Waking to Another Sky Ch5 bit – Ambush

~ crossovercreativechaos

The fight in the warehouse-turned-cult-center was as brutal and vicious as any Sam had seen through the ‘Gate. Its only saving grace was, it was fast.

They put together a pretty good plan, Sam recognized, watching streaks of blue-gold light zip from the shadows, taking down at least a half-dozen of the coffin-tattooed foes with the odd little box on their HP bar that meant paralyzed. Those would have been some of the most dangerous sentries, up in the beams and rafters, where the first heavy rush wouldn’t have been able to reach-

The tanks burst in, and the fast fighters sped in after them, and the warehouse turned into hell.

Oh god. So many of them are kids.

Those were the worst, hurling themselves at the crusaders with cackling glee. Dying almost as fast, but they took too many stunned fighters with them….

A final moan, and the last body shattered. The only sounds were the shush of waves, and the harsh breathing of exhausted survivors.

No blood. Sam hugged herself, chilled, as she watched Asuna and other guild leaders do a headcount of their people outside on the docks. Watching faces crumple, as they totaled up their losses; eleven crusaders dead, while at least twenty of Laughing Coffin had died rather than surrender. There should be so much blood.

Argo slipped out of the shadows like a wraith, nodding to Asuna and gripping Klein’s armored shoulder. “It’s your lucky day. You get two bits of info, free. First, Kirito had to kill two of the bastards. Second-” She glanced toward a thicker patch of shadows. “He’s right over there.”

16 thoughts on “Waking to Another Sky Ch5 bit – Ambush”

  1. Since it is Stargate, there is a temptation to think that the paralysis bolts are zats. Question is, whose are they? Kirito? If so, they came off of blade throwing. Argo? Probably a Kara’kesh and Hara’kesh skill in game. Someone else?

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  2. For some reason, I’m reminded of Slaaneshi cultists. Sure, you may die throwing yourself at someone who is stronger than you, but all sensation is _great_ sensation. One last paean to the Prince of Excess before you go.

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  3. Argo: “Now go convince your boyfriend that he isn’t the monster he thinks he is for living and saving others by taking lives.”

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      2. >No, but Argo was already teasing her to that effect in canon. 😉>
        And ff you go by the Progressive manga/LN Argo was teasing her about that since the first/second level. *G*

        I’d need to find the page again but the troll/cat-smile that Argo directs at Asuna at one point is simply majestic. :3

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      1. . . . I thought Argo was directing that comment to Klein? Like… reassuring friend-grip on Asuna, but Klein was the one she told this and Klein was the one she expected to be broulder to lean on in the immediate aftermath? Maybe I misread who she was talking too…?

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  4. Sam’s perspective is a little heartbreaking- soldier enough to look at a battle and parse out strategy like Jack but still empathetic enough to see children not players, not soldiers. Experienced enough to know what the aftermath of a fight like that should look like, and smell like.

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    1. Actually, Jack may be a little bit more screwed up over things than Sam. His first defining character quality was ‘suicidal over the death of his son’. Stuff with kids hits him very hard.

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      1. I dunno. I think this will/does hit Jack hard, but Jack was given Black ops and special forces training. One very real possibility he may have been expected to see/deal with personally even before the madness of SGC was child soldiers. And no, I do not mean ‘deal with’ as in ‘kill them’, but seeing them amongst enemy combatants? Or encountering child soldiers that were just pulled out of combat zones? Or even serving alongside individuals who were child soldiers because that’s how long their homeland has been a warzone?

        All of those are situations that may – note, I don’t know and just want to say may – have been covered in his training or pre-SGC background. So Jack’s difficult history with Charlie is part of the whole mess, but his actual processing once he starts thinking ‘child soldiers’ and his actual training kicks in… who knows? Sam, meanwhile was Air Force, yes, and trained for combat missions, but as Jack points out in the pilot episode, she’s a slightly different track than him, because she’s a geek. I imagine she’s less likely to have been prepped for that sort of thing than Jack was.

        Honestly I keep wondering what’s going to be the nudge that finally switches Jack from just thinking about the SAO kids as ‘disaster/trauma survivors’ to ‘child soldiers’ and ‘untrained combat survivors’ fresh from a warzone and still uncertain who’s friend, who’s foe, and if it’s safe to detox yet. Everything else Jack has been doing so far is more about grappling with the scale/nature of the disaster that SAO was. Because it wasn’t what they knew or thought.

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