[IC] Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

[Prodigal Son]

As Nemo began his rampage, Raiya stayed a bit back to allow Nemo's carnage to go unrestricted by her presence. Nemo continued on on his own further on, heading down the stairs after taking out a group of sailors. It seems that Nemo had pickedu p momentum now; no doubt, the path of carnage would continue all the way until he ran out of people to slay.

Unless... he missed some? As Raiya continued down the stairs following Nemo, two sailors were hiding in the shadows to the side of the doorway past the end of the stairs, one on each side of the doorway. Raiya noticed them before she walked out, but pretended not to notice and continued her pace she had already been walking at to not alert the ambushers that she had caught on. As soon as she stepped out into their line of sight, they shifted their pistols ready to pull the trigger on her. That was when Raiya broke her usual pistol combat stance, swinging her right arm over, smacking the gun hand of the man on the right. The sailor on the rights gun discharged to the side of her but completely missed. Within the same movement she swung her left arm to the sailor on the left stabbing the man on the left's gun hand with her kogetana. The left sailor let out a cry of agony and dropped his gun. She quickly spun around the left man, pulling the knife out of his hand which elicited another painful cry. Her spin moved her directly behind the left sailor, who was now in her chokehold with her left arm. The right sailor frantically leapt to the ground to retrieve his gun but it was too late. By the time he retrieved his gun Raiya had already taking his friend hostage.

The sailor let out a scream of rage as he began to unload his clip into his friend, reaching the end of his magazine with a few firm clicks that signified the emptiness of the gun. Raiya, who was completely unharmed dropped her now dead hostage like a sack of bloody potatoes. In the interest of saving ammo (she was down to 9 rounds) she rushed the sailor on the right with her kogetana, sticking it in the side of his temple in an instant. With that Raiya continued to walk towards Nemo following the path of his carnage. She came upon Nemo right as he finished off his prey with a pencil. A fucking pencil.

"Showoff..." Raiya mumbled, "You proved me wrong but you're still a showoff." She said

[Cottonmouth]

The two mages held up their shields during Travis' barrage of gunfire, while the untalent ducked back behind cover. The shield's held up, but eventually the weaker of the duo's shield started to crack. It eventually broke after taking a shot from one of Travis' more powerful weapons, leaving him defenseless from getting cut to ribbons from the firearms.

The shotgunner was just about to pop back up to try to put an end to Travis' assault, however Zoey's attack caught him by surprise. He was blown back into the cover he was hiding behind with an audible thud from the force of the shot before falling to the ground, dead.

While still holding up his energy shield, the final remaining attacker began to sling out rapid explosive energy blasts of his own to attempt to stop the barrage. Six in total, three at Travis, two at Zuri, and one at Zoey. He then charged up a teleport, re-appearing above the trio with his shield dropped and bringing down a charged shockwave attack towards Travis with his hands. It would activate as soon as it touched something solid, be it Travis himself or the metal deck.

---

"Who would I be if I wasn't? Is it not an entertainer's job to create a spectacle?" Nemo replied as he continued on to the next room.

"We're getting close." Nemo commented as he reached another hatch-style door. He spun it unlocked with a flick of his wrist and a simple spell and let gravity ease it open, revealing a much larger room with two men standing beside each other in the middle of it. Judging by their opposite appearances this was obvious the twin swordsmen Nemo spoke about earlier Sap and Sin Tao.

Both of them seemed to be of identical height of around 5'9", asian, tanned, and wearing similar dark blue rugged militaristic uniforms. The only thing that was different between them is one brother had much longer black hair than the other, with the shorter haired brother wearing a red scarf around his neck. Both of them were wielding Thai Dha swords with runes etched into the sides of the blades.

"You know I was kinda hoping it would be them." Nemo said, leaning towards Raiya and whispering. "Do you think they'll like, both talk at the same time? In harmony? That would be really cool." He added.

"You've both come this far to die, your fate was sealed the moment you set foot on this ship uninvited." Both the brothers said in unison, causing Nemo's eyes to light up. He turned to Raiya with an excited 'Did you hear that?' look on his face. Nemo then spawned his katana, figuring the two swordsmen were the most fitting excuse he was going to get.

