[center][color=red][h1]Silhouette[/h1][/color] vs [h1][color=9e0039]Penny[/color][/h1] [sub]Guest Starring Darien[/sub]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/I15iaon.jpg[/img]

[color=red]"I won't be beaten."[/color]
[@BrokenPromise][@Shifter_Master][@TsundereStorm][/center]
[hr] Sil was delighted to see her opponent was experienced enough to keep their guard up. Not hesitating in the least, Sil's opponent launched a counterattack. It was in the form of a hook that could likely cause some damage, but also an attempted grab. Had Silhouette been engaged with Amber, this would be ideal as she could simply place her VIP in Stasis. Sil was not so lucky, and instead would rather not physically touch the magical girl before her who owned electrical powers of some kind. 

That being the case, the assassin evaded the hook, but the fight was interrupted by a certain soldier before much else could be done. This didn't come as a surprise to Sil, who had honestly been expecting it. Darien's intervention provided some opportunity to attack, but she did not take it. Instead, Sil hopped back and placed a fair bit of distance between her and Penny. 

[color=red]"So you were here."[/color] she said, not moving her gaze from the girl. [color=red]"I would prefer to engage this person alone. Can I ask of you to handle the pirate in a non-lethal manner?"[/color] 

[color=2e3192]"Tch."[/color] Prime clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. He didn't like to take risks for no reason in the middle of a mission. That said, he was really not in the mood to get into an argument with his "partner" as it were. As such, he nodded his head and took a step back.

With a jerk of his head in signal, Prime took off after the few clones that had already gone below deck. He left one clone above to at least observe the situation. It would call back to him, or provide fire support if he saw anything getting out of hand. He didn't want to get in the way of Sil's fight, but if he saw her about to lose, he would definitely not let that happen. 

The main body reached below deck just a few moments later.

The sudden staccato of gunfire did little more than surprise Penny, but the fact that it had been aimed at her did cause her to miss her chance to grab a hold of her cloaked target. The pistol rounds themselves did little more than scuff her reinforced chassis as they pinged off of it. Even then the scuffing was quickly dealt with by her regeneration.

A moment later she noticed the gravitational distortion that had been placed on top of her and bit back a growl. It wasn’t enough for it to be a significant hindrance to her, but it was going to be annoying to deal with nonetheless. She bit back a growl as she picked up one of the bullets that had so recently bounced off of her and took a moment to examine it. With a snort, she popped the deformed piece of metal in her mouth and made a show of her biting the round in half, in a pointed display of how she felt about the attack, before swallowing it.

Afterwards she slipped back into her stance and took a moment to give the newcomer a once over before she before rushed the both of them, launching a flurry of strikes. The numbers weren’t in her favor at the moment, but she was sure she would be able to deal with it anyway.

Silhouette noticed that it did not seem as though her opponent wished to wait for them to finish their chat. They were being quite rude, weren't they? Of course, their conversation was short and concise, and Sil hadn't made the mistake of taking her eyes off of her opponent. No, that would be a rookie mistake. And when it came to killing, she was most certainly an expert. 

The Assassin instead met her opponent about halfway. From there, her defense consisted of a mix of deflecting blows with her knife or evading them. Sil owned a fairly strong defense as well, but it simply was not in her nature to allow herself to be hit if she could help it, and she hadn't completely lost her mind to her bloodlust just yet. Also, blunt blows really didn't feel nice through her armor. It was doubtful she would claim this victory if she were to attempt to trade blows back and forth.  

As of now, she wanted to see exactly how this girl worked and if there was anything she could exploit. However, being entirely defensive this fight would not help her gauge her foe’s true potential. So, Sil returned with her own flurry of especially quick stabs with her knife, mostly targeting the girl's sides and legs.

Even though Penny was rather confident with her durability she also adopted The tactic of blocking and dodging the attacks coming her way. Overconfidence had already taken its toll on her recently and she wasn’t one to forget such lessons easily. Still, the occasional nick or scrape would land due to her slowed movements due to the increased gravity, but those were easily dealt with just as the scuffing she had dealt with earlier had been.

