Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-5999656-20190205035159/@comment-5999656-20190913005628

The first thing that struck Lustra as she went under was the cold. It felt like literal ice was shooting up her arms and legs, tightening around her chest even as she fought to keep the single valuable breath of air inside her lungs. The second was the darkness - though she blinked, the bleary gloom beneath the surface was barely pierced by the beaten headlights of the yacht far above. The Huntress could only barely make out the ghostly white of her blazer and arms fluttering just a foot or two in front of her field of vision. The third thing was the silence. While the world topside was overwhelmed by a chaotic maelstrom of screeching metal and pounding gunfire and rain lashing down relentlessly like hard pellets on friend and foe alike, sunken under the waves there was nothing. This was the lifeless world their behemoth foe operated in, a world devoid of light and sound and warmth, of all the things that a human would have fought tooth and nail for.

Lustra sank, feeling the sea wrapping around her small form like an endless blanket. There was just nothingness here. Not even a sign of the man who had leaped in just a few seconds before her, whose foolhardy, daring, courageous action had compelled her to match him, in her pride as a Huntress. Right now, that pride seemed just a little misplaced.

Lustra opened her mouth and exhaled a series of large bubbles, their echoey release the only thing breaking the void around her, and in doing so, breaking her cold-induced stupor. The primal need for oxygen kicked in, and she started paddling furiously towards the singular beam of light shining down on her.

A moment later, and Lustra had broken the surface of the ocean with a loud gasp. She treaded water, casting around at the scene from her vantage point. She couldn't see a damn thing under the water. Lustra let loose a chattering series of curses as she peered as hard as she could into the darkness beneath, trying to catch a glimpse of the main body of the vile beast whose waving appendages still tormented those onboard the yacht.

There - there it was. A giant, slick conical monster whose inky coloration would have rendered it invisible if not for the layers and layers of white protrusions sprouting from its hide slid underneath the ship. Lustra guessed that it was big as a sperm whale at least, and that wasn't even counting the length of its tentacles.

But it was too far beneath her kicking legs for the remaiing chunks of Dust left in her clenched fist to be any good. Lustra gritted her teeth at the irony of the situation - she'd tried to get closer, tried to get to the damn thing, but after that overdramatic abandon ship, she was still basically helpless. If only she could get onto it, grab ahold of the beast and stuff a big old fistful of nature's wrath straight into its rubbery flesh. The Huntress knew if she could do it, latch onto the cephalopod, she could end the entire disgusting beast in one fell swoop. But how? How??

Like a spontaneous turn of fate, a reversal of the heavens, the sea darkened, and before Lustra knew it, the kraken had rocketed up beneath her and shot straight into the air. She found herself clinging to the cracked shell of the great beast as it reared into the sky, tentacle spread every which way as it expressed its agony without a mouth to scream with. There she hung, suspended in midair by one hand.

Wait a second. Cracked?

Yes, cracked!! It must have been the work of that white-haired man with the whip, Lustra realized with exultation, as she seized tightly onto the rough edges of the squid. Jagged grooves like fault lines in the earth seethed bright red beneath her wet grip, and just under her dangling feet was a gaping hole oozing steaming yellow and red rivers into the waves. She didn't have a moment to lose. Any second now and the creature would go back under.

"Eat this!!!" Lustra shouted, her voice shrill from the cold as she pulled her left hand back, and thrust it as deeply as she could into the gaping eye socket of the squid. Her arm sank up to the elbow into the eviscerated flesh of the Grimm, and she could feel its hot inner secretions burning against her skin. But that pain was nothing compared to what she was about to unleash next. Lustra took half a breath, and closed her eyes.

Freeze.

She felt her hand squeeze against nothingness as the blue Dust crystal mixture in her hand blew forth. There was lots and lots of water sloshing inside the squid. And water could freeze. That was exactly what Lustra did. She froze the squid's brain from the inside out.

