Collab with [@HeySeuss]
[hr]
"Well shit." Was the general feeling as massive cruiser suddenly materialized itself in the sky above them- seemingly out of nowhere. That marked this massive ship as something possessing of advanced technology, and was much bigger than anything the Rassvet military had readily available, and matched no Vangar ships that Galahad had seen so far. Plumes of smoke and steam erupted from the sides of the massive ship, and the faint echo of cannons exploding in the distance succeeded in getting Galahad's adrenaline running- if not the cascading thud of cannonball robots crashing into the area around them like armored paratroopers from hell, without the parachutes. 

In between them and the truck they arrived in stood some 50 meters of crater, and another short sprint from the lip of the crater to the actual truck, and some half legion of tall, bulky mechanoids seemed hell bent on making sure they didn't get anywhere soon.

“Here’s the game-plan. Shortest route to the truck is through the thick of these mechanical shits. We punch a hole and run like hell. Hopefully before that big old cruiser points its guns at us.”  Galahad vaguely heard Setzer explain, as he unceremoniously threw the Princess over his shoulder, and that was that.

"That sounds like a terrible idea." Galahad replied with an exasperated sigh, "Let's be off then." he replied as he followed suit behind Setzer and broke into a sprint. The robots reacted to that by charging towards them, hidden thrusters sending them forward at speeds faster than the average man's sprint.

 As they stumbled away from the shuttle, Galahad's eye caught the corpse that was the remains of the dying man Setzer had been talking to. More importantly, his eye caught a saber attached to the man's belt, and a sidearm in its holster. Taking a short detour over the body, Galahad did a quick tumble as he relieved the dead man of his sword and sidearm. With a whistle, Galahad shouted out "Gideon!" tossing the Warden the pistol as they ran. 

A pistol wasn't the best thing in the world, but Gideon got plenty out of it; a latest-model Vangar weapon, and mercifully without optics. Limited ammo, but he could make every shot count. 

To what avail? These were huge robots. Gideon kept running. There was a time to fight and this wasn't precisely it, with the metal monstrosities struggling with some sort of entanglement. The weapon got shoved into his belt, which was the best option he had as he made to use what handholds he could to get up the crater, to keep him steady as he tried to move as fast as he could out of the fracas, "Keep it moving, slow them down!" he gasped.

Following close behind Setzer, the pair of them scrabbled up the side of the crater, with bit less grace and efficacy than Galahad cared to admit, but pride was the least of his concerns when giant robots were chasing them. A quick look back showed Galahad that the net that Lee had put in place to stop the robots had already snapped, and he ducked reflexively as blasts from the robot arm cannons soared up through the crater to meet them. Turning back around, the situation outside the crater wasn't too hot either. While many of the robots were chasing after them in the crater, up outside the crater next to the truck, several were already up here as well, and Galahad could see other members of their group engaging in combat with them. 

Once Gideon got to the top, he crouched, and he waited. He considered sighting down the pistol but dismissed that instantly out of the catalog of options he was considering. Instead, he tried the dirt with his hands and found it fairly disrupted, not packed hard at all. He growled, under his breath, "Cover me a couple seconds here," as he started to gather up one of the spells he did. His was neither a prodigiously powerful or conventionally dangerous talent, but Gideon thought sideways. 

It wasn't anything flashy, but once others were past him, he pumped some energy into the ground, concentrating the groundwater from elsewhere, condensing moisture from the air. It was a brief condensation effect that left droplets to show for it, but little in the way of noticeable effect for those not looking closely. Nonetheless, the crater's slope was that much more muddy, harder to get traction on. It might not slow them up appreciably, but it also didn't take long.

As though reacting to his presence, another robot appeared out of the woods to confront them, arm cannon raised. Shooting a quick look back at Gideon, Galahad took a cautious step forward, drawing his recently acquired blade and holding it before him, the glowing orb of a spell coalescing in his free hand as a quintet of tungsten beads floated out of the case on his side and began orbiting his hand.

The robot's arm cannon glowed with energy and fired, the bolt flying off into the distance as the Galahad ducked out of the way with a mist-enhanced leap. Throwing his spell hand forward, Galahad gestured at the robot and the five tungsten orbs launched themselves at the robot like a hail of bullets, embedding themselves in the head, and torso, the force of the impacts causing the robot rock and stumble backwards. 

