Catastrae began to eat her four servings of dinner, but as she was finishing her second serving, Challad’s expression suddenly grew nervous as he put a hand to his belt.

“The pirates again!?” he said as if to someone else. Catastrae frowned, but he soon responded to something she couldn’t hear again. “Look, I can’t help right now- Yes, I know your crew is dying but this is more damn important than- ugh.” He glanced at Catastrae with a conflicted expression. “Damnit...Look, just evacuate the ship- What do you mean you don’t have lifeboats!?” He took a hand off his belt, then kicked his chair. “Fucking irresponsible merchants!”

“What’s wrong?” Catastrae asked as she put a strange purple cephalopod into her mouth, eating half with her hand and half with her utensils. She glanced at his belt, where he seemed to have a radio of sorts connected by wire to an earpiece from under his armor.

“Umm...just some pirates, nothing you need worry yourself about,” he said, freezing. “D-do you mind if I leave you to your own devices? I hate to leave a, umm...revered disciple like you without an escort, but...”

She raised an eyebrow. Why would I need an escort? “I’ll be fine. Are you sure you don’t want help with the pirates, though?”

As he heard the first part, he wasted no time leaping to the balcony’s railing. He nearly lost his balance as he heard Catastrae’s second sentence, though, flailing his arms about with abject confusion. He looked back with wide eyes. “Help?” he said like it was an alien idea.

She nodded. “You intend on killing the pirates, right? I can help.”

“W-well, I can’t really defeat them but I can rescue...Help!?” he said again.

Catastrae crossed her arms. “Ugh, what is wrong with you? Yes, I’m offering to help you with my ability to blow shit up.” While she was speaking, she had already eaten her third serving and took the fourth into hand. “Come on, let’s get going.” She walked to the balcony’s edge beside him then leaped upward.

Challad was still flabbergasted that she would offer her help for whatever reason, but he leaped off the balcony as well. As he did, a pair of narrow wings built of overlapping feathers made of the game green metal as his armor flicked out from his back and then began to flutter too quickly for even Catastrae to clearly see, causing him to hover in the air beside her.

She grabbed a handful of her salad as she waited for him to point her in the right direction, then shoved it in her mouth.

Challad’s expression briefly flickered to revulsion, but he shrugged. “This way, then.”

Catastrae was about as fast as Challad, which wasn’t all that fast as far as either of them was concerned, but he chalked her sluggish speed to being distracted with eating. In truth, moving so quickly was the best Catastrae could do, due to her power’s restraints.

After about ten minutes, they came upon a set of boats in the distance, fast approaching.

“So what do I blow up?” Catastrae asked over the wind.

“If possible, we first we evacuate whomever we can, then we can handle the pirates if it’s an option.”

“But it’s been ten minutes, would anyone even be alive at this point?”

“Pirates don’t kill indiscriminately,” Challad corrected her. “If nothing else, they’ll try to take whomever they can in as slaves.”

She pointed her staff at the pirate’s ship, which had a red and yellow flag with a black crisscross. Each ship was made of metal, but the exterior of the pirates’ ship was painted black, with scratches in the paint that revealed a bluish-white material underneath. A number of hooks were tied between it and the merchant ship, which was about the same size but more bulky. “Why don’t I just blow that up right now?

“No!” he yelled. “Do not do that! The moment you shoot at their ship, they’ll just use their prisoners as--”

Suddenly, a storm of bullets shot toward them, a trail of blue fire arcing behind them. They pelted Challad’s armor, taking him by surprise, but none of them did more than dent the metal. He put a hand onto his lance, then wrenched it off of its magnetic hold. As he did, a visor automatically fell over his face. “So that’s how they want to do things,” he said as he began to fly to the left, avoiding the hail of bullets. “Iceflame bullets...” he muttered, his armor growing cold where it had been pelted.

In the meantime, the bullets deflected off of Catastrae’s skin, and one landed in her eye, causing her to yell in pain and hold it as blood soaked down. As more cuts began to build up on her body, she sent a blast of brimflame forward, destroying the bullets before they could hit her, then quickly followed behind Challad. “Gah! They got my eye!”

“They probably didn’t like seeing me approach with a second person,” he said. “Plan B, move in with me on two. One...go.” He swooped down toward the boats and Catastrae followed him, left with only one eye to fight with for the time being. “Take them out one by one, and don’t underestimate these pirates!” he yelled, focusing his attention on the mounted machine guns.

As Challad fell downward he spiraled around the fire of the first of six machine guns, avoiding their attacks with the precise aerial movement gifted to him by his wings. He stabbed down at the pirate manning the gun, who leaped away from his strike, and as three of the other gunmen moved their fire toward him, he slashed his spear at the gun near him, cutting it down from the base with a supersonic slash.

