Hailey raises the baton as a signal (borrowing it from Neo), points at Bys, then stabs at number four. Then she swivels back to the nearest slime (the one Neo beat up with the baton), raises her pistol, aims carefully, then times a shot for the still moment just after it lands, before it attempts another weakened "leap". Then she lowers the pistol, swivels to slime two, aims, fires.

Finally she repeats the process one last time, turning to slime three (the last of the nearby slimes with no humans downrange). She aims carefully, fires between breaths at the bottom of its leap, pauses, waits for it to react, attempt to move, settle, then she fires again.

Then she lowers the pistol while Maya keeps watch on it all with the phantasmal eyes.

Slime Lv 1 defeated!

100 Experience granted.

Slime 1 is dissolving into a puddle now after three vicious baton hits and a bullet, but slimes 2 and 3 are still kicking, despite being shot twice. And gunshots... Are very loud. Several more slimes seem to be converging on their area rather than passively wandering the highway and grass and field of cars. The furthest away ones are only intermittently visible, but at least half a dozen seem to be approaching, including the Gas Slime. They're a few hundred feet away, though, she has a minute to deal with the two close-by ones.

Bys seems to have used Sudden Charge, if the way she blurs over to the fourth slime, fire axe cleaving straight through its gelatinous mass, is anything to go by. It separates completely in two from the force, and Abyssia jumps in shock. "Woah!"

Those fuckers are still alive? Okay. They release Many Voices.

"Bys, can you cleave those two wounded ones for me? This spot will act as bait for them all after we get away. They seem drawn to noise," she says while decocking and safely holstering her pistol.

She turns to the car. "Away from the window, and cover your face." Once they do, she shatters it with the baton.

The first rescuee is following close to Sable, looking around and grimacing. The second follows her instructions and scrambles out with a bit of help, lifting them through the awkward window. Sebastian has stopped clearing a path towards the bus and is headed for them, too.

Her body moves so easily, so fluidly. She doesn't use the Charge again, it has a Cooldown, but it doesn't much matter when she starts her swing towards where a slime is going to land just as it begins its leap.

Though the fire axe gets sort of stick in their thick jello-ey bodies, the two damaged slimes are quickly dead slimes.

Slime lv 1 (x2) Defeated

Your contribution: 60%

120 Experience awarded! Loot the enemies?

Yes, she wants to loot all the enemies. Absolutely. Is the System going to conveniently give it to her, or does she need to go pick it up?

Particularly keen listeners may notice that her voice sounds different — tighter, slightly chirpier, a little bit clipped. Bys knows what that means. The others don't, most likely.

"Okay. We want to be away from here. All that gunfire will be a beacon to the slimes. Rainbow's a gasoline slime, highly flammable. It probably picked that up because there's gas leaking everywhere. I expect the whole place will go up if I shoot it. Plan is to get us all away and then detonate, hopefully killing them all. Bys and Sebastian, clear the blocked car without the exposed windows. I'm on the last exposed one. Civilians, if you don't mind car-hopping, with me, otherwise with Bys and Sebastian. Then we all converge on the bus."

The System is going to make stuff appear where the puddle-goo-bodies are! There is: A plastic bottle of water, a cube of something light blue, and a glass vial with a cork stopper.

People seem okay with following her lead. The last two trapped civilians are freed in short order. Some of the slimes get distracted by the group on their way to the party, heading towards them instead of blobbing up together.

Sebastian and Abyssia can take care of those before any of their rescuees panic too much, jogging towards each one in turn, motioning for Sebastian to back her up. Two quick swings of the fire axe seem to take care of them, though she whiffs a swing and is slammed into by one of the slimes, letting out a pained grunt, once. Sebastian smashes it with a sledgehammer.

Then they're all heading to the bus, after she scoops the loot into her bag. Neo leads everyone car-hopping to the very front of the bus, where a car is blocking access to the windshield.

