Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-5999656-20190205035159/@comment-5999656-20190525062514

Lustra stood partially crouched in her landing, fists clenched and chest heaving as she stood a few meters across from her downed opponent. The jets of flame from Hilda's knife, the last stray aimless strikes, soared past her with trails of black smoke, curving in midair and exploding against the far wall with enough force to shake the ground beneath Lustra's feet.

Lustra took a deep breath, and then stepped forward, ignoring the tremors which soon faded. Her left hand strayed to her pouch of needles, ready to pull forth the materials needed to finish off her opponent. But there was one thing she needed to do first: unmask this cocky Dust-wielding criminal who knew her personally. Even though the battles between her boss and teammate continued to wage around her, she could feel that familiar single-minded rage building in her chest, now that her enemy was vulnerable for the first time.

She was going to prove why people remembered her as the daughter of killers. But before she could take more than a few paces forward, her entire field of view was bathed in bright red.

Nozomi flew backwards, her metal-tipped knees scraping ruts in the floor as she narrowly dodged taking another one of Wynston's bullets. Aster similarly broke from his spinning dagger combo with Maris, and looked around in alarm at the red strobe lights now protruding from the beaten ceiling. That was when the siren went off - loud, like a whining foghorn screeching in and out and in and out, loud enough to drown out the sounds of the gunfighting still taking place in the other rooms.

Lustra clenched her jaw and took another step forward. She was still committed to identifying her fallen enemy, but that was when the entire room suddenly lifted a foot into the air with a massive metal creaking that was quickly followed by echoing sounds of snapping metal all around her. The floor went from horizontal to just slightly tilted, but before Lustra could adjust to it the facility dropped back into the water, and she fell to the floor.

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High above, the searchlights of the copters, as if in unison, swung onto a massive dark shape moving side to side underneath the water's surface. Stretched from jawtip to fin, it was almost a quarter of the facility's diameter. On first look, it appeared to be a gigantic black crocodile, but there were things not quite right with it. Instead of stubby legs, it had flippers, and its mouth was far too narrow. It was an ichthyosaur Grimm: a distorted manifestation of an ancient creature which had long ago gone extinct, leaving its corrupt counterparts to roam the high seas unchallenged.

The ichthyosaur Grimm dove again, vanishing beneath the waves. Before it could come at the facility again, another identical Grimm breached from the opposite side, launching its tons of weight into the air and into the side of the floating building, which cracked as the creature bounced off the concrete walls, leaving a sizable dent in its wake. That was when it become clear: this wasn't a matter of a single marine Grimm. It was a school of them, their black silhouettes practically brushing against each other a few feet beneath the waves.

"The facility is compromised! Get the Hunters out of there before the entire place is destroyed!"

The head pilot's voice crackled through the transceivers a second later. Each of the copters, which less than twenty minutes ago had unloaded their scores of Huntsmen into the vessel full of criminals, now hovered low over the building just a few meters apart, dropping ropes through the shattered windows to pull their passengers back up and into safety before the entire place was torn to pieces.

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Lustra regained her footing just as she felt Nozomi's tap on her shoulder.

"We need to pull out," her boss hissed in her ear, before yanking her back to her feet roughly. Aster stood breathless at her other shoulder, twin pistols still tightly clenched in his grip. Lustra stood motionless for a half second, taking one last look at the masked woman. Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then opened them again. She turned, and started running towards the opposite room, where the escape ropes now dangled like tantalizing lifelines.