[@deia876lat]

Nena caught the tattooed girl by the wrist just as she was beginning to lean over the railing of the ship and yanked her to safety, sending both of them falling back onto the deck with the momentum.

"Ouch!" Nena yelped as she landed hard on her backside, managing to catch the girl in her arms and cushion her fall. Though as she did so, she noticed how cold and limp the girl had gone, and immediately feared the worst. "Hey. Hey! Stay with me damn it!"

Picking herself up from the ground while gently laying the girl on her back, Nena pressed an ear to her chest and sighed with relief when she heard a heartbeat. Though it was faint, it was enough to know that the girl was still alive. However, looking around at the chaos all around of colliding frigates and dueling cannons as the Incorruptible joined the fray, the only question that remained was now what?

As though in answer to Nena's thoughts, Petra shrilled a cry while slowly descending towards the deck with the rest of the refugees reaching out their hands from her back.

"Give her to me!" one of them, a bespectacled middle aged man, called out as the great white roc landed on the deck of the barge. "I can help, I'm a doctor."

"Well that's convenient," Nena replied as she struggled to drag the girl over by the armpits. The smuggler and another refugee jumped down onto the barge to help and together they lifted her up onto Petra's back. Nena followed soon after as she sat in her usual spot and said to her feathered companion, "After this, I'm buying all your favourite treats. Now let's get outta here!"

With an exuberant cry, Petra flapped her wings once, twice and then took to the skies away from the battle.

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[@Omni5876]

"Mage!" Leo continued calling out as he stood up, using the machinegun for support. "Arn! Come on, say something buddy!"

"He's alive," one of the mounted knights replied as he halted in the air, his griffin flapping its wings to stay aloft. "But you won't be for long if you stay here. Jump on if you want to live."

"How do you know he's still alive?"

The deck jolted as something below exploded and Leo would have been flung off once again had he not kept a vice like grip on the heavy machinegun.

"This ship's engines are about to go critical," the second rider said as he approached. "We cannot linger here any longer."

"You'll just have to trust me, Spider," the first added.

Cursing silently for not being able to confirm Arn's status himself, Leo bent down into a crouch and leapt up like a flea onto the back of the first rider's saddle. Without another word, the knights departed from the scene as the colliding frigates turned from steel to flame in a final deafening roar while the third turned to escape the Incorruptible's incessant bombardment.

Leo felt the hot wind of the blast wave before hearing the noise, but it was nothing compared to the rhythm of his own heart as it beat furiously within his chest and as soon as he became aware of it, he had already forgotten about the battlemage. As the rider hunched over from the force of the blast, he turned his head around and did a double take before saying, "Hey... Spider. Why the hell are you smiling right now?"

"Oh? I wasn't aware," Leo simply replied as he continued smiling. [i]So this is war.[/i]