Chapter 156: Breaking the Web.
After a rest and some sleep, Angel left her safe house to head towards her next target but something didn't feel right.
As she stepped out onto the street outside of her safehouse it felt like the very air of the ruined city itself had shifted, it was...quieter.
There was a heaviness to the place all of a sudden that kind of put her on edge.
They say that predators can sense when another predator enters their territory by the reactions of the local prey now whether that applied to super mutants and Ghouls was anyone's guess but it sure as hell seemed that way by the distinct lack of gunfire and moaning howls echoing through the streets.
Angel decided the slow and methodical approach would be best here, unfortunetly for her thanks to carrying all of this gear on her back her cloaking tech was pretty much useless at the moment as even if she deployed it would only hide her main body, not all the extra shit currently strapped to it.
Slowly she began to pick her way across the city, constantly glancing in all directions around herself as if she expected the very shadows themselves to spring to life and make a beeline for her.
Thats when it hit her like a cold hard slap.
The Minutemen hunters were here.
Angel cursed herself for taking that power nap and letting it get dark before she chose to leave, her instincts had told her to get out as soon as possible but she'd overridden their advice in favour of easing back on the gas a little so she could rest up and get some sleep in order to charge herself up to travel at night.
But something told her that these people hunting her didn't care whether it was night or day, they would be just as relentless either way.
As she moved slowly down the streets she was now constantly on alert for any signs of movement or any kind of trap that might indicate the presence of the team but all seemed quiet and it was that quietness that was playing on her nerves something fierce.
Now of course she'd done extensive escape and evasion training with the Enclave's best instructors, they had prepared her for how to outwit and outthink a pursuing enemy force, but somehow these hunters had managed to pick up her trail even after all she'd left behind was a pile of irradiated dust and glass, so that already put them a cut way above your average hunter team.
Angel began to wonder if these pursuers that were sniffing along her trail were Minutemen at all.
Could they have called in some help from their new allies in either the Brotherhood or maybe the Free Peoples?
Now if it was the Brotherhood she'd certainly have a much easier time of things, but if it was the Free Peoples God himself only knew what kind of horror freak show they would have put on her tail.
They probably had Deathclaw roadblocks set up or something.
Suddenly Angel feels something sticky on her foot and she lifts it up to see what looks to be a spider's webbing and she groans, Radspiders are pretty damn common around here though they usually stick to the tunnels rather than set their webs up on the surface.
She wipes off her boot on a curbstone and continues on her way completely unaware of the alarm that she has just tripped.
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Ebony felt the vibrations running through her web snares, it had been a very long time since she'd used web snares like this and setting up such large ones in some of the larger through-ways had taken her longer than she would have liked.
Though she had given some of the local mutants quite a scare when she'd crawled down the side of a building and appeared right next to them when she was heading down to set them up.
Though after a brief scuffle that had left all four of them wrapped up like shit Christmas decorations hanging from a few lamposts as their insides dissolved from the potent venomous bites they'd all received the dispute was very much resolved.
Though it also seemed that the message had been very much received by all of the other local mutants and even somehow by the Ghouls as well, as ever since Ebony had left the four mutants swinging from the lamp posts slowly dissolving from the inside out the surrounding area seemed to have grown eerily quiet.
Not that she minded really, in all honesty, it actually kinda felt pretty good to have them scared of her for a change rather than the other way around.
Ever since Sasha had taken her under his metaphorical wing which was kinda funny given it was his second in command that had the wings.
She had felt this new vigour to her, a new surge of confidence bubbling up in her.
It was like coming out of a moult as a completely different Archnakai which was actually quite common.
It was kind of like how a moody human teenager grows out of being a moody little cunt as they exit their teenage years in a sense.
It was very common for Archnakai to have complete personality shifts during their moults, going from an outgoing extrovert who has to be the centre of attention to an introvert who hides all day in their web nest not daring to set a single of their eight feet out of it for fear of someone seeing them.
So this shift was kinda a known thing to Ebony but outside of a moult, it was incredibly rare for an Anrchnakai to have such a personality shift.
She couldn't truly explain it but it was like seeing how Sasha's team all worked together so well and seeing how they had such faith in him spoke volumes to her, so then when he displayed the same level of faith in her and her abilities it just lifted her up and planted her squarely on her eight large feet.
