Fire. Oil. More fire. Damnit. Rune saw the smile on Sha's face as the flames erupted around them - but while Rune could easily sense that air was running out, she didn't particularly need to breathe, did she? And so she more or less dragged her captive to the side, away from the direct influence of the fire, until she realized that the fire oni was more or less incapacitated from the lack of oxygen.
Idiot, Rune thought, referring to the Jackal. She saw Lo-Muna and Jakkar in some sort of embrace... for no apparent reason. To be safe, Rune aimed a strike with the blunt end of her sword to Sha's head, hopefully knocking her unconscious, before looking at her guild leader with a strange sense of what the hell are you doing?
Roughly three minutes left, huh? Rune almost scoffed. She wondered brief- whoa what the hell, when had her boot caught on fire? Rune smashed it against the ground several times until the fire was put out from her now raw foot, more or less glaring at it, wondering why she didn't really feel the pain until just now. Oh well, not as if it really mattered, she could just get her father to heal her up once all was said and done, Rune sauntered over, with a limp, to Lo-Muna, casually, before inhaling some excess air and transferring it to the rabbit beast-man.
"Corpses don't need to breathe." Rune deadpanned to the guild leader, before glancing at the slowly suffocating enemies. "...Looks like we won this."
Under the scorching summer noon sun, the Faceless Five had arrived at the Leiya bridge. It was, for want of better words, more or less exhausting for the noble, at the very least, being not used to such extended physicla exertion with no real time to rest. Sixteen hours of straight travel - and she only slept for the first few, fitfully, on her horse that had disappeared some ways back, around when they had entered the tunnels - and more importantly, Nee had gotten her Flash Blossom - but there it was, really. They weren't exactly at the bridge -but the island of Leiya was in sight, obscured by some fog in the distance, making a misty ring around it at sea. They could see the Yunish contingent of troops more or less blockading the bridge at a camp on the other side - there was no real way to know if the slavers had taken Turas accross the bridge yet, with their identification papers. but nonetheless, the golden arches and intricate designs of the bridhe were there, also slightly obscured by the fog. How there was sea-mist in the heat, didn't really make sense, but that's how it was. The ocean was probably quite freezing.
In any case, they made it. What else could they do but wait and hope that they were fast enough? They for sure couldn't muscle their way across the bridge - not with the Yunish army there - and heck, Nee knew some scouts were already watching them with wariness from the other side. Her legs more or less shook as she tugged at Noxchi, somewhat desperately becaue damnit she couldn't support her own weight much longer.
"...um... I'm tired." She said, almost feeling ashamed at the admission. "And, we can only wait now, right? So - " A sharp inhale of breath, and a hand clutching at a stitch in her side - "We can... take a bit of a break while we hope for the best?"
Frankly, each moment in which Nee had kept up with the brisk pace of the Faceless Five without so much as a hint of fatigue or complaint had been an individual oddity to Gridiron: the others appeared little affected, but then it would have been nothing short of absurd to conceive of holding Nee to the same physical standard as three professional warriors who were more than accustomed to strenuous physical exertion. Therefore, when Nee at last succumbed to what Gridiron suspected was a silent but debilitating enervation and voiced her fatigue, it was of no surprise to the vigilante leader.
She nodded solemnly, neglecting to take her gaze from the horizon that lay before them. It was true-- nothing better to do now than wait, and pray to the benediction of the gods of the dunes that the slavers bearing Turas had not yet crossed the bridge to Leiya. Had that been the case... well, her objective of retrieving Turas and rescuing him from a fate he absolutely didn't deserve would have become that much more difficult to achieve. But difficult was something she could deal with-- it was something she'd spent her whole life dealing with. The respective military might of both Tengala and the Yune Empire was nothing she couldn't handle if she put her mind to it.
... well, probably not, anyway.
Every second spent waiting was a world of impatient torment in and of itself-- each second spent casting a hawkish vigil over the view that the vantage point the Faceless Five had adopted afforded unto them, looking for any sign of the slavers. When, at last, a shapeless mass emerged on the horizon, gradually growing more and more defined, revealing itself to be a host of soldiers at first, and then indeed the very same slavers that had taken Turas, Gridiron felt the tension and worry depart her body. Henceforth, it was a simple affair-- they had only to slaughter the slavers and take Turas, all within view and walking distance of a Yune blockade. Hell, she'd done riskier shit when it came to the Yune authorities.
