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Not one but two creatures burst from the sand, everything shaking horrifically, sand sliding into the pit they appeared from, nearly burying the three Hunters. The highest of each colossal centipede nearly spanned the horizon of the sky, and it seemed to easy for the Hunters to feel lost, to feel entirely drowned by the noise around them.

Someone had snagged Gale. "Distract- I'll - back - you!" The sand and terrible tremours of the creatures were too much to make out Allan's exact words though a second later Gale was launched into the air, landing haphazardly on one of the centipede's backs. Seconds later Stormy and Solia followed suit just as from the collosal back the centipede's carapace pieces began to dissolve into limbs and bodies, large maggots that crawled out from the shells, easily five times the size of the Hunters as the wind whipped around them from high up.

They were cornered and the fall would kill them.

The more the ground shook, the calmer Stormy strangely found herself. After all, she had been right.

The sand opened like a great maw as giant worms erupted, and the longer they stretched the smaller she felt. For once, however, it wasn't a negative thing. Smaller target, harder to hit. It wasn't the large things that scared Stormy anyway--they were frightening to behold, yes, and her heart pounded away as it remembered its mortality, but in the few seconds of the creatures' arrival she felt this much: it was always better to have something to hit. The small ones, the ones that had crawled into her body and made a meal out of her body and mind? Those were the ones to fear.

These things were just oversized insects that needed to be crushed.

Landing roughly on one of their backs thanks to Allan, Stormy immediately swung and cut down the one Gale had shot, turning on a heel and slicing into another as it bore down on her. In her weeks of listlessness, this was the most active she had been, and the most focused too. More than that, she felt an instinctive enjoyment from the challenge even as a part of her wanted nothing more than to throw up and hide; today, though, she could stifle her coward's urge, because for once she could fight back.

She could prove it to them both, even to Solia who barely knew her and vice versa, that she wasn't weak, that she was a good team member, that she was useful. And maybe by doing so, Gale could be closer to reinstatement.

"Find the things. Kill the things. Don't die," she amended Solia's statement robotically.

HP: 45
Damage: 5
Charge: 1/3
Boss HP: 36

She trusted you Gale. She had trusted you Stormy. But no. Sorry but on her list of things she liked, two giant bugs was not on option. You both had failed to make the mission thus far anything but terrible and it was all your faults and- god she really just didn't want to due because titans and insanity and bugs.

As she watched the centipedes rise, Solia looked up noting how tall they were- and hating the fact that she'd die reminded of her shortness.

She hardly even realized that Allan was chucking her into the sky at them until it was happening, and so she upon her re-evaluation, thus blammed Allan for her death. Because that was what was going to happen.

Kill the maggots- just kill them and try not to vomit.

Shaking hands as she stood, Israfel's song was rhythmic and spiked. Stormy might have found her resolve, but Solia was finding her disgust. And her growing lack of faith in her battle abilities. She was too close to the creature to find an idea target, too unstable a ground to properly fire.

"But why bugs?"

HP: 45
Dmg: 0
Boss HP: same neutral

He felt vaguely ill, but he dragged the rifle up anyway, attempting to fire at the creature without falling off. Stormy and Solia were both fighting in their own way, and he had to protect them; he had to make sure that all three of them got out of here alive.

Gale was trying very hard not to throw up.

<< Steady as she goes. >>


HP: 50
DMG: 1

BOSS HP: 20

"When isn't it bugs," Stormy replied in a near monotone, her next swipe barely glancing off the worm.

< < When it is darkness. When it is fire. > >

Things that should have given her pause, but that instead made her think of burning things alive with a strange satisfaction.

HP: 35
Damage: 2
Charge: 3/3
Boss HP: 15

One was left--and then, after another fervent swing, it too was cut down (and God it felt good, the way scratching an itchy scab did). Panting, Stormy stuck her weapon down to keep her balance and turned her head to avoid the sand, eying her teammates as best she could while the colossal worm thrashed beneath them.

"You alright?" she asked them between breaths, one eye starting to shut as the pain caught up to her.

HP: 25
Damage: 8
Charge: 3/3
Boss HP: dead

It was disgusting, the maggots. Gale was trying very hard not to throw up. He stood back up, wincing slightly as Allan came towards them, and glanced around to see if Stormy and Solia were still each in one piece, wiping his face with a gloved hand. It was probably too hot for all the layers he was wearing (he was sweltering in the hot sun), but there was no way he was taking anything off with all of the insects around.

Gale shuddered a little.

"Where..." he started to ask, but Allan had already walked off, and the item in Gale's hand was reverberating, beeping loudly. He glanced down at it, frowning slightly, and then turned his head slowly towards the creature they had just downed, his throat feeling tight.

"Oh," he said, and then thought, why does it always have to be something like this?

<< Stay strong, friend. >> said Jinhai.

Gale inclined his head towards the beast with a look of grim resignation on his paler-than-usual face.

"Shall we?"

She was very glad she hadn't partaken too much in Solia's coffee offer. The world spun and Stormy could only hold on tight and pray she didn't retch, lightheaded and hot and lightly coated in guts and smaller squashed bugs. Deja vu came to her in and out about the cave, but Allan's bright voice brought her back before she ventured further. Maybe they could catch a small breather, then.

Or maybe not.

Stormy took the time to catch her breath and wipe at her face some more, almost glad she didn't have to worry about her hair; and her hat was doing a fantastic job so far of protecting her head. The cavern's makeshift staircase drew her eye in a way that made her believe she was already leaning towards it, like its darkness was a gentle black hole coaxing her forward. Her gaze was fixed on it as, with a final deep breath, she made her way towards it, passing her teammates, passing Gale's grim look and the few moments of Solia's shaking. Thane's suggestions--use that bandage first, coordinate, something--didn't reach her.

"Light should be protected," she said offhandedly, calmly. "Maybe it's better in the middle. If something goes awry ahead, neither've you will get hit first." Maybe. It was Gale's mission and his rank on the line, so she knew she should have been deferring to his judgment. But something had been switched on while she had cut down those bugs, and that same something was now driving her forward. Stormy didn't feel intrepid, though, only a muted sense of duty mingled with dread, and maybe, maybe, a pinch of hunger. That was the beauty of shutting down and maintaining control.

Person with sword goes first. People with long-range go behind. That was the most logic that she could manage right now. Clearly this was the way to keep everyone safe and well.

The green light ahead was promising, and without further ado Stormy made her way down the crude steps, her weapon out to help provide some light, however small.