MoniKO and Kira
Mack pulled out the soldier's sidearm that she'd surreptitiously gathered underneath herself. There was a resounding bang through the forest as she pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation. Kira's scarf was too far away for her to reposition it in time to block, allowing the bullet to fly unhindered. It slammed into her chest with enough force to put an end to her kicking attempt. She wasn't dead, but she wasn't in a position to fight back anymore. The world became a bit of a blur for a moment as her body and mind struggled to process what had happened. It felt like all at once Mack had retrieved the bat, climbed to her feet, and smacked Kira in the back of the head with the weapon. Going unconscious felt slower by comparison, it wasn't an instant knockout like with Monika. Kira had just enough lucidity left to feel someone doing something to her injured chest before she lost consciousness entirely.
...
"General, I found someone!" Monika's consciousness sparked to life at the sound of someone shouting above her. She was slow to rouse at first, but the pain in her abdomen jolted her out of the fog. Her breathing was shallow, and she found attempts at breathing deeper were quickly followed by bouts of coughing. A woman with bluish hair was leaning over her, prodding with some sort of medical tool. The patches on the shoulders of her labcoat denoted her as a field medic, she was helping.
"Why don't you just let her die?" The speaker was a teenage girl with braided brown hair and oversize glasses.
The medic pointed to the patch on her shoulder and shot glasses a look of annoyance. "This patch means I help everyone. I don't help everyone, it gets taken away, and then I get shot the next time I try to help one of ours." she explained as she continued poking at Monika's gut.
"But I've seen you kill people, shouldn't you be helping those people too?"
The medic sighed loudly, "Believe it or not, we medics do understand what war means. In an active combat situation, we're soldiers first. But the instant combat dies down, my job is to save anyone left."
"Waste of a holy weapon if you ask me." the teen tried to mimic the medic's annoyance, but she didn't have the same bite. All she had really managed to do was sound petulant.
"Holy weapons let medics be the source of combat dying down. If I can fight another holy weapon and win, that can end an entire battle. Even if I have to kill them, it saves lives. It's risky, even riskier than being a medic already is, but it's worth it if I can keep a few more people alive." the medic shot Monika a sad look, belatedly realizing she was lucid, "I'm sorry about her. I will save you, you have my word."
The medic turned and called over her shoulder, "If she's safe to move, bring the one with the rough patch job over here so I can keep an eye on her! And get me a healer, I'm pretty sure this one got hit in the stomach by a Force weapon!"
Kira had been awake for a while, thanks in no small part to some bandages hastily applied to her bullet wound. She already had a general idea of what was happening. The medic was "Doc," she'd checked Kira's bandages and then delegated watching her to a subordinate while she continued her search for survivors. The girl who looked like a teenager was Verna, as far as Kira could tell, she was a civilian. Verna had suggested killing Kira as well, and Doc had been equally annoyed the first time. It sounded like the scouting party, minus the woman splattered against the tree, had all recovered enough to walk away from the fight. They'd left, but hadn't had time to rescue Monika and Kira because the Neridan army was approaching. The woman in charge was General Camilla Rayze, both Kira and Monika had heard her name before. She was a highly decorated leader in the Neridan military, and the leader of the Neridan war effort against Katria. She was also walking towards them.
"How are the prisoners, Doc?" The general asked. Her voice was gruff, matching her fit-but-elderly appearance to a T.
"They're not prisoners." Doc answered, quickly turning to Monika and Kira and assuring them, "You're not prisoners."
"You know the standard procedures, you helped me write the standard procedures." Camilla frowned, "What's your angle here?"
"Meisters." Doc waved her arm at Monika's halberd, which she'd moved a safe distance away.
"Oh, shit." Camilla took a step back.
"You said we didn't want to give them justification to attack again while our forces are busy in the northeast. I think taking some wounded meisters prisoner would do that." Doc's tone somehow seemed to only get flatter the more elaborate her arguments became.
Camilla shook her head, "It's too late for that. Guess who it is in the tree."
Doc's eyes went wide, practically a miracle considering her expression hadn't changed an iota since she started talking. She gave Monika and Kira an apologetic look, "I guess you're prisoners after all, sorry. Don't suppose you'd be up to telling me everything the general wants to know before I have to let her interrogate you?"
Eilyth
Leah and Patricia agreed to the plan. No one seemed to think it was likely to succeed, but they were both pretty worn out. They hid in the tent and left Eilyth to wait.
Unfortunately, anticipation wasn't enough to keep Eilyth's adrenaline pumping. She hadn't taken any real hits, but the sheer power of Lily's attacks meant she was still covered in various aches and pain. and that was before the agony of exerting herself so much in the summer heat. As much as she'd told the others to rest, she needed it too.
Lily didn't plan to let her have it. An impact just like the first, but this time it came in the form of a kick that drove Eilyth down into the mud immediately, smashing open her right shoulder. Lily continued her momentum and did a front flip across the tumbling Eilyth. As soon as she landed she spun around with a roundhouse kick that used the momentum she'd generated from the first to smash another hole in the armor on Eilyth's back. They were different attacks, but the tactics behind them were almost identical to Lily's first assault. It seemed the Dame Supreme didn't have a lot of tricks up her sleeve. Maybe she was so powerful she didn't need them.