"Let's go," she commanded laconically to the others, pausing briefly to nod at Nee. "Though in your case, it may be smarter for you to just stay here and wait for us to come back and get you."
The noble shook her head when sensing the battle was drawing near. And despite the cold calculus of revolution screaming at her that this was a stupid idea, an idiotic impulse that served nothing in the end. But despite her exhaustion and waning energy, she wanted to do something. Maybe help in some small, marginal way. It was slavers - something not really worth considering human at this point. So if she could dehumanize (or whatever species they may be)she could avoid the chance of guilt residing in her head, just maybe. Why, though, was she so intent on helping? Nee searched the fathoms of her vast mind, but she couldn't -
Well. Looks like she could. She wanted companionship and friendship. and not the farce of a friendship she had with any of the ones she grew up with - despite whatever Liu or Rhea might say in defense of whatever it was they had. Nee only viewed them as little more than tools to accomplish her goals, right? That's all it was. But Noxchi was different. She could be honest with the Sudean vigilante, and she knew more or less that if things were better, they could have gotten along. And perhaps even more than this - Nee was somewhat suspended as she thought with some sort of dawning Eureka - being truly friends with Noxchi meant that maybe she could manage to open up to her group of six. Her little gang. Wouldn't that be something?
"I'm helping." she grit her teeth with her resolve. Resolve to fight, and to hopefully get some trust back that she'd lost. The revolution could be put on hold temporarily. She wanted to settle this first. She wanted to fix things here, first. "If it wasn't for me, Turas never would have been taken, right? This is, in part, my responsibility."
Now this-- this was unexpected. Was this not the same Nee Me-Hyung who, just a day previously, had insisted that she would do all in her power to disrupt Gridiron's intent of delivering her unto her family in Furoe? That very Nee Me-Hyung who had cast an image before herself of Gridiron as little more than her detainer, all the more so even than that stain of filth Cha'Valkar? And now, lo and behold, she was insisting that she fight alongside her captor, at immense risk and no tangible benefit to herself, for a purpose that had nothing whatsoever to do with her own professed goals. The ever-vigilant cynic in Gridiron meticulously scrutinised and analysed every word in pursuit of the vaguest hint of an ulterior motive: the facet of Gridiron that was pretty sure that cynic in her was partially responsible for several occasions of near mutiny amongst her crew preferred to muse that perhaps Nee actually gave a shit.
The Sudean vigilante concealed a tinge of a smile upon her thin, scarred lips as she remarked in reply, "Well, judging by your tone of voice, it's probably not worth it to try and talk you out of it..." She turned toward her sister, who had been preoccupied with glaring out at the incoming slavers and, perhaps, seeing if she could kill them all at a distance through sheer force of loathing (alas, it appeared this was not a valid tactic of battle). "Amanhã..." She began to speak, and her half-sister, turning toward her, seemed to immediately realise what she was about to propose: the suit of armour gave no verbal indication of discontent, but there was a veritable aire about her of 'oh, come the fuck on, not this shit again'. "With that weapon of hers, she can mete out some serious damage on your shoulders," the vigilante pressed, before adding, a foreboding thought striking her, "... if she feels suited to it, that is." It was hard for Gridiron to remember the gravity of taking a life-- she had done it so much over the years it meant nothing to her-- well, almost nothing. But... well, these were slavers, after all. Could it really be much of a moral quandary to kill a person whose profession encompassed unabashed revelry in evil?
If Nee had any such quandary, Amanhã was sure as hell having none of it: a bit bitterly, and none too gently, the bounty hunter swept down, grabbed the tiny girl, shoved her right onto her armoured shoulders, and then turned back to Gridiron, as if to say 'all fucking right, I've got the whelp on my shoulders, now let's go kill shit'.
It as like the calm before the proverbial storm. It offered Nee the chance to take one glance at Noxchi after Amanhã had grabbed at her roughly - Nee did her best to more or less take it, it was the only way she'd be useful in this fight, after all - and took a deep breath. She could do it. She'd help save Turas, kill some slavers, prove that she really did mean it that she wanted to help. An earnest furrow of the brow splayed across her face as the upcoming group of slavers stopped very ephemerally as they got sight of the five vigilantes. There wasn't much else for it now - Nee could even make out the details of Turas,gagged, with hands and wrists tied painfully tight with thick rope. A second inspection showed blindfolds - although for what reason really, Nee couldn't really guess at.