Now for the first time in her life, she had the opportunity to stand tall and proud, to be the Tarantula that she was meant to be, rather than a scardy spood hiding away cowering between her legs at the slightest out-of-place sound.
They had given her confidence and a purpose, they believed in her and her abilities and she was not going to let them down, she was going to show them all that she was worthy of the faith that they'd placed in her, she was going to become the first Archnakai Cossack if it fucking killed her!
So as one of her web snares got tripped Ebony rotated on her eight large feet and tilted herself downwards so she could look down into the dark streets below her.
Thankfully these looking glasses of Sasha's came with a night vision function that allowed her to see in the dark or she'd have been completely stuffed for seeing anything at this distance, usually in the dark she relied on the super sensitive hairs that covered her body to detect the world around her as her eyes weren't exactly great.
But thanks to these incredible human binoculars Ebony was easily able to see what had tripped her web snare and as soon as she saw it all of her hair ruffled like a dog getting its heckles up.
"Webmaster to all call signs I believe I have eyes on our target over," she said into the comms system that Sasha had given her.
"Webmaster this is Eagle Eye give me a location over," Celine's all business voice came straight over the comms.
"East of my location approximately three thousand meters, heading down the large throughway over," Ebony said as she watched the little figure dressed in all black carrying a very heavy-looking pack and with what appeared to be some serious hardware strapped to them.
"Roger that I see them, hold fast I'm taking up the tail over," Celine said.
"Roger that holding fast," Ebony said and Celine called again over the comms.
"Eagle eye to Night eye how copy over?' she said.
"Loud and clear Eagle eye I'm in the air and moving to your location over," Ava's voice this time said.
"Roger that Night eye good call, see you in the air, over," Celine said.
Suddenly another voice came over the comms and this one had the power and authority of a grizzled veteran to it, it was Sasha.
"Command to all call signs, once Eagle eye and Night eye confirm validity of target, I want you to begin to converge on them from all sides, do not engage I repeat do not engage unless you are engaged first, we wish to catch bastard out in open with no-where to run and hide, in city streets is too many little hidy holes for rat bastard to crawl into and vanish, we will keep eyes on until they are out in open, then like steel-jawed trap of pure justice we will break rats fucking neck, over and out," Sasha said and affirmations came in.
"Command to Webmaster how copy over?" Sasha said directly addressing Ebony and making her hair fluff as she hadn't been expecting his call.
"Loud and clear Command over," she said.
"Good job and well spotted Webmaster, you may have just cracked case wide open, get big fluffy butt in gear and stay on target, you are to aid Night eye and Eagle eye, over," he said.
"Roger that command message received and understood, over and out," she said with a thrill building through her that very nearly made her start dancing on the spot.
She was going on the hunt!
So anchoring up her web lines to the side of the building in case she falls, Ebony tipps herself over the edge and begins to rapidly walk down the vertical side of the building until she gets to the right height, then with all the strength she could muster she unleashed a little known surprise that the Tarantula genus had hidden up their many fluffy sleeves, she jumped clear across the gap onto the roof of another building.
Most people who knew of the Archnakai believed that it was only her jumpy little cousins that had the ability to jump, they looked at the big heavy Tarantulas and never imagined in a million years that they had a similar trick, but that's where they'd be completely mistaken.
There were a good few sub-gensuses of the Tarantulas that could pull off this little trick, Ebony's included.
Now granted they weren't as good or as graceful at it as their jumpy little cousins, but they still had a hell of a lot of power packed into those large legs of theirs, so when they decided to deploy it they could cover quite the gap.
Ebony landed on the rooftop with a bit of a thud but thankfully those large legs of hers acted like shock absorbers and sound absorbers allowing her to land somewhat gracefully.
Though to be fair thanks to her much larger size and weight it did take Ebony a lot more energy to pull off these jumps than her jumpy little cousins and she definitely couldn't pull off the mid-air acrobatics that they could.
Ebony used both the rooftops and the high walls to cover the distance quickly, she was also being very careful where she placed her feet as she ran across the vertical surfaces of the buildings as the last thing she wanted to do was have one of her large feet pull a loose piece of masonry clear and send it sailing down to the street below.
Because let's be fair, nothing says look the fuck up quite like a massive piece of building smashing into the ground behind you.