The main thing of note was the feeling of utter contempt and hatred that would flare up within Penny every time she came in contact with the dagger. It felt unnatural and wrong on a fundamental level, and the girl wanted nothing more than to shatter it into a thousand pieces and she only had an inkling as to why.

Her attempts at landing her own blows were also stymied, as the speed they both had was too equal at the moment for either of them to land anything other than glancing blows. So Penny started trying to lead Silhouette into the growing flood of water on deck. After all, there are few things that can outpace lightning, and even less when they are standing in water.

Silhouette had also found it difficult to land anything decisive and it was frustrating her. But, it also piqued her interest when she noticed the little cuts she was managing to get weren’t causing her foe to slow in the least. Normally, repeated damage over time would add up. Even a tenacious foe could be bested by the accrued damage of chipped legs and sides given enough time. Silhouette’s foe now, however, did not fit the description of "normal".  

To defeat this girl, it was possible she would need to land a critical strike on a vital point. Since that was likely, it probably meant that this woman could not be different than herself in this way. And if so, she imagined decapitation was certainly the most surefire way to ensure death. That being said, the woman likely would not lie still and allow herself to be executed. At least, she wouldn't right now. There were ways to make this simpler, and following the foe into water was not one. Awareness was the key to victory and one should never let their guard down. That was something she learned way back when she was actually in the military. She was not blind, Penny's plan did not go unnoticed. Sil thought of a way to deal with this. 

Amidst the clash of metal, the trading of blows, Penny perhaps felt that Silhouette's speed was increasing drastically. This was, of course, merely how she perceived things. In actuality, Sil was not getting fast, it was Penny who was getting slower. Application of Silhouette's time magic to slow her had finally been used, so if she hadn't figured out what Sil was now, this might have made it more obvious. And with this incredibly high speed, Silhouette placed herself between the water and Penny, now launching thrust attacks at the girl's neck and attempting to force the girl away from it.

Penny felt it when her opponent’s magic placed on her instantly, allowing her to react seamlessly by shifting immediately to near complete defense. Attacking with only counters where she could launch them. Altogether the fight was starting to slip away from the cyborg despite her efforts, and her eyes were starting to become ringed with red due to the frustration of it.

Before her mood could deteriorate any further, Sil blitzed past Penny cutting off the route to the water while at the same time starting to aim almost solely at the mechanical girl's neck. From these acts, it was easy to tell that both Penny’s regeneration and attempted plan had been spotted. The regeneration being ousted was only a slight annoyance,  it wasn’t really that much of a secret, the plan to move into the water would have been much more frustration if it weren’t for how her opponent tried to counter that plan.

Rather than backing off Penny planted her feet and began a total defense, waiting for the perfect moment. More and more shallow nicks and scrapes began to cover her arms as she defended against the blows raining down on her, but her patience paid off, and she was able to read an attack far enough ahead to put her plan into action.

At first, it seemed like a poorly timed cross counter, thrown a second late, but a moment before her fist pasted her opponent's blade her hand snapped open as she forcefully and willingly impaled it on the dagger. Not even a moment later she locked her grip on the blade wrapping her fingers around the cross guard to make sure she would lose it easily. The next instant had her opening her mouth as a roar thundered out as she released her first round of the fight.

Rather than the usual sharpened steel spike and large bolt of lightning, a storm of flechette was launched amidst a crackling web of electricity. A shotgun blast of Penny’s elements that would prove to be more than lethal at such a close range, the conical shape of the attack made dodging to either side difficult and jumping backward would only lead into the water that was only moments away from getting electrified.

Sil realized she had made a huge mistake rather early on. Her ability to process things was heightened due to the influence of her own Time Manipulation on herself. In conjunction with the power of her special eyes, she was able to gather a general idea of what her opponent intended a lot quicker than someone else might have, being able to witness a gathering of magic near her foe's mouth. Of course, with her weapon currently stuck in the foe's hand, she was still in the same position, merely with an extra moment or two of time to react. 

And she most certainly would react to Penny, who had made an even bigger mistake in assuming Sil couldn't proceed forward in this situation. Silhouette had a trick up her sleeve as well. 

