Orianna precedes over a moment of pure silence, like the whole city has taken a sharp breath in and held it. Standing on the edge of the roof, she's an easy target for any Ursan sniper, and yet no one takes a shot at her. All attention is on that building that is missing from the skyline, like someone had simply clipped it from the horizon.
Well, not everyone's. The radio crackles, voices heard but not comprehended. She can tell that cold, calculated speech pattern, understand that there is a retributive storm brewing and coming straight for them.
"...Team one unresponsive. We're up."
"-inbound inbound inbound."
"Kriss moving to intercept."
"Rondel, overwatching."
"Supporting infantry- pick them off."
"It's fast. Gloves are off-"
A gunshot rings out, echoing through scorched streets.
Sudden, startling, sobering.
It reminds Orianna to breathe, and as she exhales, she lets all of those misgivings go. Time to do her damn job.
"Thumper. Dirk."
"Thumper hears." Orianna rasps into her throat mic. Damn voice is shot, throat dry- had the heat of the blast really done that to her?
"Keep the streets clear below. Sweep any ash-and-trash off the street while we handle the guest of honour."
"Affirmative."
"And keep the package safe. They're still needed."
"Affirmative, Dirk. Thumper out." Orianna says with a sharp exhale. Doesn't let that tight knot in her chest come undone yet as she barks over at her teammates, "Hammy, Torch, Grafter, on the line. It's coming."
"Thumper-"
"On-line and get your high explosive ready." Orianna orders as she steps back from the precipice. A sharp glare at Cunningham gets the Perro woman in line right-quick and Orianna only needs a nod at Teller to ensure that the ammo gets hauled to their firing positions.
"Orders; don't engage the Blade, engage any accompanying infantry that come out of the woodwork."
Leaving only the mages sitting in their huddle over their damn books. Incessant chatter, excited as they swap notes on… what they had just done. Words like "blast yield", "projected casualties", and "battle damage assessment" are spoken with that same clinical precision as Dirk.
It… irks Orianna. For just the briefest moment, she hates them.
They, who could kill so easily and not have that weigh upon them.
They, who didn't have to see the person they had ended, to know that intimate hatred and desperation.
To them, it was just a building, right?
"Blade is coming. Best hide." Orianna squeaks, trying to muster some sort of growl to her voice. Skyfire is the one who acknowledges her first, matching Orianna's determined gaze. Brow furrowed deep for such a youthful face, the haughtiness of earlier in the day burned away with the city block, leaving only hardened conviction.
And yet, the Feline mage still raises a quizzical eyebrow at Orianna.
"Do you not know our mission?"
Orianna shakes her head, something about delivering the strike and drawing the Blade into an ambush, but that's not her job. "I was tasked with getting you here and guarding you while you did your experiment or what have you. Now that it's done, you best get to safety."
"We're not leaving." Skyfire says firmly. "We're the answer to that thing."
Orianna can't help but frown, but Skyfire meets her scepticism with an equal helping of scorn. It's a prideful sort of response -damn near a boast- like she were insulted that Orianna would even suggest that they hide.
So Orianna silently shrugs as she double-checks her weapon, holding in the sigh until it leaks from her nostrils as a callous snort.
In for the penny, in for the pound…
"Well. Now's your chance."
With a name like "Emperor's Blade", Orianna expected something along the lines of a Steam Knight; a massive war machine, thunderous, hissing and groaning with the power of Ursan industry.
The Blade is worse than that.
Quiet as a ghost, faster than the eye, and utterly merciless as it severs Stiletto's arm in the middle of the street. Praise be to the commandos' discipline- the Feline squeezes three more shots off into the thing's chest before it finishes the bloody job.
It sweeps through the street barricades like an arctic wind, and where it pushes the commandos back into the shadows and ruins, Ursan troopers start to emerge once more. Out from basements, shelters, rubble, and shadows, the Ursans have shaken the fear of Her vengeance and replaced it with their own. Black bolts, battle cries of "Urah!" as they charge towards an enemy they can't see but know are there.
From up on her perch… Orianna can see the game, see how the pieces jockey back and forth for position, trying to trap the other into a deadly sub-optimal move-
And from up here… she could pluck some of those pieces off the board. With steam and steel, explosions blossom across the dead street below to chase the Ursans back into their dens, buying the commandos more space to move. The Urskies that don't are left groaning and crying on the street, pleading for their reaper-of-a-savior to rescue them as they bleed out.
But is the Blade really there to protect them, or kill the enemies of Ursus?
The poor fuckers laying dead in the street have their answer.
