11-22-2017, 03:04 AM
The next time they reached a corner, it was undefended. The time after that, however, three more thugs awaited them. This group were slightly smarter than the previous ones and chose to simply poke their weapons around the corner and fire without actually putting themselves in harm's way.
Of course, doing so meant firing wildly and blindly, and as such almost every shot they took was off-target by a large margin. At first, though, they actually (briefly) held the upper hand, having taken the squad by surprise; they could hear the stormtroopers' footsteps as they approached, yet the 'troopers could hear nothing from them, standing still as they were.
In the first volley of shots, before the squad members were able to throw themselves to the ground, two lasers actually managed to strike someone. Leon took a glancing blow in the shoulder and swore loudly, giving the gangsters around the corner appropriate cause to jeer at them. The other person hit was one of the regular 'troopers, and her injury was much more severe.
The blast struck the side of her chest, piercing a lung, if the coughing was any indication. The coughing... or the way she clutched at her chest, fell over, and soon died. After that, and much to Kroll's chagrin, Hijiri repeated his earlier bouncing and dashing around manoeuvre... though with a little less finesse this time, and more pronounced actual results.
In one swing of his blade – releasing the energy he had built up whilst moving – he decapitated a man at the neck and at the same time sliced off the top half of the skull of the woman standing next to him. Had the remaining gangster not been so horrified at seeing both her compatriots brutally and simultaneously slaughtered, she might have paid more attention to the fact that the force of the blow was so great that not only was Hijiri left completely unbalanced and vulnerable for a good couple seconds but the katana itself was yanked from his hand by its own momentum and flew onwards another few feet until it struck a wall.
As it was, by the time it even occurred to the goon that she really ought to have fired upon him when she'd had the chance, she'd already taken three shots to the chest herself, courtesy of the rest of Hijiri's squad. Despite the pain, though, she actually almost managed to take another shot. The Rabbit was leaning against a wall, struggling to control his breathing and not even looking her way. She painstakingly raised her weapon even as her internal organs were already shutting down... she couldn't possibly have had much more than a few minutes left to live, if that, yet even so, she kept at it, struggled to aim the gun with only one hand, whilst the other lay limp at her side.
She actually might have managed to pull it off too, had Trevor not been watching her. As soon as he realised what she was up to, the 'trooper put a laser through her brain.
She slumped, and her blaster made a light clanging noise as it struck the floor. Some of the others – who had assumed she was already dead and had started moving on already – Hijiri included, turned and were surprised to see that that guy had actually done something useful for once.
After begrudgingly thanking him, the Battle Rabbit and his allies kept moving...
***
… Not that they got very far.
They'd had to pass through a doorway and into an intersecting corridor in order to head towards the training section, but no sooner were they halfway down this new passage than the announcement system clicked back on, and the voice of that same man from before could be heard once more.
“Alright, you crossed the first couple hurdles easily enough, so let's see how you cope against this bunch.”
No sooner had he ceased speaking than a door to one of the rooms ahead of them slid open, at the same moment as another – an equal distance behind them – did the same. From each of the rooms charged a group of five thugs armed with heaters and bullet-guns, and as with those before, they all were dressed in the grey-on-white colours of the Wolfpack... none of them wore the same suits as had many of the goons back at the casino, though. Whether that meant these casually-dressed ones were lower ranked or whether they all simply preferred to wear less formal outfits whenever their higher-ups weren't actively forcing them to, the Rabbit wasn't sure... not that it really mattered all that much.
Guns blazed from both sides, and men and women crumpled to the ground, injured, dying or dead.
Hijiri flung himself to the ground, rolled, and was up and sprinting forwards practically the instant he saw them. This time, however, he held back on the gravity alterations. Restoring his weight back to its normal level after each fight would have been tiring enough normally, even without the lack of sleep to contend with, and simply remaining light was hardly a better option, since maintaining the effect slowly tired him for as long as it was active.
Thus, trying to fight without using it at all seemed like it might be the best move here if he hoped to last long enough to fight the Prime leading these Wolfpack goons. Of course, one major flaw with this new plan was that whereas he had previously been bouncing around the corridors faster than they could even aim their weapons his way, Hijiri was now forced to simply run straight at them.
True, he was still moving faster than all but the best of human athletes, and weaving slightly from side to side as he ran, to make it harder to get a lock on his position, yet even so, he took a shot to the leg before he had reached them. He would have taken more hits as well, most likely, if not for the fact that three of the five were already dead by the time he'd crossed the several metres which had lain between them. Having friends armed with blasters could come in pretty handy at times.
As he ran, searing pains like tongues of flame ran up and down his right leg, as if that bullet wound was actually aflame... though, on the bright side, the excruciating pain certainly kept him from feeling drowsy. He'd already drawn the katana by the time he'd reached the gangsters, but rather than striking with it immediately, he simply jabbed its scabbard into the gut of the first of them, causing the man to double over as the breath was knocked out of him.
