<div class="floatleft">(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/053/1/6/16765d6dbbab2fe707faca3315a8cea2-d5k4jy8.png)</div><strong>Jeanette Gagarin<br/>Maxilos Arena, Mass Impact</strong><br/><br/>Lorena staggered backward, surprised by the sudden strike. Despite looking fragile, she was in fact incredibly resilient; her people had centuries ago lost the distinction between organic and synthetic, becoming a hybrid, synthesized race. Being made of many implants, muscle weaves, and other technology, she could more than take a hit. She didn’t broadcast this, of course, encouraging people to underestimate her. However, the raw mass and velocity of M was more than enough to toss her backward into the wall, where she managed to perch for a moment before dropping to her feet, but her barrier flickered erratically, struggling to come back up.<br/><br/>Kark was having none of that. He countered M’s charge with his own rage-fueled answer, furious at seeing his favorite violet doll thrown about. M was big and powerful, but Kark doubly so. Mere moments after M smashed into Lorena, Kark smashed into M, the shockwave so powerful that Jeanette staggered several meters away. M flew head over heels to the other side of the room.<br/><br/>As Jeanette recovered from the surprise and her stumble, she scrambled for cover as the black-armored one lined up a shot. It was too late. A charged blast hurtled over the low cover, pinging Jeanette right in the head, laying her out flat on the ground, dazed but uninjured thanks to her very strong shields. Lorena psionically lifted her back to her feet and into cover, then took cover next to her.<br/><br/>“These guys aren’t messing around,” she said breathlessly, looking worried. “…and it looks like we already lost Kark.” The dinosaur of a man had already bore down on M, trying and partially succeeding to crush him. Kark had lost most of his sense of reason and awareness, however, so while M was unable to stop him, Kark completely failed to notice the gray-armored one sneaking up on him with a stun rod. Temporarily immobilized, the two Fenris operatives got their footing back and started to harry him with attacks.<br/><br/>Jeanette’s messenger pinged again just long enough to distract her from the hand reaching over their cover. She was lifted up and over, and slammed to the ground, shocked to see the black one had somehow gotten up to them without making any kind of noise, and was now bringing a flash-blade down at her neck. Thinking quickly, Jeanette burst her shields, throwing the black one off of her, but not very far thanks to his own shields protecting him.<br/><br/>“Not bad,” said the growly voice, appreciative. “Not good enough, though.” He broke into an unnaturally fast run, boots clomping down on the metal floor, catching Jeanette with his shoulder as she was rising and tackling her. Not bothering with flash-blades or weapons, he started punching her in classic ground-fighting style. Shields could do nothing against that, and they hadn’t recharged anyway. Unable to quickly respond, Jeanette busied herself with blocking him.<br/><br/>Suddenly he was getting electrocuted as Lorena’s tech tentacles burst from her forearm and wrapped around the agent. Jeanette slid out from under him, and only just in time; the man was not as phased by the electricity as he should have been. Grabbing the tendrils and using them to throw Lorena into the fray with Kark, who was having a hard time.<br/><br/>“Now that the trash is taken out, let’s go, Gagarin.” She could hear him smiling violently. Jeanette had a lot to say, but instead charged her gauntlets with psionic power as they rushed toward each other. There was no question that she was faster than him, and her technique was better, but it seemed like each blow glanced off him. Was his armor that much stronger? Did he have some kind of invisible damage reduction? He laughed when she connected, simply powering through and returning her blows, twice as strong.<br/><br/>The arena buzzed twice in quick succession; Kark and Lorena were down. The other two Fenris agents closed in on the brawling soldiers. Jeanette kept losing ground as her enemy lorded his power over her, seemingly having had enough of her attempts and now ducking and weaving in ways he hadn’t bothered to earlier. Her shields hadn’t been up in a long time, now.<br/><br/>Feeling closed in, she charged her boots with psionics and fired herself backward, away from her enemy. It was three on one, her allies weren’t getting up anytime soon, and the other two Fenris guys didn’t look nearly as much worse for the wear as they should have been. She was simply outgeared.<br/><br/>The big one approached first and brandished a whip. He expertly cracked it at her, but she caught it and backfed it with both psionic and tech power. The handle exploded in his hand and he was thrown to the ground, armor charred. “The fuck?!” He couldn’t believe what had just happened.<br/><br/>It didn’t matter. The black one had used that time to cloak, get behind her, and give her the courtesy of whispering “Goodnight,” before everything went dark.