Orianna thumps out two more grenades into a window across the avenue, the blast throwing a bowman out onto the shattered glass and broken concrete below. Her teammates cover as she ducks back over the lip of the rooftop before anyone could pin where they came from. The whole team alternates firing from different points, sometimes even indirect lobs of suppressive, exploding hail, but what exactly could they do against the Blade? Bullets didn't stop it, explosions barely slowed it, and nothing seemed to pull it from the singular mindset of chasing after Dirk's team.
Like a claw-beast that's sunk its teeth in, the Blade refuses to let any of the commandos slip away as it flies between points of contact like a bloodsucking gnat. Orianna barely catches glimpses of it when it does move, and when it does stop, it's because the thing is daring the Victorians to come at it. A oxymoronic thought- a living shadow taunting those that ply their craft in that self-same darkness to come out into the light?
"Dirk to Thumper-"
Ah, so the commando isn't dead yet. Serendipitous news, really.
"Thumper receives-"
"Whatever you do to get those damn Casters casting again-"
"Miss Skyfire knows, Dirk." She huffs, sending another shot down the street and into a stack of foot soldiers rallying up on a street corner. "How much longer can you harry that thing?"
"It's doing a damn fine job of finding us, so I'd say… not long. Put some pep to them-"
The radio crackles, peaked by something loud going off on Dirk's end- and the echo of it making it down to Orianna a second later. Her stomach sinks, but it doesn't change a damn thing, right? The mission is still the mission.
"How's it coming, wandies?" Orianna belts back at Skyfire's team before she has to twist her attention to the streets again.
"Foundation is nearly set. The change in the incantation formula should theoretically focus the potential energy into-"
Orianna loads and fires three more explosives in the time it takes for the Feline caster to basically say "a few more minutes-" and when she glances back, Skyfire's frowning. Frowning, but in the minimal time she's been with these particular boots, she must have figured out when to hold her tongue. At least noblekin could be fast learners-
"A little more haste, please." Orianna stresses, aiming down the street once again, "Dirk's team is-"
-is one more commando short; Khukri this time. She picked the worst possible moment to look back too. One half of the Vouivre falling to the street as the Blade follows through with its swing.
Orianna's reaction is visceral. The nausea, the sickness, the horror- all of it finds new avenues through her when it caustically mixes with the adrenaline.
It all comes out as hate.
Hate, fury, that righteous sort of anger that makes one act… irrationally. She doesn't remember unloading half her bandolier down on that terrible scene in an attempt to erase it, nor does she really register how savagely she howls until her throat is sore- but she snaps back just in time to catch herself having loaded a super-charged round.
That cautionary tape on the canister brings her head back down to level just in time to see the Blade looking up at her. Its arm blurs, something dark reaching out for Orianna. Hammy barely gets a warning shout out of her lungs before Orianna dives aside.
The low-wall she was crouched behind explodes as something fires through it with the force of an anti-ship harpoon, sending brick and mortar outward as its own deadly shrapnel. Orianna rolls, curled in a ball as she feels the punches striking her back plate- but bits of rock and concrete she could survive.
Logic tells her to keep her damn head down, cowardice be damned in the face of that thing.
Training tells her to displace the team and protect the "package" like her fucking mission dictates.
Instinct tells her to stand up and fucking fire again.
So in her nerve-wracked mind, guess which one wins out in the end?
"Fuck you, Urskie!" Orianna screams, firing the supercharged round from a launcher not meant for such pressures.
Hissing, sizzling, scalding, the red-hot round flies more true than anything else. No drop, no deviation, the Blade unmoving, ready to take the explosion head-on, literally. Orianna watches- takes less time than a blink for that explosive to leave the tube and squash against the Blade's helmet, the shadow banished in the flash-and-bang of the blast-
Except… that is wishful dreaming. If wishing upon Her light could eradicate such a bloodthirsty shade, it'd have been long gone by now, wouldn't it?
"A bit faster, please!?" Orianna roars at Skyfire, knowing just what she'll see when the dust settles.
Because it's there, and it is striding towards their building now.
That puts the sudden chill down Orianna's spine- not because she is next in line to have her ticket punched, but because she fucked up again. The mission was protect the damn strike package, not bring the danger straight to it-
The Blade is poised, ready to vanish as it dashes forward… only to lurch at the crack of a gunshot. For a merciful moment, its attention is torn elsewhere.
"The fuck are you doing, Thumper?" Her earpiece hisses and crackles, Dirk's voice clearly strained from the combat below.
"Buying time." Is all she manages to respond as she rushes to the ammunition pile and offloads her bandolier. The launcher… rattles as she swings it forward, the breach not fully sealing. Only good for one more round, and that round would probably blow up in her face-
So she grabs her final round of super-charged and loads it before turning to Cunningham.
