[Sinopia DeStellanova]

The sound of gunfire was deafening. It made it difficult to pay attention to much else, though it also made her arms and shoulders stiff as a statue as she ran, so Bianca would end up being held fairly steady by sheer coincidence. The only thing Bianca had to worry about was steadying herself with Red's rapid footsteps because nothing else on her body was going to be moving to compensate for them. She was glad she didn't have to think about anything else. If her mind wandered like it normally did, her stomach would be churning over the upcoming jump. This was dumb. So dumb. Why was she using people for what amounted to an experiment? Because it was their best chance to get on the ship. Because if it didn't work they'd end up in the water where they'd be...relatively safe.

They were approaching the ship. The decision was made. There was no going back now.

Holding her breath, she activated her semblance on everyone touching her. Anyone that failed to do so would get left behind, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She warned them before. Sure enough, they passed through the ship and ended up inside. The downside to her semblance was that, while she could go through solid walls, she couldn't actually see what was on the other side. It was a weakness she was used to however, so she pulled her legs close to her torso and tried to make herself as small as possible while carrying a person and not losing contact with Argent. When she landed, she was a small ball with her arms in an awkward position and immediately took stock of the situation.

There were way more people here than she expected, and she didn't see anything beyond that. Nothing immediately jumped out at her as useful, and there were too many people here for her to want to risk seeing if there were any communications she could interfere with. Red darted to one side without thinking too hard about it. Avoiding incoming fire was more important than anything else she could do, and her reflexes forgot that she was carrying someone. Bianca's shifting weight reminded her of that quickly, so she was able to readjust and prevent Bianca from falling off of her back. That did enough to remind her that she wasn't alone right now, and that they wouldn't know what to expect from her like Knight did. She started moving towards where the least amount of soldiers were and motioned with her shoulder for Argent to follow.

"Wall!"

Hopefully that would be enough for her to understand, because she really didn't want to have to stand in front of the wall to wait for him to grab her again before phasing through it. She wasn't sure where this one would take them either, but she figured she could just keep running around and going through walls until she lost them. That normally worked anyway. Once people like this knew there was an intruder, normally they tried to catch her. That meant they had to take longer routes than she did, which also meant a room or two would empty out after awhile.

Her first trip through an interior wall was done without much thought to get out of immediate danger, but after that she tried to think of a reasonable path for them to take. Where did they want to go? They wanted to destroy the cannons and the ship itself. The cannons were a good place to look for munitions that would make blowing up the entire thing very easy, and they were likely to be near the cannons themselves. Artillery shells were big and difficult to move, so they couldn't be that far. Trying to remember where they jumped, the cannons probably weren't on this floor. While she was dumb enough to jump into an armed warship full of people that wanted her dead, she wasn't quite dumb enough to jump inside a live artillery barrel.

So she needed to find a place where they could move up and down. Her semblance made it fairly straightforward to move down, but it was far more difficult to go up. She'd have to jump high enough to get her entire body through the ceiling, and everyone else would do. It's not like they could grab onto anything while phasing. It'd be better to find a reasonable place to move around. The interior of the ship likely had a couple of stair cases, but the enemy soldiers would undoubtedly be using those. They'd be dangerous. A ship like this probably had several emergency exists and escape routes though. Not having them would be a fire hazard at best, and would make the ship a complete death trap if it ever got hit. There'd probably be one on the front, the back, and each side. Red made her way towards the back, figuring there would be less people there.

Even after searching the area she didn't see anything she could use. It'd be difficult for her to scale the ship on her own, let alone while worrying about two people. She could still go down through the floor at any point, but the same thing that happened when they first entered could happen again, and they wouldn't have a good way back up. In other words, if they went down that was probably it. She'd have to hope she could find the right room and that there weren't too many people guarding it. She paused for a moment to try to think about what to do, her movement slowing as she did so.

That was when the enemy leader's words started to sink in. Grimm were coming? Of course they were, how could they not be given what was going on here? And she left Knight in the middle of a corn field while she could barely move. Fucking stupid. How could she even let this happen? What--

Irrelevant. She could not get to the corn field. All she could do was try to end this as quickly as possible. Going right for the munitions might do that, but there was no guarantee that would kill someone with aura. If they even wanted to kill this guy. Capturing him would be ideal right? They were only talking about disabling the cannons, not making the entire ship explode, so that seemed likely. If they were going for that, then coming with her would not be ideal.

Probably. She couldn't think straight right now. Maybe it was the best choice and she was just too dumb to see it. Red could believe it. So, she did what she would do in a similar situation with Knight: made a suggestion phrased in a fairly weak way. She wouldn't try to persuade them, it was just putting the idea in their heads.

"This ladder will let us go up as well as down. If there were that many people in one room, there's probably a lot of people by the artillery. Since they were using it not too long ago. It might be dangerous to fight there."

She paused and reached for one of the many screws holding together the outside form of the ship. It turned orange and fell through the wall, eventually clattering onto the floor when she released her semblance. The metal creaked as she reached for a second one to do the same thing. It was a trick she always wanted to do, but couldn't until now because she couldn't make anything phase through metal. Now that she could, taking down a ship and dealing with any hydraulic mechanisms would be easier than she thought when she first introduced herself.

"I think I can destroy the ship reasonably quickly on my own. And I am difficult to catch and follow. I might be able to do this on my own if you wanted to try to capture the leader now. This may be your best chance to do so."

Obviously she wouldn't be dismantling a ship bolt by bolt, but hopefully it would show just how quickly she could deal with any systems she might run into. They didn't have a good way up still, but she could help with the first leg. If they stacked enough furniture or other random junk laying around on each other, they could make a makeshift ladder to the next floor and then phase through the ceiling, but that was about the best she could offer them beyond doing another lap around the ship to try to find the stairs if they wanted to try more conventional routes. She'd be willing to help them all the way up though.

---

1459/7167

ACTION: Getting everyone to relative safety via running through walls, failing to find a good way up or down, offering to take everyone else through ceiling or floor depending on what they want to do

[Bianca Sabbato]

The hard light dust accomplished its intended function, even if the end result was a little underwhelming.

Just as Argent had said, the leader of the rebellion appeared to have an explosive manipulator semblance that made short work of the crystalline construct of pure energy that burst into a million pieces when the power of the explosion crashed on it.

On a similar vein, my makeshift steam grenade worked wonderfully at preventing any stray sniper from picking us out at a distance, so I considered it a good investment even if now we were out of outward defensive options except for the ice dust currently on Argent’s possession...

A part of me always feared that we would suffer the fabled “too good to use” syndrome and end up missing a critical chance to expend those charges, so all good as far as I could tell... And I still had a nasty looking piece of fire dust I was pretty sure I knew how I wanted to use.

I saw the metal hull of the ship approaching quickly as my noble steed covered the distance at an astonishing speed. Zooming into the boat, I instinctively held my breath as Argent reached out to touch Powehi and we came bursting into the ship.

Again, the feeling of phasing through a physical object was... Kinda funky. That feeling of weightlessness and... I don’t even know how to describe it, to be honest, it was pretty dope but slightly unnerving at the same time, but then again, I guess that can be said of any specific semblance there is.

I mean... If I were to explain how does it feel to have mine, to feel that everpresent connection with the earth, almost as a million invisible nerves sprouting from my body and mixing my bodily awareness and autonomy with that of the soil around me... I guess it would sound kind of gross as well... Welp, at least we didn’t die on our way in, so I considered the maneuver a successful one!

Back to the ship, I could feel myself almost... Crashing... -let’s say- Onto Powehi’s back once we recovered our former tangibility, but I didn't have any time to keep mulling on the esoteric mechanics of phase shifting, as it was clear the second we entered the room that we were not alone when we emerged in what appeared to be some kind of living accommodations.

The fuck were these people doing here? Shouldn’t they be on the bridge or the machine room preparing for whatever they were about to do?

Whatever, no plan survives enemy contact anyway, so I quickly made a mental note of holding my spear tight as I hastily scanned the room to begin formulating a strategy as I did my best to deflect and dodge a couple well-placed shots from a nearby rifleman, one of which I couldn’t avoid fully but I managed to compensate by calling my aura to reinforce the calculated site of impact... Now for a counteroffensive...

Two big pockets and my pouch filled with dirt. It would have to suffice. Commanding my earth to life, I didn’t even bother taking it out cleanly from the pocket on my left thigh, I pretty much hardened and sharpened it, and immediately send it piercing through the fabric of my pouch and searched for the nearest attacker, thinking about aiming straight for the eyes for I wanted to take down as many enemies as possible in the least amount of time. I knew I wasn’t made for endurance battles, so I would know how I had to fight.