"Have any preference on how we handle this?" He said, still whispering. "We could fight them together, or one for each of us, or one of us could just take both of them on." Nemo asked. "If you want to do it together I hope you have a plan, because I just realized all the ones I thought of were way too complicated."

[Dawnpath]

Zoey rolled away from the explosive blast and reached to the throwing stars at her belt, throwing one at the shockwave coming down and one at the mage, before fading to another location and firing a short burst at him. She didn't tell Travis that she was going to try to take out the shockwave that way, though she hoped he'd handle it. Relocating again, she began looking for the jammer. She had hopes the other two could take out the mage. Most of the witches she'd worked with in her time could've.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya followed behind Nemo as he opened up the hatch to the next room which was much larger than the corridors that they were fighting in earlier. There in the large room, two asian looking men in uniform stood to greet them. The men were twins which Raiya was starting to feel was a bit redundant.

"Great," Raiya said sarcastically, "I just love twins. They are so rare! I've never seen a pair of twins before in real life!" She continued her sarcastic charade. Raiya rolled her eyes as they began to speak in unison as Nemo suggested they might.

Raiya looked over at Nemo who was still whispering at her, "I say we each take one, and if one of us beats their opponent first, we help the other." Raiya suggested, "We don't have the luxury of time to play fair with these goons." Raiya said.

"I'll take the long haired one, you take the other one." She suggested.

[Cottonmouth]

"I just hope that they'll allow us to fight separately." Nemo replied.

The two twins suddenly locked hands, the action seemed to temporarily merge their two manapools together into one, powering them up with excess energy in the process. Even if someone wasn't using manalysis to pay attention to their pools, the longer haired brother's suddenly flowing hair was enough of a visual cue to tip someone off on what was going on.

The twins suddenly let loose of their hands and began to rapidly zig zag across the room towards Raiya and Nemo with enhanced speed, making it hard to track their positions. The brothers both reached Nemo and Raiya at the same time, drawing their swords and slashing at them from the top down.

---

Nemo drew his sword and blocked the incoming attack in one fluid motion. His draw speed on the sword was just as good as his revolver's. He pushed forward to knock the short haired brother back, then issued his counter attack by spinning around and slashing at an angle from the top, whipping the sword around with one hand for extra speed. The brother blocked the attack with his blade, but it left him open for a sneak attack from Nemo's free hand. The brother took a heavy punch to the gut, causing him to retreat back to regain his composure.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya didn't need to have her manalysis activated to know that these brothers were operating under aura harmonization. Although, she did briefly activate her manalysis to take a look at exactly how closely harmonized they were. Their manawaves were vibrating at almost the exact same frequency. Raiya couldn't actually tell how closely their auras were harmonized because her manalysis wasn't keen enough. But it was clearly passed the 90 percent similarity threshold. This meant their spells would be amplified at least twice as potent as they would have been normally. The mana waves resonated back and forth between each of the brothers, reverberating, creating a constructive interference.

Watching the two operate so efficiently was really a bit impressive. Aura harmonization was extremely difficult. Mainly because, if you and your partner were not on the same wavelength, the result could create a destructive interference instead of a constructive interference. Which meant for a bit, you and your synchronizing partner would have less power than you would normally have. Even after breaking harmonization, if you messed it up, your power would not return to normal until up to twenty-four hours. Aura harmonization was truly a gambit, utilizing it in battle was a matter of high-risk moderate reward.

They rushed Nemo and Raiya, zigging and zagging up to them in a flash. Luckily Raiya's heightened senses allowed for a super human reaction time. Activating her biri-biri aura briefly, she lept slightly backwards, the sword swipe narrowly passing in front of her. Immediately after she shot a quick burst of 4 rounds at the long haired brother, moving her aim with each shot. The shots were evenly spread out. The first started at the left leg/femur and the last ending at the middle of the forehead (if the shots managed to land). Reguardless, Raiya spun adding momentum to her swing, and aimed a kogatana jab right at torso of the long-haired brother.

