With the stakes so high... (The Mission. 1.2)

[Kodoku Itami]

'The Archangels are key to keeping us alive here...' Itami thought with a frown as he clenched his fists within his long sleeves and rushed forwards, seemingly disappearing from sight as one of the tentacles attacking one of the Archangels suddenly lit up blue and retreated away. Itami dropped down, landing in place of the long limb, his right arm crackling with lightning, whilst his left held onto his sleeve, allowing the limb freedom without setting his own cloak on fire. He looked over his shoulder, his bright red eyes amplified by the glowing light of his arm, he was focused on the Archangel's, as his glare bore into them.

"The shield..." He growled "Get the shield working again. I'll cover you."

With that, he was gone again. His presence was most definitely still there though. Occasionally, sparks would explode from one of the tentacles, and it would retreat away from the blue lightning that had struck it, blood pooling from it's side. The assassin worked at high speeds, leaping about the bubble, running across the water steadily filling it up with a snarl, before launching and thrusting a lightning encrusted arm through another tentacle.

[Brea Cao-Wei]

"The assassin is right!" Brea called as he reached up to his necklace and touched it softly. He closed his eyes before opening them with steely determination. Drawing his two blades he charged into the fray, his swords moving with fluid action, slicing tentacles away from the Archangels, as well as covering Zaria whilst she tried to clear some of the water out of their shield. If it kept pouring in like this, they'd drown before they could even begin contemplating their goals. That was another point, they needed to find Mark, whilst they had the other two Archangels, surely they'd be lost without him. His swords were almost like liquid, moving with fluidity as they carved their way through anything in their path.

"Zaria!" He roared, slicing a tentacle overhead with a right handed slice, before slicing again with his left blades. With both swords now down by his right, he brought them both across in an overhead right to left slash, forcing the limb backwards. He stood behind his fellow Captain, his breathing calm as he looked over his shoulder "Do you think you can clear out this water? We're fighting at a disadvantage having to wade through all of this water as well..."

[Yeligar Maelstrom]

Yeligar nodded, and lifted the lance, stopping the swirling of the water around the barrier. "Do it now, and do it quickly." He shouted to Zaria, as he let the barrier down. The fish started to attack him, but he ripped them off, ignoring the pains of their bites. He tossed them to the side and took the opportunity to attack the beast from above before starting up the barrier.
"Rain of Swords!" Swords made of pure water shout from the lance at high speed, and were slicing and cutting up the large squid's tentacles, and few were flying towards the eyes.

[Ramirez De Zoro]

Ramirez was jolting more notes down as he was looking at the squid, and thinking what to do to combat it or slow it down.
The beast is used to attack, and has a large stamina. It also knows what it is doing and how and who to attack. Ramirez was thinking to himself, as he tried to cast some arcane spells at the monster.

[Zaria DeGantz]

"You got it!" Zaria answered, both to Brea and Yeligar, and began a complex series of hand movements, which sent the water shooting back out of the barrier, while trying to temporarily freeze the remaining cracks while she worked.

It wasn't easy with all of the action going on around her. Sweat dripped down her forehead, and she furrowed her brows. She worked as quickly as she could, until most of the water was cleared out. It wasn't going to be possible to clear out ALL of it, without having the barrier cave in, but she was doing her best, and held her arms up- commanding the water around the barrier to keep at bay.

The water wouldn't stay out forever though, and Zaria used one hand to keep the water at bay, while trying to direct any water that dripped back inside the barrier to the outside once again. It wasn't as easy as she was making it look.

"I hope this is more favorable!" She exclaimed.

[Brea Cao-Wei]

"I couldn't ask for anything more!" He called, keeping the aquamancer's back covered whilst she worked. He tried to keep far enough away that she could keep on moving the water without him jumping all around her, but he tried to keep close enough that he could protect her from any immediate threats. No doubt she can defend herself, but Brea had no idea how well she could do that whilst moving water around. As soon as she appeared to be finished, he was instantly back-to-back with Zaria, with a sword in each hand, and a grim smirk on his face.

"Good work." He said with a nod. "Couldn't have done better myself! Now... Let's try and clean things up... Are you alright to hold that and fight?" He asked, a stern look over his shoulder as he said it. The last thing he wanted was for her to lie and say she could, then get a tentacle to the face.

