---

After seeing the ship survive Nyxia's lasers she hadn't wanted to chance it with a broad blast of energy, and indeed her strike had performed better then she expected as both Magical Girl and pirate looked at one another through the many-floor deep hole punched into the ship. Were they actual flesh and blood pirates they may have reacted with terror or scrambled to mount a response.

Miseria did not feel terror, as far as Roche knew, so she really should have seen the immediate and coordinated response coming. But they were Miso girls, and they were used to a more animal-level intelligence in their prey. Shaking aside instincts and preconceptions took more then a handful of minutes especially when most of them were flying by the seat of their pants.

That was to say Earthshaker hadn't expected an immediate outpouring of pirates scrambling through the freshly made gap, crawling and clambering over her as they attempted to drown her in black muscle. It was exactly the worst situation for her to be in, her energy spent and one arm already occupied holding onto the ship itself. Which was seeming to imply the Miseria pirates were connected enough that even if they couldn't see or talk in any meaningful way, they all were learning from their separate battles at an alarming pace.

Feeling arms wrap around her neck, however, added a degree of haste to Earthshaker that made such broad reaching thoughts a low priority. Her body was leaden and bulbous, weighed by small, clingy forms that only wanted to restrain her without even offering a single attack for her to charge herself. In time the chokehold would leave her seeing nothing but darkness, and she very much doubted she'd awaken at all at that point.

Now acting purely from desperation Earthshaker had no recourse but to let go of the ship and twist herself so the Miseria laden shield could strike the water for her. That large of a surface striking the water would give her just enough charge to radiate out a blast and loosen the pirates.

Or she'd fail and be at the mercy of both Pirates and emotion eating monsters as she passed out from asphyxiation.

Shatterscape smiled at Earthshaker before she bounded off the shield and landed in a tide of Miseria.

“Then I shall endeavour to bless this occasion. Itadakimasu,” she spoke mid-air, loud enough for Earthshaker to hear. However, instead of splattering the creatures as the mindless monsters rushed to meet her head on, the dark magical girl only succeeded in scattering them to the winds before some took aim at her with their rifles. The other rushed in with their sabres drawn, intent on forcing her to make a choice of which attacks to defend against.

Such clever behaviour for Miseria. It caused Shatterscape to pause for a moment, earning a couple of rifle shots that tore into her flesh and bruised her, but she did not even flinch at the familiar sensation of pain. Instead, her smile turned into a frown as she caught the rushing elements with a swipe, pulverising a couple of them, yet also feeling the resistance of metal meeting her own metal. Indeed, these creations were not the ones Shatterscape was used to and it disrupted her rhythm.

Fortunately, she was not alone in the fight. Ember kept track of the pirates from the corner of her eye, not to mention the other girls and so Shatterscape raised her gauntlets just in time to deflect an sabre along with half a dozen rifle shots. Then she exploded towards the attacks. The ground shook briefly beneath her feet as she conveyed her full strength, blitzing forward as though she were an arrow and beheading several of her opponents. Her claws then sunk into the sand, serving as a fulcrum as well as a shield.

The Miseria left little time for her to gather her breath, not that she counted on it. They swarmed her once again, combined arms working in concert to bring down the magical girl and for once, Shatterscape had to use all of her focus on evading, mitigating or even meting out blows. A careless move with her gauntlets could mean injury or interception, something she felt ill-inclined to risk in this swarm.

And despite her misgivings about the one fuelled only by hatred, it seemed Nyxia did the best out of all them – at least until her beams were deflected back at her – and who the hell were those advancing towards Oros?

“There are intruders upon our sacred ground,” murmured Shatterscape, her attention split in a dozen different directions. Each of her team-mates (save for Nyxia) was in trouble of their own, but without having the time to set up her bodies, not to mention the lack of Kiyo to watch over them, she could not jump around the battlefield like she was accustomed to. In fact, the rest of her was still behind in the city, taking care to avoid the panicked masses, so she had very little choice. Both Earthshaker and Acid Drop were too far to reach for her immediately.