As the second tried to aim her rifle, though, that was when the blade flicked out, singing through the air as it sought out her throat.
She reacted faster than he expected, though, bringing her long and unwieldy gun up to block before he could so much as scratch her. He swung again, at the same time raising the scabbard once more, only to bring it down on the back of the male thug's head. That man crumpled to the ground.
His female counterpart, though, proved herself once again, this time spinning her weapon around and using its stock to bat aside the sweep meant to disembowel her.
He struck again, and once more. Both times, she blocked. He could tell from her eyes that she was intensely focused on keeping up with him... yet even so, the corners of her lips twitched upwards slightly in the beginnings of a smile. Did the thug have some trap in mind, which he was unwittingly walking into? Was she pleasantly surprised to be able to actually hold her own against a Prime? Was she simply enjoying the challenge? Or was it something else entirely?
Regardless, though their duel may not have ended just yet, that smile soon did. With the man on the ground and presumably unconscious – or even dead, given that he didn't seem to be moving at all – the Battle Rabbit was free to utilise his sheathe, as well as the sword, to strike at her.
Even now, she did remarkably well, still managing to block most of his attacks... he slowly forced her back, though. Small cuts and bruises formed on her flesh as he struck glancing blows, one after the other, and she was forced backwards, further and further. Soon she had passed through the doorway via which she had just recently entered the corridor.
It was then, just as he was passing through after her, that Hijiri heard a sudden scramble behind him. Realising too late the position he had put himself in, he saw that he was no longer free to dodge to one side, not with this door frame around him.
There wasn't time to even turn and check behind him. He reacted immediately, then, knowing that even a second's hesitation could cost him his life. He had hoped to avoid this, yet in his desperation the Battle Rabbit was once again forced to reduce his personal gravitation field.
He leapt up, dropping his weapons in order to grab the upper edge of the frame and using it to swing himself up and through into the area beyond. Unarmed, now, he spun at the sound of a gunshot, his back hitting the room's ceiling as he turned to view the events below. He bounced off the ceiling slightly, but as light as he was now, and with a surface area the size of a human body, the mere fact of air resistance would mean that falling back to the ground would not be a quick process; he would drift down slower than a feather, in fact.
Three more gunshots came in rapid succession, with not the slightest pause after the first. By this point, though, he was in a position to be able to watch as they struck home.
The female gangster, whether through tremendous skill or unbelievable luck, actually managed to use the body of her rifle to deflect a bullet as it sped towards her; she had been standing directly in front of Hijiri before his leap, meaning that as he had successfully evaded them, each of the bullets meant to bury themselves in his back had headed on towards her instead.
One, she somehow had knocked aside... the other three, however... not so much.
She staggered back, the rifle slipping from numbing fingers. She reached up to touch the holes in her chest. For a moment she seemed to try and staunch the flow of blood, before realising the futility of such an action and giving up, uncovering the wounds and simply staring in shock down at her dripping, crimson hands.
“No, no, no!” in from the corridor beyond, the shooter – the man Hijiri had assumed unconscious – rushed in, dashing over to the woman and grabbing her shoulders as he shook his head in disbelief, “No! Oh, shit! This wasn't supposed to happen!”
Hijiri's feet touched down lightly on the ground as the female gangster stumbled, then collapsed, slipping from that man's grip. The NSW goon fell to his knees beside her, so distraught over having fatally injured the woman that he never even noticed as the Rabbit walked up behind him... though it certainly helped that with his weight being negligible by this point, Hijiri's steps were practically silent.
He retrieved the discarded katana and spent several seconds pouring his energy into it, before bringing it down in a lazy chop aimed to terminate in the centre of the skull of the man currently yelling at his dying ally and shaking her roughly... clearly not remotely experienced in any sort of first aid. Hijiri guessed they must have known each other pretty well for the guy to get so worked up about her impending death when losing those other three had hardly seemed to affect him at all... though perhaps that was simply due to the guilt of having accidentally killed her himself, rather simply seeing her die by the hands of another?
Either way, it wasn't as if it mattered now. In the moment he released his charging power the blade he held instantly became far heavier than anyone who had observed its slim design would ever deem reasonable and, just a second later, landed with a meaty 'thunk'; cleaving the thug's head right down the middle, almost to the base of the neck. The man froze... then slowly toppled forwards.
Hijiri released his grip on his weapon's hilt; it weighed so much right now that he'd have been dragged off his feet if he tried to hold on, given how light the rest of his body currently was.