Catastrae blasted her way through the guns aimed toward her, on the other hand, and while her brute force was effective, a few still collided with her, cutting into her skin. She crashed through the deck’s floor, then aimed her staff upward, blasting a hole upward into one of the machine guns.

Above her, Challad heard one of the pirates, each of whom were clad in light black chainmail, call out, “Bumble Formation!” and raise a blue, three-meter-long axe upward, chilly air flowing down it. He then lunged from the other side of the ship, zipping toward Challad with the axe readied to swing, his boots sparking with frostfire.

As he did, six other pirates swept out a number of shotguns built of smooth marble and shot them. Challad’s wings raised to defend against the bullets, knowing the impact from a shotgun could penetrate his armor if he was unlucky, and readied his spear to parry the axe, recognizing the ‘bumble formation’ from his many scuffles with the pirates.

Unfortunately, he didn’t anticipate what came next. The bullets shot from the guns seemed to stop in time just after they left the shotguns, and as he deflected the pirate’s enormous axe with a precise stab of his mythril spear, the bullets accelerated toward him at the same time.

Challad’s wings blocked the bullets as intended, but he hadn’t prepared for them to land simultaneously, and was sent stumbling backward, his wing’s impressive steel chipping from the bullet’s strikes.

“What’s the matter, ‘hero’?” The axe-wielding pirate said as his axe instead collided with the ground, creating a shockwave in the hull that cleaved a meter-wide fissure into the metal and coated it with iced condensation. He glanced behind himself as he readied to leap back, and his eyes widened as only three machine guns remained, a third being blown to bits from beneath the deck. “Having a tough time?” he said, though he was too distracted by the inconvenience to put his heart into the provoking line.

As he leaped away, he fished a grenade from his right pocket and threw it toward Challad, only for it to be knocked far away by a wing, which he responded to with a scoff. He landed next to the hole that Catastrae had made in the floor then yelled, “Swarm Formation! Stall till’ the cap’ gets to the fight!” then fell below the deck as another explosion decimated a fourth machine gun and the pirates began to throw everything they had at Challad to keep him busy.

“Enough with this nonsense!” he yelled furiously as he fell. “Take this!”

Catastrae just finished blowing another gun to bits from the unoccupied living quarters below, and looked back with surprise as an enormous axe seemingly made of ice was chucked toward her. She ducked under the attack as it cleaved straight through the hull and flew out of the ship.

“Uhh...was that supposed to happen?” she said with confusion.

“Shit!” the pirate yelled almost comically. “Umm, look-” he raised his hands defensively, open to show he had no other weapon in them. “Look, we don’t need to fight like this.”

“Really? Then you’ll let us go with the prisoners or whatever? And I won’t need to deal with this pain in the ass?”

He nodded vigorously. “You soon won’t need to.”

“Sounds g-” she began, before an axe head suddenly slammed into her back, cutting halfway through her shoulder and sending her sliding to the pirate.

“What an idiot,” he said with a smirk as he stepped on the back of her head to wretch the magically returning axe out. The moment his hand touched its handle, though, he recoiled backward in pain, holding his hand. “HOT!” In disbelief, he looked at the axe. It began to glow red. “W-what?! Imposs...”

Catastrae flew off the ground like a puppet lifted up. Her good arm raised her staff up, and as he leaped to evade a blast of fire, she flew into him, jamming the end of the staff into the scared pirate’s gut, causing him to drop a grenade in his hand. A moment later, his body imploded, a chain reaction of explosions burning him from the inside out and splattering him across the room.

Above, Challad’s wings moved at incredible speeds to deflect and block the fire of two machine guns, growing brittle from the icy bullets they shot, then cracking under the red-hot delayed shotgun pellets. As hard as he tried, he could only kneel to the ground and deflect what came his way, else he risk a hole being blown in his armor.

His feathers moved at blinding speeds, flexible and strong, and his spear could deflect and neutralize grenades, but it wouldn’t be long until he was forced to flee with his tail below his legs, leaping away and missing his chance to take out the pirates.

Then, a number of explosions rattled the deck as Catastrae appeared from underneath and stabbed a pirate through his armor with the round tip of her staff, throwing him to the side. She then threw her staff at Challad, and while the pirates were too taken aback to fire at him, he snatched it from midair while staring at the girl. Does she have an axe in her b-

She tore the axe from her shoulder, causing blood and unholy flames to pour in swathes from her shoulder. She then twirled it in her hand, and swooped down. She zipped across the battlefield in a flurry of anger, roaring as she cleaved people in two by the dozen. The few pirates not in the way of her wrath glanced between a rising Challad and her, then either ran toward the other ship or leaped into the water below.