"Nox - Gridiron." Nee said quietly. "Let's save him, and then get on with everything." An idea suddenly struck her, though. If the Flash Blossom really worked like the legends said... couldn't she... Nee triangulated the angle between her, Amanhã, athe slavers, and carefully swung the chain - and the sword - in a way that the blade smacked dully against the back of the living suit of armor's plate. In that instant, Nee charged chi through the chain and then to the blade, and hugged on tightly - the next instant, she and Amanhã were shot at blinding speeds at the slavers, right in the thick of things. Despite the spinning dizziness and the need to throw up, she didn't allow herself time to catch her breath or her surroundings - the next instant, Nee started whipping the chain around and occasionally charging chi to send rocks smashing into collarbones, or one slaver in particular flying towards the sea - drowning, presumably - and even snagging the blade against one's tongue somehow, before tearing it out with a fierce yank.
Nee located Turas and then her snake-like weapon reached out to tap against him, and with another charge of chi, Turas was flung at high speeds back to where the others were, towards the bridge, and hopefully out of danger.
"Alright," Gridiron remarked confidently as she turned toward her comrades. "We need to work out a strategy to best maximise our ability to slaughter as many of those bastards as we can whilst still retrieving Turas safely. We have the higher ground and they're not aware of our presence, which, naturally, is our greatest boon at the moment, but we'll have to be wary of their chi casters-- they were our veritable bane in the last encounter, and--"
A sound like a small explosion interrupted Gridiron, who instinctively all but leapt for cover before clambering back up to her feet and realising Nee and a probably none too chuffed Amanhã were long since off the small cliff that overlooked the slavers, already in the thick of their adversaries.
"... or we can flush any semblance of stratagem down the toilet and just go charging into battle," the vigilante leader frowned. Okay, so maybe there were one or two things she didn't miss about the old Nee.
Turas Az'raus' life right now, in a word, sucked ass. Which was two words, but he was kinda hard-pressed to give a shit right now.
His wrists hurt like a bitch, this gag in his mouth was annoying, and to top it all off, he was blindfolded, because clearly the only thing between a skinny dude whose martial prowess could be unfavourably compared to that of a badly-made stool and a goddamn superhuman who could slaughter their way through a band of slavers despite being bound and gagged was his eyesight. Perhaps worst of all, he still couldn't find anybody to back him up on the whole Muoy-Võ thing. Did nobody besides me see Muoy totally kick Unstoppable Syha's ass last match? he lamented as he felt himself roughly carried along harsh terrain. I mean, c'mon. Clocked him just one upside the skull and had him down for the count. Hell, didn't that guy beat the shit outta Võ at some point? Hell, you gotta be in straight up denial to say Võ's got shit on Vang Muoy.
Ah hell. Who was he kidding? It didn't matter anymore-- he was just trying to distract himself from the fact that he could hear the sea now, and even a goddamn idiot like himself could figure out that meant he was probably about to be carried across the Leiya Bridge. And once he was on the other side... Even Gridiron won't be able to get me out of this. Dread began to pollute every fibre of his being-- Turas didn't want to be a slave. He talked a big game, but.... fuck, he was terrified-- he wasn't Gridiron. He wasn't some towering, larger-than-life, musclebound fucker who could arm wrestle an ashura with their little finger. He was... well, Turas. And he knew so much as a day living the life of a slave and he'd probably lose all semblance of willpower or resistance.
The sound of the waves lapping at the bulwarks of the bridge came ever closer, and despondency seized upon the Sudean vigilante. All of a sudden, it was like his twenty eight years of life had really been nothing-- like there were too many things he'd never done, too many things he'd never said, and many of them centred on one figure alone: Gridiron. It seemed so suddenly that his attempts to delay the inevitable despair with needless wise-cracking were overwhelmed by an aching wish to see her just one last time, that confident, tenacious smile of hers; to hear that gruff, hard-edged voice assuring him of his importance in the vigilante crew and to her every time he found himself feeling like he didn't make a difference, the feel of her calloused, rough hand in his own in those rare moments in which they had a moment away from the maelstrom of violence to simply be there with one another-- her discordant, uncertain laugh, the laugh of one accustomed to the act and yet beautiful in some strange way to him nonetheless, her deep green eyes gleaming with inexorable intent, the way she shed some of that 'ruthless, larger than life hero' facade and let herself become more relaxed, more open and affectionate when she felt comfortable in doing so-- when she was with him...