Once more, he was forced to exchange stamina for weight over the course of several seconds, though this time the exhaustion was even more pronounced than before; he stumbled dizzily as everything in the room seemed to blur... and multiply. There were suddenly two swords, two corpses with cleaved heads, two blood-soaked women with gunshot wounds in their chests.
He stumbled. Tried to reach out with one arm to steady himself, but somehow missed the wall he'd been aiming for. His right shoulder and temple struck steel at the same moment, and he groaned, sinking down into a heap.
He screwed his eyes shut as he struggled for breath. That smack on the head had just made his vision multiply yet again; closing his eyes was really just about all he could do at this point... just close his eyes and wait it out.
…
Ugh.
Had he slept?
Hijiri blinked repeatedly, suppressing a yawn. Nothing much seemed to have changed in his immediate surroundings, except that that woman had finally given up the ghost and died... though considering she couldn't possibly have survived more than a few minutes after taking three shots to her vital organs, that didn't exactly tell him much.
His vision seemed to have recovered, though his limbs might as well have been made of lead, so he presumably hadn't been unconscious long enough to actually have gotten any rest, alas. Coming from out in the hallway he heard the muffled sound of someone's conversation, though couldn't make out the words.
Damn... the others had been shot at too. Any of them could be dead or dying right now. He might not be the best at this whole 'healing-with-Omnilium' thing, but he had to try and help, if he possibly could. The Battle Rabbit struggled up onto his feet, his entire body violently protesting against this course of action, his every muscle screaming at him.
Staggering over to the katana – which had helpfully lost its additional weight the moment he lost consciousness – he found it wasn't all that hard to retrieve the blade from the shattered wreck of his latest victim's skull. This effect – the automatic cancellation of the gravity alteration whenever he passed out – might actually have been pretty useful as an energy-saving trick if he had some way of quickly and reliably falling asleep after each fight without having to smack his head against a thick lump of steel to do so... as it was, though, he'd probably be better off simply using his normal method of ending it. Exhaustion was bad, but he got the feeling that severe brain damage was probably ever so slightly more of a handicap.
Trudging out into the corridor, he saw that all of their attackers had been dealt with; no surprise there. Unfortunately, being surrounded had taken its toll on the squad.
At first he couldn't be sure who had actually been hit and who was simply crouching down and trying their best to administer first aid... despite not having any actual first aid supplies. As he closed in, though, he began to make out faces... and almost immediately, a wash of guilt rolled over him, as he spotted Priya on the ground, with the lower half of her breastplate removed as Leon pressed both hands to a gunshot wound in her abdomen, doing his best to staunch the flow of blood.
He hadn't seen any of what happened, but it seemed a rather fair bet to the Prime that had she had the full use of both arms, she would have been better equipped to fight and thus would have had far lower odds of falling in battle.
Leon had taken a glancing shot to the leg as well, though he seemed not to have even noticed. Trevor had escaped unharmed, somehow, despite the bodies of two helmeted 'troopers near him having both been riddled with bullets and lasers... which gave Hijiri the distinct impression that the coward had most likely just hidden behind the others until the combat was all but over, rather than actually putting himself in harm's way.
Kroll's left arm hung limp and bloodied at his side, Brandon had lost an ear and had been hit in the shin as well and Jallus had been shot a couple times too, though neither of his injuries seemed serious. Frank, on the other hand, had clearly fared the worst of all the survivors... yet somehow had remained standing. It probably helped that all of his wounds seemed to have come from blasters and were thus cauterised, rather than bleeding... though the fact that he had his flask out and was drinking copious amounts from it likely also had something to do with his miraculous – though undoubtedly temporary – resistance to what surely must have been fatal wounds.
“Shit.” Hijiri muttered as he got closer. Turning away from the reinforcement strormtrooper he'd been attempting to help, Kroll glaced over his shoulder at Hijiri.
“Good. It seems you've survived, at least. This all most likely wouldn't have been doable if you'd gotten yourself killed over there like we'd thought you might have.”
Too tired to even make a comment about the 'sergeant''s lack of faith or explain what had actually happened through in the other room, Hijiri simply said, “What might be doable, Iechtelstier? This is over. I can hardly even put one foot in front of-”
As if to prove his point, the Battle Rabbit stumbled suddenly and almost fell, barely managing to catch himself in time to prevent that. He stopped moving and instead simply focused on remaining upright... an effort which he found to require far more concentration than it really had any right to, in his opinion.
“-the other... and look at you all. That guy could easily have a dozen or so more goons about, and he claims to be a Prime himself? We have to leave and call in backup, that's the only way we stand a chance of making it through this alive.”
Kroll scowled and shook his head. Before he could speak, though, their unknown announcer showed up again to mock them, “Oh yes, please do. Run away with your tails between your legs, beaten and bloodied, and let all those hopeful fools see what really happens when some uppity squad of swine gets it into their thick heads that they can actually challenge the Wolfpack.”
