Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-5999656-20190205035159/@comment-5999656-20191011051428

Lustra didn't resist as Hilda forced her into an upright position, leaning her back against the side of the yacht's bridge and draping her in a waterproof hoodie. Her eyes were closed, and though she heard it, she couldn't muster any sort of reaction to the hushed apologies from the deceptive heiress. When Hilda pressed her forehead against Lustra's, all the Huntress felt were the ice cold rivets of the metal mask - rather symbolic, all in all, of just what their relationship had been up until now.

It was a long moment before Lustra drew her knees up to her body. Her breathing was still ragged, choked into starts and stops both by the lingering cold and the turmoil in her heart, but she wrapped her arms gingerly around her knees. The raw skin of her left forearm stung against the salt spray kicked up by the waning storm. All she wanted to do was drift off - to lose herself to the numb comfort of unconsciousness, and wake up somewhere safe and alone where she could deal with her feelings away from prying eyes - but no such relief was to be found on the forlorn vessel.

The booming explosions at the forefront of the boat forced the Huntress back into the grim present, and she opened her eyes just a sliver to see thick red trails hovering in midair against the black gloom of the night sky, followed by some muffled shouting from a nearby male voice. If she hadn't been so tired, she might have found the situation darkly humorous. She couldn't even be depressed in peace.

The clarity with which it shone struck Lustra, however, and she realized before she felt it that the downpour had finally ceased, though gray clouds still obscured the moon and stars. She rubbed her eyes a few times and blinked, trying to rid her eyes of the blur caused by the rainwater and her own tears. She rose to her feet, still cold, still a little shaky, and still puffy-eyed, but she tried to force her feelings to the back of her mind as the sound of a motorboat chugged rapidly nearer. Who? She had no idea.

A plan, yes, she needed a plan... Lustra reached up and shrugged off the overcoat as she tried to bring her fragmented thoughts back together. Hilda still stood close, but she couldn't even bring herself to look at the heiress, let alone think of something to say after such a monumental revelation. So she didn't say anything, instead opting to grimace and turn and scramble around the front of the yacht and to the other side of the bridge, on the opposite side of the vessel from where the Bluthardt convoy was quickly approaching.

Yes, her plan was to hide, on a tiny boat with one room with criminal intruders nearly upon them. Lustra crouched low, strongly questioning the reliability of her own thought process when her eyes flickered to what looked like a corpse sprawled on the back deck. She crept a bit closer, and gave a jump when she realized that the body was still moving.

"H-hey!" Lustra dashed over, getting to her knees next to the broken body of Jett Helsing. Her eyes swept the girl's grievous injuries with panic, far worse than anything she herself had sustained from diving into the ocean after a giant Grimm squid.

"What the hell happened?" she whispered, struggling to think of how to keep the girl from bleeding out before her eyes. Her gaze lingered on the sword resting uselessly in Jett's hand, like something from a mock-up battle scene. Like a toy flag placed in the claw of a crab about to be introduced to the stove.

Lustra shook the rivulets off her right arm, and rested her fingers as gently as she could against Jett's cheek. Her fingers glowed a dirty white as she transferred some of her Aura into the girl's wounds, in the hopes of stitching up some of the torn tissue, just enough to prolong her life for a few more minutes yet. And then she reached for the sword, relieving it from Jett's weak grasp.

Swords had a certain reach which needles didn't. If she was going to have to fight for both of them, it would be best if she had a proper weapon. She cast around, watching for any intruders approaching in the darkness. And then she remembered that Jett was still awake beneath her, and she glanced down uncertainly.

"Oh. Uhh... I'm gonna need to borrow this. For a few minutes."

_________________________

Alyxia crouched unevenly above Hazel, frozen in place with Ordinator raised overhead, when a loud explosion outside the window caused her to flinch. The woman's last words still bounced around inside her head.

"We need to stop. This achieves nothing! Will you let his death be in vain!? Like this, we both may die."

Sorrel's headless body laid only a few inches away from where they had tussled for just a few precious seconds, neither of them able to secure an obvious upper hand against the other. After the impulsive flash of rage subsided in those few seconds of fighting, Alyxia was rapidly realizing that picking a fight with a more experienced opponent was probably a bad idea.

In a flash, Maris returned to her feet, wresting herself free of the woman's grasp and letting go of Hazel's trench coat at the same time. She sprinted out of the bridge, jumping over Sorrel's body to do so, and breaking out into the open air once again just in time to see Diaboli walk past, hand firmly clamped around Wynston's neck. And there she froze once again.

What was going on? She'd thought the fighting was done. And yet here they were. It was too much for an 18-year old newbie merc to handle - losing her cousin, initiating a fight to the death, ending that fight, and now learning that someone else was fighting - it was totally overwhelming. So there Alyxia stood, locked dumbly in place as she waited for something to happen. For someone to tell her what to do, or for a clear sign of something she could react to. Just a few feet away sat the bedraggled cowboy. Maybe he'd be the one to give her a clue.