Luckily, things didn’t need to come down to that. I was just about to jump out of Powehi’s back when the girl made a sudden movement that almost made me fall over and sprawl into the ground. Fortunately, she managed to adjust her footing in time to help me stabilize myself and grab a hold of her shoulder with the hand that wasn’t wielding Nereida.

The girl seemed to have a sharp mind and a body attuned to working alongside it –I could even compare her to a Haven student, and of the strongest ones- so it seemed she would be useful after all, even more than what she had already been.

We phased through a wall, and then a couple more, as Powehi seemed to be searching for something, I didn’t question her reasoning and just let her do her thing in silence. Just making sure to be careful enough to not bother her and ready enough to fight if we had to. Once she slowed down, I carefully got down and listened to her explanation while trying to formulate an answer on my own.

-If you say you’re able, I’ll trust your judgment. And I think is best for Argent and me to go kill or capture the leader now, sow some chaos in the crewmembers. Any time they spend panicking and deciding what to do is time they aren’t using to hunt you down- I ventured as I picked the fallen bolt with the tip of my tail and examined it thoughtfully.

-What do you think?- I asked Argent as I considered the very real possibility the woman got herself killed down there... She’d been... Not sure if nice, but at least decent, and helpful, so having to balance the general utility of finally taking care of the rebel leader against her safety left a sour taste on my mouth.

As usual, I was not among the people with the useful abilities who could go around risking their lives doing something no one else could... In the end, I seemed to be good for one thing alone...

-I think we should be able to pull out our part by ourselves, Sir. If you are fine with letting Powehi go, I’m game-

And if things turn for the worst with our fight on deck... I knew I would be the one pushing the snake faunus out of harm’s way and finishing the job even if it cost me my life, that was a non-negotiable condition that Argent didn’t need to know.

---

ACTIONS: If any attack is made towards Bianca, I'd like to spend all of my actions so I can dodge with advantage. Besides that, just tag along with Red and Argent and suggest going up to face the commander.

---

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[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.

But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

The explosion that shattered their hard light barrier only finalized what he'd been trying to rationalize away. The snake Faunus had never been one to jump to conclusions, but all the information lined up well enough that there was little point in further caution, bordering on denying the obvious. The man in the gas mask - pitiful excuse that he was of one, at least - was, without a doubt, Solomon Moon. There wasn't much time to ruminate on this information, however, as Powehi brought them through the ship's hull just as she said she would. Straight into a number of soldiers still yet to disembark the ship, admittedly, but he'd expected as much going in.

Argent never thought that he'd be thankful to be shot at, but considering the fact that the other two targets were people he was at least nominally responsible for, it was a lot more palatable than it would otherwise have been. That being said, actually being hit by said bullets wasn't something he really wanted to experience, so he quickly spun away from Powehi and Bianca and dropped into a low sprint, vaulting over some furniture and bouncing off of the wall to launch a flurry of knives out at their aggressors at the same time that a loud shout of "Wall!" made its way to his ears. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant, and the snake Faunus quickly leapt over another piece of furniture to join her mere seconds after.

Grabbing on to their companion who was rapidly proving her weight in gold, at least with regards to her usefulness with regards to their current mission, Argent followed as they made their way moving through the metal walls of the ship and towards its rear, until they at last started to slow down, reaching an area where they could talk unmolested. Powehi seemed to take a moment to think some things over before turning to the two of them - the snake Faunus raised an eyebrow slightly as she put forward the notion that it might not be safe to fight within the artillery section. She did admittedly have a point, but he didn't see any other way that they could fulfill their objective of sabotage, and was about to mention that when she displayed the spectacular act of unscrewing part of the ship with her Semblance.

Well, that certainly changed things. Bianca certainly seemed to think so too, apparently convinced that Powehi could handle things by herself. Unsure of the same, Argent opened his mouth slightly to respond, then caught himself and paused slightly. The young woman had said that she wasn't much of a fighter, but really, with a Semblance like that, she didn't need to be. And if she had that level of control over it, then it would be much easier for her to accomplish her objectives if she didn't have to contend with the two of them slowing her down.

"Understood," he said, a little reluctant to send someone else into the heat of things to accomplish their mission for them, but at the same time understanding that it causing as much of a distraction as they were able to, and letting her do her thing unhindered by their presence, was probably the best outcome they were going to get given the circumstances. The snake Faunus nodded at Bianca, showing that he agreed with her assessment of the situation, then pulled the captured radio off of his hip and handed it over to Powehi.

"We'll go up and do whatever we can. Try to make the damage permanent. Let us know what happens, good or bad. We'll be sharing the frequency with the Legion, so no specifics, but it's better than nothing."

Exhaling softly, Argent let his thoughts drift back to Solomon Moon for the briefest of moments. A liar, traitor, and idiot, rolled up into a noxious package of shallow nihilism and loud noise, with a superiority complex as the cherry on top. He had never liked him, considering that the man seemed to take perverse pleasure in antagonizing literally everyone he met and shielding himself with the thinnest of excuses to avoid the responsibility of initiating any fight, and liked him even less when he had pulled his little stunt with Kishka. And now, he'd caused death and destruction on a scale nearly as big as Rochdale's. The snake Faunus had never been the kind of person who was eager to get into a fight, but he couldn't deny that he would heavily relish being able to lay out Solomon Moon like the fool he was. The problem with that, of course, was that Solomon Moon wasn't alone, and getting to him was about as difficult as one might expect it to be.

Shaking himself out of it, Argent glanced around. If there were enough objects in the room to make the ladder that Powehi described, then that was what he would do - otherwise, they would have to keep her occupied for a while longer while they found a room that did or a way up.

TLDR: Argent moves with Red and Bianca, agrees to go up and take out the enemy commander through the ceiling with Bianca while Red commits her acts of sabotage, and uses Semblance to assist where possible (i.e. constructing junk pile to climb up to reach the ceiling, etc)

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]

SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]

OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]

@ ● 899 words ● 5477 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Alina Rybalka]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE

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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY

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[attr="class","nikki109"]The first real instructor that Knight had in martial combat that she actually took to heart was Caerwyn Erez, leader of Team CBLT and an absolute fucking terror with that blade of hers. It was impossible to be wholly unique in this world in anything, and because of that certain skills seemed to simply be copying moves and tricks from several people better than you until you found a mix that worked in practice as well as in theory. [break][break]

”If disengagement with such an enemy is impossible, then you’re forced into a fight where you’re at an enormous disadvantage. You have to beat them twice, and they only have to beat you once.” [break][break]

With enough focus, she could almost remember the exact tone of some of the words Erez used while instructing. The faunus was always an auditory learner, with words spoken to her while she was focused lingering almost forever. That ability to recollect was useful in some situations, like this one in particular. It had been a while since she started a fight with this much of a disadvantage, and those around the leader would wake up and start to fight again here soon. [break][break]

”Those with auras typically develop two styles, with the one with their aura on being much more reckless and aggressive. Knowing they can’t be hurt allows their ego to shine through, because they know how big of an advantage they have. Once their aura is gone, they’ll either lose the will to fight or double down to try and take advantage of everything they learned fighting you the first time to finish the deal the second. The most common way to get around that is to develop two styles yourself…” [break][break]

Some people were rigid in what they were willing to do, heavily preferring one style or method of doing things and working to perfect that tactic as much as possible. Knight was never like that, though of course she had styles she had more or less success with and knew more or less about individually… but she always considered the ability to adapt to the situation and exploit the weaknesses of her opponent to be more valuable than being known for any specific style of fighting. [break][break]

With that being said, of course she had a default style that she used when no other information was known. The Vale style focused on aggressive movements towards the opponent, and notably featured far more side to side movement than something like the Argus style that was almost devoid of lateral movement. She liked using it for at least for the first phase of the fight against an opponent with aura because it matched aggression with aggression and forced her opponent backwards and sideways trying to defending both their front and both flanks. It prevented her from getting rolled over early and threw the other party off balance when she inevitably completely swapped styles to something far more defensive and cautious in the second phase. [break][break]

The lurch forward seemed to be an unexpected move, and the faunus was able to get in very close while simultaneously avoiding the volley of attacks from most of the bystanders as well as an explosion that she was only able to barely sidestep that blew past her left ear. A left palm strike hit the leader’s chin but barely moved it, right boot smashed against the left kneecap of the guy which briefly buckled it, and right hand reached the hilt of the blade at his hip at just about the time it was ejected with ballistic force out of the sheath. She was able to hold onto the hilt through this and yank it back, but the strain of that was enough to lock her in place for long enough to get blasted by what seemed like lightning on her left side in a direct hit she was unable to avoid that charred the outer layer of the jumpsuit and increased the bleeding on that left side from her neck and shoulder as well. [break][break]