As the man started laughing, the white-haired former nobleman's scowl transformed into a snarl.
“We're not running anywhere. Takanomiya, we've talked it over and decided to take a detour. The medical bay is only a short distance from here. We'll head there first to see what can be done for our wounded, before leaving those who can't fight with a guard or two if we can spare them, and heading on to take out this guy ourselves.
“It's suicide.” Hijiri growled back, “Even with a full squad, properly rested and healed, we might have a hard time taking down a powerful Prime. If this guy is tough then we're completely screwed.”
“Aha! Nice to see someone gets it!” laughed the voice from the speakers, “But y'know, since I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you worthless Secondaries go load up on painkillers and bandages if you want... it's not like it'll make the tiniest bit of difference, haha!”
Click. The speakers shut down once more.
“Aaaand he knows you plan on going there.” the Rabbit shook his head, “This isn't just stupid, it's madness.”
“We're doing it.” Kroll spat, refusing to relent; refusing for one moment to admit to himself that they might be in over their heads. It was a good quality for a rank-and-file soldier, that refusal to desert their duty, no matter the cost... but not so much in a ranking officer. That sort of stubborn thinking was the kind of thing that led to sending battalions of troops marching needlessly to their deaths, rather than simply calling a retreat.
If not for the fact that Kroll was never going to live long enough to reach a higher rank at this rate, Hijiri would have worried over what it could mean in the future.
***
They moved at a positively tedious pace, given the Prime's exhaustion and the others' injuries, yet still eventually reached the double doors to the medical bay, having not run into a single other person after the ambush in that corridor.
It would seem that their mysterious antagonist was actually keeping to his word.
Or rather, it did seem that way, until Kroll swung open those doors and was promptly shot twice. He toppled forwards immediately, and with their view now unobstructed, the rest of them could all clearly see the six NSW thugs sitting casually in the wreck that was their barracks' hospital, each one aiming a gun their way.
“End of the line, swine.” the announcer commented suddenly, then spoke to his minions, “Do it.”
Hijiri dropped into a crouch as the firing started, then began to charge forwards as fast as his leaden limbs could carry him, laboriously dragging his blade free of its scabbard.
The fight was... a blur, honestly...
He stumbled and flailed, slaying two of the gangsters himself before his squad-mates had put down the rest... though doing so cost him dearly.
As tired as he was, and now suffering serious blood loss to boot, he had trouble focusing well enough to even make out any of his bullet wounds, let alone count them... just about all he could tell was that his entire chest felt numb, now, and seemed far too red to possibly be healthy...
He tried to take a step forwards, but tripped instead and fell to the side, landing in a heap of broken machinery which had once been some sort of life support equipment. That hurt... at least, for a moment. Though, happily, the numbness seemed to be spreading all through his body now, rather than simply restricting itself to his chest...
He smiled slightly. A bit of rest would do him good, he was sure. He'd feel better and then they could all get back to...
To...
What was it, again?
He had this nagging suspicion that there was something he was supposed to be doing right now, but he was just so tired he couldn't focus on... whatever it was.
He'd been awake for well over thirty hours by this point and had repeatedly exhausted himself today... right now he was so worn out he couldn't focus on anything at all... other than rest.
He closed his eyes, sinking into the blissful darkness of slee-
Slap.
Ugh.
Slap.
Aughh.
Slap.
He audibly groaned this time, and slowly dragged his eyes open, getting the distinct impression as he did that his eyelids had been replaced with sandpaper somehow. It hurt.
“Wha...?” he murmured in a dry voice... not 'dry' in the sense of speaking in a matter-of-fact tone for humorous effect, but merely 'dry' as in being dehydrated.
“No.” Jallus Reiner, the man who had been repeatedly hitting him, said coldly, “You're not allowed to pass out. Not yet. You see this?”
Jallus roughly dragged him from his resting place... well... Hijiri thought it was roughly... probably, though that numbness still suffused much of his body, so he couldn't be too sure. The dark-skinned 'trooper didn't seem to be putting much effort into not bumping him against random objects, though... so yeah, he was probably being pretty rough about it.
Before long, Jallus stopped.
“You see this? You know what that is, corporal?” Hijiri groaned in response to the question, and Jallus slapped him again, “That's the medical droid. What's left of it. Now, you're gonna repair it or summon a new one, whatever's faster. If you don't we're all fucked. So get a move on.”
“Righ', righ'” the Prime mumbled. Even with his head as... fuzzy as it currently was, the Rabbit was able to call up from inside of himself some vague recollection of what the medical droid should look like...
He worked... fighting off sleep the entire time...
It might have been just minutes later when he finally finished, or it might have been hours; he was too tired to tell.
