[center][img]https://i.gyazo.com/c12effa38ced5a2b0c56b6ae5fa5d910.png[/img][/center] [hr] A little too busy to immediately reply, stalwart young Rosmarie stared down the speeding mass of steel plate, pneumatized sinew, and violent current driving it all as it hurtled towards her. She'd allowed herself a moment to verify that her improvised artillery had struck home, giving Crystal the opening she needed to work her magic— but the gunfire snapping around her had told her just what was awry, right around the moment she was pumping her fist in triumph at the sight of a thankful grin and a thumbs up. Company. And fast! This pair were eager beyond even their kin— who knew drones could manage personality? Cybernetics [i]was[/i] a marvel, but really, that's getting a little scary. [color=00a651][i]Have none of these people seen [i]Eradicator[/i]?[/i][/color] Anyway... with that creaking foundation behind her, she knew Chie was already hard at work with her scheme— one she liked, too. That meant it fell to her to check these guys' forward movement. Keep em beneath the rocks. She slid her right leg back, kicking up a small cloud of dust as her greave settled to a stop a shoulder width from her left, angled fourty five degrees away. Her instructors had been sure, early on, to beat it into her head that just because she'd not found the upper limits of her transformed strength [i]yet[/i]... Didn't mean that day wouldn't come soon. That she needed to ready herself for the inevitable moment when her own brute force wouldn't be the safety net she'd treated it as. She braced her core, couching her breath. She was a big, strong girl. In that she held total confidence, and within that, she was most confident in her legs. All the labor she'd done, all the carrying and lifting and pushing, all the explosive wrestling tricks— everything she'd ever done for that strength came from them. They were how she drove off the Mother Earth and into the sky, and how she took her vast power into her own strength. All trees had their mighty trunks that held it all up— and hers came in a pair. She grit her teeth, and [i]swung [/i]her hips into the drone's massive limb. [color=00a651][i]Time to find that limit, then.[/i][/color] The steel of her boot met with the massive plate of the drone's military-forged sabaton, and forced the latter to give in a visible, boot-sized dent. The titanic, crashing impact jarred Selma's teeth together, sending a blossoming rumble through her whole body. Her muscles locked as her hips and leg sank into the strike, forcing every bit of follow through she could muster. Beneath the magical armoring of her Parma... she noted that two freight trains colliding definitely [i]hurt[/i]. It wasn't broken, she'd not felt anything [i]give[/i], but her strength and the massive drone's had certainly met— And then physics ensued. The rebound that had jarred her to her core kept coming in the next milliseconds, and our young tree remembered the most fundamental of all [i]knowings[/i] she'd collected in 17 years: Mass moves mass, and while she [i]was[/i] pretty massive, she was [i]nothing[/i] compared to this golem of military might. Selma, Selma, hurts like [i]HELLMA![/i] [color=00a651]"A li'l tied uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!"[/color] For the first time, Selma Rosmarie was flying under a power not her own. The bot's kick had angled her [i]up[/i] and [i]away[/i] from the earth, so even bracing her strike against the world couldn't have stopped this. Sent tumbling end over end by the angle of the rebound, she didn't have the time nor ability to see how much effect her kick had on the drone, and was only left to come crashing back down in an undignified skid, skipping like a stone over the concrete once, twice, thrice. It was all she could do to muster a tuck of the head while she steamed over the gaffe. As she rolled to a stop, she found herself facing the sky— No, Not sky. Sky wasn't that dark and metallic and creaking and dropping right on her face [color=00a651][i]and don't smell the roses twice, stupid![/i][/color] The second drone's heel, meteoric as it fell onto the ground, stopped cold nonetheless before true, total impact. Steel creaked as all that weight and force pushed something into the ground beneath, a spiderweb of crack blossoming outward from that point. If one possessed truly prodigious hearing, then maybe, beneath rain, wind, and the din of combat, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vseiDroV3AY]they might have caught a strained growl.[/url] [color=00a651][i]"nggggggrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhh..."