[Lenka's used to being the vanguard (Old-Types should stick to what they're used to, and New-Types should take the lead, someone says, long ago and far away): making snap decisions about where to turn, when to fall back, how to stay in range of his gunner support -- these are things he should be doing, and yet between the wind whistling in his ears and the old, dried-blood crackle of the creature behind him it's so hard to remember. Remembering is the trade-off for muscle memory and instinct.

However.

Some things are burned deeper, branded into his bones and marrow, and his charge is already slowing when he hears the telltale sound of combat behind him: too much to be mopping up stragglers, and by the time Jaune lets out his cry of dismay Lenka has already slid into a half-crouch facing the right and thinnest flank of the teeming mass they've suddenly wandered into. There's a movement in the sky that makes him duck instinctively towards the cover of the treetops, but the report of the rifle calms him again, a familiar background rhythm. His back line is okay, for now. He needs to find an opening. He needs to get them all out of this in one piece.]

Roger. [instinctively, he's tapped a finger to the comm device that isn't in his ear, not even registering the telepathic component of the message beyond the somehow familiar voice -- he can't quite place it, but he'll listen for now] John! This way.

[The new well of power whispering behind and through him is limited, something cautions, but Lenka digs down anyway and flings out another Garu to help break through. The new twin swords he's been given don't have quite the same reach, power or heft of the weapons he's used to, but they do have a certain versatility: instead of parrying with them, he slams them together -- the hilts lock, becoming the holster for the newly formed lance.

It makes a much better battering ram.]