It was like suddenly every little thing about her he'd never realised made such a difference to him was becoming so much more painfully real to him-- now, when he feared he would never see her again.
And then of course, because everything wasn't fucked to shit as it was, the next thing he knew he'd been hurled into the air, landing on the sandy shores like a sack of potatoes fired off by a blade that directs chi. His gag came loose in the impact, and he spat out sand irascibly, struggling to twist his body so that he could lie on his back. "Oi!" he bellowed bitterly. "That was just all kinds of not cool! Who the hell did that? Was it that fucker who talked shit about Muoy? Man, I tell ya, you can never trust a motherfucker who talks shit about Muoy--"
"Well, shit." Turas fell sharply silent as a familiar drawl emerged from just over him. "In that case, maybe I oughta just walk on back to Harad?"
Gridiron hauled Turas up to his feet, sawing away at the robe binding his body with her half-sister's dagger (which was more of a goddamn longsword than a dagger, really, but that aside) and then tearing away the blindfold about his eyes. The Sudean blinked from the burst of blinding light that met his freshly opened eyes, and then, as his vision cleared away, he was greeted with the vision of a helplessly grinning Gridiron standing before him.
"... goddammit, I shoulda known the second I went into full on desperate nostalgia mode you'd come swingin' in to the rescue," he grumbled. "It's, like, the first rule of narrative awareness."
"I love you too," the vigilante leader retorted, before handing the freed vigilante the aforementioned totally-not-a-fucking-dagger. "Now, enough tarrying about. I know you were probably too busy whining to yourself about how Muoy is gonna get her ass kicked in the title fight to hear, but there's a battle going on around us."
"Lovely." Turas took the sword and looked it over as though he found it rather dissatisfactory, before adding, "Will I get to kill the guy who talked shit about Muoy?"
"Hell," Gridiron shot back, turning once again unto the battle and bringing her warhammer to bear. "I saved him just for you."
After expending so much chi in such short time, Nee was more or less, on the verge of fainting. Dots swam in her vision, and her grip on her perch on Amanhã's shoulders was gradually weakening. Godamnit, she couldn't just screw it up now, after rescuing that heart-print-boxers-man, Turas, and acting kind of cool in front of Noxchi. She swung the chain out again, letting it wrap around a sword and flung said sword with a pull into a nearby tree, meanwhile the living suit of armor was more or less cleaning up whoever tried to get close, with that greatsword swinging in massive arcs around her. Nee managed to see Turas be given a sword smaller than the Flash Blossom, free from the bonds, and that allowed her to focus again on the battle at hand, ducking slightly to dodge an arrow that whizzed past where her neck once was. Nee readjusted her position on the shoulders, breathing hard, and was about to use the sword to propel her and Amanhã back to the others-
The veritable crash of lightning scorched the ground around them. Nee let out a yelp - somehow it just missed, despite Amanhã being encased in full metal. Shortly after that, flaming balls shot towards them, along with cascading sheets of dagger-sharp ice. Nee cleared her head, and used the Flash Blossom to shoot Amanhã out of the way before the chi strikes could kill them - only to notice more chi-users working together at the cliff's edge... wringing the seawater up. A goddamn tidal wave. And from the corner of her eye, she saw what seemed to be a captain directing the lines of healing chi once again - the slavers were now organized despite the probable shock of a giant greatsword wilder and a noble girl sat upon her shoulders appearing fast enough to almost break the sound barrier. Moreover, Nee saw that she and Amanhã were more or less shut off from easily rejoining the others, and there really was only so much even the half-ashura could do before succumbing to the massive chi strikes.
Nee tried to gauge mentally how many more "bullets" - as she liked to call it - she could still manage. If they were lucky, maybe four or five? Still, the girl cursed her lack of real combat tactics - if they made it out of this alive, she'd be sure to study any texts on tactical large-scale combat as best as she could, possibly from the Ashura warmaster Aldhoran - well renowned for sure, despite being an apparent enemy of Yune. That was, of course, if one wanted to learn about quick, decisive warfare, about remaining on the offensive and on the move, using momentum and morale again- oh, it didn't even matter right now, what mattered was getting out of this. She tapped Amanhã's faceplate, hopefully getting her attention.