Oros remained.

Once again, Shatterscape poured all of her strength into her legs and cleaved a path of destruction through the pirate Miseria. Uncaring of her wounds along with her injuries, she focused on ripping apart as many enemies as she could before she placed herself right into the path of the advancing duo.

“This humble high priestess,” she bellowed as she grit her teeth, her skin and clothes nicked away by a thousand cuts, “will not let any of her comrades come to harm.” Her announcement rung through the battlefield as she felt for the rest of her bodies. They were at least a couple of minutes away still; after all, they did not share her gifts. She would have to hold out until then.

Nyxia’s unrelenting firepower had little difficulty slicing up the miseria that were attacking her. Some puffed into dust, others collapsed and dispersed before hitting the ground. Whatever managed to slip by was intercepted by the defense drones, and even the damage to her baby from earlier seemed to have been healed away by her powers.

But with more magical girls leaving the beach or intercepting the light girls, more miseria were starting to focus on Nyxia. Clearly they would need to do more than just shoot her a few times to take her down. Their strategy changed in an instant.

Now the flying miseria were brandishing cutlass as well as powder guns. A point defense drone fired at one of them, and it used its sword to direct the beam into the sand. More of the sword wielding miseria came flying out of the dutchman and landed around Nyxia, sword raised to defend from a sudden shot from her mega obliterator. The unarmed masses surged forward, if only to give Nicxia something to shoot at.

But the miseria didn’t stop there. Near Nyxia’s feet, the little bastards were starting to claw their way out of the sand. The sand was not that difficult for them to dig, which became evident when they lept out of the ground at her.

Meanwhile, Roche fell to the ocean. From a distance, she looked like a mass of falling miseria. They were so dense that some miseria were holding onto other miseria, making a black droplet. But they fell swiftly towards the ocean. The dutchman might have been a hundred or so feet in the air now, but that was still a distance a human could fall in a second or two, and when Roche landed, she instantly dispersed the energy her shield had generated before it could even be stored.

Many of the miseria were instantly vaporized. Others were far enough away to get thrown into the air, arms flailing before they landed in the ocean. Even the ocean itself seemed to part momentarily before slamming together on either side of the girl who successfully parried the ocean. Even under the waves, some of the miseria had been scattered. But it only took them a moment to regain their vigor and swim back towards roche. More miseria were pouring in overhead, but Roche had managed to escape their initial trap.

After such a graceful entrance Shatterscape wasn’t about to let a mob of unusually tactical miseria cramp her style. Through careful movements, she was able to continue her dance of carnage without being further impeded. Of course she was plainly used to plowing through them in droves, and the irritation showed on her face. If only slightly.

But her allies needed her, and Shatterscape continued her dance. She spun and sliced her way through the hoards before she was positioned between the two magical girl factions. Oros at her back with all the civilians in tow, and the two newly arrived light girls.



After Shatterscape gave her one liner, Morganite rolled her shoulders back and cracked her neck. ”Ya friend iz gunna be safe if dey let go of the hostages.” She scowled. ”And cut it out wit da bedroom eyes.”

"Hey handy!” Oros waved. She was filled with a surprising amount of vigor for someone with so many wounds, but this likely wouldn’t surprise anyone from the detention club. Tenacity was her middle name, and if it wasn’t, it should be. "Or did I used to call you Multi-face? I think Handy is cuter!” She pointed at Morganite. "Shieldy’s pretty strong. Don’t know anything about the super cutie yet.”

The witch tipped her head. "Super, cutie?”

"That’s you!” Oros pointed at the witch with an open mouth smile.

"Oh my...” She blushed and adjusted her hat. "If you let the hostages go, maybe we can have some ice cream together?”

"Uh…”

”Wut da hell?” Morganite swatted the witch’s hat, causing it to spin on her head. ”We dozen’t negotiate wit da terrorists! ‘Specially these degenerates!”