Moving to swing the blade back to the enemy leader, however, proved an issue. The fucker installed some software or something on the blade which made it move into another direction using what seemed to be vents for fire dust explosions that would yank it around with miniature explosions to improve impact speeds and add an extra oompf to the slash. It was crude and inefficient, but left with little other choice she followed the momentum and made the dozen men surrounding her turn into eleven when one of them was decapitated at the impact of the blade’s edge before Knight let go of the sword entirely and let it careen into the water. [break][break]

”It’s funny, you’re not the first one to have tried something so stupid and foolish. You’re obviously not very experienced, mongrel. Looks like your luck is starting to run out.” Oh no, he was monologuing again. [break][break]

Another explosion, blast of lightning, and a now transformation boosted soldier all came at her at once after that, but the endless barrage of attacks was fully expected at this point and she had prepared. With only the head gone and the body falling, it was a simple matter to grab it and position the body and the armor covering it in between her and her enemies, as well as pull the sidearm from the corpse’s hip because for some fucking reason he didn’t have a melee weapon like she would have preferred. The meat shield didn’t last for too long and made one hell of a mess, but it served its purpose in keeping Knight alive just a little bit longer. [break][break]

”How long can you keep this up, I wonder? Surely you understand at this rate you’re going to gas out before you even murder one other person.” The complete and utter confidence was annoying, and so was the fact that he sent four of the remaining men inside – including some of the ones who had just activated their transformations a bit earlier. He was confident he had the upper hand at this point, and it wasn’t like that confidence was really unfounded. With most of the remainder of soldiers having aura, she didn’t have enough speed to take out every single one of them before exhaustion took her… but maybe she didn’t have to. [break][break]

”Guess the rumors are true, you are too scared to fight alone.” she spat as she tossed the remains of the corpse on the ground waiting for the telltale muscle twitch of the next attack to guide her in her way back to her opponent. Getting back to hit the leader was going to be hard, because with the distance between them now the others were already putting themselves into position to body block no matter which direction she went. She wasted time with the taunt and the calculation, which prevented her from exploiting an opening she may have been able to create if she had just charged a second time. If nothing else, though, the human wall in front of her made sure that she wouldn’t miss and waste time. She might not be able to kill the leader, but if she could kill everyone around him and live that might be good enough for others to come finish the job later. [break][break]

This would be so much fucking easier if she could get her hands on any sort of melee weapon. Damn it, why did these new modern shitheads only carry around guns? [break][break]

SPOILER: Click to show

Enemy Lead Aura: 45% [break][break]

Knight HP: 78% [break][break]

Bianca Aura Damage since thread start: 4% [break][break]

CL Raider stats (10 of 12 inside): F rank Weapons (Rifles/Swords) Durability/Speed/Stamina/Martial Arts/Marksmanship, no semblance. [break][break]

CL Fireteam Lead stats (2 of 12 inside): F rank Weapons (Rifles/Swords) Durability/Speed/Stamina/Martial Arts/Marksmanship, any F rank semblance. [break][break]

CL Lieutenant (Roughly 8 overall on ship.): F rank Weapons (Rifles/Swords) Durability/Speed/Stamina/Martial Arts/Marksmanship, any E rank semblance.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]3359 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

The blaring alarm was giving her a pounding headache. She could still make out what the others were saying, barely, but the additional noise was just painful at this point. She nodded and took the radio, hoping to limit further conversation in these circumstances. This wasn't the first time she'd dealt with alarms like this, so she'd be able to manage, even if they did get chatty, but it was still annoying and painful.

Once the decision was made, she wasted no time in trying to put together something high enough for them to climb and stand on to get to the next floor. Warships like this didn't have that much laying around, but fortunately Red was not limited to things not bolted to the ground. The sink, heavy cleaning supplies, the door leading in, the toilet, they were all fair game with her abilities now, and large enough that they could probably manage something once they were all stacked properly. It didn't need to be perfect. Just high enough to let them jump completely through the ceiling, and sturdy enough that they could all stand there for a few seconds while they timed the jump.

Unfortunately, she underestimated how quickly soldiers would arrive at their position. She tensed as she heard them beating against the locked door, making her stop trying to figure out how to put this bucket on the toilet to look over her shoulder. It didn't take long for them to bust it down completely, saving her the trouble of doing it herself if she needed the material for a platform. Four. If she could touch one she could--

No, she had to focus. Finish this and get out of here as quickly as possible. Knight was in danger from the approaching Grimm. She didn't have time to waste with the small fry.

"I'll keep building. Won't take long."

Her pace picked up as much as she was able. She was already rushing before, so there was only so much she could do. The sound of the gunshots made her ears throb and her movements jittery. She hated that sound. But she pressed on, even with bullets flying past her face due to the ricochet in the small room. The structure was pretty unstable, but it should hold for a few seconds. Difficult to climb too, but she could help them up if necessary. It was stable enough at the top to hold them as long as they didn't move too much...probably. Regardless of whether they were done fighting off the soldiers that found them, she'd shout and extend her hand.

"Done. Come!"

Red wouldn't force them to come immediately and had no intention of dragging them or leaving them behind unless they took so long that more soldiers could start pouring into the room. They could come when they thought the time was right. She just really hoped that time would be immediately and would get increasingly antsy if it wasn't. Once everyone was standing on the fallen door on the top of the structure, she'd grab their hands, count to three, then hope everyone managed to jump at close to the same time so that no one would hit their head on the ceiling or otherwise have their feet stuck in the floor after she finished phasing them through it. Going up was always so complicated and made her wish she could fly. Maybe she should take Signet's advice and do something with wind--

Focus. It was really hard to focus. There were sounds everywhere and that alarm was making her want to jump off a cliff. Given they were just below deck and there shouldn't be anyone else around here, she wondered what the hell was going on. There was way more activity up here than she expected given those circumstances. She hesitated for a moment before turning to everyone else.

"I can take you closer. If you want. It's easy to go down. I can do it after from anywhere."

If they agreed, she'd nod and offer to carry Bianca again before running straight for the walls like before. It'd be far faster to get to the deck using a direct path like this, and it meant they wouldn't have to use any doors or traditional paths where they were likely to run into more soldiers. She stuck to the outer rim, taking a few more seconds to get there figuring that most of the soldiers would be in the central part where the hallways would be. The only ones that would be out here would be the ones that wanted to be in the periphery. Hopefully.

Once they were out on the deck, Red figured she'd leave it at that. Let Bianca down if she was carrying her and then just duck below deck again. Seeing a fight made her pause for a moment while she tried to parse what was going on. Seeing the clothes, long white hair, and wolf ears of someone that didn't belong here made her body move before she fully understood what was going on. Realizing that person was Knight was almost instantaneous. Noticing that she was unarmed took nearly no time at all. That she was here at all and not unconscious in a corn field hadn't parsed at all. It was as though those two states could exist simultaneously in her mind. She had worked with Knight enough to know what to do in these situations: Knight needed a weapon as soon as possible. Unfortunately, it looked like the soldiers here only had guns. They'd do in a pinch, but if she could get something better she would. It wasn't until her eyes scanned Argent that she got an idea.

"You! Knife!"

She pointed to him and then held out her hand, standing up straight and dropping Bianca like a sack of potatoes with no warning if she was carrying her still. Argent used throwing knives when they first entered the ship. That wouldn't be as ideal as something like a sword, but it was still a bladed weapon that could probably be used in melee. If he refused in any way, or took longer than about two seconds to respond, she'd grit her teeth and dash back through the wall. She was pretty sure she saw a fire extinguisher in the next room on the way here. That was even worse than a knife, but was probably better than a gun in melee. Those suckers were heavy and Knight could probably pull some tricks with it.

Once she had either the knife or the fire extinguisher, run towards Knight to get close enough to gently toss it to her, but far enough away that she wasn't quite in the fray. Then, she shouted to get Knight's attention just to make sure she wasn't about to throw a weapon in her face.

"Knight!"

Just saying that name made her pause and back up. Something finally clicked and it didn't suddenly Knight being both here and in a corn field didn't make any sense. She shouted again, more bewildered than angry despite her words.

"Wait Knight? What the hell are you doing here? Are you fighting them without aura? Are you stupid?"

---

1207/8374

ACTION: Building a path up, then taking everyone up. Then taking everyone to where the fight is through walls. Then getting Knight either a Knife from Argent or a fire extinguisher if he needs his knives.

[Bianca Sabbato]

Sadly, we didn’t have a chance to discuss things further, as a new group of soldiers came kicking the door down and suddenly we found ourselves in no position to formulate any new strategy that wasn’t simply getting the hell out of there and up towards the commander.

As Powehi commanded us to keep the soldiers busy while she kept on building a platform for us, I quickly stood between her and the aforementioned enemies to help divert any projectile or charging madman from reaching her as she created a mean for us to escape.