"Cover me when I'm down there." A firm order. One that, though Cunningham frowns, she nods in grim acknowledgement.
"Hammy's in charge 'til I get back." Orianna pointedly calls over at Teller as she passes her radio and earpiece to Cunningham, though it's also for Skyfire's benefit. Chain of command and whatnot…
"Wait, boss, where-"
"Anywhere but here." Orianna growls at Teller, "It's coming for me, so keep Skyfire's team safe."
"Bit arrogant, innit?" Cunningham's quip doesn't do much to deter Orianna as she moves for the stairwell down, but it stops her at the door to glance back.
"What can I say, Hammy. I'm a one-of-a-kind gal, aren't I?"
"The vanity of this lass!"
Orianna cracks a smile; an earnest, honest-to-Her-Light smile, before vanishing into the darkened stairwell. It's a swift descent, the kind that leaves her so little time to think and reflect- mercifully .
Just need to buy time and space- that damn thing would find them eventually once the casters started up again- there is just no way anyone could ignore a second damned sun appearing in the sky considering what the last one had done.
But Orianna pauses at the doorway to that shattered hell- exposed , a cold wind coming through the broken glass. Stepping outside is… a one-way kinda deal. All those earlier thoughts of lining up to have her ticket punched? She had it all wrong, hadn't she- the conductor had come by a while ago to take her ticket. She's been on this ride for longer than she should have been.
The last stop to get off… was long gone.
A young country girl, head full of songs of old glories and tales of valour, yearning for freedom, for escape, unaware that there is a price to be paid for all things.
Yes, the last stop had come and gone- long ago.
Deep breath, sabre drawn, reciting the words as she steps through the threshold; but not of the creed, of what She had trained her to speak.
A ballad instead, the one sung by her grandfather, that had filled her head with the glories of Victoria. The one that had placed those lofty images in a young, impressionable child's mind.
Words that are lost to the cold streets, words that have no meaning to anyone other than Orianna, hummed as she dashes through the dead throughway towards where she last saw Dirk.
Two metallic twangs and the whip of bolts sharpen her to the now, have her sliding into cover behind the hollow remains of a car . Her launcher comes up reflexively, but what is she going to do?
More bolt snaps- not at Orianna but down the street. For now, the only eyes on her are Cunningham's, but Orianna certainly sees them silhouetted with the dim light . A simple hand signal towards the window where the shots are coming from… and the dreadful anticipation.
She hears the hiss whizz by before the bloop, taking cover just as an explosion kicks brick and dust down on the street- the shots landed too low. Another frantic wave for attention, signalling as best she can, 'above door, three stories, window-'
A pause, and in her mind she can hear Hammy barking the adjustments to Teller. Two more soaring hisses, two more explosions… and one wailing cry of pain that echoes from the shattered window.
And she bounds as quickly as possible, past the panicked shouting in Ursan, the anger and fear palpable… though the fear - the fear she feels clenching in her own breast too. The farther she gets away from her building, from her teammates, the more that it dawns on her… that this was a stupid decision. A stupid decision punctuated by the punching echoes of gunshots and the unearthly sounds of it. Somewhere in the dust beyond is it.
It's only when she stops to breathe does she realise just where she is.
A clear line in the shattered asphalt.
Bodies, Victorian and Ursan, the husks of Cavalier transports, the defensive positions… fires, ash, the smell-
As far as Her Light could reach before being forced to pull back by Ursus' Shadow.
A few bolts smack off the pavement near Orianna, a reminder that she needs to keep moving-
"Thumper?" A woman's voice calls out behind her, from inside one of the punctured Steel Cavalier's transports. "If you're here, who's covering us?"
When Orianna ducks in, she finds Scalpel frowning harshly as she finishes tying off a red-stained bandage on Dirk's leg tight.
"Hammy, Teller, and Torch are still up. The Blade compromised me, so I might as well come down to the stage too, right?"
"Stupid reason." Scalpel sighs, slapping the wounded Vulpo laying on her lap to jostle him. "Stay awake, plonker, lest you wanna die."
"...Thumper…? The fuck are you doing down here?" Dirk groans as he moves to sit up, though the wound on his leg makes it so it only spasms as he tries.
"My launcher's only good for one more, I'm dead weight on the roof." She defends, "but this last super-charged is gonna be a right bastard."
"So you thought you could cut it down here… against a Blade?" Scalpel snaps, grabbing her mishmashed pipe-of-a-weapon and slinging it over her shoulder. "What are you gonna do, little Cautus?"