Negotiations were over. Morganite’s twin shields swirled around her as she dove for Shatterscape. Meanwhile, the witch seemed to be charging up a spell. The end of her wand glowed a radiant white, but it wasn’t clear who her target was going to be yet.

Aboard the dutchman, Acid Drop and the captain continued to fight. The ship itself was not remaining idle, and had pointed itself straight at the beach. It moved forward, miseria still spilling out of the bottom of it. Its destination or purpose wasn’t yet clear, but it seemed like it was taking the fight to the beach.

No one would ever accuse Nyxia of not being incredibly single-minded and hyper-focused, at least when it came to slaughtering Miseria, but that didn't mean the teal-haired terror was entirely oblivious to pertinent changes in her surroundings, especially when they related to potential threats, or adaptable enough to respond to them. As such, when the hoard of Miseria assaulting her began using their swords to reflect her beams, just as their captain had done, the Neon Tempest swiftly adjusted her own tactics as well. Instead of continuing with her blinding barrage, she simply began using her massive weapon to smash her attackers into paste with a series of mighty swings. To deal with her airborne foes, she would pick up a random Miseria, toss it above her, and then use her beloved weapon to hit it into one of its flying companions like a misshapen baseball. It was only when even more of the creatures began emerging from the sand at her feet that Nyxia’s beams once again shot forth from her point defense drones, the neon lances of teal energy vaporizing each of the unarmed Miseria as soon as it emerged from the ground. Any that managed to avoid the ravening beams would find themselves stomped flat by a powerful thrust of the Neon Tempest’s high-heeled foot.

“Ya fuckin’ shit stains are sneaky little bastards, ain’t ya?” Nyxia observed as she violently ground a Miseira’s head into the sand. “That’s fine by me,” she added with a wicked smirk. “It just means I get to kill ya up close an’ personal!” Giving voice to a peal of psychotic laughter, she grabbed a sword-wielding Miseria by the head and promptly blew it apart with an energy blast from her glowing palm.

For the moment, Nyxia had once again reached an equilibrium, but even so, she knew that her enemies would just keep coming as long as their skeletal ship still existed. She had dearly wanted to claim that prize for herself, but it seemed she would need to rely on her teammates to accomplish that objective. And, hopefully, not take too much longer to do so…

---

By the time Roche had hit the water her world was one of complete darkness, buried under the weight of so many Miseria the light of day couldn't slip past their pitch-dark bodies. Her heart thundering in her ear was the only through-line reminding her she was still alive, still struggling against the crushing vice around her throat.

Then she hit the water and the world was chaos.

She drew in lungfuls of salt water and flailed to orient herself as the water swirled violently in the wake of her strike. Bubbles and bodies swirled outwards and Earthshaker hadn't even begun to empty her lungs of the burning brine when he head came to the surface and saw more Miseria coming down from the Dutchman to drag her under. It was fortunate then that after her long swim to the ship wreck she didn't quite fear the water in her lungs more then she did being clumped up on once more.

For all the intelligence of the Miseria, they did make a mistake she was going to ruthlessly capitalize upon. If it were just her and the ones still swimming to grasp her from below, she may very well have lacked the leverage and flexibility to avoid being dogpiled once more.

But there were Miseria all to eager to jump down at speed towards her, and Rocha called her shield up between her and them with an expression that promised bloody murder. She only needed to wait for the first splat against stretched hide before energy blasted out from her feet. Pirate miserie just a hairsbreadth from grasping her ankle were sent swirling downwards while Roche soared out of the water. Each impact of a falling Miseria restored the luster of her tattoos.

"BLECH!" Roche viscerally up-heaved salt water as she crested the railing of the Flying Dutchman, finding it had begun to move towards the beach where....a frustratingly familiar Magical Girl had come with her friend. "Permission to come....Oh forget it. I'll save the Quips for the Light idiots!"

Earthshaker was decidedly done with the pirates, and any desire to play around had been choked out of her. Rather then the captain or his boundless crew, there was only one target in Roche's mind worth striking next.

