(or, ‘the one where Val channels Brock Samson and then rage-ODs on sleep gas’)
Radiant Valkyrie whistled cheerily to herself as she strolled down the hill from the overlook near the Mercantile Docks, fishing pole slung over her shoulder. It was a long, hot day, and she’d been granted her reprieve from helping the others chop wood in favor of gathering the brace of red-scaled Doman trout that hung from her other shoulder. Dinner was as important as firewood, after all.
Val’s brow creased as she neared the base of the hill, ears catching the sound of upset children, loud voices and at least one heavy thud. If there was one thing a Lominsan would recognize a mile away, it was the sound of a scuffle, and there was definitely one happening somewhere nearby. She broke into a run, turning the corner to see the pair of redcoats they’d entrusted to watching over the kids while they played in the water sprawled bleeding on the ground - and a small squad of black-uniformed Garleans busily squaring away their cargo of confused children.
Given that she was badly outnumbered and her only weapon was a fishing pole and a dozen fish, it probably would have been prudent at that point for her to hold back, call for backup, and come up with a plan. They didn’t have a boat, so they’d have to escape along the shoreline, it wasn’t like they were going anywhere particularly quickly.
Then she saw one of the uniformed troopers looming over the terrified Ana and Alexei.
As her feet blurred into motion and she swung the brace of fish off her shoulder, though, the tactical part of her brain distantly noted that while you could take the Hellsguard out of Ala Mhigo, you apparently couldn’t take Ala Mhigo out of the Hellsguard.
To Val’s credit, she at least managed to restrain herself from making any loud noises, and so the first the Garleans knew of the impending disaster was when one of them glanced up and caught sight of seven feet of angry Roegadyn bearing down on them. He lifted his finger to point and yelled a warning, and with her cover blown, Val took the opportunity to activate her linkpearl and call for backup. She didn’t have a lot of time to chat at the rate she was closing, though she did her best to convey information quickly.
Forty yalms. Most of the Garleans had their weapons slung, busy dealing with carrying angry, frightened children.Val sighted in on one near the edge of the group, turning towards her with a gun, apparently their guard. She whipped the brace of fish at him as hard as she could, sending a good hundred ponze of trout scything through the air. He let out a scream as the weight collided with his legs, tearing them out from under him with a crack that sounded like he was going to need medical attention, hurling him into a vicious pratfall that landed him face-first on the flagstones, gunblade clattering away to splash into the water.
Thirty yalms. The yelling started in earnest. Two of the Garleans paused in their work with the kids to fling small canisters toward her, one of which actually physically hit her. It was a great shot, she had to admit. She was less amused with the result, as both canisters promptly belched out a cloud of some sort of disgusting-smelling chemical concoction. Fog blotted out everything in front of her.
-----------------------------------------
“Great throw,” Culus pyr Barcala congratulated his subordinate, the one who’d actually physically hit the oncoming Hellsguard with a gas grenade. “Roegadyns are the worst kind of savage. Did you know I was stationed in-”
“Ahhhhhhhh,” she responded, which seemed a rude non sequitur of an interruption. She pointed behind him. “Ahhhhhh!”
He looked up, frowning, to see the angry Roegadyn charge out of the spreading cloud of gray smoke. She looked exceptionally displeased. Somehow Barcala got the impression that if she got her hands on them it wouldn’t matter that she was currently only armed with a fishing pole.
“AHHHHHH!” he agreed, scrabbling for another grenade in a panic. “Get her!”
His squad pelted the Lominsan with grenades. Six, seven of the gas canisters exploded at her feet. She kept coming. The outer edge of the formation was engulfed in haze by the time she finally arrived, and, when she beelined straight for him, staggering slightly from the cumulative effects of the knockout gas but still not nearly as slowed as he’d have preferred, he had to admit that perhaps yelling orders and revealing that he was one of the higher-ranking Garleans present hadn’t been the best idea, strategically speaking.
The next thing he knew, a massive hand had locked around his throat, his feet were leaving the ground, and this flawlessly planned and executed sneak attack was not turning into one of his better days. There was a moment of hope as one of his soldiers swarmed up his attacker’s back and popped a gas grenade directly into her face, and he saw her eyes finally unfocus. Her knees seemed to go watery and she collapsed to the ground, and he wanted to cheer because that meant they’d won, of course they had, ave imperium, but she wasn’t letting go and he still couldn’t breathe and that meant his bad day actually wasn’t showing any signs of improvement after all.
He peered pleadingly up at his second-in-command, oen Asellus, who bent down to try to pry the Hellsguard’s hand off his throat. A moment later, the medicus who had thrown her grenades with such impressive accuracy joined him to no avail.
“Oh man,” he heard her lament. “She’s really on there good.”
oen Asellus watched him for another minute, then exchanged glances with the medicus, who shrugged helplessly. She reached down to the medical kit on her belt to withdraw an emergency syrette of sedative, and after a moment’s consideration she leaned down and jabbed the needle into pyr Barcala’s neck.
As the sedative kicked in and Barcala blessedly fell unconscious, the last thing he heard, distant as if coming to him through a tunnel, was “Wow. That sucked.”
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