A few moments before the Jackal became entangled in a life-or-death contest, and well before the reinforcing Blessed personnel had arrived to make up the difference, He-6 saluted the Jackal and stepped off the ledge.
Despite his incredible size, gravity was slow to take him. Breaching past the surface layers of the climbing Aud masses took away more of his terminal velocity before it had a chance to begin forming itself.
He heard thousands of yowls beneath him, along with cracks and thuds and crunches. Bodies packed under him, until, like water searching for a way to release the pressure, surged up to envelop him. The Aud would be yellow and under, for the most part.
He had bypassed the greens, which would be chasing him back down now; they would have to fight against the moving throes of their brethren, who had once helped them but would now hinder.
With any luck, the trick the Aud intelligence pulled wouldn't work both ways: it could command Aud to clear a path when the greens were moving in the same direction as the others, but when they turned into opposing directions of movement, it couldn't work as well.
The greens were far faster than the weaker tiers, so orderly clearing things in advance would be trying for the Aud intelligence at worst--for him--and the exact pass and jam he needed to reach the ground of the Gaiss Hollow at best, where he actually stood a fighting chance.
And since nothing but the greens and above could break through his skin when he was this big--learned the hard way--he feared little could infiltrate his insides through any other path aside from his orifices.
He kept his ears plugged; eyes and mouth closed; cheeks clenched; and blew hard out of his nose any time he felt something moving about in that general region on his face. Ever strange to think he was large enough that he could justifiably call a part of his face that.
It was an anticlimactic ride mostly, letting the next layer of rampaging Aud catch his falls every time he delayed between hitting one "surface" and the next. Cracking open an eye, he checked his position relative to the ground.
The hard tumbles he took kept his vision spinning, and he constantly blinked, fearing one of them would snag onto his eyelashes and use it as an anchor to reach for his more vulnerable flesh under the eyelids. Despite the difficulties those considerations kept him under, he caught a clear image at one point.
Far enough away that he could've jumped the distance, close enough that the momentum he now carried would slam him into the rocky plains hard enough to cause significant internal injuries, no matter how many more barriers would catch in his path.
Which wouldn't be many considering most of the Aud were behind and above him now, still advancing to and up the walls in an astounding display of tunnel vision.
If he didn't count the Nyx Breaker's personnel--or the other missing Titans whose crews were doing who knew what--he was the only human operating outside the walls not protected by several hundred tons of sandwiched scutumsteel plating.
And he didn't. Not that he held any animosity toward them; their situations just weren't comparable. He was amiable, but he was damn certain to be fair with everything he did, including evaluation!
One of the Aud smashed into his brow fast enough to flatten it against his skin. There would be bruising--though the damage remained superficial, it brought him back.
Right, in a deadly situation that would likely end with him as a chewed-up corpse. So why did the urge to masculinely commit himself for no good purpose aside from testing the enemy--and letting it test him--burn alight such a strong flame in his belly?
Starting to laugh, He-6 almost opened his mouth before again remembering what was pelting his body all over. He risked another peek. Closer now. He would have to take risks to avoid significant injuries.
All that it'd take to end him would be a single sprained ankle, a dislocated hip, one or two shards of broken rib penetrating his lungs; he'd end this trial in any number of ways, though all gruesome and none happy. That wouldn't be anything worth looking forward to.
He waited a couple seconds longer, then removed his hands from his ears and spread his body out like a diver, increasing the surface area pulled back by air drag. Something struck his earlobe not a second after. He preemptively shook his head, though he couldn't do much without destabilizing his trajectory.
Gravity at his current size was pulling at him with too much strength. Of course, he'd never call himself fat in this state. Over-capacity? Sounded professional without hinting at any overt negative undertones. He approved.
What happened next could have ended his little life--despite his big body--should anymore Aud have collided with him. There was much less of a body profile to come into contact with as he suddenly did away with most of his Vigor's influence, so that became less of an issue. One second, he dwarfed the Titans. The next, he was a little larger than a wall-grade emplacement.
The dangerous duo that was gravity and air drag swapped their intensities. Gravity, upon noticing he had lost enough of his mass to no longer register as anything worthwhile, eased up; his terminal velocity immediately slowed.
The air resistance compounded it. Where he'd occupied a space of hundreds upon hundreds of square meters, his body compressed into less than a hundredth of itself. The sudden burst of net upward force punched him in the gut. In every place, really. His ear itched, and he swore he could feel something tumbling around in there.
But he retained consciousness, even through the throbbing pain of air molecules squashing against him. From the Aud to this, it seemed. He had chosen poorly, but not enough for it to matter.
He kept himself splayed out and allowed the increased resistance from beneath to sap more of that dreadful terminal velocity. He was going slow enough now that it seemed almost like he was in a normal fall. After he adjusted, he made another transition, becoming human-sized.
He-6 was ready for the body-punch the air delivered, but it felt orders of magnitude weaker compared to the first. Gravity lessened a bit more as well, but the influence lost was unnoticeable.
There were little more than ten seconds between him and the ground, if he hadn't misjudged the distance. He counted down, calmer now that he'd escaped most of the Aud armies congregated around the walls at his back.
At five, he was back to the usual super-size. His volume increased enough that even though there were still five seconds between him and impact, he had already done it. Not that the ground landing was gentle. No, common sense and physics both had joined hands to spite him.
The worst part?
As he tumbled across the rocky plains, tearing up the terrain and bruising up his insides, he couldn't even fault the two. He should have died, no question about it. As one of the Blessing's carriers, he was a cheater in this day and age.
When the inertia supporting the cropper finished itself, he took a moment to catch his breath. After that, He-6 was on his feet and groaning while stumbling back toward the city, scanning the ground and walls for any green streaks.
"Not doing that again for a while." The first of them didn't leave him waiting, coming from the west. He would've appreciated a respite. He wriggled his pinkie in his ear and winced when it came away with orange-ish goop. That'd been close. "Come on, old boy. Back to it!"