"Buy time, right?"
"You don't have the Arts to scrap with it. Hells, we barely do, and we're fucking trained for this." Scalpel steps up and jabs Orianna with a particularly sharp finger, really gets right up in her face… but Orianna doesn't back down. No Orianna glances over at the wounded commando instead.
"My mission is to protect the package, right Dirk? Well right now protecting them means keeping that thing from finding them for as long as I can." She catches the Feline commando's grin out of the corner of her eye, and it's a dangerous sort of expression.
"Scalpel-"
"Aye Dirk?"
"Stick to the plan." He hisses through gritted teeth, "Thumper can take over the turret."
"Turret?" Orianna says, at a loss while the medic tries to settle Dirk back into a seat. Her obvious trepidation earns a scowl from Scalpel, the medic letting her frustration flow as free as the blood had been moments before.
"Ain't you a Dragoon? Shouldn't you know how these things work?"
"We ride in them- it isn't our job to know how they work, just that they get us to the fight." Orianna snaps back, suddenly bristling at Scalpel's unwarranted animosity. "But I know we usually keep spare medical kit under the seats." As if to prove a point, she lifts a few cushioned frames until eventually she finds some of the medivac supplies. Stretchers and cots are no use here, but some of the transfusion kits-
"Thumper."
Dirk's unquestionable authority makes her stop what she's doing, forces her to bring her attention back over to him… and the fact his leg is…
"You're going to help me get the turret of this transport working, and we're going to properly fuck that Blade, got it?"
Despite the obvious blood loss, Dirk is lucid, and that fact is sobering. No, no more thinking, just do.
"...got it." She answers dutifully.
"Who's got your radio?"
"Hammy."
"Hammy… right." Dirk clenches his teeth, sucking in a sharp breath before unclipping his radio and earpiece and holding them out for Orianna. "Channel six, radio Hammy and tell them to get the strike aimed at the intersection ahead."
"Arthur-" Scalpel protests, and Orianna can get the gist of the reason why with how she lingers.
"Rest of the squad is dead, Leah. Knife and her team are off comms too. Assume it's just us- and it."
"...she's not cleared for our comms-"
"And I'm… fading in and out here. Thumper's the best chance of getting this done."
Scalpel goes rigid, and though the edges of her mouth twitch, she remains emotionless. Weapon cradled in her arms, the Feline nods slowly, knowingly.
"...See you soon, Arthur."
"Yeah… see you soon, Leah."
Scalpel ducks her way through the transport, head locked straight ahead and eyes unblinking as they stare past Orianna.
"Make it mean something, Leepu." The Feline says, giving Orianna a single firm pat on the shoulder before leaping out onto the street… and vanishing into the pavement like it is water.
A moment of silence, as quick as a deep breath in and out.
"I'll… get the auxiliary going. You need to get the gun running." Dirk grunts as he wobbles his way to the rear hatch. "Leave your launcher, looks like the damn thing'll explode if you jostle it enough."
She ignores how he drags a useless leg, or how the wound's bandage bleeds through once more. Dirk wasn't let that stop him from accomplishing the mission, so there is no reason for her to stop and coddle him. All Orianna can do is just follow orders, clipping the radio on her belt and adjusting the earpiece.
"Thumper to Hammy."
"... Hammy receiving- what the hells Leepu?"
"Get Skyfire's team aiming down the avenue towards the intersection."
"Not even going to compliment the cover-fire?"
"Time and place, Cunningham." Orianna growls, "Intersection, can Skyfire reach it?"
There's a moment of silence, undoubtedly Cunningham backing at the casters before coming back on the line with, "The one with busted statue?"
Busted statue… Orianna glances down the road, really squinting to see the figure of someone important about a half a block aways, arm taken off by the fighting, its back probably scorched from the last blast. She pointedly tries to ignore that if the same strike came down there, she and Dirk-
"Yeah… The busted statue."
"Yeah, she says she can hit that- they're starting the whole ritual thing now. You going to be able to clear the blast?"
"Too many words, Hammy."
"-Tell them to drop when you bust up that statue." Dirk calls back into the transport, "Timing's important."
She relays, but never actually answers Cunningham's question.
"Thumper out." Is all Hammy'll get for a proper sendoff until this is said and done. Orianna scrambles out of the troop bay to clamber up the side of the transport, the driver door already open. At least one of the three-man crew had managed to bail out- the assistant driver hadn't been so lucky. The scene locks her up for a second, and that's a second she doesn't have to spare. She muscles through it, squeezing past and into the back compartment, ignoring the fist-width anti-ship harpoon that is embedded half-way in-and-out of the rear wall.