The last dim thought that flickered in Hijiri's head before he passed out was that the medical droid seemed slightly off... he couldn't put his finger on what it was, exactly, but he was sure there was some minor difference there...
Of course, doing so meant firing wildly and blindly, and as such almost every shot they took was off-target by a large margin. At first, though, they actually (briefly) held the upper hand, having taken the squad by surprise; they could hear the stormtroopers' footsteps as they approached, yet the 'troopers could hear nothing from them, standing still as they were.
In the first volley of shots, before the squad members were able to throw themselves to the ground, two lasers actually managed to strike someone. Leon took a glancing blow in the shoulder and swore loudly, giving the gangsters around the corner appropriate cause to jeer at them. The other person hit was one of the regular 'troopers, and her injury was much more severe.
The blast struck the side of her chest, piercing a lung, if the coughing was any indication. The coughing... or the way she clutched at her chest, fell over, and soon died. After that, and much to Kroll's chagrin, Hijiri repeated his earlier bouncing and dashing around manoeuvre... though with a little less finesse this time, and more pronounced actual results.
In one swing of his blade – releasing the energy he had built up whilst moving – he decapitated a man at the neck and at the same time sliced off the top half of the skull of the woman standing next to him. Had the remaining gangster not been so horrified at seeing both her compatriots brutally and simultaneously slaughtered, she might have paid more attention to the fact that the force of the blow was so great that not only was Hijiri left completely unbalanced and vulnerable for a good couple seconds but the katana itself was yanked from his hand by its own momentum and flew onwards another few feet until it struck a wall.
As it was, by the time it even occurred to the goon that she really ought to have fired upon him when she'd had the chance, she'd already taken three shots to the chest herself, courtesy of the rest of Hijiri's squad. Despite the pain, though, she actually almost managed to take another shot. The Rabbit was leaning against a wall, struggling to control his breathing and not even looking her way. She painstakingly raised her weapon even as her internal organs were already shutting down... she couldn't possibly have had much more than a few minutes left to live, if that, yet even so, she kept at it, struggled to aim the gun with only one hand, whilst the other lay limp at her side.
She actually might have managed to pull it off too, had Trevor not been watching her. As soon as he realised what she was up to, the 'trooper put a laser through her brain.
She slumped, and her blaster made a light clanging noise as it struck the floor. Some of the others – who had assumed she was already dead and had started moving on already – Hijiri included, turned and were surprised to see that that guy had actually done something useful for once.
After begrudgingly thanking him, the Battle Rabbit and his allies kept moving...
***
… Not that they got very far.
They'd had to pass through a doorway and into an intersecting corridor in order to head towards the training section, but no sooner were they halfway down this new passage than the announcement system clicked back on, and the voice of that same man from before could be heard once more.
“Alright, you crossed the first couple hurdles easily enough, so let's see how you cope against this bunch.”
No sooner had he ceased speaking than a door to one of the rooms ahead of them slid open, at the same moment as another – an equal distance behind them – did the same. From each of the rooms charged a group of five thugs armed with heaters and bullet-guns, and as with those before, they all were dressed in the grey-on-white colours of the Wolfpack... none of them wore the same suits as had many of the goons back at the casino, though. Whether that meant these casually-dressed ones were lower ranked or whether they all simply preferred to wear less formal outfits whenever their higher-ups weren't actively forcing them to, the Rabbit wasn't sure... not that it really mattered all that much.
Guns blazed from both sides, and men and women crumpled to the ground, injured, dying or dead.
Hijiri flung himself to the ground, rolled, and was up and sprinting forwards practically the instant he saw them. This time, however, he held back on the gravity alterations. Restoring his weight back to its normal level after each fight would have been tiring enough normally, even without the lack of sleep to contend with, and simply remaining light was hardly a better option, since maintaining the effect slowly tired him for as long as it was active.
Thus, trying to fight without using it at all seemed like it might be the best move here if he hoped to last long enough to fight the Prime leading these Wolfpack goons. Of course, one major flaw with this new plan was that whereas he had previously been bouncing around the corridors faster than they could even aim their weapons his way, Hijiri was now forced to simply run straight at them.
True, he was still moving faster than all but the best of human athletes, and weaving slightly from side to side as he ran, to make it harder to get a lock on his position, yet even so, he took a shot to the leg before he had reached them. He would have taken more hits as well, most likely, if not for the fact that three of the five were already dead by the time he'd crossed the several metres which had lain between them. Having friends armed with blasters could come in pretty handy at times.
As he ran, searing pains like tongues of flame ran up and down his right leg, as if that bullet wound was actually aflame... though, on the bright side, the excruciating pain certainly kept him from feeling drowsy. He'd already drawn the katana by the time he'd reached the gangsters, but rather than striking with it immediately, he simply jabbed its scabbard into the gut of the first of them, causing the man to double over as the breath was knocked out of him.