"Um. Point at whatever group of chi-users is the immediate threat." Nee asked almost pleadingly. "I'll send us there to wipe them out..." Sure, the giantess probably didn't even remotely like her, but she did hopefully want to survive this, didn't she?
Amanhã scowled as she felt the little whelp all but rapping on her helmet, resisting the urge to fling her off of her back so she could return once more to the happy little business of wanton slaughter. Sure, the girl was an effective weapon with that blade of hers-- not even remotely a real warrior, obviously, but an asset as a tool against the slavers nonetheless-- and yet, that aside...
Well, now that Amanhã considered it, it was pretty hard to get caught up in the bloodlust when every time she began to lose herself in the crimson haze, her next target got hurled into the sea by a tiny girl riding on her shoulders wielding a legendary sword on a chain that she was almost uncannily skilled at manipulating. Which, to be fair, was not a phrase Amanhã had ever figured on thinking, but hey, there's a first time for everything.
Disgruntled, Amanhã was of half a mind to give the proverbial finger to the girl, mostly by not doing a damn thing she'd asked, when it came about she wouldn't have to: the captain directing the lines was struck with a precisely aimed bolt of coalesced lightning energy, and then, following that, a stream of arc lightning surged downwards toward the slavers' chi-users, each individual acting as a conductor for the electricity, which decimated the ranks as it spread. The bounty hunter glanced up, and saw the slighter of the hooded figures-- Wu or however it was-- drifting up in the air, at last seeing fit to weigh into the battle with their own set of skills.
The slaver that was obviously a Võ fan was still standing, despite the lightning tearing through their ranks. A man from gwan, and a particularly mediocre one, found himself more or less lost amidst the chaos that was the battle. However, he did see that stupid Muoy fan was free - hell, who needed a slave that supported that piece of shit fighter, anyways? Võ obviously was the stronger one. Anyone, even a blind spectator, could see it. That particularly slaver weaved his way through the bedlam when he happened upon priority target one: the girl. Nee. Apparently, at least, because it's not as if they had pictures, it was more of a general description. "Small girl." Moga'd said. and in this group, there was only really one who fit the term. The girl in question was having trouble staying upright, blinking blearily as she surveyed the battlefield.
The Võ fan knew this was his chance to become something more than just some average slaver. In nabbing the girl, this would let him rise up through the ranks, wouldn't it? Sure, there was the problem of that hulking mass of death, but he was certain he was fast enough to circumvent it. He looked to the side, seeing the water chi users - their wave was more or less ready, and it looked like they were condensing it to maximize impact. This was tantamount - if he timed this right, he could grab the girl, and then be swept away by the wave, bringing him far from the battle. And he had a distinct feeling that the deathmachine didn't care less about her fate. To be honest, he couldn't figure why anyone would really care to much. The girl was just some bratty noble who'd lived a life of privilege - so it was only right for her to be brought down to the rest of them, after all. He also didn't particularly see why she was considered a charmer - but then again, the Võ fan was more partial to the male physique, himself. It worked more for him than any female body ever did.
It was time. He used his telechises to more or less toss one of the bodies in front off him, watching it get shredded by the greatsword, and he ducked under the top half, before leaping up on the sword itself and using that momentum to leap and grab the target by the chain - dragging her off of her perch with a little surprised yelp - and splashing cleanly into the torrent of water that suddenly hit them. As the powerful gush of water made to drift back to the sea, the Võ fan realized his mistake - the fall off the cliff was certainly fatal. And it seemed that the girl noticed that too mid-plummet, and so she quickly fastened a collar around her neck, locked it in place with the chain, and tossed it up to wrap around a tree near the edge before either of them could die. And so, they dangled awkwardly, with the girl suddenly trembling and whimpering when she realized who she inadvertently saved, and the Võ fan wondering how badly Muoy was going to be crushed in the match.
It was quite some time before Amanhã realised she no longer had a ten pound weight bearing down upon her shoulders.
And when she realised it, she shrugged her shoulders-- or would have, were she not in the midst of decapitating some other slaver type thing. After all, she'd had no obligation to her: if the whelp was too pathetic to even stay on her goddamn shoulders, if she was so pitifully weak that even astride the massive bounty hunter she was vulnerable, then she probably deserved whatever fate her impotence had earned her. Amanhã had recognised that she had been deluding herself into the belief that as the strong it was her duty to crush underfoot the weak, but that sure as hell didn't mean she wasn't accurate in her conviction that those who, presented the option of pursuing strength, opted instead for weakness merited whatever agonising demise their idiocy meted out unto them.