"Okay… okay… okay…" Orianna chants as she climbs up to the gunner turret despite everything being not okay. The gunfire from down the street doesn't even flinch her now, but the timer she's got counting down in her head? That puts jitters to her as she races to the turret position.
Just… another body to ignore the horrific circumstances of- yeah just disregard the smell of stale blood and the darker shade of the turret's paint job. A quiet prayer to Her dead as she pulls them down from the gunner's seat and takes their place in the purportedly bolt-proof bubble. Another fist-sized hole right at chest-level is just a slight bit disconcerting, but she just thinks of it as extra ventilation as she finds a new struggle- just whatever the hell she is looking at.
Planted in the seat she's got pedals by her feet… belts of steam rounds that looked like older siblings of what she slung on the daily running through a caged track around the tube she's stuck herself in… a hand crank on her left just under the steam cannon over her shoulder… two sticks attached to the sides of the cramped space where she guesses her hands are supposed to go.
And from the bubbled canopy she can see the flurry of action that erupted. Explosions back by the building with her team, gunfire and blurry movements through a creeping black fog ahead of her, and a sudden brightness growing in the sky above.
In this cramped space… it's all a bit too much; by Her Light, she'd hate to admit that she'd prefer being out on the street with a lance than in here but… in a desperate bid to beat back the panic she grabs those blood stained handles and pushes-
And nothing happens. Nothing moves. Nothing fires. The damn Blade is right there, killing her comrades and the damn thing doesn't fire!
"Sheit… no… No!" she bellows, thrashing fruitlessly in the confined space. In the second it takes for her to bruise herself against Victorian steel… the turret hums. It's enough to wake her from the fury, enough to narrow her vision to where it needs to go- a lit green light down by her hip.
An on-off switch, and right next to it, an arming switch-
Frantically she jabs that red button so hard she's probably bruised her finger, but the damn thing doesn't light up like the other. The adrenaline tries to grab her by the ears and drag her around in a right bender again, but Orianna breathes it out.
Think. It's just a big gun, but not like her six-shot. It'll have its own steps…
"On" switch, arming is clearly next… so she looks around the turret nearby and finds a small hand wheel labelled "auxiliary steam line". Without thinking she cranks it, unsure of if it is open or closed… but when the wheel slams home she hears it.
The hiss of Her is reassuring, the smell of oil and steam enough to warm a frigid heart-
And the turret shudders to life.
With the thrill of hope taking hold, she grabs one of the handholds and pushes- and is jerked to the side as the whole damn tube she's in rotates suddenly. Pulling it yanks her right back- and when she plays with the other lever and pedals she quickly grasps how to aim the thing. Just needs to get it level, aimed down at the intersection for when that damned shade showed.
A squeeze of the trigger and that thump.
The one she'd always hear from the assault compartment below, the clatter of the shell bouncing down off the roof is nostalgic in a way that Orianna wouldn't have believed possible. The round smacks a stack of sandbags and explodes, pockmarking the surrounding battlements with shrapnel.
Yep, just like a bigger version of her Piledriver lance- an automatic version of her Piledriver lance as she flips the "Belt Feed" switch. New rounds rattle their way up the cage towards the gun, and she knows the beat that it'd fire at, intimately knows the tempo that the gun could drum out from all those trench assaults months ago.
"Thumper." Dirk calls up from the crew compartment.
"Aye, Dirk."
"When I say open up, you open up on that fucking git, yeah?"
"Aye, Dirk."
She keeps her eyes fixated down the gunsight, ready for when that devil appears in the unearthly fogbanks beyond. Her thumb hovering over the solenoid for the gun twitches slightly, knowing that there will only be a second to react if the Blade was being generous.
"...Thumper."
Dirk's voice makes her jump in the seat, but she still responds with that instinctive, "aye, Dirk?"
"On Channel six?"
"Aye."
"Tell them to drop it when you start firing."
"Got it." She answers, not once blinking as his words go in one ear and out the other. The order gets relayed, but even Hammy can't really talk sense to her; all her friend gets is a " we'll be fine". Not enough to convince Orianna, let alone Cunningham. Reasoning doesn't dawn on her in the moment, because she sees it come into view- a shadow gliding forward through the oily smoke, right in front of that broken Ursan statue, taking a swing at something- someone. She tracks with a twitch of the lever, thumb coming down on that button-
"Hold." Dirk barks up at her, knowing.
It vanishes the very next instant, if Orianna had blinked she would have missed it. A blur,
"Have to wear it down more-" She hears Dirk mumble from right below her, the Vulpo shuffling around and messing with something. The sort of restlessness born of worry, but a metallic clack, the harsh click of something slamming home pins that feeling in place.
