[color=f6989d][b]Sister Marta Rocha[/b][/color]

[b]Mekong River - 10/25/2022[/b]

Helplessness is never a pleasant feeling. The inability to act, having to be content simply with being acted [i]upon[/i], is something humans must come to understand in their lives, from infancy to the deathbed. Confronted with the vastness of Creation, all human beings must perforce suffer that indignity sooner or later.

In situations like these, fleeing from certain death - or perhaps worse - at the hands of psychotic enemies and their misuse of power, Marta often found herself simmering in her thoughts on the nature of helplessness. Of all the impressive abilities granted to her allies and enemies, she did not know if any of them required the agonizing wait. Thirty-three seconds of helplessness in a life-and-death situation, where every passing second felt like an hour. Thirty-three seconds of being nothing but a Human on a battlefield of Giants. Thirty-three seconds spanning the gap between divine Might and divine Mercy.

A lot of people can lose their lives in thirty-three seconds.

A lot of regrets can come back to life in thirty-three seconds.

She's seen burning flesh before. She's carried her own burn scars and healed others in turn. Never before had they been borne by another in defense of her. The idea almost stole the strength from her knees before a surge of certainty flooded the back of her mind, and, in a flash of light, she manifested the brilliant white-gold gauntlet in her left arm. Clenching it tightly, she looks again at Qingshe.

[color=f6989d]"...yes. I'll leave the chastisement of the lust-addled rooster to you."[/color]

Turning around, she drives her fingers deep into the soil.

[color=f6989d]"Don't go dying on us, Serpent."[/color]

She pulls hard, sending a torrent of dirt, clods, and rock rushing behind her as she sends herself careening back to the fray...

---

... and arriving like a screaming bolide between Nil and the enemy's Arms Masters. It's hard to tell it's her at first, as there's only the booming impact of a fist as if from heaven, shattering the ground and leaving behind a sizable crater, but seconds later, Marta falls with a dull [i]thump [/i]as she recovers from the second wave of force she used to cushion her fall.

Laying there on the shattered mud, she raises a metal-clad fist:

[color=f6989d]"It's two on two now, you warmongering scumsuckers!" [/color]