"I feel your pain." Wolfram hissed, unsteadily trying to pull himself up Jessi's wing. The dragon's (wyvern's) scales were fairly smooth, giving him little to hold onto. Finally, with a low whimper of pain, he hauled himself onto the top of the dragon (wyvern). He found that there was little to hold onto, sending waves of panic through him. Without warning, ragged coughs racked his body, leaving him gasping for air. A thin whimper escaped his throat, and he clamped his jaws shut. No matter how much pain he was in, he would not let it faze him. "You alright, River?"
Once they were on, Jessi flew them out. She nudged them off of her, and flew back down, hopefully for the last time.
She watched in utter trepidation as the flames fell, leaving only scorched ground between the innocent Inhuman's and Mapleshade's malignant wrath.
There was a rush of black around her as she stood, her feet practically welded to the pavement. The children...no...this is war! Children shouldn't fight in war!
She reached up suddenly, and ripped the mask from her face, her thick, long chestnut hair falling over her armor. For a moment, she hesitated, wondering what the consequences would be for her actions, surely a fatal wound or even death. But she flung herself into the heat of battle, no longer bound to Mapleshade by her own fear, and struck down one of her own comrades' without a moment's hesitation.
She would not let Mapleshade destroy the lives of the Inhuman's any longer, even if it were the last thing she did.
~
Wolfram took a trembling step backwards. There was no way this was happening. No way. He wouldn't survive a second battle, none of them would. But he scrambled for a stray gun nonetheless, within seconds the echoes of gunshots filling the clearing once more.
River had hardly taken a step off a Jessi before the aching sound of guns firing in the clearing sprung into existence once more. She groaned, immediately she dove at a body, seeing some others stealing vests and did the same, slipping it over her head.
Why didn't I think of this before?
She crouched down, taking pistol ammo from the body for her own gun, having ran out in the first battle. Lurching back from the body, she loaded her gun and began firing off at nearby Pure, making sure to hit them square in their foreheads so that they dropped in one shot, that way they weren't protected by their vests and took up more bullets, and so that they didn't suffer.
She jumped a little when a man made of shadows materialized nearby with a shadow long-sword, taking out Pure and jumping in the way of bullets so that they didn't hit the Heroes.
Must be one of Toby's. She deduced, pausing as he took a bullet for her.
And I'll have to thank him for that later. She continued shooting, and wasn't surprised when the shadow-man dispersed, since Toby's shadows usually seemed to exhaust him and something of that level must have worsened the draining of his stability.
She bent down one more, grabbing more ammo and reloading her gun, before shooting a Pure man who had been headed straight for Wolfram. She growled under her breath, and sided up to the younger shifter, continuing to fire. "I don't see Mapleshade, I don't like not having eyes on her. She could be anywhere."
Finlay slipped through the battle, having gone completely invisible.
Why couldn't I have some kind of useful power? Like, fire or something? He grumbled in his mind, before his eyes suddenly fell on his brother, in wolf form, snarling and and nipping at a Pure terrorist.
Idiot. It was only knee-jerk reaction that he grabbed a branch, swinging it with all his strength and whacking it on the man's head, rendering him unconscious. "That's how it's done."