Even though there were only four enemies, fighting them here would only invite others to come to find us guided by the noise of the ensuing fight... And you don’t stay in a single place when the enemy has virtually unlimited reinforcements compared to your forces. So we set ourselves to stop them near the entrance to the room.

On a tactical level, we actually benefitted from them being stuck there with us, as they would create a bottleneck that would prevent other soldiers from coming into the room, so instead of fighting them with any intention of taking them down, I was content to simply put my spear in front of me and try to avoid as much damage as possible as Powehi worked trough building us a makeshift ladder to the top.

When I heard the woman shout for us to come, I feinted a lunge and hastily turn back when the soldier flinched for a second at my display. As I was retreating, the fucker managed to clap me in the shoulder, but I had redirected almost all of my aura towards my back to prevent exactly this from happening, so the damage taken was minimal.

He managed to try one last time as we were atop the makeshift structure, but I managed to deflect the bullet with the flat of my spear no more than a second before we phased up and onto a higher level of the ship, and this time into a calmer room.

-Sounds like a plan- I said just before hopping back into her back and reassuming the bizarre task of phasing in and out of rooms as my stomach collided painfully with her back any time we made a jump... But it beat slowing everyone down and putting their lives in danger, so I would simply shut up and soldier through it.

We zapped through one room after the other, going so fast the few soldiers that could have been able to see us would be left without as much as half a second to react before we cruised out of their reach. The idea was sound and it was being well executed, so I simply let Powehi do her thing and carry me to wherever she thought convenient... It was a little imprudent to do something like that with someone you just barely knew, but it was honestly the best thing I could do back then, so I was content with not bitting my lip nor falling off her.

Once we arrived at the deck, I jumped out of her back and glued my eyes onto the figures battling out in the middle of the ship. One of them was a white-haired woman apparently locked in combat with a group of mooks while a severe figure stood on the back, watching them slowly weather her down.

I only needed one look to recognize him. He was the commander, the man to assault Kerch and bring ruin and destruction to this little town, blaming the faunus population while systematically executing them… But all of that didn’t matter in the long run. For me, there was only one thing I needed to know about him, something that relegated everything else he had done or been to mere background flair... He was my target.

He was the one the council had tasked us with eliminating. The call had been issued, and I naturally had responded. Now, I would do everything in my power to comply with their expectations. I lived, because even with all of my fuckups, there was one thing I knew how to do well, and now it was time to put it to good use.

Hunching a little on his direction and with a blank expression, I instinctively gave a step forward as the dirt on my other big pocked burst through into the open air of the Kerch lake. Nothing more than a handful of dirt, but even that could be deadly if you sharpened it and accelerated it enough. Just the dirt on my pouch remained for an emergency. But I hoped I wouldn’t need to use it.

Argent was mainly a ranged attacker, so it made sense for me to move forward to allow him to fire away at will. The woman seemed to be an ally, so of course, I refrained from attacking her.

-Friendly- I told her in a deadpan voice as I sent my earth flying past her if someone seemed close to landing a hit on her, a drill shaped projectile spinning fast on its axis and with mean intentions towards anyone in front of it.

The white-haired warrior and her enemies were well inside the twelve meters range of my semblance, so I quickly retrieved my dirt and took a second to think about what to do next. Even if I was unable to retrieve the dirt, I still had my last reserve so I wouldn’t lose time trying to retrieve it.

I noticed by her words that Powehi seemed to know this woman, who apparently was called Knight. She also told Argent to give her one of his combat knives, so chances were she was a capable fighter on her own. I mean, she must have been if she was holding her own against this many soldiers while unarmed.

I was tempted to use the material on my pouch to create a rock dagger for her, but I refrained from doing so, as getting outside of my range for even a second would mean the weapon turning back into feeble soil in an instant.

Whatever happened next, I would start advancing towards the leader, not trying to open my way through the soldiers, but taking advantage of the fact they were too distracted with this Knight woman to be able to afford to chase me down. And getting around them in a semicircular motion towards

-Powehi... Carry me...Pincer...- I called back at her, just loud enough for her to hear without having to shout it out, hoping it would suffice, I still feared I would be giving away too much info to the soldiers about my intentions, but I hoped it would still suffice for her to figure out my plan. Getting the objective trapped in between Knight and me while Argent provided ranged damage.

That way he wouldn’t be able to hide behind his mooks and would be forced to either face the scary woman who was holding her own without aura... Or the lizard faunus who was clearly too young to be anything close to resembling a fullfledged huntress but whom unbeknownst to him still had a useful charge of fire-dust with his name written all over it...

...That, or split his forces between the two of us, which would mean leaving his ranks thin enough for Argent to get a clear shot on him...

If Powehi didn’t comply, I would start circling around the soldiers anyway, it would be slower, but still help to pull out some men from Knight, or at least position me better to strike if they didn’t acknowledge me.

---

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---

ACTIONS: Once we are all on deck, attack one of the mooks (I take them to be lieutenants, but feel free to correct me) but only if he seems close to getting a clean hit on Knight. (Let me know if this happens so I roll for damage later)

After that, start circling around the group busy dealing with Knight, with intentions of trapping the commander between herself and Knight so he has to either divert some of his forces to Bianca (leaving himself open for Argent to snipe him since there are not so many bodies between them now) fight Bianca alone while keeping his soldiers on knight and argent, or I guess calling all of his soldiers on bianca and getting anihilated by Knight lol.

And she calls for Red's help on this, so she can carry her and make the roundabout faster, but she doesn't respond this turn so don't worry about that ^^

[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.

But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

There wasn't much time before people came running, and started to beat on the door that kept them away from the three of them currently within. Since they hadn't had time to secure said door and it was relatively flimsy, it was broken down in short order - two blasts of a shotgun to the hinges, and kicked in. The mook who'd done so quickly got a knife thrown at speed into his face - his aura shattered in a burst of green, and the follow up knife took off his arm at the shoulder in a spray of gore. The man started to scream, desperately scrambling away from the doorway and back to relative safety behind the doorway. His three teammates decided that rushing in wasn't the best cause of action after that, and instead began to return fire. Bullets sprayed into the surrounding walls and floor with impunity, stopping only when their magazines clicked empty, and the snake Faunus flipped out his spear to vault away from the fire, pushing himself back behind a girder protruding from the wall.

Injuring but not finishing the kill in this instance was a lot less altruistic than it had been before. Making it messy, in this case, when they were outnumbered and had a chokepoint to hold, was carefully calculated to inflict the maximum possible psychological damage to their foes and make them afraid of even entering the room. Buying time until reinforcements or heavier arms arrived, in other words, and forcing them to tie up resources taking care of their wounded compatriot instead of thinking about how to handle the situation. Bianca was running interference on the doorway as well, physically creating space for their team to operate and preventing the enemies from pushing, which made it a lot easier to keep them from entering. The snake Faunus transformed his weapon back into its bow form and started shooting, pulling arrows from his quiver to fire off while his companion did her thing.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for Powehi to finish her little structure, and when she called, Argent was quick to shoot off a few more of his remaining arrows before rushing over. It wasn't enough to keep a few stray bullets from hitting Bianca, however, which was unfortunate, but he gritted his teeth and latched on in time for them to push upwards into the ceiling with Powehi's Semblance. They were on a different level now, one with significantly less heat, and the other took a moment to glance about before looking back to him and suggesting that they travel close together. Argent nodded in response - obviously, the reaction time of these mooks with regards to getting about the ship was something else he'd underestimated, so it would be better to stick together for the moment, especially if it meant getting to their objective faster.

"Please do."

Watching the lizard Faunus mount their party member's back wasn't important enough to warrant his attention, so instead he kept an eye on their surroundings before following Powehi's lead in running around the perimeter until they finally emerged onto the deck.

The situation was a lot messier than expected. There was another Faunus on the ship, fighting her way through an awful mess of soldiers and apparently engaging Solomon in combat. For a brief moment he thought Alice had come back to aid them in their mission, but quickly realized that wasn't the case once he caught more features of the fighting woman. He had no idea who she might be - apparently the Class Five level threat mentioned earlier on the hijacked communications channel, but nothing else.

"You!"

The shout shook him out of his slight reverie and snapped him back into focus. A quick nod, and the knife was out of his thigh holster and into his hand, flipping it around quickly so that the hilt was presented first to the other. After doing so, Powehi started to run towards the fight and threw the knife over, calling out what must have been her name. It clicked then - this must be the friend she had mentioned was in trouble earlier. She must have recovered from her injuries enough to fight, though how and why was beyond him. Still, there was no need to overthink things - right now, their opponent was in front of them, and within reach. Bianca started her assault, and Argent joined in - pulling a number of arrows from his holster, he began firing them, boosting his output with Whisper - at Solomon, if he was within range and he didn't run the risk of hitting their unknown ally while he did so. Otherwise, the snake Faunus would fire off at the numerous bodies currently in between them, providing covering fire for Bianca to move in.

