<+=/ Jenna \=+>

Jenna sprinted across the crystal sorting room to the far wall, between the two freight doors on the right side. She let her back slam into the metal structure, where it groaned and bent slightly under the force. Back at the crystal pile, Lycra was steadying his breathing and holding both hands out in front of him. Jenna tried to steady herself as well. Her genius was struggling, and there was something deeper to that than his worry about the delay. But she had a way to alleviate him - and further the mission.

She bit the inside of her lip until she tasted blood, and turned to what appeared to be the ranking warrior next to her. Any problem that didn't need to be solved now was just a distraction, and she had to be focused. Everyone needed to be focused. Now wasn't the time to mince words.

"Lycra needs that crystal cart. I'm going to go get it. Give me cover fire if you can."

Jenna took a long breath, and looked down at her burgundy and silver patchwork armor. Her suit itself was skinnier than the other creations, and one of a kind. Lycra had passed off the special treatment as necessary so she could conceivably wear it whilst piloting Wing. The reality, she knew, was that he'd spent five times as long on her suit as any other. Whether because of her skill or his crafting, Jenna felt in tune with this suit. And she felt that she could do this.

One by one, she raised her legs and spun her feet on the heel. The motion was smooth and quick. She adjusted her helmet, tried to roll her shoulders, and hopped twice in place. The weight of the suit slammed back down to the floor on her second hop, and the noise grabbed the attention of the rest of their soldiers. The man next to her made a series of hand signals. She recognized 'cover', 'lone', and 'retrieve'. It was enough - the word was out.

Jenna broke cover in a sprinter's crouch, and kicked hard off the metal floor. The hall before her was thick with projectiles in either direction. They ricocheted off walls and the floor. They hit the ceiling and shook pipes and vents that were already scored and burned. They plinked against the walls her fellow Vuxarinans used as cover, searching for a body to impact - a life to end.

As soon as Jenna was fully out of cover, that fire focused on her.

She raised an armored forearm in front of her face for protection - and felt the first impacts. A shot to her elbow caused Jenna to slap her helmet with the back of a gauntlet. One hit to a shin mid-stride threw her off balance, but she managed to stay upright. Her suit prevented damage and carried her swiftly forwards as the space erupted with a new level of attempted violence. Someone at the end of the hallway screamed. From her side, a soldier launched a crystal that slammed into the floor in front of her and grew into a solid wall of ice.

Jenna let herself slide down to its base, and panted. She took a moment to inspect herself. Her amor was pitted and dented in multiple places. Her heart was hammering in her chest. There was a trickle of blood from the elbow that had been hit, evidence of a wound she hadn't felt or noticed. If she kept moving, maybe she wouldn't experience the pain at all. She peeked around the wall, which was being picked apart by shots and magic at an increasing rate.

She was just behind the midpoint of the hall, defined by the remains of the turrets on either side. There was a burgundy-armored body next to one of the turrets, and a Vuxarinan soldier another just beyond that. Her people had tried to take the hall and press forward. They tried and they failed. Fell. And Lycra was probably blaming himself for-

Jenna shook the thought from her head. A chunk of ice fell and crumbled on the floor. The wall wasn't going to last... but it had been effective.

She moved a hand to the small metal canister set into her armor. She had two defensive crystals, as a measure of last resort. This seemed like enough of an emergency to use them. Without hesitation, Jenna grabbed one of the pair and threw it forward towards the cart. Roots sprang from the floor and coiled together to make a tall wooden wall. Looking back at the Vuxarinan controlled side of the hall, Jenna watched as one soldier used what she could only describe as a magical slingshot to launch more defensive crystals, leading up to her wood wall, and farther forwards. They were doing what they could to hold the enemy back, and give her more cover. She let out a breath, and pushed on.

As soon as her head was around the side of the ice wall, the fire concentrated on her once again. Each impact shook the suit, and her body inside it. More magic joined the mundane projectiles targeting her. A lance of yellow flame missed her neck by inches, and singed her skin near the collar. An attack that looked like rings of moving air slammed into her chest, and made her entire body vibrate with an ear-splitting whine. It felt like something had reached into her and shaken all her organs. Jenna tripped and dropped to a knee as her stomach evacuated itself. She rolled sideways to put herself behind a partial wall of half-crumbled stone, and wiped off the inside of her helmet. Her arms were still shaking when she put it back on. This was a shit time to learn the armor had a weakness to sound magic. She would just need to try and avoid it.

A larger attack hit her stone cover, and Jenna threw herself back into the action as the remaining stone crumbled. She sprinted six steps forwards, then ducked low and left to avoid another attack by the sound mage. That put her square in the path of the fire mage's yellow flame lance. Jenna raised an arm to block, and ignored the feel of the heat and burns that followed. She stumbled, and pressed on. Another wall that crumbled under the force of enemy fire. More small defensive structures formed as her side tried to keep her covered. More bits of stone, ice, dirt, and materials she couldn't place were blown apart into the air and littered the floor as the enemy worked to eliminate every ounce of cover she could take. She threw herself forwards, just far enough to make it to her wooden wall.

Jenna winced as she tried to peer around the edge of the wall. The skin on her neck was burnt, as was her right elbow. She now had two partially wounded arms. They would need to work on strengthening the elbow joints of the armor together. It would be a good, relaxed project for her and Lycra to take on. Jenna shook away the thought. She shouldn't be daydreaming here. There was something wrong about that, and it wasn't just her own desires fighting through the chaos. The desire to dream and rest poked at her from some external source. Jenna groaned. As if the rest of the resistance weren't enough, she had to deal with a mental mage?

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She steadied her breathing, and flexed her hands. Her goal was the crystal cart, but the fighting was already too heavy for her to ignore the enemies before her. Her rifle still hung from her side, and the railgun was on her back. She made sure it was loaded and ready.

