TheMerlin

Broken Skies

@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.

---

@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. So this is war.

Broken Skies

Gonna be another late post from me. I'll finish it in the morning.

Broken Skies

As Lucina fended off the knight's onslaught, she felt a weight bounce off her backside and chanced a look at the cause of it before parrying another swing from the enemy's mace.

"What are you doing out here, helmsman?" she grunted as she swept her battleaxe in a wide horizontal arc, forcing the knight back.

"Th-the enemy has control of the ship!" the helsman replied, his eyes flickering nervously between the two combatants. "I tried to stop him, but-"

"Enough. Go and find reinforcements, I will deal with this."

"Just you try, invader!" the knight retorted as he charged once again.

With a roar, Lucina met the attack with equal ferocity and launched into a blitz of her own. The resulting struggle was fierce yet brief as she rained down an avalanche of blows with ki enhanced strength and though the knight fought valiantly, he could do nothing but parry in vain as a final devastating strike shattered through his mace and armour, chopping into the ribs from the collarbone down.

Pulling her axe free, Lucina stood with grim satisfaction as the knight fell away coughing blood and breathing his last. Now it was Tyrhallan's turn, but as the Vaimese captain turned towards the wheelhouse she was surprised to see the helmsman still standing around, his mouth agape in horror while staring off towards the bow of the frigate.

"I thought I gave you an... order," Lucina began, trailing off as soon as she saw what the helmsman was seeing. She had not noticed it during the fight, but the airship was turning steeply to the side and seconds away from colliding with another frigate.

With a choking laughter almost entirely drowned out by blood, the fallen knight managed to utter in between gurgling coughs, "You're... too... late."

And as he laughed the rest of his life away, Lucina erupted in an explosion of rage while screaming towards the sky, "TYRHALLAN!"

Then the world became empty madness as the collision sent her flying through the air, her limbs flailing in a last ditch effort to save herself.

Broken Skies

@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!"

---

@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 fast. Hold onto something!"

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?"

Broken Skies

Sorry guys, bit of an early day for me tomorrow. I'll try to post straight after work.

Broken Skies

Correct.

Broken Skies

With a wordless howl of rage, Lucina leapt forward and brought her battleaxe down in a cleaving vertical strike meant to split the Belisian in half. His words had cut more deeply than any sword ever could, but in the moment it took to cover the distance between them, Tyrhallan had already dashed passed in the blink of an eye and entered the wheelhouse.

Lucina immediately turned to pursue, but was interrupted as a flying beast swooped down from the sky and its rider, another Belisian, swung a mace into her helmet, knocking it off.

"Go forth, I will back thee!" the knight, one of Sarban's group, shouted at Tyrhallan while dismounting and pressing the attack with blow after thunderous blow.

"You cur!" Lucina roared as she defended herself with the haft of her weapon, being slowly driven back.

Meanwhile in the wheelhouse, the helmsman of the frigate, a young man clad in a grey cap and uniform, struggled with the controls as the entire ship suddenly began to drift off course, listing to one side.

"It's not me!" he shouted as he heard the door open. "It just started turning on its- oh Terra!"

As soon as the helmsman noticed Tyrhallan standing in the doorway, he reached for the holster at his waist and drew his sidearm in a panic.

Broken Skies

@deia876lat

"Aw shit!" Nena yelped as the collision knocked her into the hold, sending her stumbling into the group of refugees gathered within. Collapsing into a pile of arms and legs, she fought her way free only to see the bow of the frigate filling the doorway, squeezing out the twilit sky as it moved closer and closer with relentless ease. In the growing shadow of that behemoth, Nena was certain that this was the end and she closed her eyes in acceptance of her fate.

"I'm sorry Petra," she whispered as the people around her muttered their own final thoughts or shrieked in terror, all wrapping their arms around each other in one last embrace.

And then... a miracle happened. With an ear shattering bang, the frigate was abruptly thrown off course as though the hand of Gaia herself had slapped it aside. The dim light of dusk poured into the hold once more and a tense few seconds passed before the air quaked again like a thunderclap.

A stillness settled and Nena chanced a look outside of the hold as the other refugees remained huddled together. What she saw was a pillar of light as bright as the Aether, standing where the tattooed girl had been. It shined so brilliantly that it hurt to look upon and Nena had to avert her gaze, but even to the untrained eye it was clear that there was magic at work here of a scale too large to comprehend.

The very air seemed to ripple in waves in every direction and though it only lasted for a moment, Nena could have sworn that she saw the black of night, true night as she averted her eyes. In the shadow of that blinding light, it was like a blanket of darkness as told by the old stories with grains of starlight scattered across the sky, more than anyone would see within a lifetime of perpetual dusk.

The vision gradually faded as the light subsided, growing dimmer and dimmer until Nena could turn to look and see the tattooed girl standing on the remains of the deck, her hands thrown up defiantly against the side of the passing frigate.

"Hey are you... are you okay?" Nena called out to her hesitantly, not sure what she had just witnessed but certain that the girl was at the heart of it.

---

@Omni5876

Arn grunted at the playful address by Leo. “Yes we are in a tight spot. However, now that you are here we might have a chance. I need you to be the bait. I assume your speed is adequate to keep ahead of the firing line of that machine gun. I will come out of the opposite side and blast them off the side with a surge of water”

"Huh, never thought I'd take orders from a mage," Leo replied as he risked a peek around the pillar, ducking back as a fresh burst of suppressive fire ripped through the air and whizzed past like deadly mosquitoes. "But yeah, I think I can manage."

