Prime
Vs.
Amber
Time For A Little "Wetwork"
By the time Amber had been approached by the soldier, the water was already over her ankles. There was no way she could see the two backups at the top of the stairs, and the lone soldier had entered the ship just as Amber had arrived.
“Eh? A third one?” Amber stopped pouring water into the gallery, but she pointed her cannon at Darien's clone. The water around her was behaving unnaturally, as it seemed to be surging towards her.
“What are you doing on my ship? If you came for the black suit party, you forgot a tie!” Prime honestly had not expected “witty” banter from the opposition, so he was stunned for a moment. He was usually relatively quick witted, but it took him a moment to regain his bearings. After a brief time, he stepped forward with a smile on his face.
“I’m just here to help someone out. If at all possible I would prefer it if you just let it happen and stopped trying to flood the ship around you. It really makes this whole thing a bit of a pain.”“That doesn't answer my question, and unless 'that person' is me, you'd better walk back up those steps.” Amber was walking sideways like a crab. While the ground was still sufficiently wet, some of it had formed into a bubble as tall as Amber's waist. The broken sail on her back bounced with every step.
“And quit smiling like that, it's creepy!”“. . . . .” The clone was speechless to say the least. He was the same as the Alpha Prime, and had quite a bit of the same ego. No one had ever called him creepy before. He was handsome damnit! Before he could speak however, a very similar voice came from the top of the stairs.
“I thought I told you to talk her down, not piss her off. Ugh. This is why you never send a subordinate.” The Primary stepped down the stairs, flanked by the other 2 clones. When he reached the bottom, he had the same smile plastered on his face as his clone had.
“I apologize for my subordinate, Miss. You can refer to me as Prime. I’m just here to do my job and truly hope that you won’t interfere. You don’t want those idiots on deck destroying your ship in their fight do you?”Amber was standing about ninety degrees to the stair case that all of the clones plus Darien were standing nearby the time he came down the stairs. The pirate girl was initially surprised by the soldier's appearance, which showed through her expressive eyes.
“There's more of you!?” Her hand was shaking a bit.
“Wait, you all look the same.” The pirate only stood there in shock a few seconds longer before speaking up again.
“If you can clone... Then 'that person' could be a clone trying to blow up my ship!” Amber didn't wait for an explanation, She immediately fired a grape shot in the direction of the soldiers. The projectiles weren't made of metal though, they were rubber. It was doubtful that they could kill a magical girl, but they could break bones if they hit in the right spots. They were also likely to bounce off of Sky Bastion's sturdy wooden hull if they missed, which meant that every shot was still a threat. The pirate then pointed her cannon off to her side and fired, causing her to slide down the gallery at incredible speeds. She didn't know where or if there was another clone on deck somewhere, but it was likely the pirate knew where her ship's weak points were.
“Haaaaaaaaaaah.” Prime let out a deep sigh the second he saw that look go through Amber’s eyes. Why couldn’t she have just backed down and made this easy? With a shake of his head, he reacted the instant she fired. The clones all scattered out of the way and drew their weapons. At this time, Prime himself felt the flow of magic running through his body. In an instant, the gravitational field altered. It pushed Amber with several times the pull of normal gravity in the direct opposite direction she tried to scoot off to. The clones opened fire. Two shot directly in front of where she was intending to travel and two stood by, waiting for an opportunity.
“I don’t want to fight. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” Every second the force of gravity around Amber was increasing, crushing her underneath the intense forces.
Amber hadn't gotten very far due to the fact that gravity wasn't really cooperating with her. Her cannon was never not firing however, which caused the bubble around her waist to grow large enough to cover the pirate. Though Amber was visibly struggling to stand under the intense gravity.
“Hurk!” She was standing like a sumo wrestler, struggling to hold onto her cannon as gravity threatened to rip it out of her hand.
“Alright!” Amber fell to one knee, still holding onto her cannon.