As the second tried to aim her rifle, though, that was when the blade flicked out, singing through the air as it sought out her throat.
She reacted faster than he expected, though, bringing her long and unwieldy gun up to block before he could so much as scratch her. He swung again, at the same time raising the scabbard once more, only to bring it down on the back of the male thug's head. That man crumpled to the ground.
His female counterpart, though, proved herself once again, this time spinning her weapon around and using its stock to bat aside the sweep meant to disembowel her.
He struck again, and once more. Both times, she blocked. He could tell from her eyes that she was intensely focused on keeping up with him... yet even so, the corners of her lips twitched upwards slightly in the beginnings of a smile. Did the thug have some trap in mind, which he was unwittingly walking into? Was she pleasantly surprised to be able to actually hold her own against a Prime? Was she simply enjoying the challenge? Or was it something else entirely?
Regardless, though their duel may not have ended just yet, that smile soon did. With the man on the ground and presumably unconscious – or even dead, given that he didn't seem to be moving at all – the Battle Rabbit was free to utilise his sheathe, as well as the sword, to strike at her.
Even now, she did remarkably well, still managing to block most of his attacks... he slowly forced her back, though. Small cuts and bruises formed on her flesh as he struck glancing blows, one after the other, and she was forced backwards, further and further. Soon she had passed through the doorway via which she had just recently entered the corridor.
It was then, just as he was passing through after her, that Hijiri heard a sudden scramble behind him. Realising too late the position he had put himself in, he saw that he was no longer free to dodge to one side, not with this door frame around him.
There wasn't time to even turn and check behind him. He reacted immediately, then, knowing that even a second's hesitation could cost him his life. He had hoped to avoid this, yet in his desperation the Battle Rabbit was once again forced to reduce his personal gravitation field.
He leapt up, dropping his weapons in order to grab the upper edge of the frame and using it to swing himself up and through into the area beyond. Unarmed, now, he spun at the sound of a gunshot, his back hitting the room's ceiling as he turned to view the events below. He bounced off the ceiling slightly, but as light as he was now, and with a surface area the size of a human body, the mere fact of air resistance would mean that falling back to the ground would not be a quick process; he would drift down slower than a feather, in fact.
Three more gunshots came in rapid succession, with not the slightest pause after the first. By this point, though, he was in a position to be able to watch as they struck home.
The female gangster, whether through tremendous skill or unbelievable luck, actually managed to use the body of her rifle to deflect a bullet as it sped towards her; she had been standing directly in front of Hijiri before his leap, meaning that as he had successfully evaded them, each of the bullets meant to bury themselves in his back had headed on towards her instead.
One, she somehow had knocked aside... the other three, however... not so much.
She staggered back, the rifle slipping from numbing fingers. She reached up to touch the holes in her chest. For a moment she seemed to try and staunch the flow of blood, before realising the futility of such an action and giving up, uncovering the wounds and simply staring in shock down at her dripping, crimson hands.
“No, no, no!” in from the corridor beyond, the shooter – the man Hijiri had assumed unconscious – rushed in, dashing over to the woman and grabbing her shoulders as he shook his head in disbelief, “No! Oh, shit! This wasn't supposed to happen!”
Hijiri's feet touched down lightly on the ground as the female gangster stumbled, then collapsed, slipping from that man's grip. The NSW goon fell to his knees beside her, so distraught over having fatally injured the woman that he never even noticed as the Rabbit walked up behind him... though it certainly helped that with his weight being negligible by this point, Hijiri's steps were practically silent.
He retrieved the discarded katana and spent several seconds pouring his energy into it, before bringing it down in a lazy chop aimed to terminate in the centre of the skull of the man currently yelling at his dying ally and shaking her roughly... clearly not remotely experienced in any sort of first aid. Hijiri guessed they must have known each other pretty well for the guy to get so worked up about her impending death when losing those other three had hardly seemed to affect him at all... though perhaps that was simply due to the guilt of having accidentally killed her himself, rather simply seeing her die by the hands of another?
Either way, it wasn't as if it mattered now. In the moment he released his charging power the blade he held instantly became far heavier than anyone who had observed its slim design would ever deem reasonable and, just a second later, landed with a meaty 'thunk'; cleaving the thug's head right down the middle, almost to the base of the neck. The man froze... then slowly toppled forwards.
Hijiri released his grip on his weapon's hilt; it weighed so much right now that he'd have been dragged off his feet if he tried to hold on, given how light the rest of his body currently was.
Once more, he was forced to exchange stamina for weight over the course of several seconds, though this time the exhaustion was even more pronounced than before; he stumbled dizzily as everything in the room seemed to blur... and multiply. There were suddenly two swords, two corpses with cleaved heads, two blood-soaked women with gunshot wounds in their chests.