In truth, Leo was no quicker than any other knight in terms of movement speed. Certainly not fast enough to outrun bullets. Only Tyrhallan was capable of such speed and he would most likely have little trouble dealing with the current situation, but Leo was confident in his reflexes and now that he knew what to expect, he would not be mowed down a second time.

"What about you though?" he asked the battlemage, seeing signs of exhaustion in Arn's face.

He shrugged his shoulders at the knight’s question regarding his welfare. “I could be better, have been worse once or twice. I don’t think I have any serious wounds and I am sure that the troop medic will loose his top trying to patch me up.”

He quickly and efficiently used a roll of gauze to pack and dress the wound. There did not seem to be any arterial bleeding but there was no need to take a chance. After all, there was no telling how long it would be before they were able to safely evac.

He took a deep breath and he said in a gruff voice. “Ok, I am ready when you are. I hope you do not get shot.”

"Right back at ya," Leo replied as he held up his sabre, ready to break into action. Yet just as he was about to make his move, the entire airship quaked and sent him stumbling forward with uncontrolled momentum instead.

"Oh sh-" he had time to say before stopping himself from falling, realizing how exposed he was now to enemy fire.

Much to his relief however, most of the Vaimese soldiers had been flung off their feet from the impact, including the machinegunner. Leo thought to finish them off with an air slash while he had the chance, but then another thunderous blow rocked the deck and sent him tumbling forward head over heels.

"Was that from us?" he asked after landing in a roll, his reflexes keeping him from falling flat on his face.

Broken Skies

"Run."

As the Belisian whispered in her ear, Lucina flinched and huddled up into a defensive posture, fearing an imminent attack. When the following blow struck her in the back of the head however, it bounced off as harmlessly as a pebble striking the face of a boulder and in that instant, Lucina learned everything she needed to know about her opponent. Rather than launching a counterattack however, she merely turned to face him while calmly lifting her battleaxe free from the deck with a squeak of metal.

"Run?" she said as she held her weapon loosely in both hands, regarding Tyrhallan with clear disdain. "Run? You are not even capable of wounding me!"

Though the two were of her similar height, the Belisian may as well have been facing a giant for all the ki empowering Lucina's body and the disparity in strength made clear by his earlier attack only served to enrage the Vaimese captain.

"To think that my men fell to one such as you... I expected to face a fellow warrior, but you are a mere assassin. A blade in the dark that can only strike with speed and stealth, and you dare to accuse me of cowardice?"

Pointing her battleaxe back the way she came where she had followed the trail of bodies left behind by the Belisian, Lucina continued with barely suppressed rage in her voice, "You did not even give them a chance! On my life, I swear I will kill you!"

As she raised her axe to strike however, the frigate jolted violently as though it had collided into something, knocking it askew.

"What was that?" Lucina had time to say before the entire ship quaked again, forcing her to stumble onto a knee. Then with an accusatory glare towards the Belisian, she added, "More trickery?"

Broken Skies

@deia876lat

The next few seconds seemed to last an age as Nena waited for the girl to grab her outstretched hand while the towering bow of the frigate loomed ever closer. Much to Nena's surprise however, the girl only shook her head in response as she continued trying to move the refugee ship out of the way.

“I CAN’T!” She cried out through gritted teeth. Her head nodding towards the opening that lead down into the ship’s hold.
“More…people…on board.”

You've got to be kidding me, Nena thought as she looked in the direction pointed out to her then back towards the girl, her tattoos glowing brighter and brighter with each passing moment.

“Get…them…OUT!” She said as the skin on her arms started to show cracks.

Still drained from her assault upon the Vaimese frigates earlier, Nena was reluctant to push her limits any further lest it meant endangering herself. She was a mercenary after all, only in it for the reward and she had already accomplished her task of slowing the enemy down. Then again however, she was not so black hearted that she would ignore the girl giving her all to protect the people on board the falling airship.

"Gaia's ass, fine," Nena said as she jumped onto the deck of the barge. "Petra, get ready to catch us!"

The roc swooped down beneath the airship as Nena ran passed the girl and into the hold, shouting out to everyone gathered below, "C'mon folks. Cavalry's here, now get your asses moving!"

Just as she spoke however, a sickening lurch of screaming metal sounded behind her as the frigate finally made contact, relentlessly plowing through the side of the barge as though there was nothing in the way at all.

---

@Omni5876

After numerous interruptions and lengthy pursuit from Vaimese soldiers, the Silver Spider had finally made his way to the rear of the frigate where he saw Arn taking cover behind a pillar. The battlemage raised a hand and Leo raised his own in return, mistaking it for a greeting, but then he saw what was around the pillar and realized what the gesture actually meant.

"Oh sh-" Leo had time to say before a barrage of machinegun fire rained down upon him, most of the bullets bouncing off his armour before he could bring his sabre up to defend himself.

Fortunately, none had penetrated or struck his head, but almost all the rounds he did receive were aimed centre mass and by the time he managed to scramble his way over to Arn's side behind the pillar, the armour plates covering his torso had mostly been shot off or dented in.

"Looks like we're in a bit of a tight spot," Leo grunted as he peeled away what was left of his cuirass, leaving his nerve suit exposed underneath. Though the artificial muscle fibres proved adequate against all but the highest calibres, it did nothing to protect against high explosives and Leo hoped to Gaia that the enemy had none on hand.

"There's more behind us," he said as he wiped away the blood trickling down from the side of his head. "Damn good shooters too. Better than pirates anyway. How are you holding up?"