They’re moving toward their captain, probably, Challad thought as he returned his spear to his back, then walked to the machine gun he’d fallen and hefted it off the ground. He began to walk toward the plank laid across the two ships, and as he did, he heard one of the pirates yell, “Take cover!”

The machine gun began to fire icy bullets into the crowd of pirates, the recoil hardly affecting Challad, and in the moment it took for them to take cover below the deck’s railing, a half-dozen pirates’ blood had already been spilled across the floor.

He continued to shoot into the crowd, puncturing holes through the rail as easily as butter, but stumbled backward as a knife shot past his wings faster than he could react. Challad’s life flashed before his eyes as it slipped past his defenses, but it barely missed the slit in his visor, the sturdy mythril nullifying the brunt of the attack. While it hadn’t hit true, the sheer power, speed, and precision of the knife was terrifying.

“Enough!” Leaping from the crowd of terrified Pirates and landing before Challad was a woman decked in a black and red cloak, a hand on a row of daggers strapped to her trousers. Though, Challad knew she had at least a few dozen more hidden in her clothes. “You’ve killed enough of my men already, Challad! What do you want?”

Indeed, the battleground was now covered in bodies. At least forty pirates had been slaughtered, most of whom had been cleaved in two by the still-rampaging Catastrae’s axe.

“Release the prisoners, and make it quick!” he responded.

“Men!” she yelled as she crossed her arms.

Steaming from below the deck in an orderly fashion were a number of pirates holding civilians at gunpoint. They each wore strange brownish-yellow armor that covered their whole bodies, and inside their guns was a strange liquid that glowed a dim, sickly green.

“Call off your...attack dog, now, or death’ll be a dream for your precious civilians.”

“I can’t exactl-”

Suddenly, seeing that the woman was the closest target, Catastrae crashed into her, wildly swinging the axe. She easily evaded the attack in a black blur, and when three more swings came her way, she weaved out of their ways, her armor leaving a trail of mirages that made it difficult for Catastrae to see where she was striking.

“Stop this foolishness at once!”

Catastrae did exactly that, much to the other woman’s surprise, and flew to Challad, her eyes glossed over as she tumbled across the ground, letting go of her axe as she did. He could hardly believe that she was even alive with how severe her wounds were, but upon further inspection, her survival could be attributed to the flames burning from her wound, cauterizing it. He quickly took a jar from his belt and shoved it to her chest. She began drinking the blood-red liquid inside while he took a defensive stance.

At the same time, the other woman began chucking daggers toward Catastrae as a green glow surrounded her body. Challad quickly sidestepped into their path, and at the same time his wings began to deflect a veritable barrage of daggers moving at thrice the speed of sound. A thunderstorm of sonicbooms ensued as daggers deflected against his wings faster than any of the ordinary pirates could see.

Despite his efforts, daggers managed to fly past him, either incorrectly deflected or too fast for him to block, and they cut gashes into Catastrae’s skin.

“Some help!” Challad yelled over the deafening strikes.

Catastrae began to speak, although she was still in inscrutiable pain, the fungus inside the potion healing her body while also inflaming her immune system, causing her body and thoughts to grow sluggish. “Use the fucking staff, you dolt,” she hoarsely said.

“If that works!” Challad yelled before raising the staff, then channeling its stored magic outward. The next moment, a number of brimflame bolts appeared around him and shot toward the woman.

She suddenly leaped to the side, halting her attack in surprise, but the bolts were as weak as could be, and combusted against the air they swept through before they even hit her location. Still, it gave Challad the time he needed to grab a dagger from the railing behind Catastrae and chuck it at the the woman while he dashed forward toward her.

He gained just enough time to close the gap and press his offense, where he began to chase the woman across the deck.

Catastrae, seeing him drop the staff before her, grabbed it then slid herself under the railing while the other pirates were ready to shoot suppressing fire toward challad, then she flew out of sight, looping around the boats until she was behind the men holding the passengers hostage. It was only a matter of time before the capatain would command her men to kill the passengers, so she had to kill them before that happened.

But how? They were sheltered in the crowd of defenseless passengers; if she shot brimflame bolts she was neither confident of her accuracy nor able to control them enough to stop them from exploding and killing everyone around the pirates...

She needed a distraction.

“Here goes nothing...” she held out her staff and closed her eyes.

A subject of study that her and her sisters had undergone was that of summoning; their dark magic should have been capable of summoning fiends and comanding them. While Catastrae’s sisters couldn’t summon, she could.

She felt her power reach deep into the earth, toward the underworld below. Then, she reached out into a mass of furious souls borne of fallen users of dark magic, and grabbed them with a net moving like a clawed hand.