TLDR: Argent moves up on deck with Red and Bianca, gives his knife to Red so she can give it to Knight, and starts firing off his Semblance at the Enemy Leader if within range (C rank) - otherwise, he'll move closer while firing off at any mooks within range, also with his Semblance.

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]

SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]

OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]

@ ● 849 words ● 6327 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Wolfe]

Maybe it would have been different if others were dispatched.

Maybe it would have been different if anything had gone differently.

No, the only explanation was that fate determined this from the beginning. The gods pissed on his herculean efforts at reformation, at making his life better, at improving himself from the mud he was drowning in. His genuine efforts at self-improvement were met with scorn and social exclusion, but he really did try… even though he knew from the beginning the system was rigged from the start. Huntsmen Academies, despite being held up as the beacon of humanity turned out to be anything but. In reality, they seemed to be indoctrination centers where the young and weak-minded were molded into the perfect killers and stripped of whatever morals they had.

They took teenagers and turned them into enemies of the people, the sword of the corrupt and autocratic state. They also stripped them of cherished old traditions and values, and replaced them with new age ones that fit their despotic world view better. They allowed dangerous ideas to run rampant, and let the trainees who had enough power to level a small village by themselves get taken in by ideologies that sounded nice on the surface but were unattainable and unsustainable underneath.

Like, for example, the concept of democracy. Humanity in its base state was a feral beast, unable to stop themselves from knifing the closest person and taking all of their possessions without an outside force stopping them. The idealistic and stupid thought of giving power to the masses, even partial power, was proven wrong by that psychotic experiment that was Haven Academy. It hardened his resolve and showed him that the average person couldn’t be trusted with power, because when given even the slightest bit they would abuse it for their own ends.

They also ignored even the most fundamental rules of society, which allowed a multitude of undesirables to get in. Hobos, bandits, murderers, and subhumans all walked the same halls and pretended they were equal – and the faculty let them believe that stupid lie because it served their own ends of sending them back to the mud in pursuit of political points. It was a shame, and even more of a shame because he came so close to being able to unravel that web of lies and set all of them free. If that dumb bitch hadn’t ruined it, maybe…

No. There was no point in thinking that way. The initial plan was shot to hell, but that didn’t mean he had lost. All of the necessary objectives were done, because the message was sent and the first stage of revenge was complete. Tyrian Timber thought that he could make a fool of the One-Eyed Dragon with some cheap tricks, but he wasn’t the only one who could play dirty when a grudge became personal. Kerch was his city of birth, and the city where his grandkids once were. The emotional response that their deaths would invoke was a cornerstone of the plan, and the deep satisfaction that he felt knowing that he had hurt the old man that much was just a bonus. The fact of the matter was that Timber had turned a disagreement into a war, and he received pain in exchange for pain. He pulled out and activated a vial of hard light dust from his belt before continuing with the next stage of his plan, impassively staring at the efforts of the faunus to break the line in front of her and ignoring her meaningless insults. Animals were truly all the same, and those tactics wouldn’t effect someone of a genius intellect like him.

”Plan Delta is activating.” he’d finally say, judging that those who went inside of the ship should be emerging soon. He knew he didn’t have to win before they came back, just stall for long enough to ensure he had enough aura to finish this once and for all. As soon as the words left his mouth, the men on the deck of the ship started sprinting off of the ship into the water and the pier, and a small smile caught at the edges of the black haired man’s mouth.

The play was simple: When the mongrels from Haven showed their faces again he would blast the entire area with as much force as he could muster and leap off the ship with his aura broken. His men would then finish the job while he retreated to safety in order to regain his aura and reassess the situation. The white-haired faunus was delayed just enough to not be able to reach him, but the scaled freak had improved his mastery over his semblance since the last time they met. The hard light barrier shattered, but prevented what would have likely been a mortal wound and gave him enough time to plunge off the side of the ship with only a few arrows in his back.

The explosion itself did a rather tremendous amount of damage, even to those able to at least partially dodge the area of effect blast. Argent was able to dodge the worst of it, but still sustained a third of his aura in damage. Red was able to twist her body so that the smallest area possible got hit, but still lost a third of her aura as well. Bianca was able to dodge some of the blast and her aura was a bit sturdier than the first two, only taking twenty-two percent of her aura in damage from the desperate attack. Knight was barely able to backpedal out of the way of the worst of the blast, but her incredible durability and quick reactions to get her forearms out first managed to prevent more vital areas from getting hit with an only fifteen percent drop in health.

Even given a head start, about half of the enemy soldiers on the ship didn’t manage to make it and got blasted off into the water or onto the pier and weren’t immediately able to assist… but the other half were. That meant that five were ready to blast fire, ice, electricity, crystals, and compressed air into the direction of the interlopers. Three of those five targeted Argent, and the snake faunus deftly dodged two of them before barely being clipped by the electricity that was enough to burn him for another nineteen percent of his aura. Knight was able to duck and dodge the crystals completely, while Red was struck in the back with a blast of ice that chunked her for another thirty-seven percent of her remaining aura. This huge blast of semblances, however, made a large cloud of dust and debris between the explosion earlier and the barrage that just hit the now deteriorating ship which obscured the vision of the attackers and prevented them from doing much else than firing blindly for the immediate future.

Once off the boat and plunged into the water, Solomon engaged the next step of his plan. He always carried around with him a dust concoction for emergency situations that essentially combined earth, plant, and air dust to create a very crude but workable life raft that would disintegrate within minutes but put some distance between him and his enemies. Ordinarily, this would take only a few moments but the arrows impaled his back just as he moved his left hand to get the concoction, and the rush of hitting cold water disoriented him for a second and delayed him being able to physically grasp his escape route. He was still about fifteen meters out from the ship, however, as he had used the giant blast wave as a springboard for him to leap into the water and escape his now weakened foes that would be ground to dust by his men right about now.

Well, that’s what they got for both bringing a bunch of morons with zero education to come fight and then refusing to submit to their betters when the odds were clearly stacked against them. It wasn’t their fault, they were just up against an unwinnable fight and an unbeatable opponent with strategy that far surpassed what they were even able to imagine. The sad fact was that talent alone only got someone so far when they were so sorely lacking in everything else, and at the very least he had caused pain to be inflicted on yet another person who deserved it more than anything. No doubt Kishka would come to avenge her idiot plaything soon enough, and he would enjoy dealing with her personally very much after the stunt she pulled to get him expelled and on this path to begin with. Karmic revenge was coming, and it would taste oh so sweet.

SPOILER: Click to show

1465 words.

2630 total words

[Alina Rybalka]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE

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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY

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[attr="class","nikki109"]Interesting. [break][break]

Self-destruction was a tactic she hadn’t been expecting, and she was caught off guard when the guy used his remaining aura in a blast strong enough to tear apart metal. It was definitely a step above the level of attack he was throwing before, but he only had one more shot left. She barely got her arms up in time to block the worst of the blast, and now she was bleeding from her forearms as well as from her shoulders. Wonderful. This was definitely going great and not scuffed at all. Fuck. [break][break]

The ship itself was barely holding together after the indiscriminate blast, and truth be told wouldn’t take much more of a push before it started falling apart. The guy must have felt threatened and rushed, because he actually knocked about half of his goons around rather than letting them take those extra couple of steps to actually be ready to follow up. The fact that the ship wasn’t on fire and she couldn’t hear machinery smashing meant that the engine or whatever important bits were supposed to be on a ship were probably still running. That was unfortunate, because they still needed to get the hell off of this ship and the pier wasn’t exactly looking hospitable at the moment. [break][break]

The tattered prisoner’s jumpsuit at this point was torn up to hell, enough to see dark gray reinforced pants and the dark blue long sleeved shirt underneath. Blood that once only soaked through the shoulders and neck now flowed freely from the forearms where both the jumpsuit and the shirt were torn through completely. Ballistic goggles were still around the neck of the faunus, and her long once white hair was now run slick with blood enough for it to matte it noticeably in some places. Oh well, shit happened and she was lucky it wasn’t worse off than it already was. Only some superficial wounds and some open wounds that may or may not get infected, the usual. [break][break]

A quick glance saw a lot of goons running over in their direction, and without aura she couldn’t actually deal with that many enemies. Red shouted her name and tossed her a knife as the smoke was starting to clear, and she glanced back at the water where the enemy leader had jumped off to as Red yelled at her for being so reckless. ”Water.” was the first word out of her mouth. ”Disable the guns on the way out.” was the next, right as a bunch of manipulation and physical boost semblances blasted the deck of the ship. Great. [break][break]