Jenna was only separated from the cart by a short distance now. There were an assortment of walls of cover that extended forward past it, send there to give her more cover as she retrieved it. But cover worked both ways.

She could hear voices of the enemy barking orders and calling out to one another as they closed in on her prize. Jenna couldn't have that. She broke from cover, and sprinted towards the cart.

Six Belar soldiers were already there, peeking around the corners of the upturned cart with weapons in hand. Jenna lifted her rifle and squeezed the trigger without breaking stride. The first shot took her target in the neck and sent them gasping to the ground. The second went wide as an enemy jumped back out of the way. The third hit an enemy in the bicep, and caused them to drop their weapon. She made a curved approach to the cart, keen to not damage her prize, and maintained her fire even as the enemy started to return shots of their own. Shouts rang out further back as the troops at her cart went wide-eyed seeing her approach.

"It's ONE woman! Bring her down!"

"Where the fuck is the banshee? Give her another sonoblast!"

"Use their cover against them!"

Jenna sacrificed accuracy for suppression as she held the trigger down. Her shots walked up and down, left and right as they slammed into her enemies. A lucky round found the elbow gap and half tore an arm off. A round that impacted just below the collar fragmented and ricocheted into the enemy's helm in a spray of blood as their body fell. Notifications of her kills tried to blink into her vision, and she forced away the distraction. She had made it into melee range.

The enemy with the damaged arm kicked out and tried to trip her, but Jenna turned it into a roll. She grabbed the man's remaining useful arm and wrested it away as she put the barrel to his neck. Another notification.

An impact from behind pushed her off the dead body and she flopped to her back, weapon out and firing. One of the three remaining soldiers was holding a metallic club that shimmered with a blue hue. She tried to shoot him, but he ducked and fell back out of her fire. The other two weren't as nimble. Two more kill notifications chimed and flashed in the corner of her vision.

The last enemy in the group came back around from the other side of the crystal cart, and swung before she could bring her weapon around to him. The metallic club slammed hard into her wrists. Her armor dented as her hands were shoved down, and her rifle cracked and split in half under the tremendous force. The man smiled at her broken gun, and hefted the club over his head. It flashed with faint blue light as he swung down.

She rolled just fast enough to avoid the club hitting her in the chest. Her left arm wasn't as lucky. The impact was even worse than the first blow, and Jenna could feel fractured bones shifting against one another within the half-mangled armor. She grabbed the railgun from her back, and pulled. The straps holding it on tore, and she turned herself again towards the enemy. He already had the club lifted for another swing, and grimaced when he saw her weapon. Jenna squeezed.

The club swung down, glowing blue, with enough force to crush Jenna's head. The railgun lit up as the coils charged, and shot the slug forward. It slammed the man in the stomach and folded him in half as he was flung into the ceiling. His body twisted and tangled into with the mess of pipes and vents, still folded in half. The kill notification chimed as the dead man's club fell back down to the hall floor.

Jenna's panting fogged the inside of her helmet. Her left arm was toast, and though she'd cleared the enemies from it, she still had to right the cart and get it back to her side of the hall. Shouting voices drew closer, even under the hail of fire coming from the Vuxarinan side of the hall. She tried to lift the cart with one hand. It creaked as it rose a few inches off the ground, but her damaged right elbow couldn't withstand the strain. It was too tall and too awkward to get it with her feet. Jenna bit her lip, and looked down to the last defensive crystal she had.

She was running out of time.

It could work.

She needed it to work.

Jenna lifted the cart and set the edge on her boot, then took out the crystal and slid it underneath. With a silent prayer, she activated it.

Roots grew out of the floor and spun together to form a wooden wall, and lifted the cart with them. It flipped upright with enough force that it teetered the other way, and Jenna scrambled to stop it from tipping over in the other direction. She grabbed the handle with her one good arm, and pulled.

Its wheels groaned as the cart moved slowly with her. She ignored the fire and magic. Ignored her own complaining body and the voices that kept pace with her while she accelerated into a run. Jenna had her prize, and she was damn well going to keep it.

Soon, she had accelerated to a run, and the distance between her and safety was eaten up with each new stride and squeak of the cart's wheels. Vuxarinans were firing off every spell and weapon and crystal they possessed. She didn't dare look back. The ramp was in sight, and she needed momentum. Jenna pressed forward, determined.

She hit the base of the incline and felt her momentum slow. Her boots dug into the sloped floor as she pushed hard to keep her momentum and reach the top. She was close. So close.

A whistle from behind was the only warning before an explosion bucked the back of her cart and threw Jenna to the floor. The cart fell sideways, smoking remains of its back axle twisted and melted from the blast. Cracked crystals spilled out of a hole in the cart. Jenna and the broken crystal cart slowly slid down the ramp.

Her ears rang high, and Jenna peered through the hole in the cart. There were hundreds of Belar soldiers crammed into the hall, taking cover behind walls and bodies of their fallen fellows. She paled. There were more enemies advancing on her position than they'd brought in their entire strike force. And - they had brought out bigger weapons. Another rocket-propelled projectile sailed over her head and exploded against the wall. It spit shrapnel at the face of two Vuxarinans who dragged themselves back behind cover.

She was so close. So close, and yet they were still about to be overrun by sheer numbers.

Jenna balled a fist with her one workable arm, and slammed it down. It smashed into a crystal that had fallen from the cart, and cracked it.

She stared at the broken thing, then looked up.

Even if she couldn't make it back, the crystals could.

Jenna took another, unblemished crystal in hand, and shouted.

"CATCH!"

She threw, and winced at the pain from her elbow.

Then grabbed another, and threw again.

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