Orianna catches a burst of flashes, just the briefest glimpse of Scalpel before she vanishes into the ground again- before a volley of black swords rip past where she had been. The Blade comes to a stop before the statue, raising a fist to the air. Frustration? Orianna can only hope its frustration at the commandos' lack of a committed fight- but a wave of Arts roils out from the Ursan. Even from this distance, she can feel the rancorous energy reach out for her, gripping her heart with the sort of paralysing fear that she hadn't felt since she was a rookie-
"Fire!"
Thumb slams down on the solenoid, Dirk's order more compelling than Orianna's own thoughts. The gun thumps its distinct, comforting rhythm in contrast to the wave of raw fear; recoiling rocking Orianna in the seat. First two rounds were off, but by the time the Blade is turning to look at her, a round hits home, exploding in a flash of glorious light.
But just because she hit the damn thing once doesn't mean she's letting up off that trigger. She knows she's made the thing lurch, knocked it off balance for that key moment, hoping that a few more cannon rounds would delay the inevitable-
A black blade comes streaking from the flashes and dust, just a single blink of the eye like before. The scratch of metal protesting a sudden and violent puncture… but Orianna is still holding the trigger, still alive as she adjusts the gun ever-so-slightly.
Another blade bursts through the swirling clouds, and she can hear the transport's tempered, armoured windshield shatter as easily as hitting a glass pane with a hammer.
Cannon rounds clatter up that belt as quickly as she sends them down range. Every flinch of that masked devil is met by a twitch of her hand adjusting the gun… keeping that damned thing bracketed and unable to catch its footing- at least until it flings another shadowy blade at her-
And this time, it's coming dead on.
She wants to keep her thumb on that trigger, knowing that even one more round buys a fraction of a second… but someone yanks her down before the bubble turret is torn wide open in such a savage fashion that rocks the whole transport. Her landing is anything but graceful, face first onto steel caked with dried blood, but she thanks Dirk's instinct regardless as the wounded commando holds her down.
"Pissed it off, Thumper." Drik grimly grins, patting Orianna on the back before three more crashing strikes rip through steel and rock the whole damn burden-beast.
"Seems I'm good at that, Dirk."
The commando glances up through the shattered turret, eyes reflecting Her Light swelling above them before drawing a pistol from his hip holster.
"Time's nigh. Good work, Thumper." The Vulpo grips her shoulder, that same warm confidence of a job well done that Thera'd give her… and she instinctively knows what Dirk means by it. The commando drags himself to the cabin door just as another sword tears the air through the compartment- but Dirk doesn't even flinch.
"All channels- strike inbound. Repeating; all channels, strike inbound-"
That hair raising wrongness, deafening despite not a sound being made during its descent, the glow growing in that final approach.
She's done enough.
She's done enough…
Win or lose, she's done enough; played her little bit part in this grand, horrific play. She could sit and rest now, wait for the coming end and make that peace… but seeing Dirk lean out that doorway, taking defiant, futile shots at his fate has Orianna pushing herself up from the floor and reaching for her launcher, only for her blood to freeze in her veins
The Blade is there, watching them. She can't see anything moving beneath that horrible mask, but she swears she can feel the anger, the frustration, the contempt as it readies to lunge-
A concussive blast from beside her rings through her body… but she can hear his hit the concrete below.
The supercharged round strikes home, forces the Blade to stagger-
And Scalpel leaps out from the stone of the statue behind the shadow, arms tied off with rope as she lassos herself over the Blade. Swiftly bound tight around the armoured neck, legs holding on for what must be a painful piggy-back, the commando has turned herself into nothing more than a backpack laden down with anger and hate-
The Blade thrashes, tries to throw the Feline from its back, but Scalpel manages to hold on, cackling all the while. It is a haunting sound that drifts to Orianna, a madness compounding all this insanity around them…
That mad laughter is the last thing Orianna hears as she dives for the back of the transport, tucking herself into one of the stowage compartments just as the light burns her back.
Her roar.
Fierce.
Wrothful
Shockwave.
Deafening.
Tumbling.
Blackness.
Pain lets her know that she's alive- whether that is a mercy or a cruelty is yet to be seen. Stuffed in a damn locker, clearly upside-down, but also not dead- unless the afterlife had a particularly cruel way of greeting her at its gates.
Or no, perhaps that would be the perfect irony- riding to Her welcoming embrace within the steel coffin that all Dragoons so intimately knew.
But the least She could do was unjam the damn door for her tired faithful. Orianna has to throw herself against it, each attempt more painful than the last. It was almost a competition; the groan of the already battered metal versus her own strained exertions- until the weakened clasp eventually gave way to Orianna's sheer stubbornness.