Above her, the two large Valkyries were circling and if it wasn't for Sasha's binoculars she'd have never seen the pair of them against the night sky but there they were, silently riding the air currents far above the buildings.
Even from here, Ebony can see the pair of them intently focused on the ground far below them, the currents of air constantly ruffling and slicking their feathers as they glide and wheel in large circles.
Soon Ebony can see the person they are following pick their way along the streets below her, she slows her pace down now so that she can keep the target in sight as she draws closer she begins to feel the movement they are making causing micro disturbances in the air that the super fine hairs all over her body are able to detect.
Now even without her eyes, she can 'see' the target and she will not lose them.
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As Angel continued down the street heading out of the city she kept feeling an odd sense of dread following her, it was like with every single step she took the weight on her shoulders got heavier and heavier and she didn't know why.
She kept looking around herself as she let her nerves get the better of her, in this world it did tend to pay to be somewhat paranoid given all the shit that tended to lurk in nearly every shadow out there, but this was ridiculous.
Suddenly she got a very odd urge to look up and as she did her heart froze in her chest.
High above her in the sky two large shapes were circling and only moments later they were joined by two others, they were all circling her in a rather large wide circle like vultures circling a body in the desert, it was the Avians.
And if they were here that meant the Free Peoples were here, her instincts had been spot on, these had been no ordinary hunters they'd sent after her.
"Fuck, gotta stay calm," Angel says softly to herself.
Her first instinct was to start shooting up at the circling humanoid birds but then she knew that would be suicidal, she was in the middle of an open street, and even if she managed to hit one of the circling Avians high above her the other three would open fire on her and without cover chances were their fire would be a hell of a lot more effective than hers would.
She could use her Pschokinis to try and knock some of them out of the air before they knew what was happening.
The problem with that plan was Pschokinisis while incredibly powerful was only a rather short-range ability, it allowed her to focus and dump an incredible amount of energy into an act like sending a blast wave out or sending a target flying through the air like they've just been picked up and thrown by a giant invisible hand or even kicked through an invisible field goal.
There were a million different ways she could use it, but with the distance involved between them and her, the only real way she could use it was to try and propel debris at them like a giant cloud of bird shot to try and take them all out of the air at the same time, or maybe scatter them long enough for her to make a break for it.
That's when it hit her, birdshot.
She looked around the street around her and smiled when she saw exactly what she was looking for.
To her right there were some train lines that ran through the open street where the subway came onto the surface for a short while, the city was littered with these above-ground join points and thankfully she was close enough to one to use it to her advantage.
So far the circling Avaians above her seemed to be oblivious to the fact that she had made them and just continued to follow her as she changed direction and headed over towards the railway lines.
As she walked she focused her mind, she began charging her abilities, pooling her energy within herself like a capacitor on a camera flash preparing to dump it in a singular powerful burst, which meant she had to get the timing spot on or this was going to fail quite spectacular.
She moved over to the tracks and began to draw a circle in the gravel that was used to bed the rails down and to hold them in place spreading the load of the trans that used to roll over them, once she had a decent mound of it she glanced skywards just long enough to gauge the distance and width.
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"What the hell are they up to, they are digging in the dirt," Celine said over the local comms channel to her fellow Valkyries as they circled their target.
"Command to Eagle Eye sit rep over," Sasha's voice came over the main comms.
"No change command, target is digging for something though I'm not sure what, they are on the railroad tracks, over," Celine said and that's when she suddenly saw the target glance upwards and her heart did a flip in her chest.
"I think we've been made..." Celine began to say and that's when the air around them simply exploded.
Small projectiles bounced off her armour and tore holes through her feathers, finding gaps between the plates and embedding themselves either into the fabric or even her flesh causing her to scream out in both alarm and pain.
As she began to fall she heard another voice burst onto the comms.
"Webmaster to all callsigns, Eagle Eye and the other Valkyries are hit! I repeat all Valkyries are hit, it was a trap!" Ebony yelled with fear in her voice.
Falling from the sky was an odd sensation, it was like being weightless and in a wind tunnel at the same time, she could hear the rushing of air all around her, she tried to use her wings to stop herself but it was useless, her feathers were tattered and ragged like torn sails trying to steer a ship, she was going to die and she knew it.