Galahad grimaced as the robot caught and righted itself, it wasn't as though he expected that to finish it off, but the back of his mind was hoping. The thought quickly left his mind as the robot boosted forward with surprising mobility, now intent on using its cannon arm as a bludgeon. Galahad instinctively sidled and struck at what would've been the robot's collarbone with his acquired saber, momentarily forgetting that the robot was made of metal, and wouldn't react to a wound like a human would. 

To his surprise, the saber sunk into the metal alloy armor of the robot, instead of bouncing off, cutting several inches into the robot's torso. Galahad would've been more intrigued with the discovery, had he not been in the middle of a fight. Rapidly reacting, the robot slammed its damaged cannon arm at the side of Galahad's head, his defense spell shattering with the sound of crashing glass as it saved him from a deadly injury and instead sent him flying several feet back. Quickly rolling to his feet, Galahad managed to catch the robot's 'eye' as it raised its arm cannon, energy charging. In that instant, Galahad gathered the mist around him as fast as he could, his powerful understanding of the mist allowing him to rapidly coalesce and bend the mist to his will.

As the cannon fired, Galahad blinked from existence, invisible wisps of mist all that remained of him in that location. A split second later, Galahad blinked back into existence face to face with the robot, his face almost touching. Without a pause, Galahad deftly raised a hand and placed it on the robot's chest. As his hand made contact with the robot's chest, there was a loud, echoing, thunderous clap as a wave of air distorting force caused the robot's chest to crumple in on itself and sent the robot flying some ten yards through the air and over the side of the crater. 

The aptly named 'Thunderclap' as many of them referred to it as, was a favorite technique among many of the Warden's spellcasters. A quick, simple spell crafted for the purpose of putting distance between a spellcaster and their would be assailant, the result wasn't usually as explosive as Galahad made it, but he wasn't certain how hefty the robot was compared to an average human, so he went with excessive. From the sound of moving joints Galahad heard over the ledge, it was safe to assume the robot wasn't 'dead', but it was at least out of their way for now. 

"Should've just started with that." Galahad said as he took a moment to catch his breath, sheathing the commandeered saber back into its scabbard. 

"Pat yourself on the back later, you need your shoulder in its socket right now," Gideon panted as he sprinted for the front of the truck; he was using minute bits of Mist on the tires, trying to give them the extra bit of traction they'd need for the next step, especially if it got wet on the road. It wasn't taking down robots, but it was something. He wanted to take down robots, but he had a handgun and a limited supply of ammo. Instead, he focused on the little things. And with the last tire done, he was just about to get into the driver seat, except...

Setzer was depositing the Princess into the driver's seat, Gideon looked over with an expression of horror mingled in with 'what the fuck?' but didn't have time to question it. He did, of course, keep the pistol out of sight, as he got into the driver's side seat. She'd been firing arrows at his friends not too long ago. 

"Get on and keep those things busy, we're hauling ass outta here!" he called to the others, as Galahad sprinted to the back of the truck. Galahad almost offhandedly threw off  telekinetic bursts, pulling anyone who hadn't boarded the truck onto the old behemoth, before jumping on with a mist-assisted leap himself.

"Listen," he addressed Collette low and urgently, "you need to push this thing. I'm going to call out the curves in the road and you're going to have to trust me, because I know this place better than anyone, including the enemy. Also, no lights, too exposed." 

He tapped the windshield, before she could start a 'you're crazy!' rant, giving it the subtle illumination enhancement that probably would save their lives; same spell he used to find his way in the dark on point in the first place. That was Gideon; subtle enhancements, the little precise things that counted. He wasn't powerful, but he made every ounce of juice that he could pump into something count.

"That ought to help. Now we need to punch it before they shred us with heavy stuff. GET A GOOD GRIP GUYS! AVOID LIGHT POLLUTION!" He had ideas on what to do with storms, terrain, trees. They could bring a lot of this down behind them, they could create torrential water on the roads, they could use mud to unmoor trees at the root from the soil and come down or they could use a blast to kick out enough of the tree to cause the timber to fall, but he didn't have time to tell them everything he saw.

He had a trigger happy teenaged princess behind the wheel, and he wasn't checking for a license, of a rickety last-generation Army 2 1/2 ton truck on some narrow, winding alpine country roads.

He made sure to shut off radios. He had no idea how the enemy was tracking, but it made no sense to have anything emitting any signal or receiving signal that they didn't need right then and there. That was Gideon's way of conquering the fear, by kicking every possible fucking tire while there was gunfire around his ears.