Even so, keeping pace in close quarters— dodging the knives he's flicked outwards— while trying to play into momentum to keep from buckling in blocking armored limbs is a tense, tense bet. Pushes her easily to the limits of her abilities. Key strikes: predict them, avoid them, if it costs her a spare hit or two in the process of pulling away from a cut to a major artery it's fine. Negligible. Mechanical thought processes running in parallel with the anger and the adrenaline.
The third knife's barely dodged. She's too slow to recognize the break in the pattern until it's been arced outwards towards her, and she stumbles off-balance in the process, twisting against gravity (and mirroring Gabriel's habitual movements) to slip behind her adversary. Pulls the trigger on her SMG without aiming to clear space in the process. To catch her breath.
And more importantly, to ask, panting heavily:
"Who are you??"
Severity of that question only tempered by the realization that she's bleeding from a graze at her throat, her hip. Damp heat without pain, severity measured when she sets her palm against her neck and draws it away a second later.
no subject
Even so, keeping pace in close quarters— dodging the knives he's flicked outwards— while trying to play into momentum to keep from buckling in blocking armored limbs is a tense, tense bet. Pushes her easily to the limits of her abilities. Key strikes: predict them, avoid them, if it costs her a spare hit or two in the process of pulling away from a cut to a major artery it's fine. Negligible. Mechanical thought processes running in parallel with the anger and the adrenaline.
The third knife's barely dodged. She's too slow to recognize the break in the pattern until it's been arced outwards towards her, and she stumbles off-balance in the process, twisting against gravity (and mirroring Gabriel's habitual movements) to slip behind her adversary. Pulls the trigger on her SMG without aiming to clear space in the process. To catch her breath.
And more importantly, to ask, panting heavily:
"Who are you??"
Severity of that question only tempered by the realization that she's bleeding from a graze at her throat, her hip. Damp heat without pain, severity measured when she sets her palm against her neck and draws it away a second later.
Lucky shots.