Suddenly out of no-where a massive black shape tackles her out of the air slamming into her with enough force to knock the air from her lungs, it takes her fear and confusion-riddled brain a moment to realise that the shape is that of Ebony and somehow by some fucking miracle not only has she just caught her in mid-fall but all of her friends as well.
The whole group landed on Ebony's back with a heavy thud as the massive Tarantula girl hit the ground on her eight legs, she had managed to snatch not only Celine out of the air but the others as well, she'd hit them with webs and yanked them into her as she fell causing them to use her as an impact cushion as the big Archnakai girl took the impact of their combined weight through her large legs, using them like springs to absorb the shock.
Before Celine's addled brain even had time to comprehend just what in the name of fuck was going on four more shapes came flying out of the air and landed all around them though their impacts on the ground were nowhere near as graceful.
With four huge booms Sasha and his Cossacks landed heavily and instantly threw up a defence perimeter around Ebony and her four injured charges.
"Protect Valkyries! This rat bastard will not take our new comrades from us, not one falls while we stand, Cossacks to me!" Sasha bellowed his voice sounding like raw Russian fire through the speakers of his suit.
All of the Cossacks and even Ebony bellowed a war cry together and as Ebony carried the four injured Valkyries into cover the four power-armoured soldiers opened fire on the assassin.
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As bullets and plasma began to fill the air all around her Angel was forced more than once to resort to using her Pschokinisis to send waves of force towards the four charging Brotherhood soldiers.
But these four were nothing like the Brotherhood soldiers she had faced off against before, they didn't seek cover, they didn't try to hide and flank, they simply charged right at you while pinning you down under an incredible weight of heavy weapons fire.
The calibre of the weapons they were using was absolutely insane and Angel saw huge holes being blown clean through massive railway carridges and she felt the impacts against the wave of energy that she had put up like a wall in order to run from cover to cover.
And then there was the fucking massive spider girl who had seemingly dropped from the fucking sky.
She'd never seen anything like it in her life, the spider had snatched the falling Avians from the air using her body and throwing balls of what looked to be webbing at them before pulling them into her like a collapsing parachute snapping shut and falling.
Now the big spider was acting like a guardian over the four fallen Avians and while Angel might have thought about trying to finish one or two of them off before making her escape in order to slow them down that fucking spider was armed with some kind of rotary shotgun crossed with a fucking cannon.
When she fired it sounded like someone going apeshit inside a metal bin with a whole series of hammers but it wasn't the noise that was the scary part, it was the sheer amount of lead the thing put into the air in the direction it was facing.
As she peeked her head out from around a train carriage she saw the massive gun take a car completely apart between her and the spider girl before the shot began slamming into the wall next to her forcing her to duck back again.
Angel knew she had no choice, she was going to have to use her party piece if she was going to make it out of this alive as those crazy Brotherhood soldiers were still coming right for her.
So quickly taking off her backpack and dumping her secondary weapon, Angel pulled the pin on a plasma grenade and tucked it into the side of the pack to destroy the evidence.
Then taking a deep breath she dashed out of cover and unleashed two massive waves of psychokinesis directly at the soldiers.
The waves of pure energy cut through the air like blades, folding the air around them and making them visible like the tips of a plane's wings going supersonic as they sailed towards the charging soldiers, there was more than enough force in those waves to cut their power armour clean in half and she knew it.
At the same time she turned and with the last of her stored energy, she launched herself into the air, sailing clean over the buildings and out of sight.
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Sasha and his people had just enough time to batten down before the waves of whatever the fuck the assassin had thrown at them hit them, the energy absorbers crackled all over their armour as the specially made anti-kinetic shielding went crazy because of the sheer volume of energy contained in whatever the fuck had just hit them.
When they unhunkered Sasha could see smoke rising from some of the emitters all over his armour and there were alarms going crazy within his suit, but a quick glance at the integrity readout told him the armour was not breached and the only thing that had taken damage was the kinetic shielding systems, which was exactly what they had designed it to do.
"Rat bastard has fled boss, should we give chase?" Ivan snarled to his left about a second before the was a bright green explosion from the alleyway where the assassin had been cowering from the Cossacks rage.
"No, we must regroup and tend to our fallen comrades, they are more important right now, we will catch up with rat bastard again very soon, mark my words, they are running scared now, they have tasted Cossack might and they run from it, soon they will taste full weight of it," he said and with that, he turned and began to run towards where Ebony was protecting the four fallen Valkyries.