As the kraken's very scales seemed to crackle and harden beneath her, Lustra looked out for a moment, back at the yacht now sitting on the waves beneath her point of view. Though the rain still lashed furiously, she could clearly make out a series of black rods whipping through the air above the vessel in rapid-fire coordinated cutting maneuvers, bits of Grimm flesh decorating the deck directly beneath them.

Huh?

Those poles looked awfully familiar. In fact, they looked just like the Black Magic things that Hilda from the bar fought with. And wait! Was the boat moving away from her? Why would those f-

Before any more thoughts could cross the Huntress's mind, momentum ended its reign over the beast and gravity took over. The kraken, and Lustra with it, fell back into the ocean with a massive splash, creating a large sinkhole in its wake, strong enough to suck anything else nearby beneath the stormy waves.

_________________________

Maris was still firing at the tentacles in close range when something else, something not all black and white, whipped past her peripheral vision. She turned and saw Jett clinging like a madwoman to a tentacle that swung back and forth.

"Yo, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Maris shouted. But there was no response. Instead, she had to watch in shocked amazement as Jett literally bit down on the tentacle, drawing a big mouthful of congealed evil. Bet that sure tasted good, Maris thought sarcastically.

But there was no more time for wittiness as the tentacles, in tandem, slammed Jett into the deck with a sickening crunch. The tentacles, now tied together, sank beneath the side of the ship, leaving the SAINT an unmoving mess in its wake.

"Hey... hey!"

Maris ran forward, falling to her knees at Jett's side as she frantically tried to gauge the extent of the girl's injuries. Jesus, but she wasn't looking good. Nope, not at all.

"Crap, ah shit..." Maris breathed. Basic first aid wasn't gonna cut it here. And what if the tentacles came back? Maris fumbled with the shredded remains of her windbreaker, ready to tear it off and tie it around Jett to try and staunch the flow of blood. But then she froze.

Wait a second. Wasn't this girl her enemy? So what if she bled out before Maris's very eyes? Wasn't that a good thing? To eliminate those who would wish harm upon the Syndicate, a category this child clearly fell into. Maris's eyes narrowed beneath her visor as she tussled with her own judgment.

......

After a long moment, Maris sighed, tore off her jacket and with a heave, ripped it in two. With each piece, she fashioned a tourniquet around each of Jett's shredded legs. Standing by and watching a teenage girl bleed to death seemed like an especially egregious move, especially seeing as there were a few people nearby on the boat who would probably throw her overboard if they saw it.

"You better not move again, dumbass," Maris growled at Jett, rising to her feet.

The Daybreak Syndicate agent returned to her full height just in time to see the squid shoot into the sky, with the white-clad Huntress from before clinging desperately to its side. As Maris watched, the kraken seemed to bulge outwards and glass over before flopping majestically back into the sea and sending a massive white spray outwards. The ground beneath Maris rumbled, as the yacht finally creaked into motion again.

"Yo!! Damn, that's sick! Are you seeing this, Sorrel?" Maris crowed, running up to the edge of the ship as she watched their damned enemy finally begin to die. But her cousin didn't respond.

"Sorrel?"

Maris finally turned to look back at the bridge of the ship. There, her heart skipped a beat as she saw the headless body of her partner in crime lying motionless in a pool of blood on the floor, and the pink and white chunks of his head splattered against and running down the opposite window. Standing at the helm, where Sorrel had last stood, was now the masked woman in the trenchcoat.

A giant hole ripped itself open in Maris's heart, and her face twisted with grief and rage as the scene before her finally sank in. She let loose a primal scream, barely filtered through the battered voice changer on her mask. Sorrel was dead. Sorrel was dead.

Sorrel was dead.

Maris's numb feet pounded into motion. She grabbed the grip of Ordinator, and with a big swing, changed it into bat form. She didn't even bother with the stairs, clearing the distance in one leap as her boots slammed inside the deck.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??!!"

Her vision was blinded with tears, but her grip was tight as she pulled Ordinator back behind her shoulder, ready to bludgeon to death the woman she saw as being responsible for Sorrel's death.