[@deia876lat]

The blood, the trembling in the limbs and the wisps of Aether light rising from her body like smoke... this went beyond casting exhaustion. The girl was dying and still she tried to hold the frigate back. No, not even that, she was actively pushing it aside! The feedback from attempting such a feat must have been staggering. Even a thousandth of the forces involved would have been enough to crush any lesser mage into a smear on the deck.

Nena could not, dared not, imagine the amount of pain the girl must have been in right now. All she could think of was trying to stop her somehow before the power consumed her entirely, before passing beyond the point of no return that all mages feared if she hadn't done so already, but then the girl finally stirred after what felt like an hour of silence.

Her response to Nena was slow, as she turned her head towards her. 
Nena could now see the lifeless dark eyes, that shone with a wild abandon. Whatever innerdemon housed within the girl, it was clear that the girl was ready to go beyond her limits, risking everything.
"Get them...out." The voice was still twisted, but held a sad soft desperate plea, before turning her attention to the frigate again.

"Uh, yeah, working on it," Nena replied, quite intimidated by the sight before turning to the other refugees, "Come on everyone, over the side!"

"What? We'll die if we do that!" the smuggler shouted back.

"Would you rather go down with the ship?"

"Maybe!"

"Oh for the love of..."

Nena rolled her eyes as she flung her hands up and conjured a powerful blast of wind, blowing the refugees over the side of the deck like a bunch of screaming leaves. Shortly after, Petra rose above the deck with a kick of her wings, shrilling a victory cry after each and everyone of them were accounted for. Well, almost everyone.

"Come on, you too!" Nena called out as she ran towards the tattooed girl, making a grab for her wrist. "You've done enough now let's go!"

[hr]
[@Omni5876]

Leo watched Arn trying to cast his magic for a moment before turning towards the Vaimese soldier struggling over the rail and then back to the battlemage. Shaking his head, the Spider stood up to his feet again and sent a rush of air forward with a leisurely flick of his sabre, knocking the soldier off the rail and into the depths of the sky.

"You know, you really ought to use those every now and then," Leo said as he pointed with his weapon at Arn's own swords. "That's if you know how."

Then the deck began to shift again, only this time instead of a violent jerk it was the unmistakable lean of the airship making a turn.

"Well shit, looks like he's done it," Leo remarked as he saw the frigate to one side getting closer and closer while the other was being fired upon by the Incorruptible, raining down a bombardment of long range cannon shells now that the storm was starting to clear. "Let's do what we came here for and get out, come on!"

Running towards the rudder, Leo hopped over to the other side of the machinegun and sheathed his sabre as he manned the heavy weapon, keeping it pointed down the way he came.

"I'll cover you while you... oh shit, that's coming in [i]fast[/i]. Hold onto something!"

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2djmaWNq7xA&ab_channel=RiskingDark[/youtube][/center]
Once again, the entire world seemed to shake as the frigate collided with the other far sooner than expected. The artificial muscle fibres in Leo's nerve suit strained as he clung onto the machinegun, which was fortunately bolted to the deck. Even so however, his own arms felt like they were about to tear off as his feet lifted into the air before immediately slamming back down onto the deck, bouncing painfully with bone shattering force.

The whole deck continued to rumble as the frigate pushed into the other one, but when the worst of it was past, two mounted knights appeared in the air as they descended from above. They had no doubt arrived to provide an evac, but Leo's focus was elsewhere as he looked around and called out above the screech of metal upon metal, "Hey mage! Are you still with us?"