Compassion.

Strange to think of it as a weapon, something with an edge. That's wrong, surely. A weapon, something meant to hurt, to kill? Compassion, a weapon, a thing of evil?

She leaps, tail arching as the arrow meant to wipe her from existence carves a furrow, a ditch, a gully, a canyon behind her. 

No, that's wrong, too. A weapon is a [i]tool[/i] like any other. A thing, to be put to use, no more evil than the hand that holds it.

Yeah, snorts the internal censor. By hurting and killing.

Cutting tools can do more than hurt, though. Not slashing and stabbing, but cutting and excising. It's just a surgeon's scalpel with more heft--solid in her hands, reassuring, weighty--to cut through centuries of hurt, to cut away the lies, to open the snare.

The blastwave would have lifted her off her feet were she not already in the air. As it is, it's less noise and more something that's felt on every scale of her body--immense pressure, apocalyptic heat, shrapnel that would have turned lesser mortals--strike that, less biomanced people--into so much minced paste.

For her, though, it's a blinding, deafening form of liftoff--she spreads her arms, straightens her tail, catches as much of it as she can, and curls into a somersaulting dive.

Cut away the lies. There are other ways! You have options! You can do a different thing! You're more, Hermes!

It takes her a few tries--tries she does not have--to account for the sword's weight.

See, there's the simple way to fall fast with a gravity rail. Point a gravity field below you--or sideways, or above you, that's the fun thing about gravity being an optional thing--and simply fall. Simple, easy, reliable.

Predictable. Slow. 

The word is slingshot. To dive towards a moving gravity well, to sink towards the event horizon, and then--like grabbing a vine that isn't there, feeling the ache in your shoulder, except it's actually every joint that's screaming--to turn off the gravity at the moment of greatest momentum, and [i]whip[/i] past it towards the next black hole. It's an old technique--so old that it's new again, almost.

Unpredictable, even for her. Terrifyingly, exhilaratingly fast. 

Account for the sword. Figure out its weight. The sword is an extension of her body is an extension of gravity. 

Forward, always forward, always forward! She is needed!