely, more of the mercenaries and younger regulars pulled back for healing, leaving the more experienced fighters to sort out the mess. A woman's road - feminine but deep and scary - pierced the air as shining light pierced the sky in an arc and lit up the ground off to one side. Occupied by healing two huntresses who were distracting a group of wasps, Navarion tried to ignore the dying tauren and another reformed satyr off to that side as he found himself free enough to focus on saving a few of his comrades. One of the wasps crashed into the ground next to him, leaving a crater and eliciting more whooping and hollering from the Kaldorei women and even one of the men as the last blob of silithids dwindled even further. Speeding off eveni faster than he could keep up with despite wearing plate armor, the two huntresses rushed to save a group of wounded archers as the wasps and another reaver turned their attention to easier targets.
Screeches and chitters rang out along with the loud rumble of the planet itself all the way at the other end of the valley. Lights lit up the dimming sky as the priestesses summoned their starfall spell, obliterating the spires of the hive with their silver energy granted by the Goddess herself. The spires crumbled, crashing to the ground like a demolished city as one of the most powerful offensive spells on Azeroth signed the death warrant of the silithid infestation. As if to punctuate the end of the battle, the crow Druids wove a cyclone that lifted up the remaining pieces of the hive and flung them all about the valley, ruining the remaining mounds and burrows and negating any chances of the silithids possibly rebuilding.
Pain stabbing into his not yet healed abdomen again, Navarion felt safe enough to drop to one knee right in the midst of the battlefield. Any morale the primitive brains of the silithids might have held was lost, and they fought based purely on spite rather than any sort of will to win. Carapaces falling all around him, he let the exhaustion kick in despite the raging conflict, trying to catch his breath after having expent all his mana on taking care of others.
One of the women roared again at the same time that a few of the younger recruits fled the last raging blob of silithids or were stabbed and bitten. The ground lit up once more as a paladin held her own in the center of a swarm of large reavers, and panic gripped Navarion's soul as he realized who it was. His body having assumed the fight was over, he found his leg cramping up from the manaburn as he tried to stand, and growled in anger as a few younger enlistees and a Tauren proved unable to break up the swarm. Fighting every screaming, pained nerve ending in his tired out husk of a body, he forced himself forward, trying in vain to step over all the corpses of foes and a small number of friends as he tried to reach Zhenya who, ever the foolhardy, heavily armored tank, had tried to take on the swarm herself when the tired out and inexperienced regulars pulled back. Her warhammer swung and literally knocked one of the elekk sized reavers into the air as she furiously felled every insectoid she could.
A wasp tried to tackle Navarion, biting into his right bicep with its mandibles but failing to pierce his chainmail. Gouging its compound eye with his gun itself, he forced the wasp off of him and pistol whipped it into submission before slicing it into pieces with his sickle. Although he wasn't hurt physically, the wasps was his size and the tackle sapped his waning strength, and far off in the distance he could even feel his stasis traps fade as the mana source they were connected to - him - faded as well.
The light died out on the ground, and the consecration spell faded away and ceased cooking the remaining silithids alive inside their carapaces. For a brief few seconds, merciful yet punishing seconds, Navarion had a clear view. Valiant as always, she towered over a pile of death insectoids. Standing atop the pile like some sort of deity of death, her blood dripped out of the various punctures that had been punched through her impossible strong armor. Looking like she'd fought half the silithids herself, she wavered a bit atop the pile after slamming her warhammer into the abdomen of an oncoming wasp, her golden eyes flickering as her own mana was spent as well. Stained, dented and scratched, the suit that had become her namesake had lost some of its gold color as well, covered in the blood of bugs she'd killed and allies she'd granted on the spot healing to.
It all happened in slow motion. Ignoring what were likely tears in his back and calves, he ignored the burn of battle and energy drain as he launched himself forward just a little bit too late. The last reaver, by far the largest, opened its jaws as it leapt toward her as well, catching her from an angle she wouldn't be able to swing her warhammer at in time. When he tried to scream in warning, saliva caught in his dry throat and he choked, feeling a weird pressure in his nostrils and chest. Even when he slipped in the bloody mud, his efforts were for naught; Zhenya already saw it coming. Exhausted, off guard and at a back angle as her hooves slipped amongs the bodies, there was very little she could do save acknowledge to him that there was nothing either of them could do to stop it. No words were necessary; she said all she needed to when she used the blunt end of her warhammer to push him away lest he tried to leap in front of her and absorb the clamping jaws aimed right at her waistline. She might not have been at the right angle for a counterattack since she was facing him, but she was at the perfect angle to prevent him from throwing himself between her and her attacker.
His heart froze as the massive jaws slammed shut, cracking slightly as they shattered from their own attack but finishing the job all the same. It was all she could do to hold Navarion away and absorb the scissor slice on her own long enough for him to come to his senses and take the distraction provided by her buckling under the bug to sliced its head clean off. Before he could even collapse in a heap, she hit the ground in two pieces as the dying reaver cut her in half.