“I'll, stop, Just turn off the gravity!”...But Amber had no desire to stop fighting. The rubber balls she fired seconds ago were wet from rolling along the wet floor. With a thought, she was able to send the projectiles towards the soldiers exposed backs.
“GAH!” The first of the balls crashed into a clone, sending his existence once more into nothingness. Prime felt the flash of danger and split a small segment of his attention onto a new section of his power. A wafer this barrier of gravity formed around him and one of the other clones. That was all he could manage for now. The control needed was extremely fine and it was taxing on his mind, but he managed to pull it off. The second those balls reached that layer of gravity, the effects showed. Paper thin segments of the attack balls touched upon the layer of gravity and were ripped downward with explosive force. Bit by bit, those weapons were torn to shreds the moment they touched upon his barrier.
It took but a moment for them to be destroyed, but it was a hollow victory. Every clone but one let out a death cry and disappeared from this world. Prime locked his eyes onto Amber. They were no longer smiling.
“You killed my men.” He took a step forward, crashing onto the floor heavily.
“I can’t just let that slide by.” In an instant, the forces around Amber amplified. Crushing in from every direction. Pressuring her body to its limits. He wouldn’t kill her, but he rapidly increased the pressure bit by bit until she would fall unconscious.
The gravity was intense, even Amber's environmental sealing which protected her from these kinds of effects was having difficulty holding up against such an attack. But Amber's water barrier continued to grow, despite the gravity pushing at Amber from every direction. Water could only be pushed so tight against the pirate's body. She refused to give up, squinting her eyes closed as she struggled to stay awake. The pirate stopped firing for just a moment and pointed her weapon away from Darien and fired. With gravity pushing equally at Amber on all sides, she was able to move towards Darien with relative ease. But the water barrier was starting to pick up speed. Very quickly the surface had turned into white foamy rapids as it churned liked a miniature maelstrom, threatening to consume anything in it’s path.
There were many things that Prime could have done. He had plenty of options, but too many of them were lethal. This. . . girl. . . was a VIP, and he was not authorized to use deadly force. Because of that, he had to be more creative in his actions. In fact, he couldn’t recklessly release the gravity on her either, or her internal organs would likely suffer damage.
He knew that he couldn’t kill her, but his eyes were still cold. Clones or not, they were his men. And she had destroyed them. He could at the very least make her suffer a but. Continuing with pressure to some extent, he waited for the moment at the maelstrom was close before rapidly changing the direction of its gravitational pull. It flew up and over his head, unable to reach beyond the ball of immense pressure that surrounded it.
The moment that it passed above, he slammed it once more into the ground, using the shock of the crash to send more trauma and vibrations through the water at Amber.
Elsewhere, the Tertiary team, if you could call a single clone a team, had reached his destination.
Amber couldn't hold up under foces like this for much longer, but she was determined to find an opening and strike. When Prime lifted her off of the ground, that was when she saw her opportunity. The waves on the surface of her bubble surged behind her. Then on impact, Amber let the bubble explode, riding the massive waves half conscious towards the magical boy.
“Tch.” She was persistent. Agh. It would be so much easier if he was allowed to just kill her. But that wasn’t the mission. It was at that moment however, that a radio keyed into his ear.
“Tertiary to Prime. Mission complete. The package has been delivered. ETA 45 seconds till completion. Proceeding to rendezvous point Alpha.”
Looking at the waves that were crashing toward him, Prime sighed. He didn’t try to meet them head on and instead reduced his own personal gravity to near 0. He pushed off, grabbed his clone and escaped for the far side of the ship.
“Let’s finish this next time.” With a flourish, Prime pulled out his pitch black pistol and poured magic into the chamber before discharging a massive shot into the side of the ship. He blasted a hole large enough for the two of them to leap from and took his leave. On the way down, he controlled his gravity to allow himself and his clone to land a fair distance away. Last, he chimed onto his own radio to warn the clone on deck of the impending completion of the mission.