Sable looks down at it and nods. "Okay, we need to shove this thing far enough off to clear a path, then I'll get the glass out of the windshield. Once it's off enough that I can get at the glass, everyone focus on clearing a path, then we all book it off the road."

Of course Maya keeps her phantasmal eyes orbiting watchfully.

From inside the bus comes the call of, "Thank you! Oh g- Okay, kids, see, they're not firefighters but people are coming to help- Hello! We had two people run for the Army base, but they're not back yet."

Abyssia comments and points. "The base is that way. I dunno where the, like, defensive line is-"

They've started to hear gunshots, though. So the defensive line is probably not that far away.

"Right, Sebastian, I think you can just lift it, and shove it over this other one, if you get under here- I'll make sure it doesn't fall the other way. Does anyone else want to help?"

None of the civvies seem particularly eager to help. Bys snorts derisively. "Well, there's a Healer right there, right, come on!"

This gets two of them to hesitantly step forward as Sebastian drops down, trying to grip the frame of the Sedan. "Hold on, I need more 'world of cardboard' for this... There."

The strongman lifts with a groan and the whole car slowly moves upwards. Bys shoves the tires and oily underbody, trying to make sure it lands away from the bus.

The second there's enough of a gap, she drops into the space next to the windshield, smashing the shards of glass away with her baton.

That done, she turns to the people inside with a warm, confident grin. "Okay, kids! We're your rescue team for today. My friends are getting that car out of the way," an enormous, crunching crash is heard as it lands, "and now we need to swiftly but carefully exit the bus. I'm going to teach y'all a lesson that I learned from someone very wise, and that should help in all sorts of situations — especially ones like this: slow is smooth, smooth is fast."

She looks around at everyone, smiling warmly. "That means that moving slower allows you to move more smoothly, and moving smoothly is a safer kind of going fast. So say it with me: slow is smooth, smooth is fast."

The lady at the back seems to be their teacher; She has them all line up and repeat 'slow is smooth, smooth is fast' several times. None of the kids have visible injuries, though several of them have bloodstains or torn clothes. She looks haggard and tired, and is moving slowly, as if weak.

"Okay, kids. We're going to step out now. My friends Bys and Sebastian cleared us a path off the highway, and we're going to get clear of this mess, then head toward the base. Follow me, everyone." And she leads them out of the bus, helping them down if needed.

She grabs the civilian healer's attention as soon as she can, and directs her toward the obviously worn out teacher.

The kids file out, shivering and fidgeting but mostly orderly.

One of them asks Sebastian if he's a Luchador. He just says, "Eh, not quite."

The healer reaches the teacher and talks quietly for a bit.

"-I don't think I can heal this. It's... Like you're thin air. Maximum HP reduced?"

"It'd be a massive hack if you could, I'm not surprised," the teacher says quietly. "Just watch the kids, okay? That's what's important."

She nods firmly and starts leading the kids down the path, off the highway. Along the way she grabs Sebastian. "Think you can pitch a chunk of debris into the middle of the pileup? Ideally a very gas-covered area?"

Bys stands at the head of the column, head on a swivel watching for slimes. 'We're going to go see the Army, but we have to be careful and quiet', she tells them.

"I'm not exactly a shot-put champion. Or is this more like javelin...?" Sebastian frowns thoughtfully and finds a bit of door frame. Puts a foot on it and pulls to break it free. Hefts it and swings it in his hand a bit.

"Leverage is really cool, by the way. Okay, I bet I can get this in a general area. Maybe aim for the windshield on that BMW?"

"Yeah," she says with a nod. "I don't need great accuracy, I just want them to have a good excuse to clump together where I can try to detonate the gasoline slime. A toss or three ought to do nicely."

He grabs a bit more ammo - a piece of roof frame, a tire - and waits for a signal. Behind them, the rescued civilians and kids are starting to get close to the edge of the debris.

She signals to Bys to make sure the group gets clear of the gas spill, at least, and once they are, signals Sebastian.

And then she draws her gun, does a press-check, cocks the hammer, and points at the ground, facing toward the target area and watching carefully.