Breakfast finished, the group has gathered on the wall above the gate. Peter had been right about there being a swarm or two, as below them there are about four hundred cats. Off to their side is a couple of guards. One of them occasionally throws a rock tied to a rope at them. More as to amuse herself as she isn’t really doing all that much damage.

The other guard is talking to Peter. He points down at the cats, “No we can’t open the gates right now. Just jump down, not like any of you would take too much damage from that and even if one of you would, someone could catch them.”

Peter shakes his head, “Why though? There is no reason to risk dropping in on the swarm if we don’t have to. You even have that double gate design so you could easily let us out!”

The guard shakes their head, “Your group is all on foot so no can do. We’re only allowed to open the gate for people who actually need it.”

Peter throws his hands up and turns to the group. “So we are going to have to take the quick way down.”

None of them really have much to say about this. As the guard had pointed out, a fall of this distance isn’t exactly going to be dealing too much damage. Before they do jump though Jason brings up something. “So I want to send Lily down first and let her fight the cats for a while. We won’t get much from just one swarm and this would be good practice. Courtney can focus entirely on her for healing and Rosha. You can use your bow for once to keep some of the heat off.”

Rosha glares at him while Courtney just raises an eyebrow. He holds up both hands, “Like I said, we won’t be getting too much from this fight. Lily on the other hand gets a nice little bonus for fighting a predator, and she just picked up a title that removes some of the suppression from that. We have the literal high ground right now and they can’t swarm her so this just feels like the perfect setup.”

Off to the side Peter nods, “This would be an effective way to train. The rabbit was able to hold their own when fighting with you guys, so if anything happens you can all just jump in. Death from above might not be quite as effective against a swarm because some of them will see you coming, but it still builds up momentum.”

Courtney just shrugs at this so everyone turns towards Rosha. She sighs and rolls her eyes, “Fine, we can try this. If anything happens, though I will hold you all responsible!”

Jason shrugs, “As if you weren’t going to already. Look, Courtney can buff her agility and with that she should be able to more than outpace any of the cats down there.”

Rosha slowly nods, but then something hits her. “Wait a second! Courtney, why haven’t you been buffing Lily?”

Courtney freezes, “Uh, hmm. I guess it didn’t occur to me? She is just always in the harness until right when she joins the fight. I will put forth more effort to make certain she gets buffed going forward.” Then she quickly casts the buff on Lily.

Rosha stares at her for a moment longer before turning back to Jason. “So how do we get her down there?”

Jason laughs, “I’ll just put her down, no problem! Here watch.”

Rosha raises her hand to stop him but Jason has already dived over the wall. She is barely able to get there to look over before he reaches the bottom. Instead of just hitting the ground though, he shifts his body and kicks off of the wall. Then another kick off the ground turns his vertical fall into a full out run.

He dashes around the swarm to the wall on their other side. Once there he just keeps running right up the wall. The others don’t get how this is happening, but Peter notices a slight shimmer coming from his feet and rolls his eyes. ‘Of course his movement skill would let him wall walk’.

Once Jason is back up top Rosha is about to ask why he didn’t put Lily down. Of course, the question becomes redundant when she notices that Lily isn’t with him anymore. Everyone turns towards where he had first landed and yep, there she was. Lily had jumped off at some point and no one had noticed.

This included the swarm cats as she gets the first attack on them. Not having to worry about any others being around, Lily goes right for the kill. Her fur stands on end with a shimmer while her paws glow. With a hop she is in the thick of things, her fur gouging angry red lines in the cats she barrels through.

As Lily lands, both her front paws land on a head, smashing them into the ground. Now the swarm knows she is there but that doesn’t necessarily help them counter her. Not like she is in one place long enough for them to bring to bear their full force.

Just moments after Lily lands, she hops away, deeper into the swarm. This time she doesn’t even try to aim her attacks. Instead, the enemies are so closely packed she does full damage just by landing. At the same time as the cats turn to attack, they experience for the first time the consequences of being so tightly packed.

Normally through the magic of swarms they are guided to attack around their own. Since the swarm doesn’t affect Lily, this isn’t the case and they end up falling over each other as they try. Without that guiding influence, Lily easily hops again and again, unhindered by their attempts. Her charged fur spreading massive amounts of damage while her paws deal finishing blows left and right.

Akhier

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