The sidestep wasn’t conscious, but a guess more than anything based on what she assumed her opponent would do. Someone with military or military-like training would aim for center mass, which meant that she knew exactly where they were aiming. They would also form a nice shooting stance and fire from a stable position of support, and they would almost certainly be a good bit taller than her. That meant the attacks that went her way were aiming at center mass from a point above that point, going at a downward angle. Knowing that in advance, dodging was a lot easier when you knew generally when the attack would come. They certainly didn’t have any reason to wait even a moment with no friendlies in the area, so that made things simpler.[break][break]

On the deck there were some traditional cannons that were wheeled in with wooden supports, but the ones she was far more interested in were the metal ones that swiveled with two artillery pieces attached to each rotating metal support. They were shaped almost like an upside down cup, if that upside down cup had two cannons poking out of it. She wasn’t sure where the controls were as ships were never her thing, but with the new knife it was pretty easy to just position the knife with her left hand to be at the base of the higher barrel and then jumping to kick forward and drive that knife through that same barrel to render it inoperable. Well, the top part. She didn’t know if the artillery could independently fire barrels, but if they couldn’t it was a total sabotage of that particular piece which was going to help a lot with the escape now that they couldn’t actually fire in their direction, at least with this.[break][break]

She wasn’t worried about the fleeing enemy lead. Both of the Haven students there had ranged semblances that could finish the job, and she knew that because she watched the Vytal Festival matches. Knight didn’t particularly care what happened to either of them, so didn’t even so much as glance in their direction to check on their safety. The only visual confirmation that she made before jumping off the side of the ship was making sure Red was fine, because going into the water was the only not completely braindead move to make at this point. [break][break]

What even were the other options? Fight through the legion of dumbasses who may or may not even care if you kill their leader and hope they surrender when you do? Fight through the legion of dumbasses and brute force through dozens of them on the way to walking out? Go back onto the barely stable ship’s lower floors where masses of sailors probably were, fight through all of them, and commandeer the ship? It didn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out that the only way forward with any chance of survival was getting the fuck off the ship and getting out of range before it could maneuver around to catch you… and get out of sight and off in a direction they didn’t expect or some cover for the inevitable artillery barrage that would come once you did get out of range of their conventional weapons and semblances. [break][break]

If Red had any aura left, there was a good chance they could phase through at least some incoming attacks while getting out of range… and if not it wasn’t like Knight couldn’t body block some weaker semblances even in her current condition. She pulled her ballistic goggles over her eyes once again before taking the plunge, to allow her at least some vision once landing and trying to make sure the blood didn’t just shift from her hair to her eyes and blind her or anything. That would certainly be unfortunate. [break][break]

The water around this time in Mistral, particularly northern Mistral like where Kerch was located was near-freezing. This was important to note because Knight no longer had any aura, and the air was knocked out of her lungs in an instant once hitting the ice water and feeling the sensation of extreme cold truthfully for the first time in a long while. Her aura got so rarely broken unless she intentionally did so these days that it was a weird overload of the senses that she hadn’t had in a while. It was horrible and extremely jarring, but something that wouldn’t cause her too much trouble past the initial few seconds of shock. The loss of feeling throughout her entire body was unpleasant, as was the searing pain of salt water coming into contact with her many open wounds at this point. This was the best option, though, by far. She’d just have to deal with the suffering until they made landfall somewhere.[break][break]

Getting transportation out would still be an issue, but from here it shouldn’t be too difficult to actually reconnect with the civilians going through the storm drains and at least work something out. Worst case scenario, hiding out somewhere for her aura to recharge meant that any subsequent encounters with the Celestial Legion would be quick and painless. It’d be much easier to think of a way forward, anyway, without the immediate threat of dozens of enemies rolling in at any moment. Wilderness survival wasn’t the hardest thing in the world, and once she had her aura back a lot of options would open up that simply weren’t possible before… so that should be priority number one, making sure her aura was actually restored in a timely manner.[break][break]

SPOILER: Click to show

Knight HP: 63%

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[attr="class","nikki103"]1366 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE

[attr="class","nikki103"]4725 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion

PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

Keeping up with everything on the ship was basically impossible for her at this point. She never did well with large scale fights like this, which was why she was normally off either breaking something or fulfilling some other objective rather than fighting directly. Also why she didn't plan on fighting with the trainees. The sound of the alarm was still pounding in her head, even if it wasn't quite as loud out here. The soldiers' weapons, their footsteps, shouting, gear, movement, their everything was pulling her in every direction. And then one of the trainees was shouting about something and she was starting to have trouble making out the words. She could hear them, recognize them, but they were almost gibberish to her without pausing to think about it.

However, there was one universal language that didn't take much thought to understand. The enemy leader spouted...something, she didn't quite make out what it was, and then everyone -- literally everyone -- starting running away as quickly as they could manage. There wasn't a lot that could mean, so she started moving herself without really thinking about where she was going to go or what was going on. Once she saw a bright light coming from the leader she understood why everyone started running. The boom from the attack hurt almost as much as the part that hit her arm, and she reeled for a moment while she tried to make sense of what just happened. Enough so that the ice dust that hit her in the back almost knocked her off his feet.

Did...Did he just blow up his own ship? She could see cracks running down the deck from where she was standing, and she doubted the rest of it would be holding up much better. Nothing else was exploding, so it probably didn't hit the engine, but something that size probably could have. Why was she even thinking about this? Who the hell cared what this lunatic was thinking? Where was Knight?

She heard her voice before she saw Knight. Her reflexes were clearly off because it took her a moment to comprehend what Knight was saying, but once she did she nodded and moved without much thought. Disarming people was pretty easy, and buying time was even easier when they didn't know what to expect from her semblance. Red moved towards the closest edge of the ship, catching sight of Knight's hair once she turned that way. It was times like this she was glad it was bright and hard to miss. She took a small detour to touch a couple of soldier's guns to send them into their torso. Strictly speaking, pulling their weapons out of their bodies wouldn't hurt them at all, but most people were pretty hesitant to try to pull something stuck in their lungs and heart out of themselves without knowing that for sure. Once she caught up to Knight, she'd try to grab her hand so they could just go through the guard rail and hopefully phase through any bullets coming towards them on the way down. Her aura was running on fumes at this point, so hopefully they wouldn't need to do too much more.

The water felt surprisingly good and made her feel a bit more alert. She was still completely overwhelmed and over stimulated, and likely would be until she had a good while to rest, but the sudden blast of cold kicked enough sense into her to recognize that Knight was surprised and sinking. Gently, she tried to guide Knight onto her back so Knight wouldn't have to swim. Just being in the water was probably painful, there was no reason to make her move any more than she had to. Red was a bit out of practice with swimming after living in Vacuo for so long, but because of where she lived in Menagerie and Nina's influence, she had gotten pretty decent at it in her time there. She failed to secure any other kind of transportation, so it was the least she could do at this point.

"This is exactly what I was trying to avoid," she growled in frustration before letting a long breath out of her nose. "I'm sorry. Try not to move too much. I won't let you fall off."

If she could manage it, she'd keep her head above the water and make sure Knight's was too. If it looked like they were going to use those cannons or try to shoot at them though, she'd head underwater immediately. As long as they didn't have any depth charges or anything that would explode under water, that should be enough to keep them safe for now. With the trainees acting as a distraction on the ship she doubted they'd see too much trouble while she swam to safety. She didn't fully keep her promise, while she did get them to the leader, she didn't destroy the ship. Even the leader didn't seem to have destroyed it enough to stop it from moving either. However, they also weren't able to help her secure transportation before they separated, so she considered them even. Knight was back with her, but injured enough that they couldn't stay, and that was all that mattered to her right now.

---

880/9254

[Bianca Sabbato]

I felt a fain ringing on my ears as the commander used his semblance to produce a wide-spanning explosive shockwave directed toward us. I reacted as quickly as I could, putting the flat end of Nereida over my face and neck as I gave a long step back to fend of as much of the attack as I was capable of.

It had taken me by surprise, so I didn’t manage to completely dodge out of the way of it, but aura existed for a reason, so I let it do its job, sending the bulk of it towards my chest and legs to avoid any major injury.

It still hurt like hell, but the pain was temporary at worst with aura, so I squinted my eyes and ignored it for the time being. Argent and Powehi seemed to have taken the worst of the explosion. So I glanced back at them in search of any open wounds or signs of them having heir auras broken. When I found none, I focused back on the enemy forces.

The pincer plan had now been blasted, literally. And to make things worst, we found ourselves quickly overwhelmed by a myriad of semblance-based attacks from the remaining soldiers. The only saving grace that could be found from the leader’s suicidal attack was the fact that a good chunk of his allies had been sent flying out of the deck, and the others were too confused from their previous combo attack to do something substantial about it.

And of course... The commander himself was now in a pretty vulnerable position to be facing someone like Argent...