Her arm reared back and threw her shield forward with a crack of displaced, striking the center of the ship's mast with the force of a cannonball, the magical girl following a step behind and taking it in a full body tackle. A construct of bone would be snapped clean off between both blows, and her fingers strained to grasp the unwieldy bludgeon.

She held little doubt that the magic boat would sail just fine without a mast, but would it still be in one piece when she swung the great shaft down upon it? Earthshaker's voice rose in a scream of fury that would have made Nyxia proud as she burned her energy to swing the mast down upon it's former home.

Shatterscape bared her teeth at her opponents.

“You reveal your hypocrisy again, those who keep light only in name,” she spoke, her voice even but loud enough to be heard over the din of battle. “You care not about what happens to them. Just as you have not cared about what happens to one.” Then just as she expected, Morganite stepped forward, charging Shatterscape while the other light girl behind her tried to channel some sort of a spell. Unfortunately for them, the so-called high priestess was not born yesterday.

Opening her arms wide, Shatterscape stepped into Morganite instead trying to avoid her, sliding her feet apart - right one forward, left one back - her left hand moving backwards as her opponent slammed into her. The shields bruised her whole front, tiny whips of pain lashing across her body, but Shatterscape had experienced worse than it. Far, far worse. Thus, instead of stumbling back or reeling as one might have expected her, she leaned into the momentum and pivoted.

Her massive gauntlets sunk into Morganite as she whirled around, turning the light girl’s strength against herself, then letting go just so that the Morganite-ball would be aimed at Morganite’s companion. Shatterscape blasted off after her a split second later, muscles screaming at the top of their non-existent lungs, ligaments stretching almost to their capacity as she made the awkward move work through brute strength, then prepared herself to tangle with her enemies.

“No mercy for the hypocrites,” she announced, spreading her claws to skewer either Morganite or her companion depending on which one remained open.

---

Acid Drop was not going to last much longer, her energy and emotional reserves dwindling. She hadn't heard Oros' request for help, being too far away, but that wasn't to say that her partner wasn't on her mind. Rather, Acid Drop believed that she would be the key to this victory. As she continued clashing with the captain she devised a quick plan, a last ditch effort. And luckily for her, Earthshaker took a moment to destroy the mast of the ship, forcing both herself and her opponent to steady themselves on the deck.

That was all she needed. Not caring if she would be wounded, with an intent to only block fatal attacks from the miseria she was fighting, she lunged forward while it was catching itself and grabbed it by the neck with her entire left arm. Acting entirely on instinct she poured most of the remaining magic she had into her legs for a massive push off of the boat and towards Oros and - oh, Shatterscape was there too, she noticed as she was mid-air. She hadn't known she could adjust her magic like this, but she made a mental note of her success as she let go of the captain just before landing in an explosion of sand a few yards behind the Light girls. She managed to roll to her feet, preventing most of the damage, and took a quick step towards the fight.

"Weakling cowards." was what came from her mouth as she took a second step towards the mid-battle girls. But as she did, the last of her magic ran out and her energy left her body entirely; Acid Drop fell face-first into the sand, unconscious from exertion.

Regardless of how aggressively they attacked or what strategy they used, Nyxia revealed no clear weakness presented itself. She was just as deadly in melee as she was at range, and she had near omnipotent levels of awareness. Was she invincible? As the other magical girls addressed other issues, the miseria storming the beach swarmed Nyxia.

Roche had little difficulty escaping her miseria prison, thanks to some quick thinking. She immediately set out to launch an offensive against the ship itself and cut its mast off in a single blow. Then, as were the rules of nature, she was required to use the mast against the ship itself.

The captain and Acid Drop exchanged blows on the top deck, but they noticed the mast being swung at them. Hard not to when both fighters were obscured by a giant shadow, not to mention the sound of a five foot mast being snapped in half was sure to be heard over their clash. The captain raised his katana and caught the descending mast before it could strike the ship. If physics applied to miseria, then he might have been punched through the ship before it was split in two. But the mast hit the blade with thunderous force, and shattered into a thousand pieces. The sail was taken up by the wind and sailed through the sky. Before the captain could take on the newly arrived, Acid Drop used the opening to grab the miseria and dive off the side of the ship with them.



