The stars lie smoldering where they fell, in crumpled heaps against the bulk of the Anemoi. See, if you can, the red smear along the black prow where Vasilia rolled, before coming to rest in a deep divot; a memory of a meteorite obliterated on the journey here. The travel across a few hundred yards of desert wounded them far graver than a few hundred thousand miles of Poisidon’s void.  There they lay, ripe and ready for the picking. Ready for XIII. Blood drips down around her, falling the long, long way to the sand below, as it pools out of reach of their rails. 

The lioness, first. Crack the shell of sand and debris. Drink the juicy center within. The sheep can’t run far, now. All that’s left to see is which will be bigger: the crater when she takes off, or the crater when she lands?
[i]
CRRRACKKKK[/i]

She drives Vasilia into the hull, the metal buckling beneath her, until she finishes what the void started. Up. Up. Up. Floor after floor crumbling on impact, until the fifth deck finally proves too much. Until she finally comes to a halt in a ruined heap. At the new entrance to the Anemoi, XIII crouches low, and waits. Listens. Listens for that heartbeat, so frantic, so fragile. How much more, little one? How much more? You must not burst on her now. Not before she’s had her treat.

She does not even look as the weighted line sails past her shoulder. Not this time. No escape this time!!! Her ears caught you the moment you pulled yourself off the hull, little sheep. She felt the air stir as you sailed into position. To save Va-sil-a, and not yourself. You cannot hide a thing from her. She is not playing. She is a good girl. She is the hunt! You are her prey! She plucks the wire from the wind and pulls, savagely, without ever wondering why the wire, this time, was stripped bare.

Dolce shifts his ravaged body. A connection is made. A charge that once flickered in the depths of his armor finds a path. Down a wire. Up a claw. And through an assassin. A pale excuse for lightning, but even imitators can have teeth. Not enough to wound her. Not enough to stop her from pulling him close. Not enough to move her spiked heel out of the way, before it runs through his stomach. 

But enough to scramble her nerves. Enough to hold her in place for the space of a few breaths. 

Vasilia lifts her head. A waterfall of bloodied sand flows from behind her, discharged at the last to cushion the impact. “They gave you divine armor,” she coughs, bile and blood. “To withstand your own hits.” Her arm trembles, and her glaive rises. “For insurance against shrapnel.” A knot of shattered ship rises with it, a massive chunk of hull plating for a hammerhead. “And because you’re [i]too wired to take a punch.”[/i]

The rail screams. Vasilia is [i]gone.[/i] Through the holes in the ship she punched with her own body, she falls. With the rail carrying her weight to the fullest, she falls. Twisting, winding up, gravity pulling a body she can no longer move, she falls. Straight to [i]her.[/i] Straight above her, at the last. Sparks dance between them. They fly from the Deodekoi’s twitching armor, muscles straining to obey. Straining to move her somewhere, anywhere, out of this hole, away from the strike that fills her entire world.

Too late.

A hull-clad hammer strikes the Deodekoi. Holy armor flies off its feet. The cat within follows a split-second later. Red-hot brands that had merely brushed, now press in. Hard.

And. 


Vasilia.

Falls.

The Anemoi above her. The desert below. Pivoting. The sun at the center of a galaxy, drawing a meteor around her, with which to strike down the instrument of the gods themselves. To her right, the piles of SP rounds. To stun, to incapacitate, to spare, to make her someone else’s problem, to let her go, to let [i]her[/i] go, to let her [i]go.[/i] To her left, the high explosives. To go supernova. To burn brighter than ever before. To kill. Impossibly, in the end, to [i]win.[/i]

Behind her, Dolce. Falling limp. Falling silent.

She freezes.

XIII falls.

The meteor burns through the atmosphere at terminal velocity. The heat ignites the poisoned shells moments before impact.

A thousand miles away, an explosion. Here, so close, so terribly close, her body wraps around Dolce’s. A glaive drops. Fingers grip wool.

eyes

                                                   flutter

             c l o s e d

[Rolling to Finish with Grace. 2 + 6 + 2 = [b]10[/b]. Damaging Wisdom to pay a price.]