[center][h1]Trost[/h1]
[@FrostedCaramel][@HecateProxy]
[h2][color=7ea7d8]Lauren Jones[/color][/h2][/center]

[color=9e0b0f]"I think I pissed myself!"[/color]

[color=Gray]She could not help but smile at the small cadet's euphoric joke, swinging herself back onto their vantage point to stand beside Emil.  Although they had both been part of the same cadet programme she had never truly understood just how fast and just how [i]good[/i] Emil was with the Gear until he had attacked the Titan.  Waiting until the very last moment he had avoided its gaping mouth before landing the killing below cleanly as if he had been doing it his entire life.  She looked at the blades in her own hands, still stained with steaming Titan blood and was surprised at the chips already appearing in the blades.  They had been told how tough Titan skin was but the instructors had demonstrated the strength of the steel in their blades; the damage from the single attack struck home just how hard to kill the Titans were.

[color=7ea7d8]"Stay alert, that's just the first one.  We'll hold here before slowly pulling back.  Nice job, Emil.  I'm glad I've got you on my team."[/color]  She said the last quietly so that the other team could not hear before turning her attention back to the bottom of the street where two more Titans were making their way up.  Both had already spotted the soldiers on the rooftops and eyed them with that deathly blank stare as they trudged towards them.  Grimacing at their size, both taller than the previous Titan, she readied her blades and dropped off of the rooftop again.  [color=7ea7d8]"We'll take the one on the right.  Helen, you distract the left and Russ take it down.  Try and get them to turn away from each other so you don't get caught."[/color]

She swung close to their targeted Titan, reeling in her hooks quickly to avoid being grabbed and then pulling herself up onto the rooftop rapidly with a burst of gas.  The other Titan started to pay attention but she saw Helen shoot behind it, slicing her way across to draw its attention before swinging herself through its legs and back up the way they had come.  The Titan followed the speedy girl, seemingly unaware of Russell jumping between rooftops to circle around it.  Lauren dropped back into the street, as if making towards the breach, and taunted the Titan closer towards her but always staying just out of reach.

The two separated, giving Emil and Russell clear ground so as not to get caught in one another's lines of attack.  She watched expectantly, seeing Russell ready to propel himself off the rooftop to claim his first kill while Emil snuck up on her Titan.  Both she trusted to make the blow clean, Emil had already proved himself and she knew that where Russell was slow he made up for it with power and he required no finesse to take out the Titan so cleanly laid out for him.  Then she spotted the huge foot sticking out from a road further up the street, behind Helen and in her blind spot.  A hand reached around and then a Titan's head, zoning in on the small girl.  It was small, only a five metre but small enough to be hidden by the buildings surrounding them, small enough for their lookout not to have seen it.

Russell was too focused on his kill, already leaping off the building to administer the blow, and Emil was looking the wrong way so only she could see it.  Gritting her teeth, Lauren released her hooks and applied new ones, heading straight for the Titan she was meant to be baiting.  Its jaws opened wide and its hands reached for her, like a child trying to grab a toy in some kind of horrific parody of life, but she shot a hook into the building to her right, pulling herself sharply out of its way before immediately applying one to the left of its head and shooting across its face.  The sudden change of direction jerked her body painfully but she ignored the discomfort, using a burst of gas to raise her trajectory to avoid the snapping jaws, her blades slicing through the Titan's softer eyes as she shot past its face.

Safely away from her victim now, Lauren applied hooks ahead of her, using her gas dangerously fast to propel herself as quickly as possible up the street, spinning wildly up into the air before reapplying her hooks for the next pull.  Her body ached and she felt lightheaded from the constant changes of direction but there was no time to feel weak, no time to worry about the creature she had barely hampered behind her.  Emil would have to make good on the kill by himself, up ahead Russell was clambering free from his successful attack and only now spotting the Titan sprinting down the street.  It was fast, much faster than the plodding creatures they had faced so far.

[color=7ea7d8][i]Had to be an Abnormal, didn't it![/i][/color]

Russell was calling to Helen who turned to finally spot the creature thudding towards her.  It dived toward the girl, grabbing her in one hand as it pulled to a halt, eyes focused entirely on its prey.  Russell was yelling for help, Helen was crying hysterically for her life, Lauren was screaming madly as she swept up from below.  She rammed her blades into the Titan's wrists, hooks planted into its arm so that she was standing upside down.  Switching her grip and with a cry of rage and desperation she sliced the blades back outwards.  Blood poured down onto her from the wrist and she saw Helen fall free from its limp grip.  The blonde girl had the presence of mind to dodge the Titan's other hand as it reached up to grab her, swinging around to its rear.

Lauren released her hooks and shot herself directly at the ground, twisting and firing hooks up at rooftop on the left at the last moment and yanking herself back up in a curve that had her face barely a foot from the cobbled ground in an effort to lose the Titan but it was an Abnormal and behaved less slowly than the others had.  Its hand swung down and an outstretched finger clipped her side lightly but the force was enough to send her risky manoeuvre into a mad, uncontrolled spin.  Her hooks disengaged and she couldn't reorient herself and retain control.

Her side flared with pain, she was sure the ribs were cracked, and her mind span with the extreme forces she had put herself through in too short a space of time.  She had been too desperate to protect her team, she knew, but what else could she do? Vomit rose in her throat, her rapid rise finally slowing before she began to fall, still spinning.  She clutched desperately for her handles but seemed unable to locate the triggers for the hooks; she was still spinning too fast to try and manage her descent even if she could find a place to apply the hooks and her mind began to go blank as the world span and span.[/color]