Incredibly, impossibly… incredibly impossibly… Regan utterly failed to be felled by the multiple stunner beams. Her limbs went rigid and she threw her shoulders back and her spine contorted. Her face froze.
For a painfully protracted moment it seemed as though she would topple over backwards for certain, but then she gave an almighty shudder. Her muscles, refusing to be contained by the torpor that had enveloped them, twisted and spasmed beneath her skin. Her face writhed with a rage that was painful to watch. Her already spiky hair became downright jagged.
With a cry that could have made rivers run uphill in fear of it, the warrior prince fell upon her opponents in a rage.
The warp-spasm was not a state of senseless violence, but of incredibly sensate and sensual violence. Her senses were heightened to take in the whole world, take it in and make it a part of herself.
Her opponents seemed to be standing still, not the least because they were standing still in the face of this totally unexpected response to their stunners. Her bulging eye took in every tiny movement of their armored bodies, every detail of them. Their filtered breath, the whine their joints made… these tiny sounds were like a mosquito buzzing in Regan’s ears, and the thudding of her own pulse combined with it and became overlaid into that of an ancient battle hymn, wordless and tuneless and terrible.
Regan was not conscious in the slightest of the inadequacy of her improvised weapons, because was not conscious of them at all. They had ceased to exist except as extensions of herself, and she was not inadequate. She was the only solid thing in the world of noise and light. Mere wraiths stood before her, and she knew that all she had to do to end them was to reach out and touch them, to merge with them, to fill them with her reality.
Regan reached out.
She touched.
She ended.
Followed from an external point of view, of course, it looked quite a bit different, but it was no less impressive. The armor suits had no “weak spots”, as such… no conveniently placed gaps where it was possible to take a straight blade and stick it through. But a mechanic’s genius was guiding Regan through her rage-dance, and she attacked the construction of the armor, removing plates, disabling motors and circuitry, and exposing the soft spots beneath.
In the throes of the warp-spasm, Regan did not distinguish between man and machine. She ripped out the vital parts of the foes who stood in her way… not everyone felled by her whirlwind attacks was left dead in a conventional sense, but none of them were capable of getting back up and challenging her.
Lilliana had witnessed Regan’s puissance in combat when the change overtook her, and as soon as she recognized what was happening, she felt hope resurging. Regan was cutting a path through the immediate obstacle—including, most likely, Fortunato. She could be taken out as soon as somebody broke out something more substantial than a stunner, but they might not have the chance as Cicada and the others were coming up fast.
But then, with the sound of Regan’s slaughter echoing from outside, the man himself slipped through the door, his saber and pistol drawn.
Discuss this story on the Livejournal feed.
« « 93: Playing Defense 95: Letting Go » »Note: I'm trying out a new comment system. It's new and subject to jiggerypokery. It's moderated. Detailed guidelines to come but follow the general rule: be excellent to each other.
If you enjoy reading, please consider a financial contribution.
« « 93: Playing Defense 95: Letting Go » »