[ShiningSector]

"Seriously?!" Travis turned his head to Zuri with a surprised expression on his face just as she voiced her reluctance in participating in the ensuing battle. This had nearly dumbfounded him as he recalled she and Zoey fighting Bolsan hours later in what seemed like an intense fight; surely this skirmish was no more dangerous or frightening. With a annoyed sigh, Travis quickly returned his attention to back to suppressing their attackers, "fine, just stay in cover until this is all done."

So far his strategy was in pinning down the patrol was proving effective; he watched as Zoey taking the imitative with his suggestion and successfully nailed one of the crew members as they frantically attempted to stop his attack. Not long after, one of the mages succumbed to the barrage of Travis' possessed firearms as their barrier failed to hold back the hot stream of lead. Travis was astonished as he saw the doomed mage's lifeless body convulse in a mist of red before they collapsed dead upon the metal deck.

The last man and mage of the patrol finally retaliated by unleashing a snap-shot of energy bolts at Travis' team. Zoey cleared out without issue but that only left him and Zuri to handle with the explosive bolts. With little time to respond with another spell, he quickly recalled his hijacked arsenal and hurled them at the energy attacks as desperate defense. The collective grouping of hard plastic and metal on each bolt appeared to have been enough detonate all five of the remaining explosive shots. Travis covered his face as a rush of fumes from the explosions enveloped the area.

Just as the smoke cleared up, Travis noticed that the mage had vanished, no longer in cover but he was soon found overhead already charging another spell; he could quickly tell by his mana analysis that is would be a big one. With little time to spare, Travis squeezed the capsule in his left hand, causing the grey powder to disperse through his fingers. Within his hand now was a glowing mana crystal coursing with raw mana. Travis taped into a portion of his reserves to commune with the shard before quickly channeling its mana into his right hand where three new runic circles have formed.

Travis wasted no time and discharged all three runes a split second after the mage hurled a massive energy shockwave right on top of him. The moment the runes activated, a dark cloudy mass spewed forth from them, followed by a near-blinding fulmination of surging electrons shooting up towards the mage like a lightning strike. Travis' latest spell was certainly his most vicious but also the most inconsistent when observed in earlier trials as the produced ionized streaks had the tendency of not directly hitting their targets. Luckily however, Zoey had also responded to the threat with two shurikens rapidly spinning towards the mage and their devastating attack. This unintended stroke of ingenuity guided Travis' lightning bolts right towards his targets.

[Cottonmouth]

The mage's shock-wave attack was dispersed by Travis' own lightning strike before it could touch the ground. Coupled with Zoey's shurikens action as a lightning rod once they were embedded into his torso, he was easily fried to a crisp. The man fell dead to the ground heavily, unable to bring his attack to fruition.

It seemed the coast was clear until a small chuckle broke the silence. "That was quite the light show there." Said a man now standing roughly twenty feet from the group. He had a snide tone is his voice, with a faint Irish accent. Adorned in a rugged, somewhat torn, navy sailors uniform with a brown leather jacket worn over it. He had a grenade belt worn like a sash underneath, and various knifes of different sizes sticking out of pockets all over his outfit. He had medium length orange-ish brown hair, a slight stubble with a more prominent thin mustache, blue eyes, and looked to be in his early thirties.

Judging by the description, the man was likely Reagan "Roy" O'Harris Decker, the witch hunter of the crew.

Roy pulled three knives from his jacket and started to juggle them around. "Let me show you some-a my party tricks now." He stated before hurling all three of them towards the group, one for each member. Someone with keen enough vision would notice that the tips of the knives had a slight purple glow to them. Before he threw them, Roy coated the daggers with a small spell that would cause them to puncture any magic barriers put in their way, or cancel any attempt to use a type of telekinesis to offset their trajectory.

---

The long haired brother used the side of his blade to block the bullets one by one, clearly their reflexes were impressive. The brother then used his speed to sidestep Raiya's jab before falling back. "You intend to fight us with such a small blade?" The brother's both said at the same time. Something that would make sense to Raiya, but likely confuse Nemo when he was already handling a sword.

The long haired brother dashed back to his comrade, locking hands with him to charge back up, before being flung back at blinding speed towards Raiya. He extended his blade out to try to pierce her. Should he miss, at the speed he was going he'd likely stab his blade into the metal wall.