[Zaria DeGantz]

"As long as I don't have to use my sword, I'll be fine!" She answered. She glanced around, noticing that everyone else was aiming for the creature's eyes. "Just work on keeping everyone else safe!"

Then, just as she'd been doing the entire time, she continued commanding the water outside the barrier with one hand to keep it at bay. With the other hand, she made a few signals, to which the water swirled, then froze into icicle-like shapes. With Zaria's command, the icicles spun towards the creatures eyes. As long as she wasn't distracted, she felt as though she'd be able to keep up the pace at a steady rate.

[Mark Angelus Fri]

The creature reared back in pain as strike after strike landed blows on its eyes. Dark blood streamed down its massive face as it opened its mouth wide to show the many rows of jagged teeth.

It pulled back a bit before launching itself right at the group. It intended to swallow the entire area up and it certainly had the size to do so.

This move disrupted the entire focus and the barrier degraded to the point that water was flushing in at a fast rate.

And than there was a flash of light and the creature stopped in its tracks. Mark Fri stood between it and everyone else, his blade pressed to the creature's face.

"I really hate being throw around," Mark growled as his eyes glowed bright light, "Ain...Soph...Aur!"

His blade started glowing until it unleashed a massive ray of light, piercing the dark creature with the intense ray. The creature went up in black smoke, pieces of it flying everywhere.

Mark casually turned around to the rest of the group, looked as the water flooded in and spoke, "Everyone... get in the warship."

[Zeke Omoihake]

At last allowed a moment's reprieve Zeke slung his blades back in their sheath after a quick flick to remove the blood. His adrenaline was starting to slip away, making the sharp pain of his injuries float up to the forefront of his mind. Hissing slightly in pain he pulled back his sleeve to check the wound to his arm.

Ugh, what is this black stuff? These things had better not have been poisonous. Zeke's fingers pulled some of the substance off his arm and rolled it around between them before casting it down on the ground. Feels fine, probably just some gross monster goo or something. Besides if I was poisoned I'm pretty sure I'd feel it by now.

As Mark was commanding the others towards the sunken ship Zeke's attention slipped away towards something glittering strangely beneath a hunk of the tentacled terror's body. Curiosity nagged him, and drawn in by the lustre of the object he went astray from the rest of the group to examine.

It was a smooth and slightly translucent orb, shimmering with a pearlescent hue and no bigger than Zeke's palm. Assuming to be little more than another random object the creature must have consumed in its time in the waters Zeke palmed the orb, smiling in it's reflection as he felt his luck turning around.

"Well I guess if I get out of this mess in one piece I'll at least have something for Alexander. No way he'll be mad at me after this. Okay, he'll maybe still be a little mad." Stuffing it in his belt pouch Zeke turned and reunited with his crew, happy to have one less encounter behind them.

[Duo Angelo]

As Zeke ran along he could probably hear a voice in the back of his head, so faint and light it was almost as if it wasn't there.

"I see you..." the voice spoke, "I know you... and I thank you, Zeke..."

The voice probably felt like it belonged in his head, not raising any sort of alarm... but it was there... and it was like it was watching.

[Romulus Jei Owen]

Within the hull of the ship lied a small sphere of air, seemingly impermeable by the surrounding water. Within sat Romulus in wait, his hands once again mulling through his pockets, himself constantly forgetting where he placed his pocket watch and habitually wanting to check it and see if things were going along alright. Rummaging to and fro, he finally found the silver trinket, popped it open, and made a strange clicking nose, presumably hinting a some hint of disapproval.

"My, my, my, a few seconds behind... Hopefully Mark and his crew make there way in here soon, otherwise I might be forced to go and do a little meddling." Romulus murmured to himself, as he swirled his finger in the water surrounding him, his Alternator giving a slight hum along with a opaque orange glow.

"Wait, wait, wait wait wait wait wait...is this the right entrance?" Romulus paused, his body stilled as his finger slowly drew some imaginary pattern in the air. Ambivalence having gripped the young man, he drew forth a small note book from his coat pocket, flipping hastily though pages before jabbing his finger harshly against one of the pages.

"NORTH ENTRANCE!" Romulus shouted to himself in realization, giving his head a quick smack before quickly displacing himself from his current position and arriving at the proper spot, quickly doing his best to tidy himself up some, after all, he hadn't met any of his old acquaintances from this dimension yet, and first impressions were always important to Romulus, even if he already knew everyone.