Shatterscape was on her own. Oros could only assist if she released all the terrified beach goers that she was holding in line. Some of them had fallen unconscious due to the stress, but those that remained awake would have been alkward to drag around. Not only that, but the miseria were ramping up. But maybe it wouldn't matter. Shatterscape seemed confident in her choice to face two light girls head on.

Initially, it looked like Morganite was going to just steamroll right over Shatterscape, to the point that she managed to ram her with her shield. But let it never be said that having massive hands, while cumbersome in 95% of daily activities, were quite useful in combat. She wasn't quite able to dig her nails into Morganite due to her having a second shield on her back, but flinging the pink haired magical girl was something she was able to do with ease. The witch initially flinched, but Morganite swerved out of the way moments before impact. She was sandwiched between her shields, so it was a simple matter to course correct mid flight.

The witch didn't back down though. She fret her brow and kept her hands raised, even as Shatterscape closed the distance. Her nail-like fingertips glided towards their target like a salvo of arrows, only for one of Morganite's shields to boomerang around and shove her hand off to the side.

"No mercy for the wicked!”

The witch's spell triggered, launching a wave of white-hot searing light on Shatterscape before the witch hopped backwards. Then, Morganite had circled back at ramming speed. She was riding on top of one of her shields. But as she closed in, she jumped off her shield and spread her limbs in an attempt to body slam Shatterscape. Her shields were not idle either, with one following after her and the other protecting the witch. Conservation of ninjutsu was very much not in effect here.

”Am liek ah bad penneh, I always turn up!”

But things were about to get a bit more exciting for Nixia and Earthshaker.

The captain was barely hanging on after Acid Drop's last attack, but while she was out, he was not. While laying on his back, he raised his katana and pointed at Nyxia. The ship's bow pointed straight at the strangely colored magical girl. The Stern blew off, revealing no less than ten afterburners, which heated up instantly. Additional masts shot out of the sides of the ship, making it look more like a plane. The bow even split apart and spun like a propeller, threatening to chop up anything that got in front of the ship.

There was a second or two where the ship remained perfectly still.

Then the afterburners fired.

Unfortunately, despite her teammates’ best efforts, the skeletal galleon had not been destroyed. In fact, it was now pointing directly at where the Neon Tempest was battling on the beach. Although she wasn’t exactly possessed of omnipotent levels of awareness (she had no idea that Morganite and her witchy friend had shown up, for instance, or maybe she knew but just didn’t care?), but the movements of so massive an object were hard to miss, especially when she’d been hoping for another shot at said object herself. Now, it seemed she would get her chance…

“Stupid fucking asswipes…” Nyxia snarled as she kicked another Miseria into one of its many companions. “Do I have to do everything myself?!”

Slamming the Omega Obliterator deep into the ground, even as the bone ship sprouted an enormous propeller, the Neon Tempest used it as a pole upon which to swing herself horizontally with considerable speed, her legs shooting out to smash against all the swarming Miseria in a circular arc. Once a moment of breathing room had been achieved, she fired her gargantuan weapon, sending both her and it blasting into the sky. After attaining sufficient altitude, the teal-haired terror swung the energy cannon around so that it was pointing down at the now rocket-propelled pirate ship. At such close range, it was impossible to miss, and to her allies’ credit, it seemed they had at least managed to get rid of the annoying captain. Thus, Nyxia’s subsequent teal-tinted torrent of annihilation was sure to strike its intended target without being deflected away at the last second.

“EAT THIS, SHITHEAD!!!”

Yet, even as the ruinous beam lanced down upon the vile vessel, the Neon Tempest noticed that Roche was still aboard. However, this was actually a bonus, since she knew from experience that the tribal girl would be unaffected by her weapon’s destructive energies. Indeed, if Earthshaker was struck, the code keeper would be able to absorb the energy, using it as fuel for her own efforts to break the bone ship into a million pieces.