Nemo stepped forward and used one hand to thrust the katana at the shorter haired twin as if he was using a rapier. The twin deflected his attack, but Nemo then followed it up with a more traditional two handed overhead slash. The twin blocked the attack, locking their blades together.

Judging by how the exchange was going, Nemo seemed to overpower the man with their blades locked. The twin struggled to keep himself from being pushed to the ground. Nemo abruptly slid his blade upwards and out of the lock, causing the twin to nearly lose his balance. He then ducked down and spun, slashing across towards the man's stomach.

The twin was nearly cut in half, but saved himself with his enhanced speed by dodging back, only suffering a moderate cut to his midsection.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya scoffed at the fact that her enemy successfully deflected her bullets and dodged her stab. Then the twin faded back to the other so they could reattune their harmonization. While they were still locking hands Raiya released her gun and kogatana, fading them back into her manainventory. He's fast, but let's see if he is faster than the speed of light. Raiya thought. She then extended her arms and crossed her hands channeling her natural aura into her hands and created a runic spell circle in front of her hands which released a massive plasma bolt projectile. The pinkish arc was Raiya's natural lightning bolt spell that was second nature to her due to the amount she had used it.

The destruction spell was powerful enough rip apart any normal human it hit. Since the long-haired twin was rushing straight forward, he wouldn't be able to dodge it unless he anticipated the spell and moved out of the way before it launched.

[Cottonmouth]

The long haired brother didn't have any time to dodge the spell, but he did have time to conjure up a spell of his own. The side runes on the brother's sword quickly glowed green before the whole sword was encapsulated with a green aura. He then slashed directly at Raiya's spell, connecting with it and causing a explosion of magical energy as the two spells collided and canceled out. He didn't seem to suffer any substantial damage, but one would guess that being that close to the explosion wasn't all too pleasant.

The twin continued his approach on Raiya, albeit now at a much slower pace than before from the explosion, and continued on to attack her with an horizontal slash.

---

Nemo rushed towards his opponent and pressed the katana's blade into the steel floor, scraping the metal and causing sparks to fly up towards the brother. He pulled the sword up once he reached the short haired twin into an upwards slash. The brother was barely able to dodge back, only suffering a cut to his clothing.

The two then began to spar with their swords, exchanging a total of four swings at each other and emitting a metallic clang each time their blades crossed. The two then used their left hands to punch the other at the same time. The brother hit Nemo first hard in the chest, but the attack seemed to have nearly no effect on him, as if the pain didn't register. The brother would of got more of a reaction from punching a rock.

Nemo's own punch connected with the side of the short haired twin's face. Knocking him off balance and causing him to stumble back. Before the twin could recover Nemo added an a heavy two handed slash downwards to the brother's list of things to deal with. He used his Dha to block the attack, locking their swords together again.

Nemo still seemed to have more strength over their lock, trapping his opponent in the engagement. This time however Nemo didn't slide his sword off, instead his blade seemed to suddenly vibrate at an incredible rate. It emitted a ear-piercing screech as it buzzed against the brother's blade, letting off sparks and slowly cutting through the weapon's edge. A real testament to how hard and sharp Nemo's own katana was, or really, a testament to how impressive Muramasa blades were. "Impossible!" Both the twin's said out loud.

Nemo had a nasty grin on his face, which turned to a slow guttural laugh once his sword had cut about halfway through the twin's own sword. Unable to escape, the brother was helpless to watch his own weapon be destroyed within ten seconds. The moment it finally cut through and ceased buzzing caused the brother to try to escape by falling back before he himself was cleaved in half.

The brother rolled back and got to his feet, now holding a much smaller sword than before. His red bandanna suddenly fell from his neck, cut clean by Nemo's sword. He then knew he had dodged too late, Nemo's katana had cut deep into the twin's chest starting from the top of his shoulder and trailing down to his hip. Blood began to pour out and stain the twin's uniform, and the gash on his shoulder was so deep that it made using that arm out of the question now.

