The effect of Nina's ice beam was straightforward and immediately useful, much to her own relief. For all she knew, the slime could have been adapted to remain liquid even in the vacuum of space. With her mana just over half burnt and her mission just under half accomplished by her own estimate, another wasted opportunity might have made this one a bit tough.

"Is maybe more effective than I intended," she remarked, adjusting her goggles to Witchsight to see if, alongside Ashley, she could learn anything from observing their captive comrades. She paid particular attention to Luna. Though she'd only met her a handful of times, she was the one person for which Nina might have a solid enough baseline to compare to and find out what the slime and its containing machinery might have done to her, and what it was doing to her now.

"Aren't you the dickhead that tried to roofie and then kidnap me or something?" Rika's expression was incredulous in response to the purple alien's demands. "Here's some diplomacy for you." She pointed at a section of ship nearby, which began to groan. "Stop flying away or I'll keep blowing up your stupid ship!" To emphasize her point, she released the spell, causing another hole to violently rip itself in the hull (hopefully, anyway.) "Seriously, aren't aliens supposed to study Earth culture or something? If you want someone to come home with you, you don't just grab them. What the hell?" She didn't really believe that Tim was going to somehow be swayed by some teenager berating him, but she also wasn't really thinking about anything but how confused and frustrated she was at the moment.

If she had known that such an offhand remark would get Dan to kick things into another gear she would have said something sooner. No sooner had her claim about Marrie dating a Dolphin man that was cooler than a Shark man left her lips Dan had gone into action. What she wasn’t quite happy about was the fact that he decided to use her head as a springboard to propel himself upwards and towards the ceiling. It hadn’t been easy to steady herself with the much larger man shark using her head to get the leverage he needed for his jump. If it hadn’t been for her physiology having some qualities of a Jellyfish she likely would have been put right into the floor. Right as his fishy feet left her squishy dome two frilly jellyfish like tendrils emerged from her back and wrapped around Dan’s ankle like a tether as she let his momentum and force drag her along with him for the ride.

She wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily, plus wherever he was trying to go would likely be quite important. “You are lucky that I’m not your ordinary esper or you might have caved my head in with those filthy fin’s…so where exactly are you off to in such a hurry…worried that your crush might be kissing a bottlenose?” She questioned him with slight bemusement. She knew he couldn’t keep quiet about Marrie, but his reaction to her remark only further instilled the belief that the shark had some sort of crush on the freelancer. One that at first had been a hindrance, but now that it had gotten him moving at a much higher pace it had become an advantage. One that she would have to keep in mind for the future if she ever needed more effort or energy from the strange orange alien Carcharodon carcharias.

Nukkelina’s expression persisted in lack of said expression, even when Jack berated her for leaving the job of defeating the slime queen only partially finished. The Puppetress rolled her eyes: it seemed that belligerent oafs existed among all kinds of Espers and not just her organization. Regardless, she was not offended by the starry-eyed shark, and refocused her effort on the slime queen as it stretched and launched a cube at the Esper. Nukkelina sprang into action, her strings tightening as Ser Pekka Puupää Esquire was directed to climb up the tilting floor, hunched down and crawling on all fours with bent limbs and high vigor, like a giant insect in the guise of a man.

Right after the cube was tossed, Pekka jumped, a claw raised with the intent of severing the arm with a savage slash, followed up with more slashes at any other slimy appendages. To ensure the slime wouldn’t immediately regenerate, Nukkelina imbued the brutish doll’s attacks with damage and flotation power, ensuring the slime scattered into tiny levitating globules, unable to reconverge.

Well, that worked out well, then. It seemed that Ice espers had a lot of utility as a rule, rather than just Maiden.

But while Orion and Nina focused, rightfully, on the captive espers, Marrie's paranoia chose to strike. She'd keep her eye on the 'defeated' half of the slime. After all, in her experience and with her luck, the thing would probably thaw and have doubled the number of obstacles to freeing the others.

Not to mention the possibility of other captives that may be in the next room.