She comes rolling out of the bin, birthed onto the glass and debris of a dented, battered ceiling. All in one piece… she's all in one piece?
Concussed? Probably.
Broken bones? Definitely.
Alive? Maybe.
As she drags herself from the wreckage though, it's painfully obvious that she's somehow alive. Now a full block away from the blast zone, she can see the glow through the smoke and smoulder.
A crater- there has to be nothing more than a crater left. Orianna manages to stagger down the scorched street, drawn to the light like a moth. The bodies… are all gone, the battlements blasted apart, once-white walls that lined the street streaked black.
Something is tickling inside her ear- the crackling of the radio?
"...-...-~~-..."
Incomprehensible, words fogged and slurred. There's a numbness, compulsion pushing her forward despite her body clearly protesting every step.
"...-umper…-~-..." the radio hisses, trying to get her to stop.
But she can't, not until she can see that… it's over.
And when her eyes adjust on the foot of where that statue once stood… it looms .
The world around that single point is nothing but molten asphalt and rock, and yet that shadow stands upon solid ground, stoic, unmoving, yet somehow ready with sword in hand -
A crushing pain grips Orianna's gut, wrenches a visceral scream from her scorched lungs.
Everything they've done, everything they've fucking sacrificed to fucking kill this monstrosity… meant nothing.
She draws steel, not caring if she's cut in two on the very next step. It doesn't even acknowledge her, doesn't even move, like she is that much of an insignificant bug. A single Victorian trooper on her last damn legs, it must think she'll fall apart on that final charge.
Orianna is falling apart, but she's not going to let this damned horror see that. The last thing she wants her enemy to see of her is… her. Her life's light, her hatred, her desperation and hate and sorrow and resolve and… and… and…!
She stumbles on hot, soft asphalt, tumbling for a moment.
It's the perfect time to strike, to end her damn suffering, but the fucking shade doesn't even give her that mercy, content with watching her make a fool of herself… and so Orianna drags herself up one last time, feeling how her boots sink into the hot pitch-and-gravel, threatening to drag her down with each laboured step-
"Fight's over, trooper."
Authoritative voice, the kind like Davies', like Dirk's, like Thera's ; the kind of voice that could be her brain when all sense of sanity has slipped away…
But part of her wants to charge forward to her doom. Her well deserved doom.
"Sheathe the sword. Fight's over."
The fight isn't over though. The war isn't over, so clearly she needs to… keep moving forward, keep killing the enemy until she herself is brought low-
"Put the damn sword away and quit embarrassing Her discipline, you pillock!"
Colloquial, informal, like when her mother'd bat her over the head with that day's headlines-
And jarring enough to make Orianna blink, to make her take that sharp breath in; one filled with the stink of hot tar and acrid fumes; pause her long enough that she can feel the heat of where she stands really start to burn through her boots.
Someone swoops right when she's snapped out of her furious haze, practically drags her by the collar across the road and into the shattered remnants of a streetside shop. Drops her in a back room, far cooler and safer than the middle of the street, that much is certain- though Orianna finally has the mind to kick off her boots lest she boil her damn feet.
"Back with the sane, trooper?" The shadows ask.
Eyes unadjusted, Orianna can't focus on any particular place or person, instead sighing and shrugging as she rasps, "Were any of us sane to begin with to be on this mission?"
"Some could argue no, we weren't. Then again, it takes some real mad-hatters to face a Blade and not be a Steam Knight."
"I-It's dead…?"
"Boiled alive in that suit. Reinforcements are coming now that it's dead."
Orianna collapses, laying back on the cold concrete, not caring for the broken glass or debris knocked from the shelves as she does so. The shadow looming above her lets her rest a moment, but also seems to regard the spent Cautus.
"Cheer up, trooper. We're getting relieved."
"I am relieved, positively bloody jubilant." Orianna says flatly, staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes want to close… but she knows that if she is concussed, that's the last thing she should do.
"It takes a certain breed to do what Commandos do." A sharp chuckle answers her deprecation. "Have to admit, you did an alright job for someone not in the Regiment." A… familiar hand is held out for her to take. One shrouded by an unnatural darkness, one bearing more meaning than it had before.
"Dirk did most of the work." Orianna hesitates, content to lay and let that familiar cold creep back in.
"The mission was all of ours. We completed it. You, me, Dirk and his team, your team, the casters on the roof that you were supposed to be defending-"
A punch to the gut, metaphorically of course, but nonetheless heart-stopping and breath-stealing. It makes the weak, vacillating apology crawl its way up and out of her mouth when the hand is offered to her once more, shoving those words back down.