[Dawnpath]

Zoey's eye's widened as she recognized the glow and very quickly swapped through the shadows of her own party members, tripping Travis so she could quickly come up in front of Zuri and kick the knife away. She thought it odd that a witch hunter, of all the factions, would aim at her directly while she was alerted. "Scum," she spits off to the side, "Should've known a leacher was on board. Wonder what your precious 'morals' say about working with the church. Especially for the end of the world. O'course, you were probably going to steal it and call your brothers in." She reaches into the ether and pulls out two simple knives. She reached into her pouch and pulled some familliar leaves from it, the ones she'd used for Travis's tea earlier.

"Let's see what you know, hypocrite. After all," she spreads her arms, illusion spell decloaked, "I am a witch." She disappears to a new shadow, out of site.

[Prodigal Son]

After the explosion, Raiya didn't waste any time summoning her sword. She didn't summon the scabbard with it, instead just summoning the blade itself. After the explosion of the long-haired twin blocking her bolt subsided, he came rushing out at a bit of a lower speed than he was rushing at her before. When he got to her with a horizontal swipe which she easily parried. She heard the long-haired twin shout, "impossible." But figured it was just the effect of the pair being linked. After which she issued a flurry of swipes in a Z pattern from starting top to bottom. She then jumped backwards and charged mana into her blade, after the mana was sufficiently charged she slashed the air horizontally, creating a pink crescent slash of electrical energy that was headed for the long-haired twin.

The projectile she released was a modified arc blast that was contained in a thin barrier of mana. Once the target was hit, the barrier would break releasing all of the voltage into the target. After releasing the initial slash, she began charging her mana into her blade for her next spell. She pointed the tip of her sword at the target the mana coalescing at a small point it the tip of her blade. What amassed at the tip of her blade was a bright pink ball of plasma the size of a basket ball. It was extremely hot, and would no doubt melt whatever it it until all the energy of the plasma ball was dispersed.

[ShiningSector]

Travis observed the deadly brilliance of his spells rip towards the dark skies towards their intended target. Coupled with Zoey's throwing stars, Travis' projected lightning found their marks, nor only overpowering the mage's shockwave spell but zapping their attacker like a bug meeting its fate to an electrified trap. The sound of surging ions searing flesh in a quick instant was a near-horrific ambiance as the mage fell back to the ship's deck with a hard-cracking thud.

For a moment, the Untalent looked over his work, noting one man now conceived as a bloody mess over the deck whom had been unable to endure the barrage of multiple discharging firearms before being shot to shreds and the unfortunate fellow whose fate was death by electrocution. Both near extreme outcomes Travis personally would never have liked to bring upon anyone. While he was not a stranger to dealing death out to those whom made themselves as threats, Travis preferred to resolve such matters without spilling blood unless he had absolutely had no way avoid it. Considering his current circumstances, he had no where he can run and there any killers out and about; killing his way to safety was now fact, regretful as it was.

Just before he and Zuri could continue forward, seeing that Zoey was scouting ahead, someone behind and above them began chuckling in amusement, "...Something tells me that isn't a good sound," Travis said under his breath just as he turned his head to the source of the vocal glee.

Travis' eyes found an individual dressed in a nearly-typical sailor's uniform save for the noticeable tears but the most apparent feature of this newcomer was their gear he would see normally being worn by a witch hunter. He then quickly recalled a name of an individual going by the name of Roy whom matched the description, "Nope, not good at all."

Roy 'complimented' Travis' spells in-use but wasted no time into starting conflict with he and his team. Travis saw a glimpse of the incoming daggers that flew right towards him but had little time to react to such an attack, despite mana still channeling into his right hand. He naturally took a step back but it was not going to be enough to avoid the sharp point of Roy's knife.

"Shi-" was all he could blurt out just as he felt legs giving out beneath him. This circumstance was most fortunate as he eyed the throwing knife fly right over his face without a target just he collapsed on to the deck. It didn't take him long to figure out it was Zoey who swept his feet off from right underneath him in quick succession with deflecting the knife meant for Zuri.

"T-thanks!" Travis said as he got back up.

