[center][h2]Rozaliya “Rose” Tarasova[/h2][/center]

It paid to pay attention to your instincts when dealing with the Warped. If you thought you saw something out of the corner or your eye or that you heard something? You did. Either go see what it was, or regroup somewhere defensible. If you thought you were being watched? You were. Find out by what and where from. If you have a bad feeling? Well, she always had a bad feeling so maybe that wasn’t the best example.

The point was, as soon as Rose had even an inkling that something bigger than an Oni was stalking the battlefield, she abandoned the fight against the chaff and put all of her focus on anticipating where the attack would come from.

She didn’t have to wait long. The Warped that burst out of the rubble before Rose had eve begun to look for it, the weasel-like creature moving swiftly across walls and along rooftops to close the distance to her in a way that made it difficult for her to track or prepare to defend. Soon it was close enough to pounce and it wasted no time in doing just that, leaping from a rooftop and lunging at her with arm blades not too dissimilar from her own.

Rose grimaced, but from a distance it could have been mistaken for a smirk as the pilot dashed forward so that the Warped would pass over her head rather than crash straight into her. Now that it was fully committed to its dive there was nothing it could do about her sudden change of location other than try to swipe at her as it passed above. She barely managed to bat one claw aside with her own and ducked under another, before taking a slash of her own at the inside of its hind leg and leaving a long but shallow cut there.

It landed past her, forepaws touching the ground first and swinging its whole body around so that when the back legs touched down it was already facing her ready for another charge. Rose had already turned around too, staring the creature down with her body leaning forward and arms poised for another attack, looking just as ready to lunge as the Warped was; there would be no retreating from this battle anyway, no backing down. It was too fast and too deadly to try running away from and too large to try defending against. She needed to kill it, before it killed her; simple as.