Forming out of her staff’s end like an inflating balloon, a red aura grew, then popped out into two-dozen bubbles of magic, which then formed into floating eyes. They twisted around then swarmed toward the pirates holding the acid-filled guns.

“Monsters, behind us!” one yelled before being hit with a blast of brimflame that shot from an eye, exploding into his leg and blowing it off.

The rest of the pirates fell into a panic as a horde of eyes began to assault them with brimflame. Most didn’t bother with the pretense of hostages, knowing that the foes they fought wouldn’t(and couldn’t) even blink at the death of a hostage.

After a few seconds of chaos, Catastrae decided she could reveal herself once more, the pirates beginning to form back up and shoot wildly at the eyes. While the eyes hadn’t caused many casualties, they had given the hostages an opprotunity to scatter, giving her the opprotunity she needed. Even better, she could see through each eye, so Catastrae knew the location of all her foes by heart.

She formed a number of brimflame darts around herself, readying them for a single, decicive strike, then when she was ready with enough to eliminate the majority of her foes, she flew into sight.

Few of them had time to even try to dodge, and the few who managed to leap out of the way, seeking to save themselves were grievously injured. They were then consumed by a swarm of eyes, which, once their prey had been weakened, opened with a horrid sound of ripping flesh, turning into mouths that ate the pirates like piranhas.

“Unforgivable!” the woman yelled as she sent three daggers flying toward Challad, who narrowly blocked the attacks with his right wings and flew foward with his left, spinning as he stabbed his spear at her. “You would work with one of the witch’s disciples just to eliminate us!?” she yelled, putting a hand to the back of her cloak while leaning away from the strike. As she did so, her eyes narrowed, realizing that she was out of daggers.

Challad struggled to stand back to his feet after his sporatic spinning. “You’ve killed countless civilians for nothing more than a quick buck, but woking with a witch is where you draw the line.” He spat to the ground. “I hate people like you. Spitting on the hard-working people who strive to keep the world a place where humans still live, leeching off the work we put in. You soldiers of Yharim never change.”

“Yharim?! If I curse any name, it will always be his!” she hissed. “He abandoned us, he abandoned the ones who put their lives on the line to give him an empire unmatched! Calamitas was a traitor, and it was she who threw water over the fire of our glory! We were left to rot as Yharim gave up his ambitions, and now all we have left is the weapons and skills and burdens we had when the war ended! You and the people of your city are nothing more than coddled merchants who will soon meet the same fate everyone else does when they’re too weak to survive this cruel world!”

“Might is the only righteousness you villans believe in!” Challad growled. “That never changes.”

“That’s because those without power have no rights!” The captain flicked her coat ends out, and with it, a number of black and red shurikens flew out and began to orbit her. As she dashed away, they flew toward then around Challad like a storm, and he couldn’t move to stop her, pushing himself to defend. A few bolts of brimflame burned through the shurikens, giving him a short reprieve, and as Catastrae joined the fight, they recalled back to the captain, who leaped off the boat then dashed across the ocean in a blur, her shoes creating ice to step on.

“Should I go after her?” Catastrae asked.

“No, don’t bother,” Challad responded. “She’s abandoned her crew and ship. I’ll need help making this requisition go as smoothly as possible.”

“Understood.” Catastrae walked to the axe she’d dropped, stepping over dismembered and combusted bodies with a frown of distaste, then inspected it. “Mind if I take this as a trophy?”

“No problem. Do you mind if I see that for a moment, though?”

“Sure.” She handed the enormous axe to the hero.

He looked at it with confusion. “Strange, it looks like it’s made of ice, but it’s really built of a strange alloy.”

Catastrae glanced at her cauterized shoulder with a grimace. “Considering it cut straight through me, it’s got to be made of something strong.”

“Interesting. I wonder if it’s related to the ice-fire bullets they fired at us.” He handed it back to her. “Thank you for your help, disciple.” He frowned nervously. “This doesn’t put me in debt to you, right?”

She shrugged. “You can consider the big axe a thanks to me.”

“Take all the spoils you’d like...” He glanced at her wound with some worry but didn’t comment on it.

Catastrae noticed Challad’s glance and asked with an unconcerned tone, “And do you have a second one of those drinks? I can barely stand.”

Her wound wasn’t fully healed, although it looked...livable. “How...are you even still standing...” he muttered absently.

“Power of will, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “It hurts, but it’s just pain.”

“Really, now...” He turned to the other ship. Every last pirate aboard the ship that he knew of had been or was being eaten alive by sentient eyes, but there was bound to be a few stragglers to take to proper justice. “You, uhh...can control those things, right?”

She locked eyes with him, then shrugged.

He stared at the witch with some fear. “You can control them, right?”

“I can reduce them to ash one by one?”

He nodded. “That works, too...hopefully.”