Through the din of gunfire and screams, Itxaro heard Shirik's harsh voice call out to her. She froze. [i]Run back across the bridge through all that shit?[/i] She felt a breeze pass by her face, ice cold. Itxaro spun around to follow that feeling just in time to watch Shirik's ice shard embed itself into another monster, stopping it just before it slashed its vicious tentacles down on her. The creature looked frozen solid, half-immersed in the river like some grotesque statue. 

She didn't second guess Shirik after that. 

Itxaro holstered her now-empty weapon and took a deep breath as she watched the flaming creature slowly lumber towards her. Injured, perhaps, or just sizing her up. She saw the Glenn behind it, gaping wound in its chest from which blood flowed freely. Her doing. Itxaro's legs went weak.

[i]Don't think about it.[/i]

Itxaro grounded her boots into the crumbling bridge and took off towards her companions, trying to stay clear of the burning monster. The beast jolted into action, jabbing a burning limb at her head like a spear. She ducked, stumbling, just as another burning tentacle swiped at her legs. Itxaro hurdled over the sweeping attack and fell to all fours, scrambling over the fallen Glenn's corpse. A searing jolt of pain shot up her leg as a burning barbed tendril lashed against her calf. She cried out and pulled her way instinctively, but the dark figure was upon her in an instant. Itxaro felt the heat emanating from the creature in waves as she tried to gain purchase on the wet stone, dodging blows that slammed into the crumbling bridge. 

Her grasping hands found the dead Glenn's sabre. Itxaro rolled to face her pursuer, sword clutched in both hands, and with a graceless swing cleaved through several burning appendages just as they were about to strike. The severed limbs skittered off the bridge and the creature shrieked in anger or in pain. Itxaro couldn't tell which. All she knew was that it was time to run. The engineer lurched to her feet and put some distance between herself and the beast before the tendrils reformed and it renewed its pursuit. 

Things were not much better reunited with her comrades. Several more Glenn were maimed or killed, Mallory had been injured, and Eva's mech was tangled up in a struggle against another creature's tentacles. Itxaro joined the other Glenn in their attempts to free Eva, hacking viciously at the ropey beast attempting to penetrate her armor; the weapon felt strange in her hands, unbalanced and too heavy for its shape, but it was still less alien to her than the gun at her hip. The ground beneath her shook as something emerged from the bridge, almost part of it. 

Then Shirik cried out, "Now!"

Her wide eyes narrowed to slits as she continued mindlessly hacking and slashing at the creature, shouting like some half-crazed warrior, hoping whatever Shirik had done would save them from this nightmare.