As much as hated to admit it, Nyxia had to concede that sometimes, this whole “teamwork thing” did have its advantages.

---

Rather then feel the satisfying, spine jarring crash of a massive mast cleaving into the Dutchman's deck, Earthshaker only felt the latter sensation as her bludgeon exploded into thousands of splinters by the Captain Miseria's katana. Having seen it deflect the fully charged Omega Obliterator she wasn't surprised even as she tumbled back across the deck, rolling end over end before striking the balustrade of the ship's deck.

She tasted iron and felt spittle turned pink fly from her lips alongside the breath in her lungs as the backlash ran through her. But as the seconds ticked by she came to realize the shaking wasn't just her body but the whole ship itself vibrating violently under a transformation that fermented outrage from the Rule Keeper.

The Captain was already a Miseria worthy of a fighting a Magical Girl. His swarm of intelligent crew would have pressured many teams.

But the ship turning into some bastardized airship somehow flying by both jet, turbine, and sail in spite of the latter being completely antithetical to the former forms of propulsion? Roche wasn't having it.

The tanned magical came to her feet, knowing it would be only a matter of time before the crew bubbled onto deck. With the captain dragged off by Acid Drop the ship was at last without it's great protector, but she needed a fresh source of energy. It was a shame that the mast hadn't counted, but with the ship's after burner's glowing bright, Roche had an idea that made red-smeared lips spread wide. Coming to the rear she saw the massive, incongruous engines and felt the wash of heat set her cloak billowing.

Gripping her shield tightly she lowered it into the backwash, clutching the frame as it began to block the controlled explosion. "You wanna keep escalating? Fine, throw a bloody rocket ship at us! Drop the damned sky, why don't you?! I'LL TAKE IT ALL!"

Hopefully the unhinged laughter wouldn't reach the beachgoers still embroiled before the ship, but it would be hard not to notice the glow atop the deck that was beginning to gleam like a newborn star. She'd never had the chance to test how much energy she could take, nor seen how much of Nyxia's lasers she could take over time.

But given precision had failed to do more then put a hole the ship ignored, Earthshaker was opting for an excessive big bang. Soaking in enough energy even her own eyes were blinded by her shine, till she felt like molten metal was running across her nerves where tattoos burned incandescent.

Ashbringer had proven to Roche that Magical Girl's could go so much further then the peaks she once felt comfortable residing upon. She had been shown what once looked to be a mountain was simply a hill at the foot of greater heights, and one didn't climb them without accepting a little pain. When she felt the moment of critical mass come, Earthshaker's arms heaved upwards, pulling the scorched hide over head with jittering muscles and drove them downwards onto the deck. Words came from her lips, a defiant roar of fury and prayer all in one.

She did not even attempt to dodge, only shifting her stance slightly and thus the wave of light washed over her without impediment. Lances of pain bloomed across Shatterscape’s whole body as though they were a swarm of ants biting into her flesh as they marched across it, but it barely caused her to flinch. She merely continued on her way, barrelling forwards and into Morganite’s friend, one claw stretched forward.

Then Shatterscape let her hand drop and delivered a fierce kick right into her opponent. While not nearly as powerful as her gauntlets, the hit did not even have to land as she aimed to tangle with the one in front of her and succeeded. The witch did not react in time as her other gauntlet wrapped around her, pulling her well into Shatterscape’s personal space so the witch could see the dark magical girl’s cold expression.

Morganite slammed into them at that point, knocking them both off their feet, rattling Shatterscape to the bone, but once again, Shatterscape took the pain head on, welcoming it like she welcomed a familiar friend while she shifted her centre of balance as well as she could and as chaotically as she could, attempting to entangle Morganite into the mess of their engagement as well. Claws along with legs shifted in awkward or downright painful ways just so Shatterscape could accomplish her goals and have her opponents where she wanted them: in a mess of limbs and clothes, bound to one of her bodies.