It was difficult to see at the moment considering it was impaled in a hand, but the runes on Silhouette's blade began to glow, a side effect of the mana being poured into it right now. As soon as it did, Penny's hand provided quite literally zero resistance where the blade met it, and with a motion similar to rocking back and then forth, Sil had swiftly cut the hand up to the finger, and then pressed the attacks forwards, running her blade along the arm. It looked like a hot knife through butter as it cut, and this action took an extremely small amount of time to complete with the combination of magic buffing Sil and the simple fluidity she was capable of performing it. However, in doing this, Sil was not going to get out without a scratch. But that was also fine, she too was able to recover from blows that weren't outright fatal, which is why she chose to go forwards. 

Penny found Sil's opposite shoulder rammed into her face just as she was to fire. It would not stop the attack or perhaps even hurt that much, but that wasn't the intention. Instead, the projectile wasn't allowed to spread before it hit Sil, meaning it tore into her shoulder alone. Her shoulder was all but obliterated at the current moment, but this trade would lean in Silhouette's favor, as her blade had ran the length of Penny's arm and separated it just above the elbow, with the severed part falling to the deck's floor and with the two girl's trading places in relativity to the water as Sil passed Penny. This had not gone exactly as Sil had wanted, as the electrical properties of the projectile had actually given Sil quite the shock, preventing her from touching the girl's arm that had been severed. 

She hid her frustration that she couldn't remove her opponent's arm indefinitely due to the shock, but there was a saying about plans never surviving an encounter with the enemy. If she thought about it, considering how little time she had to think of it, this plan went rather well. She decided to be thankful for what she got, and with the arm she could still currently use, Sil readied her blade for the girl should she attempt to attack once again, ignoring the painful, bloodied mess that used to be her shoulder.

The singularly unique pain of having a blade carve its way through your arm was blinding to Penny, up until her arm had been lopped off and the sharp pain quickly receded as her body began to repair her damaged limb. She was glad she had been cautious about the knife before, seeing as it suddenly ignored her plating, but that didn’t stop more red from seeping into her eyes because of the wound she was suffering from.

A digital growl echoed out from Penny as she adopted a more offensive stance from earlier and it an apparent repeat from earlier the cyborg began to rush towards Sil. The difference happened when Penny passed next to her own severed arm, as she picked up the discarded limb as she passed it by. Placing the stumps together there was a series of metallic pops as the limb was reconnected, there was still a deep cut along the length of her arm but that was visibly growing shorter by the second. The next change happened shortly after as mid step the gravitational debuff wore away, giving Penny a fair amount of her speed back mid-dash. 

As she once again started launching a flurry of blows at her opponent she would turn on her blades a moment before impact before snapping them back off a moment after they were blocked or dodged adding a layer of unpredictability to her assault.

[hr]

Before Penny could reach her opponent, a hail of bullets flashed between them, either forcing her to back off or hitting her. Presumably greatly wounding her at the very least. The clone left on deck stood forward and called out to Sil.

[color=2e3192]“Mission complete. Evacuate as soon as possible.”[/color]

With little to no wait, he jumped from the deck of the ship, escaping what would likely be a very brutal scene to come.

Silhouette had merely nodded in response. There was nothing more that needed to be said. She was, however, disappointed that things ended so quickly, and it was very difficult to hide the smile trying to creep up on her features. She did not lose to bloodlust, but odds are she might have if things continued any longer. 

Perhaps it was a good thing Darien had finished the job as quick as he did. 

Hopefully, Vermillion Veronica did not mind the mission being accomplished by a third party. Well, it’s not as though Sil had any reason to tell her. And even so, the objective was reached, so what was there to complain about? 

Sil hadn’t given Penny any opportunities to attack without a counter, and with the little amount of time she had left to evacuate, it was unlikely she would even bother if she wanted to remain in one piece. Unless she was lacking in the intelligence department, one could gather that this ship was not long for this world based on what Darien had said.  

Feeling both satisfied but also frustrated, Sil decided it was time to go. Releasing her magic on the other girl and focusing it entirely on herself, the assassin reluctantly bailed from the scene as well, swiftly dashing to the other side of the ship in no time and reusing her steps to return to a safe position on the ground.