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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 4505848" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 601: UpThe second Marix exited the Vong building, she was face to face with four others. None of them looked like warriors, and they had initially been simply going about their business, whatever that was in such a place. They had, at first, only turned their heads when the door had opened, casually glancing to see who was exiting. Of course, what they saw was not a Yuuzhan Vong as they had clearly expected. Instead, they saw Marix, an Alraxian, carrying an organic-container holding who-knew-what, and a Vong over her shoulder.    In a rather surreal moment, all of them just stood staring at one another. But where the Vong were dealing with confusion, Marix was determining a plan of action. It only took a fraction of a second for her to prioritize the targets and then act. Marix dashed forward, dropping her left shoulder and barreling straight through the smallest of the Vong, who let out a grunt of shock before Marix was past him. That was all she had time to do before the other recovered.    “Cor’sa!” at least two of the other Vong were growling that word at the top of their lungs. Marix didn’t know the exact translation, but the point got across well enough.    Of course, if it meant ‘stop!’, Marix didn’t obey. But she didn’t think that was the translation anyway. The appearance of various Vong from all of the building as she was sprinting away hinted that it might have been a call to action of some kind, which made more sense. Thankfully, as Marix ran towards the other end of the ravine and past the various Vong structures, she noticed that most of the Vong exiting the structures were dressed in robes of various kinds and did not look to be warriors.    Most.    Most, sadly, didn’t mean all.    Marix spotted four warriors exit a building in front of her, and they did not stop and look in surprise before acting. Instead, they came straight for her. Only one of them carried an amphistaff, but the other three looked built in such a way that weapons were optional. Not to mention all of the spikes on their armour and the possibility of those smaller amphistaves hidden away. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy...    Her eyes caught movement in front of her, and quickly began to track an object coming at her head. Marix ducked as one of the Vong’s thrown thud bugs shot past her head, and by the time she was upright again, the four warriors were directly in front of her. Suddenly, carrying the unconscious Vong the entire time was not looking to be a solid plan, and so Marix adapted.    As two of the warriors came at her, she shifted then, using her forward momentum to help, threw her captive Vong at them. The move caught both warriors by surprise, and they were both on their backs a second later, quickly trying to push the other Vong off of them. The Vong with the amphistaff was sweeping it around just as the other two fell, bringing its sharp edge in a long swing meant to open Marix’s stomach.    Drawing the Force to her, Marix jumped up and flipped over the Vong, landing behind him and delivering a backwards kick to his spine. Had the warrior not been wearing such heavy armour, it likely would have done more than just send him stumbling forward a couple of steps. At least the maneuver bought her a few previous seconds, and the fourth Vong was busy spinning around to come at her as she had jumped just as he was swinging one of the dagger-sized amphistaves at her back.    In that brief moment, Marix had a choice to make. It was a simple, basic choice. Fight or run. She could win the fight. There was no doubt in her mind on that. Even with four Vong warriors, she could remorph and she had survived through much, much worse. If others got involved, as they likely would, Marix still knew she could hold her ground. Morphing wasn’t just a tactic for staying alive, there were more offensive applications if necessary and she knew how to apply them. All in all, standing and fighting didn’t seem to be a bad option at all.    But the years had changed Marix in many ways.    She was an assassin and a soldier and an Empress. The first taught her how to quickly deal with targets before they could react. The second taught her how to deal with situations like the one she was currently in. The third...the third, over the years, had taught her that sometimes a fight was unnecessary, even if it could be won. Could she really handle an entire compound of Vong? What about the ships above? They would send more. But even if she could, Marix was not there to fight the war herself. Get in, get the information she needed, get out.    Tucked under her left arm, Marix had the container with the samples she had hastily gathered. Though taking a Vong captive was now out of the picture, perhaps the samples were enough. Rather than fight and allow the situation to grow worse, Marix knew the best option was to use this small moment to her advantage and escape.    Decision made, Marix did not follow up her kick with another strike. Instead, she continued forward, still calling on the Force to help her body move even faster. The Vong were growling and screaming at her as they gave chase, only meters behind despite the Force helping her along. They were surprisingly fast for such large builds.    But she knew that they couldn’t keep up for long.    She took a sharp right turn and then leapt over a new Vong carrying an amphistaff to land on top of an adjacent building. Her footing was unsteady on the odd, coral-like structure, but Marix did nothing but sway slightly as she kept her balance. The Vong were down below, and she could hear buzz in the air of more of those thrown bugs coming at her. But Marix was looking up at her next target, and with the help of the Force, leapt again.    One of the bugs sliced across her ankle as she left the rooftop, but Marix didn’t even cringe. It was barely a scratch and she didn’t even bother to remorph the wound. Instead, with her free hand, she grabbed the rock wall of the canyon, extending her claws to get a good tight grip. She held there for a moment, just long enough for the Vong to readjust their aim, but as they threw more of those damned bugs at her, Marix launched herself up again, pulling up with all of her strength and doing what Jyren had always called cheating: using the Force to move herself much, much further than should have been possible.    She caught another rock a good fifteen meters up and latched on again. One more good push like that and she’d be over. Just to herself, Marix smiled. She didn’t even have to morph to do it. And even that stray thought didn’t break her concentration.    In seconds, she was up and over the canyon wall, pulling herself onto the ground above that was just at the edge of the forest, not far from where she’d been observing the Vong compound earlier. Down on one knee, Marix allowed herself a moment to catch her breath and remorph at least four wounds, most of which she hadn’t noticed in the rush to escape.    [Wake up, Hermes.] he was a long ways away, but Marix could focus enough to get the message through. [Time to g—]    Even her thought was cut off by the sound that Marix’s ears heard. The growl was like nothing she’d ever heard, and it was accompanied by a monstrous beast pouncing out of the trees, six legs, at least, a long, barbed tail, and jaws dripping drool that looked far more dangerous than just normal saliva. It had been waiting for her!    It had been following her the whole time!    Marix rolled to the left, the meter-long monster landing with four sharp-taloned legs right where she’d been. Even as she was moving out of the way, its tail was whipping down at her so fast that she couldn’t see it. The barbed end sliced straight across her hip as she propelled herself away again. The pain was enormous, and Marix found that remorphing the wound was surprisingly difficult. There was a poison, something that was making it difficult for her to morph at all. And she couldn’t feel the beast in the Force, either.    And then, Marix knew what the Vong had been doing on Myrkr. They were breeding these things. Breeding beasts that were specifically designs to kill Alraxians. She could find no other explanation for the poison, as Alraxian physiology was just too unique for it to be random chance. Suddenly, what had been an easy escape from the Vong compound was looking to be a much more dangerous fight.    Just as Marix got to her feet, staying low and ready to react while trying to fight back the pain from the wound, the monstrous thing came at her again, sharp-toothed jaws wide open.</blockquote>

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