Whether she had heard his compliment or not seemed inconsequential as she bore her attention in berating Roy with disgust. Taking the brief pause in their conflict, Travis refocused back to the mana crystal within his grasp and tapped into the remaining mana it stored, absorbing and refilling his own mana well until he could feel it was nearly replenished. The sense of fatigueless vanished now that he was rejuvenated and ready to participate and not a moment too soon. Zoey made her move by transiting into a local shadow, possibly to attempt to flank Roy was Travis' best guess. But now that Zoey was no longer visible, Travis quickly made his own move and projected two of his cryo runes.

"You better take cover Zuri, this going to be intense!" warned Travis as he activated his spell. Both of the white magical circles discharged, vomiting a duo raging mists directly towards Roy. Given that they were out in the ocean and a storm was already letting loose it droplets, the excess moisture in the air made his attack far more effect as stalagmites of ice swiftly rose forth as his attack froze anything in its path.

[Cottonmouth]

The long haired twin was able to consecutively block the Z pattered swipes, but when he charged up his sword to block her magical attack, he didn't anticipate the electrical effects. As soon as the arc hit his sword, all the voltage shot through his body at once. The twin was temporarily dazed and unable to move, leaving him wide open to her second attack.

The long haired brother closed his eyes and waited for his death to come, but it was one that wouldn't come quite this soon. He opened his eyes to find his wounded brother had jumped in front of him, blocking the energy ball from hitting.

He used the rest of his empowered sword to get the brunt of it, but sadly that didn't cut it. The rest of the energy charged into his body. Turning most of the front half facing the plasma to ash, and leaving the rest severely burnt. He then toppled over after his sacrifice, dead.

"How noble." Nemo muttered, a hint of irritation in his voice. He was clearly disappointed that he didn't get to finish the man off himself.

The brother got back up, recovered from the electric shock and clearly unhinged from witnessing the death of his twin. He raised his sword up and began to charge Raiya, letting out a battle cry as he did so. With his mind so set on vengeance he wasn't paying enough attention to Nemo, who suddenly brutally collided into him before he could reach Raiya with a hockey style body check. The man was knocked off his feet and sent tumbling to the floor.

The twin got back up, his sights now set on Nemo, who had his sword extended out with one hand in a fencing style position. When the livid man reached him to took a swing at Nemo, and was easily parried. Nemo then followed it up by adding another fluid motion with his sword to disarm the man, flinging his sword across the room. Before he could even comprehend how he was disarmed so quickly, Nemo's body abruptly slid forward magically, without moving his feet, and thrust the katana straight through the twin's chest.

The sole twin let out a pained raspy gasp, his breathing audibly compromised. Nemo then pulled the sword from his chest, and in a final fluid swing, decapitated the brother. The ease at which the blade went through the man's neck was remarkable. Now parted of his cranium, the man collapsed dead on the floor.

Nemo looked back to Raiya and shrugged his shoulders. "Well I guess that's that." He commented. He looked down to his sword, now covered with blood. But instead of wiping it off, the sword itself seemed to have other plans. All the crimson liquid began to suddenly absorb into the steel until there was none left. Once properly 'cleaned' Nemo spawned back the scabbard and re-sheathed the weapon, now holding it by his side.

"I'd say it's been too long since I've gotten to use a sword. Well, I suppose that's obvious considering the whole prison thing. But still this has been rather refreshing." Nemo said as he walked over to her.

---

"Call me whatcha want lad, my only real morals, my allegiances, are to my crew and money. I'm a rogue. Bein' a hunter was a nice gig for a while, but sometimes we all gotta move on to greener pastures." Roy explained. Travis' warning tipped Roy off that something was coming, and he took proper precautions to cover himself for what was coming.

As soon as Travis' spell was activated he picked up on the nature of the attack and activated his counter-spell by pushing both of his forward. A sudden wave in the air was caused, traveled inward on all sides towards Roy as he used his witch hunter "arts" to extract latent mana in the environment to use. Flames suddenly began to spew out from his hands towards the ice attach, melting the crystals back down to water before they could ever be a threat to him. Making it only successful in hitting him with a mist of water.

When the two spells both dispersed, Roy was also gone. Likely using the rest of the mana he gathered to teleport. A sudden clink of a grenade being pulled from his vest would alert the gang of Roy's presence not far behind Travis. He rushed at him with a dagger and bounced the grenade off the ground like a bouncy ball off towards Zuri. It was set to explode within five seconds.