Orianna sits up, groaning from her body protests, but she takes the offering this time, the obscuring shadows peeling back to reveal that old purple-horned war-scale from before.
Knife- Captain Fairbairn pulls Orianna onto her feet, helps hold her steady when her legs wobble.
"...speaking of your team, they've been trying to hail you."
"For how long?" Orianna croaks, mouth suddenly parched, throat thrashed from all the childish yelling in that scorching heat. The captain uncaps a canteen and hands it to her.
"From after the blast to about when you were ready to charge into actual molten rock- though I suppose they stopped calling because they might've saw you screamin' your damn head off at a dead man." The old Vouivre shrugs, grinning at Orianna's sudden embarrassment. She motions for Orianna to go make the call, an unofficial dismissal given that the captain doesn't seem to care for rank right now.
Channel six… clicked through and hailing-
"Thumper to Hammy."
Silence. Not even the hiss of the channel opening and closing again.
"Thumper to Hammy- checking in."
She can hear herself from Fairbarin's earpiece, the desperation that puts a clip to her voice. More silence in response, and now the oddity's got Fairbairn's attention. The commando grabs her gun from where it rests against the wall and slings it-
"Cunningham, come in-"
"This is Knife, anyone on this channel- hail back." Fairbairn chimes in on her own set…
And it comes in as a scrambled mess in Orianna's ear. Her radio's been fucked.
"Hammy reporting. Anyone have eyes on Dirk's team or Thumper?" Orianna hears Fairbairn's earpiece crackle once the Vouivre pulls it from her ear and holds it out. The sudden wave of relief makes her woozy, sends her staggering against a wall and crashing into the shelves. The commando moves swiftly to catch her, holding her up while having the cheek to answer,
"I got eyes on Thumper. Hang tight and hunker down in your OP. Reinforcements from the Justice are enroute. Knife out."
Orianna mumbles her thanks when Fairbairn eases her back down onto the floor before breaking out a ration and tossing it to Orianna.
"We're… still in enemy territory."
Reluctance born from tension that refuses to leave her body; a burdensome sense of duty that she can't simply lift from her shoulders… not after everything. She figures she's testing Fairbairn's patience, but the old woman grabs the tin and punctures it open with her self-named tool of choice. The smile on her face when she offers up the ration… reminds Orianna of her gran. When Orianna grabs it though, the aged commando refuses to let go, forces Orianna to look her in those sharp, violet eyes.
"Those that aren't running for the damn emergency exits or throwing down their weapons are not gonna be too much for either of us to handle. Sit. Rest."
"Aye, Captain."
The Vouivre rolls her eyes, but lets the dish go only to have its contents vanish into Orianna's gullet in a matter of seconds. Her eyes scrutinise, but surely she's seen sloppier eaters out in the field? When you make-do you make-do and all that… but that must not be what the Vouivre is thinking, because she gives Orianna an approving nod.
"Bit of training, some spit-and-polish, we could make a right and proper knife out of you."
Orianna drops the empty tin like it is made of poison, fingers still greasy from the ration and unable to hide the frown. This fucking mess before her, the shaken, waning, faithless kinda boot like Orianna is the kind of woman they'd want in the Regiment?
"You're… offering me a position? Here? Now?" Orianna scoffs, but the Vouivre doesn't flinch, doesn't crack a smile like this is part of a prank.
"There's quite a few openings." Fairbairn's retorts, letting that dark joke crash into Orianna like a tide… but when it doesn't sweep her away that only seems to further Fairbairn's point.
"Give it a once-over when we're back on the Justice, Leepu. After what you've been through today, no one can question you or the choices you make for yourself."
Fairbairn stands once more, and even for someone of a smaller, shrunken stature, she stands tall. The shotgun is swung forward, held so naturally in her hands like it is an extension of this deadly woman… and the commando does cut a particularly envious outline. A confidence… that Orianna had felt once or twice before, a confidence that she… could have again.
"You rest up until the transports arrive to evacuate the wounded. I'll take watch."
"But-"
"If you're about to question my capability after this operation's conclusion, I will take it that you are basing such an irrational assumption on my age… and thus take it quite personally."
The Vouivre pulls her maroon beret from her belt, patting it out and adjusting it back on her head with a sort of rehearsed precision… before vanishing into the shadows.
Leaving Orianna to herself.
Herself and her thoughts.
Herself… and her songs.
She opens her mouth, but… could anything beautiful come out any more?
And so she sits in the silent dark.
Solace in the fact that it's over. It's finally over.