I fished the scroll from out of my pocket and I needed less than a second to press one of the hotkeys I had set in preparation for this mission. From the moment we were told we needed to take someone down, I decided I really wanted a fast way of accessing the video recorder function of the device.

My Tail wrapped itself around the scroll, being careful not to obstruct the view of the camera lens. After all, we needed proof of the deed if we wanted to return being able to claim we had accomplished the mission...

With the camera safely held by my tail and pointed towards the waters where the commander held on for dear life. I held onto the fire dust with my left hand as I gripped Nereida with my right, getting ready to jump into the water as soon as Argent’s arrows had hit their target.

-Finish the deal, Sir- I called out to him. Getting one foot over the railing. I had lost sight of Powehi and her friend in the aftermath of the elemental attack, but I thought I hear the silver-haired faunus say something about water, so I figured out they had the same idea we had.

It was clear that the ship was not going to be sabotaged at this point, so time to get the hell out of it’s range before it could respond accordingly to our attack. But first, Argent needed to take care of the commander.

But huntsman had a nasty habit of surviving things that by any right they shouldn’t. So the Boss had taught me to always double-tap a strong enemy. So even if Argent’s arrows left him on the verge of death, I still sent an earth dart towards him to try and give him an assured passage to the other side.

I think I actually missed him, but whatever, if Argent’s arrows hadn’t finished him off, we could always resurface to seal the deal...

Anyway, good riddance. Target down. Retreating now to safety.

Taking my fire-dust grenade out of the holster. I threw it into the waters below, watching it detonate and create a pretty tall steam barrier to obscure our exit from the remaining soldiers. It seemed like Haven classes were paying off, if you put a great source of heat into some really cold liquid (or the inverse), you get a lot of steam to play around...

With a slight nod to myself, I jumped down the ship.

I hit the water with a muted splash, falling in a way that ensured I didn’t attract too much attention. The soldiers in the deck were still confused from the result of their own attack, so better not to wisen them up in regards to our exact location.

The sudden temperature change hit me like a truck. Feeling my body cramp up for a second before I regained control and was able to look around in search of Argent. After about two seconds, I managed to locate him and began diving in his direction.

Once he noticed me, I made a leading gesture for us to put as much distance as we could from the ship before having to resurface. I still had a handy amount of aura left, so I could deplete a little of it to fight off the consequences of holding my breath for too long.

As I swam through the dark waters of the besieged city. I used my tail to safely store my scroll back into my pocket. Those things were waterproof and very resistant to both. So I figured out it must’ve been fine. And I had no time to check it out anyway with all the commotion.

Once we were close to shore. I didn’t waste a single second before looking towards Argent with a single question in mind. -The drains?- I asked as I started to search around us for both incoming enemy attention and strategic routes we could use to avoid it.

In theory, there were still enemy soldiers in Kerch, so they wouldn’t just blast the place indiscriminately if they didn’t know exactly where we were.

Whatever path we decided to take, I always stood close to Argent, handling him the radio as we started retreating on land and hopefully towards the shadows of the nearby buildings. -Use the radio again. Tell them we are going some other way so we can spread them thin as we retreat towards the civilians-

On second thought, why not going even further? It was all in a single channel, after all, I saw no reason for us not to pretend to be multiple people.

-You know what. Do more than that. Speak of grimm coming from another gate. Tell them about other Haven teams approaching from the opposite direction. Cause as much havoc as you can-

Hopefully, the civilians would be alright. And once we regrouped with Alice and Raul things would surely go down smoothly, or at least we would have more bodies to throw at the enemy if worst came to pass... Speaking of throwing bodies at the enemy... Argent had taken a nasty blow on the ship, and I wasn’t sure how much punishment his aura could take before breaking.

There was literally no time to sugarcoat it at all. This was still a warzone, so I would speak out in a neutral, businesslike tone to him. Letting him know I was saying this from a purely strategic viewpoint.

-You aura reserves must be close to the red, let me take care of any of the incoming damage from now on, Argent-

After all, he was mostly a ranged fighter. Good at dodging incoming damage and dishing it out with ease. I was the one supposed to be in the thick of, it giving and receiving punishment for my teammate... And up to this point, I haven’t been doing a good job out of it.

---

1265 / 9023 Words.

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ACTIONS: Throw the fire dust into the cold water to create a steam barrier. Use it to disguise our escape. Once we reach the shore, depending on whether we find enemies or not, be stealthy or run like hell, we're going towards were the civilians and presumably Alice and Raul are. All of this under the assumption of the commander kicking the bucket. If he doesn't please disregard the escaping part of the post ^^

[Argent Steele]

I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.

But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.

And I see a hero in you.

❝

He'd barely loosed his arrows before the world turned inside out. Light and sound tore into him and tossed him around like a leaf on the wind, flinging him into the air with the force of a truck, and it was only by the dedicated training of the past year that he managed to avoid further damage by landing with his feet together and tucking into a roll, cushioning the impact and preventing his Aura from shattering like so much fragile glass. Landing on the deck, now scorched and blackened from the explosion with visible cracks running through the metal, the snake Faunus came up and immediately forced himself to the deck again to avoid a deluge of fire roaring over his head to slam into another section of the ship. Flipping back up onto his feet, he managed to avoid being hit by a barely visible shimmer of compressed air that hit a vent near him instead and showered the area with small pieces of shrapnel.

A blast of electricity crackled through the air, and only by slamming his weapon down on the deck to halt his momentum did he manage to avoid a direct hit. The slight hit took a chunk out of his remaining Aura, but he finally managed to duck behind cover away from the sudden influx of new reinforcements, and there was room to breathe for a moment. The sheer amount of firepower that had come at them and missed threw up enough dust and debris that said reinforcements couldn't see enough to land anything accurately, which was a small silver lining in how bad this situation had become. He let his Aura flex just a bit, feeling an approximation of how much he had left after the combination of everything that had come at him. A third, give or take - perhaps slightly less. Not even remotely ideal, but all things considered, better than a lot of others would have fared in the same position.

Powehi had met up with her friend and was in the process of fleeing over the side of the ship. He couldn't blame her - they were clearly close enough that the other person had charged her way onto a ship full of enemies and taken on the explosive loon despite her injuries and what seemed like a complete lack of Aura, and that kind of deep trust wasn't something that a bunch of strangers trying to drag you into a life threatening situation could compete with. Trying to prioritize disabling the ship wouldn't achieve much without her help, diminished as they were without Alice and Raul, so he discarded that plan as being impossible. But speaking of the imbecile who had set this whole thing in motion...

Bianca was waving him over at the railing, weapons in her hands and her tail clutching... her Scroll? Pointed in the direction of Solomon Moon, who was floating on what seemed like an emergency raft after having exhausted what must be the near entirety of his Aura to unleash hell on them. In an instant, he understood - she wanted to make sure they had documented the footage of this terrorist's end. Flipping out the last remaining canister of Dust in his hand, the snake Faunus launched it in the direction of the reinforcements who were still blindly firing into the dust cloud and rushed over to join her at the side of the ship. For a moment, just a moment, he hesitated, with a foot atop the railing and hand trailing to his quiver.

Then he remembered Kersch. The bombed out buildings, the corpses, and the complete lack of living civilians to be found anywhere. He remembered Rochdale, streets filled with the dead and the dying, the roar of Grimm and the constant dull ache of fighting for hours upon end, and it was hard to not see them reflected in each other.

But Rochdale had been a mistake. Qiu'li had been a fool - a fool, a thug, and a savage - but he hadn't had the intention to destroy Rochdale. He died trying to fix his mistake. Solomon had chosen to turn Kersch into what it was now. He'd chosen to gather his men, arm them, command this warship, kill people - and for what? It didn't matter. Letting him go now would make another Kersch - another Rochdale. Another abattoir for the Grimm to feast on, another graveyard full of lives cut brutally short. The hollow inside him contracted, painfully - collapsed into a pinpoint singularity, pulled his stomach into a deep pit and clenched tight about his heart.

Argent pulled the knife from his holster and held it between his fingers. Streaks of silver flared bright as he put every iota of power he had into Whisper, feeling the metal hum with the force he'd pressed into it, waiting to be unleashed. He had been helpless back then, not even knowing anything about the incident until it had already been over. If he had just been in the right place, he could have helped. He could have stopped Qiu'li, could have saved more people, could have prevented the entire debacle - but he wasn't. He'd been far away, building useless walls that couldn't even last a day before falling, trying to mediate a situation that seemed doomed to fail from the start.

But he was here now. And he could stop this.

He threw the knife, a streak of silver as it raced through the air.

Never again.

Another knife, curving slightly as it pulled towards his target.

Never.

A third, spinning with the force of the throw.

Again.