Roy suddenly tossed a handful off white crystalline like powder towards Travis with his freehand before swiping at him with the knife. The powder was a traditional witch hunter recipe designed to disrupt spells from being formed with it's lingering presence in the air it occupied.

[Dawnpath]

Zoey threw a shurikan at the grenade in flight, hoping to bounce it away from Zuri's location, and then two more at the hunter's knees. She haad said all she intended two, and she knew how to throw down with her fists. Plenty a magical creature could suck the mana from your bones, and this leecher probably didn't smell as bad. She pulled the shotgun back out from her 'locker' and stalked out from behind a new cargo hold. So far as she knew, witch hunters were high specialized, anti-magic warriors. Minimal magic of their own for the most part. Most probably don't stop bullets. 12 gauge slugs were pretty hard to stop, anyway. She fired at his left hip, hoping to lodge the bullet and, by extension, not hit Travis.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya let out a puff of exasperated air before releasing the tension from her battle posture. Raiya summoned the saya of her katana, sliding the blade into place. Raiya tucked the katana into her studded belt, and tied the katana's sageo cord to the belt in traditional fashion. After a moment of adjusting her sword. She turned to Nemo, who had finished off the last of the twins.

Raiya raised her arms and laced her fingers behind her head in a nonchalant manner. "That was almost a bit too easy," She stated confidently, "The last twins I fought were leagues better than this dreck, and they didn't even use Aura Harmonization." Raiya said, sounding almost disappointed, "I guess it just goes to show that if you spend all your time trying to learn one technique, and ignore the fundamentals, no matter how good you are, you will always lose to the people who are more well rounded."

Raiya dropped her hands back down and folded them, "So, where now?" Raiya asked arms crossed.

[Cottonmouth]

"Most of Seidon's crew isn't quite cut out for what we'll be bringing to the table. They're smugglers, not true fighters. Either way I found their harmonization to be rather interesting." Nemo replied looking towards the exit of the room and continuing on. "I'm sure that the opponents will become tougher soon enough. Not to mention what we really have to worry about is those two church members." Nemo said.

After taking a few turns he came upon a long wide hallway leading to one big door with two guards standing besides it. "Our shield generator should be right behind that door." Nemo commented.

The first guard brandished a fire axe and stormed down the hallway ready to swing while the other began to charge up a spell while his partner provided a diversion. As soon as the axe wielding sailor would reach Nemo or Raiya he'd take a swing as fast as possible.

[Accurian]

Zuri noticed that Travis was annoyed at her incompetence. She takes cover behind one of the containers when she was instructed to as Travis casted some sort of spell that had a large area of effect. As she took cover, she noticed a grenade that bounced towards her. Everything happened so quickly, but it felt like time was a bit slower when it all unfolded. A shuriken flew towards the grenade, most likely to re-direct it somewhere else. Zuri's eyes stared at the grenade as it flew towards her, but quickly snaps out of it and tries to do something, cast a spell of her own to survive the explosion.

Without a second thought, she temporarily turns into a living shadow that was completely pitch black, a visible aura of the corrupted black surrounded her. The shape of her current state was exactly the same, however you could not recognize her due to the lack of facial details, since it was only a silhouette of Zuri. It was only for a short period of time, but it felt like her magical powers were somewhat amplified. She could feel it within herself. This lead to a burst of confidence deep within her heart as she looks over at Roy, who was rushing straight towards Travis from behind after that attack that didn't work out.

"This won't hurt a bit.." Zuri says, looking at Travis, her voice deeper than usual in this form of hers. She charges up her right hand with energy and makes a claw grip, similar to how people do slam dunks, she swings her body from right to left, releasing four swipes of dark energy towards Travis and Roy. It looked really intimidating, but it was nothing but an illusion, similar to how shadows work. However, the sheer force of her arm when she took the swing was quite large, and since she wasn't that far away from Travis, it should be enough to blow away that mysterious dust that was thrown at him.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya examined the two enemies one charging a spell in the backline and one rushing up with an axe. "I'll step in to cut the axe wielder down. Once I do, his buddy is sure to use his spell on me. I'll need you to step in and be my shield at that point. What you do with him after that point is up to you. Sound good?" Raiya suggested.