As they arrived they saw that Ebony was already tending to the wounds of the fallen Valkyries who looked like they'd been thrown into a cement mixer filled with glass.
She appeared to be using silk from her large spinnerets to bind any wounds she could see like make-shift bandages made to order.
Sasha immediately stepped out of his power armour and dropped down to help Celine who was sitting with her back to the barricade of wreckage they were all hiding behind.
"It seems that we underestimated this assassin," she said as Sasha appeared before her and began checking her over.
"Indeed, try not to talk now, we get you fixed up then we speak on matter," Sasha said trying to keep his voice level but inside he was shaking with fury.
The sight of Celine's beautiful lush feathers tattered and destroyed like this filled him with such anger that he could barely contain it.
"Think it looks worse than it is, though I get the feeling it's going to be a while before I can fly again, the bastard ripped up my wings pretty good," Celine said lifting one of her arms and spreading her flight feathers out to show off all the damage to them.
This only served to further infuriate Sasha and he gently moved to get Celine to close her wing so that she wasn't staring at the tattered feathers and looking at the damage.
"Don't worry big girl, we will get you back in sky where you belong in no time, but for time being just means you will be joining rest of us ground pounders for a bit, but I am sure you will do just as good of job on ground as you did in sky da?" he said giving her a reassuring smile.
A weak smile flickered onto Celine's beak and she ruffled her head feathers in what could have been a show of defiance.
"A few tattered feathers and some busted wings won't keep a good Valkyrie down," she said making Sasha smile warmly at her.
"This is right attitude, ground or sky, it matters not, good soldier is good soldier and will fight on regardless," he said.
Once they had the wounded Valkyries patched up and back in the fight after being hopped up with some potent Cossack upgraded Stimpacks which most people always seemed to refer to as Super Stims the team got moving again, though this time all of them were on foot.
"Well at least Tub Thumper did job well, Ebony made very good use of big gun in that fight, plus she did very well I think," Ivan said as the team got back on the trail of their wayward assassin.
"Yes I am most impressed with big Archnakai's performance, she is natural soldier as she cares for her team and is thanks to her that our Valkyrie comrades are still with us, very well done Ebony, is good to see I was right when I said you will make fine Cossack," Sasha said turning his armoured head to give a nod to the big Archnakai girl who was scuttling along at the centre of the team.
"I agree, she saved our tails up there, her quick thinking and equally quick actions saved us from certain death, so thank you Ebony on behalf of myself and my team," Celine said to the Archnakai girl.
Ebony waved a hand to dismiss her thanks but smiled at the praise all the same.
"It was nothing, you are my friends and as Sasha puts it, comrades, we are all comrades here and it is our duty to help one another out in our time of need, you needed so I helped, simple as that," Ebony said and Sasha felt his heart swell with pride at her words causing him to nod approvingly.
"You see my fellows, I said she would make fine Cossack and was right on money as Americans say, she knows that teams are about whole and protecting whole is most important thing to Cossacks, because without your comrades you are nothing just like without you they are nothing, protect the whole and the whole will protect you, is Cossack way," Sasha said with pride in his voice.
"I'm honestly beginning to see that and it is gratifying to know that we can rely on you guys as we would our fellow Featherguards, it gives me pause for thought and makes me regretful of the way I spoke and acted when we first met, so for this I apologise," Celine said while her team all nodded their agreement.
"Is water under the bridge, we are all friends and comrades in arms now, united in mutual goals and struggle, oh and before you begin to worry big girl, your tail feathers are still worthy of admiring glances that I will be giving them now you are forced to walk where I can see them," Sasha said shooting a glance at Celine as she barked out a laugh while clacking her beak.
"Guess I'll have to walk behind you from now on then huh?' she said shooting him a surprisingly playful glance.
"Then I will simply fit wing mirrors to my armour, you should know adapt and overcome is one of many Cossack mottos," he shot back.
"He is not wrong, I once see Loony here strap body of minigun to outside of arm of power armour because Radier shoots off his carry handles, he wired entire trigger mechanism into glove of armour so that when he make fist it fire gun, we all spend a week trying to make him forget he has it so that we can get him to try and scratch own ass through armour to see what will happen," Ivan said making Celine bark out another laugh.