He stumbled. Tried to reach out with one arm to steady himself, but somehow missed the wall he'd been aiming for. His right shoulder and temple struck steel at the same moment, and he groaned, sinking down into a heap.
He screwed his eyes shut as he struggled for breath. That smack on the head had just made his vision multiply yet again; closing his eyes was really just about all he could do at this point... just close his eyes and wait it out.
…
Ugh.
Had he slept?
Hijiri blinked repeatedly, suppressing a yawn. Nothing much seemed to have changed in his immediate surroundings, except that that woman had finally given up the ghost and died... though considering she couldn't possibly have survived more than a few minutes after taking three shots to her vital organs, that didn't exactly tell him much.
His vision seemed to have recovered, though his limbs might as well have been made of lead, so he presumably hadn't been unconscious long enough to actually have gotten any rest, alas. Coming from out in the hallway he heard the muffled sound of someone's conversation, though couldn't make out the words.
Damn... the others had been shot at too. Any of them could be dead or dying right now. He might not be the best at this whole 'healing-with-Omnilium' thing, but he had to try and help, if he possibly could. The Battle Rabbit struggled up onto his feet, his entire body violently protesting against this course of action, his every muscle screaming at him.
Staggering over to the katana – which had helpfully lost its additional weight the moment he lost consciousness – he found it wasn't all that hard to retrieve the blade from the shattered wreck of his latest victim's skull. This effect – the automatic cancellation of the gravity alteration whenever he passed out – might actually have been pretty useful as an energy-saving trick if he had some way of quickly and reliably falling asleep after each fight without having to smack his head against a thick lump of steel to do so... as it was, though, he'd probably be better off simply using his normal method of ending it. Exhaustion was bad, but he got the feeling that severe brain damage was probably ever so slightly more of a handicap.
Trudging out into the corridor, he saw that all of their attackers had been dealt with; no surprise there. Unfortunately, being surrounded had taken its toll on the squad.
At first he couldn't be sure who had actually been hit and who was simply crouching down and trying their best to administer first aid... despite not having any actual first aid supplies. As he closed in, though, he began to make out faces... and almost immediately, a wash of guilt rolled over him, as he spotted Priya on the ground, with the lower half of her breastplate removed as Leon pressed both hands to a gunshot wound in her abdomen, doing his best to staunch the flow of blood.
He hadn't seen any of what happened, but it seemed a rather fair bet to the Prime that had she had the full use of both arms, she would have been better equipped to fight and thus would have had far lower odds of falling in battle.
Leon had taken a glancing shot to the leg as well, though he seemed not to have even noticed. Trevor had escaped unharmed, somehow, despite the bodies of two helmeted 'troopers near him having both been riddled with bullets and lasers... which gave Hijiri the distinct impression that the coward had most likely just hidden behind the others until the combat was all but over, rather than actually putting himself in harm's way.
Kroll's left arm hung limp and bloodied at his side, Brandon had lost an ear and had been hit in the shin as well and Jallus had been shot a couple times too, though neither of his injuries seemed serious. Frank, on the other hand, had clearly fared the worst of all the survivors... yet somehow had remained standing. It probably helped that all of his wounds seemed to have come from blasters and were thus cauterised, rather than bleeding... though the fact that he had his flask out and was drinking copious amounts from it likely also had something to do with his miraculous – though undoubtedly temporary – resistance to what surely must have been fatal wounds.
“Shit.” Hijiri muttered as he got closer. Turning away from the reinforcement strormtrooper he'd been attempting to help, Kroll glaced over his shoulder at Hijiri.
“Good. It seems you've survived, at least. This all most likely wouldn't have been doable if you'd gotten yourself killed over there like we'd thought you might have.”
Too tired to even make a comment about the 'sergeant''s lack of faith or explain what had actually happened through in the other room, Hijiri simply said, “What might be doable, Iechtelstier? This is over. I can hardly even put one foot in front of-”
As if to prove his point, the Battle Rabbit stumbled suddenly and almost fell, barely managing to catch himself in time to prevent that. He stopped moving and instead simply focused on remaining upright... an effort which he found to require far more concentration than it really had any right to, in his opinion.
“-the other... and look at you all. That guy could easily have a dozen or so more goons about, and he claims to be a Prime himself? We have to leave and call in backup, that's the only way we stand a chance of making it through this alive.”
Kroll scowled and shook his head. Before he could speak, though, their unknown announcer showed up again to mock them, “Oh yes, please do. Run away with your tails between your legs, beaten and bloodied, and let all those hopeful fools see what really happens when some uppity squad of swine gets it into their thick heads that they can actually challenge the Wolfpack.”
As the man started laughing, the white-haired former nobleman's scowl transformed into a snarl.