[Mark Angelus Fri]

Mark stepped in the North entrance and hung back at the door, just momentarily surprised to see Romulus before he grinned, "I expected you to appear sooner, like at the village. Eh, whatever, better you're here and not at all." Mark gave a nod to him before looking back at everyone else.

"OKAY everyone, into the haunted warship! And I assure you that the dimension-traveler is NOT part of the ship's beautiful decorations!"

Mark laughed as water poured in around them, really, not a good point to do so but that hardly seemed to stop the Archangel.

[Brea Cao-Wei]

"Well... That was anti-climactic..." Brea admitted with a seemingly glum expression as he sheathed his swords and crossed his arms against his chest. He looked up at the warship and raised an eyebrow, he had to admit, it was sort of impressive to see the ship this deep underwater and still in such good condition, then again, Mark had said that it had been cursed... So he guessed that it sort of made sense that it should still be serviceable, after all, himself and the Saints had still worked 1000 years later, hadn't they? He approached the ship with a low whistle, temporarily forgetting the others as he placed a hand against the boat and closed his eyes with a frown.

Screams, roars of pain, blood... Death...

Brea opened his eyes and let out a deep breath, stepping back he instinctively raised one hand to the necklace around his neck, and the other went to one of his swords as he stared at the ship. It was almost difficult to believe. He had seen and even wielded a badly souled blade, a weapon that had lost many wielders in quick succession. They were fickle objects and rumored to be cursed, seemingly blunting in the middle of combat, or the user seemingly ending up in a very bad situation very quickly... But this entire boat... It reeked of a similar curse, and it made Brea un-easy. But still, he had a job to do, and he got on board.

He walked onto the ship silently, not speaking, his hand resting easily against the hilt of his sword hilt, prepared for any and all eventualities. He was taking no risks.

[Yeligar Maelstrom]

Yeligar walked onto the ship allow with everyone else. He put his lance away, and finally had a chance to pull the rest of the gnawing fish off of him. "Well that feels better. Thanks Mark for coming in on time." He said as he looked around on the ship.
"So what are our orders now?"

[Mark Angelus Fri]

"Hold on to something." Mark said simply as he walked across the warship and up to where the ship's wheal and stood up on the railing, looking down at the rest of the group, "Those damned to the bottom of the ocean, I command you to rise!"

Nothing happened at first, leading to the awkward silence which was only broken by the noise of water filling in the barrier. And than the ship started to glow and people became visible.

At first they appeared to be just white ghosts until they took a solid form of humans with extensively degrading flesh. It was the crew of the ship that was damned by Duo, naturally.

What appeared to be the Captain stepped up to Mark and hissed at the Archangel, "You do not have the guts to use this ship, Archangel."

Mark laughed a little bit while shaking his head, "In that aspect, I have more guts than you do..." he motioned to his degrading flesh with a sarcastic smile, "But really, it's vital that I take command of this ship right away!"

The Captain hissed once more at Mark while taking out its blade, "If you want my ship you'll have to take it from me-"

Mark swiped his sword across the Captain's head, decapitating it. The head rolled to Mark's feet, he bent down and took the captain's hat off it before putting it on his own head.

"Does that count?" Mark asked as the captain's body reached for its own head, putting it BACK on its body. It glared at Mark before taking a step back, bowing on its knees.

"The Arinna is yours, Captain Mark Angelus Fri." Suddenly the ship sprang to life, there was a force about it that was... dangerously strong, "The crew awaits your orders."

Mark looked down at his 'crew', he didn't know much about being a Captain of a ship but he knew enough, he leaned over and raised his voice, "ALL HANDS ON DECK! Get this ship ready, we're about to be underwater!"

Mark grabbed onto the wheal and looked down at the group, "Grab onto something and hold your breath!"

Water swarmed around them, covering every inch of the area. Panic was the most simplest way to go about it, after all, they were being buried by water at the bottom of the ocean.

Panic was a completely natural thing, even Mark's heart jumped as he became submerged in water.

Back on the surface it was like nothing was happening, it was so peaceful and quite. Until a moment later when a large warship came right out of the ocean, causing a massive wave as the warship fully surfaced.

Mark coughed a bit, gagging on the water before pulling himself up and looking at everyone. "Please tell me everyone is still on this ship!?"