Plus, she'd been a chi user. The fuck with her.
Indeed, nobody quite realised Nee had been deposed from her station astride Amanhã's shoulders-- not initially, anyway, when the battle drew to a gradual, bloodshorn termination and the Faceless Five (and the distinctly faceful Turas) stood amongst the carcasses of their adversaries. "Oi, the hell?" Turas whined aloud, casting a glance across the corpses. "Who killed that piece of shit Võ fan? That dude was mine, dammit!"
"Must've been caught up in Wu's chain lightning," Gridiron mused idly, rolling her neck along her broad shoulders, feeling the tension dissipate just a bit with a crack as she turned away from the shore. "But hey, if it's any consola..." She trailed off as she caught sight of Amanhã, casually dropping the body of the slaver she'd just strangled to death (ya had to keep it interesting, y'know? Just stabbing and slashing the fuckers got a bit dull after a while.) only to find a distinct lack of tiny noble girl on her shoulders. "Amanhã!" she called over at her, alarm immediately setting in. "Where the hell is Nee?"
When Amanhã merely returned her worried gaze silently, Gridiron was of half a mind to let loose a storm of obscenities upon her sister, but she thanked the gods of the dunes she had the sense not to lose her self-control so swiftly. Instead, she began to call out Nee's name-- hoping that, failing that, she wouldn't have to start looking through the bodies.
"You shithead Muoy fan! I'll tear out your soul!" The Võ fan couldn't help but make a retort from where he was hanging. It took him a few seconds before he realized that revealing his position was probably a bad idea. But then again, simply falling to his death once the chain broke was also a pretty bad idea, was it not? The girl herself was more or less unresponsive - if it took a little hanging over a cliff of death to scare you, then, you really must be a coward, the Võ fan mused. The life of a noble did little to prepare you for real life, after all.
Still... Turas was rescued, and the remaining slavers had fled to who knows where, some vague direction to the east, but this was a rather overwhelming victory for the vigilantes. The noon sun still shone as it verged, signifying that the afternoon had begun.
Also, there was a hanging Võ fan, along with a yunish noble.
"COME AT ME, BRO," Turas immediately bellowed in responce to the petty Võ fan's whining. "I'LL HIT YOU SO HARD YOUR FRIEND VO WILL FEEL THE WRATH OF MUOY THROUGH MY FISTS."
"If you don't shut up, you'll feel the wrath of Gridiron through my fists." Gridiron resisted the urge to slap a palm to her face in exasperation as she put her foot down on yet another Muoy-Võ debate, before striding over toward the source of the initial taunt-- the cliff overlooking the sea. Gridiron already had an inkling of what the Võ fan's quandary at that moment happened to be-- but she managed nevertheless to be taken aback when she peered over the edge and saw Nee hanging by the throat from a chain that had managed to catch onto the branch of a tree not far from the edge of the cliff. And, clinging for dear life to the little noble girl, was the Võ fan himself, clearly none too pleased with his lot in life at this particular juncture.
Without hesitation, Gridiron reached downward to grab onto the chain, disengaging it from the branch it had been wrapped tightly about and tugging the two individuals clinging to it up onto the surface, trying to take care not to inadvertently slam Nee's head into one of the rocks jutting out from the cliff face or some shit-- she really didn't fancy the thought of pulling them up only to realise Nee was now bleeding from the skull and the Võ fan was perfectly untouched.
No sooner had she pulled the two up than Turas, having evidently been waiting with withering patience for his opportunity, scored a flying kick from absolutely fucking nowhere, landing the kick on the Võ fan's chest and sending him careening to the waves beneath.
"Thus always to they who favour the inferior over the magnanimous Muoy!" the Sudean vigilante declared auspiciously, striking a pose and nearly sending himself tumbling after the Võ fan, whereupon he lost all his prior bluster and became immediately concerned with putting as much distance between himself and the cliff as possible.
With the immediate threat gone, Nee managed to calm herself down and made a tired, washed out smile to Gridiron.
"...we got him back, huh?" Was all she could really say before more or less collapsing.