“We're not running anywhere. Takanomiya, we've talked it over and decided to take a detour. The medical bay is only a short distance from here. We'll head there first to see what can be done for our wounded, before leaving those who can't fight with a guard or two if we can spare them, and heading on to take out this guy ourselves.
“It's suicide.” Hijiri growled back, “Even with a full squad, properly rested and healed, we might have a hard time taking down a powerful Prime. If this guy is tough then we're completely screwed.”
“Aha! Nice to see someone gets it!” laughed the voice from the speakers, “But y'know, since I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you worthless Secondaries go load up on painkillers and bandages if you want... it's not like it'll make the tiniest bit of difference, haha!”
Click. The speakers shut down once more.
“Aaaand he knows you plan on going there.” the Rabbit shook his head, “This isn't just stupid, it's madness.”
“We're doing it.” Kroll spat, refusing to relent; refusing for one moment to admit to himself that they might be in over their heads. It was a good quality for a rank-and-file soldier, that refusal to desert their duty, no matter the cost... but not so much in a ranking officer. That sort of stubborn thinking was the kind of thing that led to sending battalions of troops marching needlessly to their deaths, rather than simply calling a retreat.
If not for the fact that Kroll was never going to live long enough to reach a higher rank at this rate, Hijiri would have worried over what it could mean in the future.
***
They moved at a positively tedious pace, given the Prime's exhaustion and the others' injuries, yet still eventually reached the double doors to the medical bay, having not run into a single other person after the ambush in that corridor.
It would seem that their mysterious antagonist was actually keeping to his word.
Or rather, it did seem that way, until Kroll swung open those doors and was promptly shot twice. He toppled forwards immediately, and with their view now unobstructed, the rest of them could all clearly see the six NSW thugs sitting casually in the wreck that was their barracks' hospital, each one aiming a gun their way.
“End of the line, swine.” the announcer commented suddenly, then spoke to his minions, “Do it.”
Hijiri dropped into a crouch as the firing started, then began to charge forwards as fast as his leaden limbs could carry him, laboriously dragging his blade free of its scabbard.
The fight was... a blur, honestly...
He stumbled and flailed, slaying two of the gangsters himself before his squad-mates had put down the rest... though doing so cost him dearly.
As tired as he was, and now suffering serious blood loss to boot, he had trouble focusing well enough to even make out any of his bullet wounds, let alone count them... just about all he could tell was that his entire chest felt numb, now, and seemed far too red to possibly be healthy...
He tried to take a step forwards, but tripped instead and fell to the side, landing in a heap of broken machinery which had once been some sort of life support equipment. That hurt... at least, for a moment. Though, happily, the numbness seemed to be spreading all through his body now, rather than simply restricting itself to his chest...
He smiled slightly. A bit of rest would do him good, he was sure. He'd feel better and then they could all get back to...
To...
What was it, again?
He had this nagging suspicion that there was something he was supposed to be doing right now, but he was just so tired he couldn't focus on... whatever it was.
He'd been awake for well over thirty hours by this point and had repeatedly exhausted himself today... right now he was so worn out he couldn't focus on anything at all... other than rest.
He closed his eyes, sinking into the blissful darkness of slee-
Slap.
Ugh.
Slap.
Aughh.
Slap.
He audibly groaned this time, and slowly dragged his eyes open, getting the distinct impression as he did that his eyelids had been replaced with sandpaper somehow. It hurt.
“Wha...?” he murmured in a dry voice... not 'dry' in the sense of speaking in a matter-of-fact tone for humorous effect, but merely 'dry' as in being dehydrated.
“No.” Jallus Reiner, the man who had been repeatedly hitting him, said coldly, “You're not allowed to pass out. Not yet. You see this?”
Jallus roughly dragged him from his resting place... well... Hijiri thought it was roughly... probably, though that numbness still suffused much of his body, so he couldn't be too sure. The dark-skinned 'trooper didn't seem to be putting much effort into not bumping him against random objects, though... so yeah, he was probably being pretty rough about it.
Before long, Jallus stopped.
“You see this? You know what that is, corporal?” Hijiri groaned in response to the question, and Jallus slapped him again, “That's the medical droid. What's left of it. Now, you're gonna repair it or summon a new one, whatever's faster. If you don't we're all fucked. So get a move on.”
“Righ', righ'” the Prime mumbled. Even with his head as... fuzzy as it currently was, the Rabbit was able to call up from inside of himself some vague recollection of what the medical droid should look like...
He worked... fighting off sleep the entire time...
It might have been just minutes later when he finally finished, or it might have been hours; he was too tired to tell.
The last dim thought that flickered in Hijiri's head before he passed out was that the medical droid seemed slightly off... he couldn't put his finger on what it was, exactly, but he was sure there was some minor difference there...
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)