Ch.2-2 ¤ High Seas Slaughter

I made my way to the boarding ramp and found Silke waiting for me there. Actually, she was leaning on the intact railing and looking down at the waters, avoiding to give any direct look to the charnel house that was the deck on her left.  The purple flames had gone out a while ago, which was good as they would have made things even more surreal for the younger Magical Girl. I wondered just how much stuff she had seen up to now; how used she was to this kind of scenes.

"Let's get this over with." she didn't make any comments, didn't ask me any question, just went straight to business with her voice completely robbed of any tone by that strange vox-caster thing. "I'll let you go in first then take advantage of the commotion."

I nodded lightly. This was usually the Eversors' job anyway so it made perfect sense, even though I couldn't grasp what she had planned to do herself just yet. "No problem with me, this should be easy." I gave a small grin, but she didn't look away from the water.

"Don't be careless, after this we don't know what else they're capable of." she immediately scolded my casualness and my smile dropped. I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to look at me. I tried to keep my voice neutral and not to look angry... not too irritated at least. "I may be 'new' here, but I'm not a Green. You can kick back and relax if you want, I'll show you not to worry about me."

Silke stared at me for a few seconds and I could imagine behind that helmet of hers she might have looked pretty irritated. Again however, she didn't display any aggressivity, responding with the same flat tone. "If you insist. I'll leave you some space." I couldn't help but feel like I offended her somehow, but that tended to be a thing I often did without meaning to.

That wasn't something I had time to mind at the moment though. Whoever was leading those so-called "pirates" was probably a bit stunned their initial attack didn't succeed, but even if they were they wouldn't stay that way forever. For all I knew they were already preparing a Plan B right this moment. I didn't wait any longer and decided to step up the game. The scent of sulfur and iron rose again suddenly, but this time it wasn't a surprise.

It was my doing.

Empyrean energies surged through my body, pushing its speed and my reaction times even further than Eversor training already had. In a heartbeat's time I was already gone, having crossed to the other side of the ramp and  onto the other ship. It was a very peculiar feeling, but most of all it was an addictive one. How could I say... It was a little like the feeling of speed and freedom some people got when riding motorcycles or cars really fast, mixed with the lightness that came from a good drink and with small random electric shocks keeping you on edge. That would just about begin to describe it.  What awaited me on the other side of the boarding ramp though was... confusing, to say the least, and much less pleasant.

It led to some sort of large magical enclosure made by wards that projected some sort of three-walls barrier to block the way further onto the ship from their side of the ramp, but that part made sense. The part that did not make sense was how the inner side of the enclosure was even more bloodied than the cargo we were tasked to protect. There must have been enough body parts for a dozen or two of people's worth, all ripped apart in the same way that the pseudo-familiars' unfortunate victims.

It was a little difficult to see with the deck as it was practically literally painted red and caked with gore, but underneath the charnel there were large inscriptions and marks, as if it was all part of some dark ritual of sorts. Great, me and religious types never worked out, even while I had my whole 'Blessed Lady' phase I really got into. Not that that's entirely over either... I guess, but I just can't stand people who can't think for themselves without deferring to some 'higher authority' to dictate everything like the bad zealot cases do.

I didn't waste too much time here either, the sigils were in too bad shape to tell me anything worthwhile. The Barriers were once again insultingly resistant to my attacks, being completely unaffected by explosive bolts, but they weren't so tall that I couldn't just jump over them. It was almost as if they were there to contain something else.

Either way, the thick mist that concealed their advance earlier turned into an advantage for me as I began my work. The lack of visibility prevented them from spotting me from a distance and prevented any would-be Vindicare - or just human snipers, those can still hurt a lot too with the right expensive toys - from tracking and lining a shot.

As I expected it was very easy to purge the deck, humans were appallingly sluggish and dull compared to hell-spawned beasts. Those who didn't freak out at my sudden appearance were rarely fast enough to even move their guns in my general direction and those who were missed by a mile. It must have been terrifying for them, to hear gunshots, screams, then silence, all in close succession and creeping ever so closer. All this while being unable to see what was even going on.  Some cracked of course and tried to spray bullets in the general direction of their ex-living 'comrades', some even not -waiting- for them to be dead, backstabbing bastards, but it was futile. By the time they fired the only thing left to eat the steel was corpses.

Once I finished purging everything on the outer section, Silke met up with me at the back. Whoever was in command here was holing up in the superstructure and left the goons to fend for themselves. It was kinda pathetic actually, considering there was no way they didn't have some magical firepower too. But then again considering the visibility maybe they thought they had better chances inside. By now the Fel power that had strengthened me earlier was gone, its bright flame having cooled down to dying embers. All this asides though, there was something that concerned me a fair bit more.

"How did you get past the Barrier at the ramp?"

"What Barrier?"

This is wrong.

"The Wards"

"There wasn't anything like that."

No.

I kicked off the ground and landed a dozen or so meters above, onto the side of the superstructure, turning my profile towards the 'Culexus' and prepared to defend myself. If they used a Callidus to conceal their approach they could be using one -now-. I brought out my Soul Gem and kept it out of sight by blocking it with my body. The thing could use some serious cleansing, but it wasn't the time for that.

+Excuse me but.. what are you doing?+ The sharp pain in the back of my mind snapped me back from my sudden burst of Paranoia and I cringed, not so much from the pain than a little bit from shame. I sighed and brought back my Soul Gem to its other form on the back of my neck before hopping down back onto the main deck, uttering a small apology.

"No, it's fine.." The Culexus' voice sounded... almost pleased? it was hard to tell with this damned vox. "It's good to see you're more cautious than you let on." Silke moved ahead towards the steel door and gave it a small testing nudge. "It's been welded shut..."

I took the hint and moved closer. "Can't you use whatever it was you used on the Familiars? it seemed pretty damn powerful."

The Culexus shook her head lightly, simply giving a small "it's complicated." I raised an eyebrow but kept the questions for later. At that point I was starting to have a whole grocery list of weird shit I wanted her to explain.

I warned her to take some distance and she complied while I put the palm of one hand flat on the door and took a small breath. Once more baleful energies coated the ebon metal but this time there was no space for the energy to coalesce and it was released in one large detonation that ripped through the steel and left the sides of the gaping hole horribly twisted and mangled. I heard a small gasp behind me just before the heavy thud of the once-door several meters away.

"When we get back from this mission, we need to talk."

What the hell? That was my line.