With a last burst of energy, he whipped the entire holster from their sheathes and flung them into the air. Whisper took hold of them there, and he rained the entirety of his blade armory down onto Solomon Moon. Fifteen meters was well within his range at this point, and fueled by determination as he was, he wouldn't miss.

"Let's go."

His words were short, and he followed Bianca into the ocean. Hopefully, that man was dead. If not - well, he still had a spear to launch. Assuming that was the case, Argent would follow Bianca on their way back into Kersch, following in her wake as they put distance between them and the ship, regrettably left mostly intact.

---

TLDR: Argent uses his Ice Dust on the remaining forces, leaving him with no more Dust vials. While they are thus distracted, he rushes over to the railing and uses his entire knife arsenal (approximately six to eight knives in total) as ammunition for his Semblance to target and preferably kill Solomon. After doing so, he joins Bianca in leaping off and into the ocean, leaving the ship behind as quickly as possible.

WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]

SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]

OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]

@ ● 1126 words ● 7453 total words

MADE BY MIZO

[Wolfe]

It didn’t take the leader of the soldiers long to pull out the canister of mixed dust that was able to create the raft, and once even partially on that raft the air dust did its work and started propelling that raft forward out of what would’ve been his own maximum range. The fatal flaw, this time last of all, was always assuming that his own limitations were the ones that everyone else abided by. Eighteen meters out turned into twenty, and his right hand raised to start giving signals, but then the first knife embedded itself in his back.

And then another. And then another. And then another. And then another. By the time the raft made it to twenty-five meters out from the ship, five knives were blasted into his body with enough force to smash through steel… and they hit only flesh and bone. The effect of those attacks was immediate and graphic, with the man almost being torn into pieces by the end of it and leaving a bloody mess on the artificial dust life raft now zipping away and tossing the now unconscious body unceremoniously in the water as it zoomed along into the nothing.

The blast of semblances shot through the steam dust and the smoke once more, but firing blindly most of the attacks didn’t come anywhere close to the trainees. Two, however, did. The first was a lightning bolt that hit Bianca in the back for eight percent of her aura, and the second was a barrage of ice spikes that hit her in the back and side for fifteen percent of her aura. Both of them jumped into the ocean by the time the enemies managed to swarm the ship, and the obscuring smoke and steam prevented them from getting a bead on where exactly they had gone off to.

Random shots would fire off in various sections of the deck and ship, and even some in the water… but without a visual those would have no chance of hitting once they were in the water and in a much wider area than the constrained deck of the ship. By the time the smoke and steam would dissipate, everyone involved would be out of range of both semblances and accurate shots from firearms and would be more or less safe unless the soldiers decided to man the artillery and point it over…

Which hasn’t happened just yet, if it would be at all. The radio crackled to life once more. ”Mongoose Three to Victory One, how copy, over?”

”Victory Five to Victory One, how copy, over?”

”Prophet Two to Victory One, how copy, over?”

”Atlas Six to all units, form a search party for hostiles and Victory One. Hostiles escaped. I repeat, hostiles escaped and dangerous.”

And with that the radio fell silent once more for a bit as they probably scrambled their forces to get out those search parties. They weren't able to see what had happened to their leader due to the obscuring smoke and steam, so that would buy everyone at least a little bit of time.

SPOILER: Click to show

519 words.

3149 total words.

[Alina Rybalka]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE

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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY

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[attr="class","nikki109"]”That wasn’t the worst.” was the cheerful note that almost kept the wince out of her tone that Knight greeted Red with. [break][break]

It was true, too. That entire episode could have certainly gone a lot worse. It still could, of course, they weren’t out of the woods yet. But the fact that they both managed to survive after the amount of reckless stupidity they displayed was pretty great. It had been a long time since she lost her aura in a setting that wasn’t controlled, and she was actually pretty happy with how she had responded. She was kind of afraid that she’d freeze up and revert to caution, but being aggressive – even perhaps too aggressive instead was just fine in her book. [break][break]

At the end of the day, she had remained focused and did the best she could with the tools she had. Red still even had aura left, so even a last salvo could be avoided by sacrificing the rest of it. They sure as hell wouldn’t get a second before they got out of range, either, because her partner was fast even being weighed down like this. ”Could have gone a lot worse.” [break][break]

A bunch of knives came out a second or two after that and cut the enemy leader into pieces, which brought a smile to Knight’s tired face. ”Nice. That means cleanup will be easier. They got the leader. Might be able to steal the raft once the air dust wears off.” [break][break]

It turns out that once she didn’t need to do anything except hold on, she had a lot more time to look around and become a lot more chatty than she was before. Hell, it’s the most talkative she’s been since they left. Gunshots were still firing off behind them, and even landing in the water around them. This didn’t bother her in the slightest, though, because that sort of thing was pretty normal to her at this point. Even without her aura, it wasn’t like bullets from conventional weapons could do a lot to hurt her. She was no longer a scared teenager who could have been killed by falling down wrong, but someone who couldn’t even be considered a faunus anymore almost. [break][break]

A regular faunus got killed when they got shot in the head by a dust-propelled bullet shot by a rifle, but the same thing happening to her would just be a little annoying. She barely even knew what it felt like to be in actual danger anymore, and that was something that made her way of approaching things quite frankly disturbing to some people who weren’t able to do the same things that she was able to. The fact of the matter is that she had almost forgotten what a normal person was supposed to feel in these types of combat situations, and thus didn’t even know how to fake it anymore. [break][break]

It was something she’d have to learn how to do again later on, but it didn’t really matter now. A quick glance back showed that the Haven trainees managed to get off the boat as well, and also that some of the soldiers were starting to move the artillery in their direction in preparation to fire, but things were still chaotic on deck and it didn’t look like they were going to be all that effective with their attempt to fuck with them. [break][break]

”Back to the drains. Can rest up with the group if we can find them, if not we can rest and try to find them when we’re not all fucked up and exhausted.” It was easy enough in theory, but the truth was that they didn’t know how far the civilians had managed to go or even if they were still alive. An abundance of fear or a crying baby or something could have spelled their doom to either the creatures of Grimm or the barrel of a mercenary’s gun. With any luck, they weren’t that unlucky and they could at least save some people in this absolute fucking mess of a situation.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]683 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE

[attr="class","nikki103"]5408 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

Red looked over her shoulder, frowning under her mask, then looked back forward and shook her head. She would have been irritated by Knight's cheerfulness if she wasn't so happy that Knight could actually act like that. After grumbling to herself a little, she let a long breath out of her nose and something between a laugh and a scoff.

"If you just needed a quick nap you should have let me know you jerk."

There wasn't much emotion in her voice, but what little she could muster let her smile like her face might break if she did it too much. This whole time worrying about Knight enough that it was affecting her judgement, and all Knight needed to do was doze off in a corn field for awhile. It was almost enough to offend her. But she didn't have time to get annoyed or happy or whatever else she might be feeling. Even though Knight was acting like they were out of there, they were still being shot at and she wasn't entirely sure where to go. It was easy to say to go to the storm drains, but she had never been in this town and only had a rough idea of where they might be. Kerch didn't have that much coastline to search fortunately, but it would still take time and energy given she had to swim in this freezing water.

The hardest part of looking around was dealing with her sensory overload. It was great for picking out threats, for knowing when they were being shot at and what to do about it. For letting her know just how disorganized and surprised they were for the time being. For letting her know when to use her semblance instead of diving under water. The problem was that she was seeing every bit of light reflecting off the water as it moved and every nearby sound she didn't immediately recognize. With her attention being pulled so many different ways, it was hard to look around. In addition, it made her swimming jerky when she was trying to keep Knight as steady as possible. Most of what she was seeing was nothing and she knew that. She needed to focus.

Focusing was difficult when she could still make out something like a squelch and breaking bones. Knight confirmed for her exactly what it was, and it was like a hole opened in the pit of her stomach. She just helped those trainees kill someone. It was a strange feeling. She knew it was for the best. More than that, she knew the leader wasn't getting out of there alive the moment she handed Knight that knife. Even though she tried to ignore it, she wasn't so blind as to miss that there was already a dead body on deck when she arrived. It's not like she was somehow conned into it either. She volunteered because, when it came down to it, she neither expected them to help her nor did she really want them to. All she wanted to do was try to make something of this situation and stop it from happening again. Even if she had a chance to redo that encounter, she would have made the same choice. She succeeded. She should be happy. Yet she was feeling a little sick. Numb, both figuratively and literally because of how cold the water was. She decided not to look back. There was no reason to look at another dead body.

At this point, she was looking forward to finding that storm drain and getting a chance to rest, but she knew she wouldn't be able to do it for long. Resting would give her a chance to think and she didn't want to think too hard about anything right now. Not while they were still in Kerch and not while there were still civilians that needed to get out and make their way towards Argus. Reflection could come when they were home.

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