She was standing on the wall at a 90 degree angle, no it was more like she was hanging perpendicular to the cliff face, her legs embedded in it straining as it tried to hold her body straight. The men took a little too long to notice that she wasn't at the earth wall, and was instead hanging out in the open several meters away from it, enough time, for her to shoot five men down and Grendolyn to erect extend her wall to where Tess was, just in time, to keep the bullets off her.
They hadn't noticed before, but Grendolyn had constantly pulling more earth from the ground down below and hiding it under the platform they stood on. It took this long for them to finally retaliate, since the distance she needed to pull it through was no laughing matter, not to mention, she had to continue keeping all that weight in the air.
But the pay off was worth it as their one safe haven now extended into three different positions, using the gathered earth for more footing.
Like this, they had suddenly established their position in this vertical battle and becoming a deadly shell game for their opponents. Again Tess's voice rang out, "Hey, I thought you wanted to show us some 'kindness' Hihihi!" But this time it rang out from all three earth walls.
A hole opened up in each one of them, all the men nervously pointed their guns, switching from earth wall to earth wall.
"You have a very creepy laugh you know..." Suddenly, Grendolyn's voice rang from behind one of the walls.
"She's there! fire!" Instantly all of them pointed at the earth wall on the most right, delivering bullets and even grenades into the space. It took several seconds, but soon they heard the familiar sound of a frag grenade going off.
If they were in that place, there was no way for them to escape being torn apart by the shrapnel fragments in such an enclosed space.
But before they could even confirm anything, the other two opened up, allowing a spry young girl to jump up, shoot some arrows while she flipped in the air before landing on the next platform, "Wrong again!" she said as she patronized them, leaving another 3 bodies in her wake. As soon as she landed the earth wall began to regain it's form as it swirled shut as if to swallow her up.
"Did you really have to do all those moves, isn't it easier to just jump normally and kill them. You only killed a few this time, we only have so many tricks up our sleeves, you realize this is still a life and death situation right?" Grendolyn complained.
"You can only say that because you're nice and cozy in here. What I did was evasive maneuvers! E-VA-SIVE! It's to make sure I don't get shot while exposed." Tess replied.
"When will you get shot, they were so busy looking at you stupidly fly around several hundred feet above ground. For your information, if you miss your landing, don't expect me to catch you."
"Yeah yeah, do you think we can do it again?" Tess asked.
"Yeah, it should maybe work another two times."
Grendolyn had opened a small hole in the wall, it didn't look like much but there seemed to be ridges lining the inner walls.
"Heya b#stards! Still ready to play..." Tess began to run her mouth, and anything she said was transmitted to all three platforms.
Grendolyn looked on smugly as she saw her invention worked. Despite being sheltered inside the giant trap after the world had changed, it didn't mean Grendolyn had stopped learning. All those Grens she'd created had spent most of their time learning and procuring things from the new world beside trying to conduct a rebellion and trying to steal her body. Hence she lacked no study material for research even once she had been isolated.
One of the easier ones she'd come upon was the effects of sound. These small holes connected a channel between the platforms, while those ridges and curves she had formed into the inner wall were made to match the frequency of Tess's voice, allowing her sound waves to travel all of them while the earth walls themselves acted as acoustics to amplify the sound.
Next she opened a whole on the platform underneath their feet. "You ready?"
"Well it's just a few more times." Tess gulped as she placed her bow in her mouth and climbed down.
On the cliff's face, Grendolyn had formed several handles so that Tess could move between the platforms by doing a little wall climbing without being detected.
A few minutes later, a series of screams were heard from above as Grendolyn opened up the earth wall once more and allowed Tess to reenter.
"How many this time?"
"Six, still not good enough but it's better than the last time."
"Can't you give a compliment without trying to mellow out people's achievement."
"I..." But just before the hole closed completely, a grenade was launched right into it, landing between the both of them.
"Oh shiiiIII!!!"
Bang!
High above the clouds, a single cloud of smoke began to rise up.