[/i][/color] [i]Scheisse[/i], what an enormous pressure! For beneath that deadly mass of humanity's finest engineering, her finest warrior was putting all her faith into those tree trunks again. Chin tucked into her clavicle, her shoulders and bracing hands ground into the asphalt and concrete beneath as her legs rallied against the machine, the world's most brutal of leg presses. Her heart raced as she felt the cracks extend around her, earth reaching a breaking point in small stages before either of the two warriors atop it. The pulse in her head was like a blacksmith's hammer, her throbbing veins like a mighty river as they desperately kept blood, nox and willpower flowing through her frame. She'd never felt such an enormous weight... it was as though the moon itself had fallen onto her. above, she could swear that vicious bastard was bearing into her, trying to grind her to paste with all its might— But if that were true, she realized, on some primal level below thinking. If that were true... [color=00a651][i]Then I know where all [b]my[/b] might stands. And it—[/i][/color] She braced her core with a thick lungful of air, locking her diaphragm anew. Her base was restored, braced for proper muscle recruitment and strength. She'd learned this on the farm. She'd learned this again, in more detail, in their physical conditioning courses. She learned it a third time now, under true duress. [color=00a651][i]—Aint—[/i][/color] With it, she pulled inwards all the Nox she could from her surroundings, adding it to her reserves. It set every nerve in her body alight, and she felt her joints creaking, the fire in her muscles and lungs, her prodigiously thundering heartbeat, and most of all, her fading will returning. Moments later, the rush of renewed capability flooded out the burn, kept it in check, and a new store of strength held it in place, ready for her command. Of all the fabled winds, every Hastan treasured her [i]second[/i]. [color=00a651][b][i]—LOSING![/i][/b][/color] And with everything here, the ground cracked ominously again— But the drone's sensors began to flare in sequence, calling for balance! balance! balance! as it, incredibly, teetered. That little bug below that it wanted to squish was squishing back. And this time, mass moved mass again— but one was backed by the weight of the world. [color=00a651][b]"RAAAA[i]AAAAAAAAAGH![/i]"[/b][/color] With a howl of fury, effort, and defiance, the big girl's legs forced themselves [i]straight[/i], and the second drone's strength was conquered. It staggered away, into the radius of the creaking building with any luck... And the sight its mighty boot had concealed from the world was that of one douglas fir, stabbed into the earth as if a hammered nail. Embedded in the ground as she was, she caught the flash of Rivka's brilliant flames in the direction of the back line of drones— and the one that had punted her. Right? She thought so, it was near that building... She sucked wind, heedless of the rain her breaths inevitably caught. She could feel the foundations creaking beneath the suddenly multiplied weight of the stone they'd been designed to carry. Down here, it was like having those fancy ear-covering headphones. She could feel it in such detail... Her legs felt like jelly. She'd stand because she had to, run as much as she could manage, and fight because that was her calling, but god [color=00a651][i]dammit, dummkopf[/i][/color], you definitely got what you asked for. Above, a speck of blue at terminal velocity, flanking a hunk of ice and metal as they screamed towards the earth. So Crystal had taken that thing down, good. Seeing her teammates in trouble was never fun. They were strong girls, strong as hell, but Selma was the strongest. She had a duty to have their backs. And none to lollygag. [color=00a651]Come on, stupid...[/color] Gritting her teeth, the big girl managed to wrench one arm free— and hammer into the earth again, forcing those cracks to work for her this time. A little shakeup would push that building over the edge, and onto those bots, she could hear it. She'd yank herself free in a second— [color=00a651][i]"RIVKA, I CAN'T CATCH HER IN TIME!"[/i][/color] Crystal was more important. The words ripped themselves into the air through her heaving lungs in a way that, however strange, almost felt easier than if she had just tried to speak normally. Hoarseness, at a guess. Dully, she noted that she theoretically could have created an earthen slope for their icy friend to skid down if she was fresh... but the time she needed to recenter herself would be too long. No matter how much she wanted to... she couldn't shoulder everything. She had to live with that, as she hoisted herself free and forced her legs to quit wobbling. [color=00a651][i]Game face back on, girl... nice and easy now.[/i][/color] She began to run back to the group, just quicker than a jog, trying to not think of the earful she'd be in for.