That was the plan, anyways, but sometimes the opponent was too nimble to be taken down, and other times, they delayed Lisa’s people enough that someone could slip through the line and attack one of our less capable combatants, myself included.

Time to fight. Did you bring your knife?

I held a knife in each hand – my combat knife and the one I’d taken when we’d rescued Charlotte.

Oh yeah!

Sweet, we get dual-wielding Taylor.

When I was forced to fight, I avoided lethal strikes.  I had a sense of where the major arteries were and avoided them, even when I knew I could make a quick cut at someone’s wrists or neck.  Holding back didn’t do me any favors, and I got smashed in the left ear once, struck in the gut and chest a few times, and a nail that was stuck through someone’s makeshift club sliced the back of my upper arm.

Ouch.

Hm. One day she’s gonna fail to fight non-lethally and end up killing someone by accident, isn’t she, creating more guilt for her to deal with?

Still, Lisa’s soldiers afforded me time to breathe.  I remained vigilant for any break in ranks and incoming attacks.

At least the formation helps somewhat, then.

We tried to hold a formation, with the bodyguards holding the outer perimeter and the less experienced combatants, myself included, in the center.

Makes sense. I think I’m gonna call this a jawbreaker formation – a hard, thick shell around a squishy gum core.

How many licks does it take to get through the bodyguards?

It quickly became apparent that these things didn’t really hold up in a real combat situation.

Apparently not many.

For one thing, our enemies quickly figured out what we were trying to do and tried to force Lisa’s soldiers to break ranks.  They would hang back and throw things, or stay just out of reach as they held weapons at the ready, looking for a moment when our front-line fighters were distracted or otherwise occupied.

Y’know, this isn’t exactly the fight I was expecting to see solid tactical warfare in.

It forced Lisa’s soldiers to move out of formation to deliver with the enemy with a few decisive hits, then back up to close the gap in the line.

I feel like the fact that I feel like I’m watching chess moves in this quote says a lot.

Anyway, Bryce for impact, we’re going back in!

epsilonsmemories:

krixwell-liveblogs:

epsilonsmemories:

krixwell-liveblogs:

Knock knock.

Who there?

Woo.

Woo who?

I’m happy to see you too! 😀

epsilonsmemories:

krixwell-liveblogs:

Knock knock.

Who there?

Woo.

Knock knock.

The minutes that followed were among the longest I’d experienced in my life.  It wasn’t a tedious, slow, agonizing passage of time like I’d experienced in the hospital bed, waiting to find out if I was being arrested or if my back was broken.

This is probably a good thing. It means the doctors and nurses aren’t attacking you too in all the mayhem.

No, these minutes stretched on because there was so much going on, and I couldn’t lose my focus, look away or pause for contemplation for a second.

Oh. Never mind. I misread that “wasn’t” up there.

Different groups tried to pick fights with us.  It was nonsensical, given that we weren’t even in the ring, but adrenaline was running high and we stood out because we were apart from the rest of the fighting, isolated.

Which is what you didn’t want to do, stand out.

We had stuff they could take, and warm bodies they could… well, warm bodies.  It was enough.

Eesh.

“We hold our ground,” I told Lisa, “Unless things get bad enough that we’re at risk.  We wait for the fight to end, we see if we can find him, and we make our exit.

Hm, alright. Fair enough.

So… you’re alright with the Merchants getting five new capes? Nobody’s even brought it up besides Taylor asking if it was possible.

Sticking around also means we can get more info on what Skidmark’s got in those vials and where he got them.”

…I guess it was a good time for me to say that.

“Okay,” Lisa confirmed.  “That works.”

Yeah, it’s the best plan we’ve got.

This was what the Merchants were.  Even less organized than the ABB, they were humans reduced to pack behavior, with Skidmark and his people acting like kids who would put animals in a cage and shake it set them on each other, instead of house-training them.

An apt description. We’ve seen so much bullshit from them that doesn’t seem at all organized by anything other than “might makes right”.

None of this made the Merchants any less dangerous, though.  Just the opposite.

Yeah.

I had no options here, in the face of this.  The most I could do would be to use my power on the entire crowd, and that would turn this already disturbed situation into something else entirely.

Yep, and I’m not sure it would even accomplish much of use.

So what now? Tactical retreat?