"Hey, what was I supposed to do? I liked that minigun and I was not going to let some tin pot little Raider take my gun away from me and get best of a Cossack!" Sasha shot back making Ivan laugh.
"It seems like you lot really have been through a lot together," Celine said and Sasha glanced at the big Condor woman.
"Cossacks live, breathe, fight and die at one another's sides, we fight so that others do not have to, we take their burdens and make them our own, we know no other way and would have it no other way either," he said.
"It's the same for the Featherguard and its elite teams like my own, we all grew up hearing the horror stories of the wastelands below our floating home as chicks, so those of us like me and my team took it upon ourselves to take up arms so that others did not have to, it is always said among the Featherguard that if every guard's man and woman stand wing to wing we can form a shield around our city and keep it safe from any who would try to harm it, if it means that our chicks grow up safe and happy in a place filled with peace and love then it is a burden we all gladly bare," she said.
"And once again it seems that you and I have more in common than we once realised," Sasha said causing Celine to shoot him a smile.
"Yeah it seems so," she said softly.
"Hate to break the train of thought here but did anyone else see the shit that the assassin threw at us, I've never seen anything like that in my life?" Ebony said and Sasha glanced at her and nodded.
"It appears that assassin is more than meets eye, but worry not our big fluffy eight-legged comrade, we Cossacks have tricks up our metal sleeves too," he said tapping his armour and making it ring.
"Yeah I was going to ask you about that, how the hell did you guys weather that hit from whatever the fuck they threw at you, it looked like they threw a wave of pure air at you," Celine said.
"Is not first time we have come up against enemy with how you would say, powers?" Sasha said and Ivan nodded at the term to confirm he was saying it right.
"Oh?" Celine asked curiously.
"Couple of years ago we were chasing mad scientist who was experimenting with new strain of FEV, you know the nasty shit that makes mutents super?" he said and Celine raised a fluffy eyebrow.
"You mean those creatures are made, I always thought that they were born of the radiation!?" she exclaimed.
"Nope they are born of man's stupidity and arrogance, is product of thing we call the FEV or Forced Evolution Virus, only it does not really evolve anything, yes is rare instances of mutants remaining same person inside as they were before change but mostly it's the complete opposite, result is angry mutants you see roaming ruins of old world," Sasha said.
"Fuck me that's messed up," Celine said in a hushed voice and Sasha nodded.
"Indeed, is no argument from me, but I digress, so this scientist gets sample of FEV and creates new strain of it, is convinced that he can use it to create true path for humanities future, that he alone can make humans what they are meant to be in his eyes, results in many casualties, imagine Ghouls with superpowers and you are somewhere close, these creatures have abilities much like our rat bastard there, so we come up with methods to reduce damage they can throw at us," Sasha said proudly.
"What kind of methods?" Celine asked curiously.
"Improved kinetic shielding for armour that can absorb tremendous amount of energy thrown at it, heat proofing for if they throw fire at us and electrical grounding so if they throw lightning it passes right through suit and into ground without ever touching person inside, is why we have coils on shoulders to act like lightning rods," Sasha said pointing to the coils one Ivan's shoulder pauldrons.
"Impressive, how does the kinetic shielding work?" Ava asked from their right.
"Is like barrier that meets force with force, when something hits armour hard enough it hits back just as hard and creates stalemate between opposing forces, cancels out force of attack, though might need some repair work after hit rat bastard assassin got us with, I still have red lights on HUD," Ivan said tilting his head as he looked at his helmet's HUD.
"Yes I hate to say it but whatever rat bastard assassin is using packs very big punch, hit me with enough force that without shields armour would likely be squashed like can under foot of big Claw girl," Sasha said.
"Sounds to me like we are going to need to be smart when engaging this enemy a second time, plus there's the fact that they can jump those incredible distances using whatever this ability of theirs is, though it does make me wonder if they can do this why don't they use it all the time to get around, why walk anywhere when they can jump like that?" Ebony said and this got them all thinking for a moment.
"Most likely is due to drain, they might tire quickly if they use too much too soon," Ivan said and Sasha felt himself smile inside his helmet.
"I do believe we may have advantage now, come listen, I have plan," he said and as they walked he began to outline what he had in mind.