To think that all this time, she thought she knew what a phalanx was.

She darts from the phalanx! A step! A kick, sequins swirling around her! One ankle, hard as marble, falling like a hammer! An opening!

Oh, to be sure, she has fought in them! Felt the press of bodies, sheltered beneath her comrades' shields. Felt the invincibility of the press, the knowledge that, just for one second, all fought as one. But always…

She turns, and one Coherent offers a hand, a step, and she's above the press, dancing across shoulders to where she can most directly strike down, direct, engage

To fight for Molech was to be a pawn. Each phalanx moved as neatly across the battlefield as boxes on a map. Molech had decided what your place was, and if that meant that for the glory of Molech, a phalanx had to be sacrificed? Phalanxes advanced, moved, died, all huddled together, knowing that to break formation--to run, to flee--was to die. Ahead, glory and possible death. But behind?  Decimatio, execution, slavery, or worse.   Always, what was behind was worse. The phalanx held together through fear, through Molech's determination, through his knowledge of what you should be.

The formation parts just long enough for her to bull through a tree, and then engulfs her again, surging through the gap she's created.

The Coherents are chaos. Molech would sneer at the variable kit, at the way each insists of thinking of themselves as [i]individuals,[/i] with different ways of fighting. And yet, it works. They shift and heave and pulse, each moving to support the other, each knowing the others well enough to understand, without speaking, how to help.

And by themselves, they'd be easy prey, hounded and harried by the Kaeri, pinched against the wall of thorns and flesh until the esoterics. But with her… She's not their leader. She would not dream to command them. But every time the Kaeri surge, again and again, she's there to open the path, or make an opportunity to be exploited, again and again, closer and closer to the esoterics…

A phalanx, but one that allows for each person to be their own without compromising its strength. What a concept.

[b]6,1, +3. 10 on Overcome.[/b]