Before Nemo could reply Raiya stepped up in front the axe wielder. He swung violently downwards trying to split Raiya in twain. If Raiya were to try and block the swing with her own weapon, the parry would likely injure her with the force he was swinging at. She decided to deftly sidestep the swing and quickly draw her blade in a iaijutsu slash, severing the sailor's hands at their respective wrists. With a quick flourish, she severed the head of the sailor, before quickly returning her blade to its scabbard.

[Cottonmouth]

Raiya was right about the mage, as soon as she began to cut down the axe wielder he let loose a powerful spell. It shot out a basketball sized energy attack that would explode on contact, likely intent recklessly on taking out all three of the people it was aimed at.

Nemo nodded and used his warp to transfer himself in front of Raiya with his right arm extended and his gloved hand open. A X made of black colored energy began to form out from the X rune on his glove, and rapidly expanded till it was a little bit larger than the mage's spell and floated in front of Nemo's hand.

The spell collided into Nemo's X mark, put instead of exploding into a blazing fury, it was absorbed directly into it while emitting an odd piercing noise. The X mark itself slowly began to fade from dull black, to a bright glowing white as it fed off the energy. Once it was finished, with a flick of his wrist Nemo propelled the mark back towards the mage at a high speed.

The spell morphed from an X to a oval shaped ball while in transit. As soon as it connected with the mage it exploded, cleaving him in twain as it eviscerated his midsection.

With the two goons out of the way, Nemo continued on to the doorway. The knocked twice on the metal door before opening it, revealing a large room with the shield generator at the other end. Standing in there way was a sole man.

The room was lowered below the entrance, with a small pathway leading to some steps down extending from the door. Above the room was large cast iron grate, letting rain and seawater slip through and pool on the floor, making a big puddle over the floor about five inches high. The shield generator was letting off a similar glow as the actual energy shield, indicating it was still active.

Nemo walked across the platform above the water to get a better look at their opponent. It was definitely the first mate, Caspian Crowhurst. He had long wavy black hair combed back, blue eyes, was about six feet and three inches tall, seemed to be in his mid twenties, and had light skin. The man was wearing a short black peacoat, black trousers and boots, and a white and blue horizontally striped shirt underneath. The only thing else to note was various jewelry and a long silver cutlass at his side.

"So you bested Sap and Sin huh? I knew this trip was going to be exciting, but not this exciting." Caspian said, energetically drawing his sword and pointing it towards Nemo and Raiya. "Let's dance." He remarked.

"No." Nemo replied plainly, before turning and beginning to walk away. The competitive engaged gaze in Caspian's eyes sank like a rock. "What do you mean, No?!" He spat back. "Why the hell not?"

Nemo stopped and turned back around, an irritated look on his face. He pointed to the floor. "Look at this, I'm not fighting in this sludge like some swamp troll. Not only is it going to stain, but it'll make my pants all soggy and get in my boots. I wont even be able to enjoy the battle if the whole time I'm thinking about how it's ruining my ensemble." Nemo explained.

"W-well I'm already standing in it-" Caspian began to reply before getting cut off.

"That's because you're an idiot." Nemo said. "And I don't fight idiots in muck."

Caspian let out an irritated sigh. "What if I got rid of the all water?" He asked. "Would you fight then your highness?"

"I suppose I might be able to overlook your idiocy then." Nemo commented.

Caspian reluctantly sheathed his cutlass and crouched down. He placed his hands into the water and recited a small incantation. After a couple of seconds the pool of water in the room parted down the middle and started to flow to each side of the wall. The water then slowly started to defy gravity and roll up the wall, starting out at a slow pace before gaining speed. After reaching the top it began to pour out the grate and onto the ships deck until there was none left in the room.

"There, happy?" Caspian asked, rising back up and gripping his cutlass once more.

"The lighting leaves something to be desired but I suppose it'll have to do." Nemo replied, stepping down from the platform onto the now dry floor.