[OPEN] I'm busy taking stock of all the things that I've forgot-

[thedevilsmile]

Characters: People who're staying behind in the Victoria II~
Content: NOT AS PLANNED.
Setting: All over the goddammed Victoria II... kinda, I guess.
Time: Later in the evening, while TACTICAL INFILTRATION ACTION is on.
Warnings: Horror! Shock! Denial all around for our unfortunate heroes and Kristoph brand of fail. And, uh. Epic trainwreck? I guess

Comments

[butterflychains]

Soubi had no idea that Kristoph was carrying such ammunition on himself and was mildy impressed that his stepcousin managed to obtain them at all. However, he was very grateful for them, as it opened up an opportunity for him to do something else. But he wasn't quite sure on what to do.

The yeti was confused by the sudden change in temperature, and Soubi had to take this chance before it slipped away. It wasn't likely that the same trick would work twice, not even on a seemingly brainless beast such as this.

He tried wind again, this time imagining the gusts to be sharp and fast, rather than mighty and overwhelming, moving at such high speeds that it could cut flesh. The wind headed straight for the monster, slicing open wounds over its arms and across its chest. It clutched one of its arms and roared in pain, and Soubi cursed himself for not being able to empower the spell more. But that would have cost precious time they didn't have.

"Is there any backup coming?" Soubi asked. They could hardly be expected to defend one of the most important areas of the ship by themselves.

[thedevilsmile]

Normally Kristoph wouldn't think about bringing mana-infused bullets onto the battle - he was a man who relied on his brains rather than brawn. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and this whole situation certainly called for it being desperate enough. The quartermaster quickly reloaded his gun once the ice elemental bullets were fired (his gun could only hold a pair of mana bullets at one tie due to their recoil and drawback power from the blast) as Soubi took the chance presented to him.

The man frowned as he cocked back his gun and took a proper aim this round while the Yeti was distracted by the cutting winds. "You'd do well to be more cautious with your magic, Soubi," the elder man spoke as he closed one eye and took a good aim at the forehead of the beast. "If you're not careful enough, you might end up damaging the engines instead." Saying that, the man fired the second round of magic bullets, each bullet striking the beast on either side of its head with a flash of bright blue light.

It worked to a mild extent. The Yeti gave out a pained roar at the sharp pain on its cranium and stumbled back a little once more, taking a few seconds to recover from the attack. Kristoph clenched his jaw once again as he loaded another pair of ice bullets into his gun. "I doubt it. Most of the guards were sent for patrol duty. Only the minimum number of guards required are available on the ship." Dammit, why did things like these always happen to him? First the Lunasa bombings and now this. Was karma out to get him or something? This whole situation was getting more and more ridiculous by the second.

[butterflychains]

To Kristoph's warning, Soubi merely gave a slight sigh. He was always careful. He hadn't destroyed anything now, had he? But, he wasn't going to argue with Kristoph. They had a more pressing matter at hand. There was a dilemma, though, he had to admit. It was obvious that weak spells weren't going to take down this monster, but powerful ones could end up damaging the ship. Just how was he supposed to perform this balancing act, hmm?

And what was this about being short handed? Wouldn't at least some of them have the mind to come to the engine room? It seemed like the only hope was to wait for one of the other officers to stumble in. If that ever happened. The longer and longer this fight drew on, the chances of that decreased dramatically. If only the yeti had waited until after the infiltration mission was complete. This wouldn't have to be so difficult.

Since Soubi was unsure of what offensive spells to use, he would take a different approach. If the creature could be restrained, then it would cease to be a threat and it could be disposed of with less troublesome methods. From seemingly nowhere, a pair of shackles appeared, clamping onto the monster's wrists and tightened until the monster could no longer swing its arms freely.

[thedevilsmile]

The quartermaster just finished reloading his gun when Soubi took the logical step of restraining the beast, who trashed violently as it found itself held down by the shackles. Kristoph gave a mildly approving nod (to his cousin, most certainly not the use of magic) as he cocked his pistol once more, ready to use it in case something cropped up - as far as the man was concerned, this was more than enough of a crop-up.

It certainly didn't help that at least half of the ship was gone due to the infiltration mission. Really, it seemed like these beasts had a good sense of timing. Or perhaps it was just their own bad luck - either way, the fact still remained that there was only the two of them against a huge, scary beast that was once believed to only exist in myths and fables. Kristoph made a mental note to ensure that nothing like this was going to happen again - not to mention starting on just exactly how was he going to tell the Admiral after all this.

Hopefully they'd manage to drive the yeti away by that time, or he'd have a lot of explaining to do. The elder of the duo took aim once more, ready to fire another shot at the beast but then the monster pulled an unsuspecting move on them. Opening its mouth to reveal gaping jaws and fangs, the beast fired out a light blue-tinted pillar of energy towards the two officers.

[butterflychains]

Just when Soubi thought that they had finally bested the creature, it pulled out a surprise on them. Now, no matter how hard Soubi thought, he could not remember yetis being able to shoot out blue beams from their mouths. Perhaps the mothers thought that feature would make their children believe that yetis were creatures to be admired rather than feared if they had included that little fact.

A wonderful thing about spell words was they could do almost anything, provided the user had a strong enough imagination and way with words. And luckily, a protective shield was also included in the repertoire of abilities.

When the blue pillar came towards them, it was stopped by an invisible wall. It was a weak protection spell, as there wasn't sufficient time for Soubi to describe it very well, but the mental image he had formed in his head was strong. It was just enough to block the beam. Now what worried Soubi was that he didn't know how often the beast could keep up this new move. If it was often, Soubi would have to spend his time defending rather than attacking.

[thedevilsmile]

The elder man was just about prepared to do another dodge roll when the beam slammed against the protection that Soubi had erected, and even someone like Kristoph Gavin had to look in slight awe at the display before him before the beam faded, steam trailing from inside the yeti's mouth. The beast growled once more as it fought against the shackles that held its arms together, trashing forwards towards the two of them instead for a head on physical attack.

Kristoph quickly evaded the attack with the dodge roll he had anticipating himself for, gun at the ready once again as he fired the next set of ice bullets to the beast. As if it had been expecting this, the yeti raised its shackled arms and let the shackles take the brunt of the damage of the ice bullets instead, the magic within them immediately freezing the metal to sub-zero temperatures, and cracks began to be heard from the durable material. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen next.

"Soubi, we need to get it before--" the quartermaster was about to speak before he got cut off as the yeti opened its mouth and let loose another blast of energy once more. The man cursed audibly as he sidestepped the attack once more, taking out a round of normal bullets this time as he loaded them into his pistol while avoiding the attack by the yeti.

[butterflychains]

This time, there was no time to set up a shield, and Soubi also had to dodge to avoid getting hit. The yeti seemed to be getting faster and smarter with every move, and Soubi wasn't sure of just how much more they could do by themselves. Eventually, one of them or the engine was going to get hit, both of which were things that could not happen at all costs.

And worse, Soubi was running out of ideas on what to do. Because they were in the engine room, he had to restrict what spells he could use, and the yeti suddenly had the upper hand. If only they could possibly drive it out. Frustrated, he sent another wave of needles after the monster, causing it to roar yet again. If only there was some kind of weak point they could target...

[thedevilsmile]

There was a loud sizzle as the beam hit out of the upper railings of the engine room, dissolving the metal there as the ends smoked red hot from the heat of that blast. Kristoph cursed once more as he saw the sheer power of that beam before turning back at the loud roar from the beast when Soubi directed another wave of needles into it. It threw its head back a roared loudly enough to make the quartermaster wince at the volume, before his blood froze when the sounds of breaking metal reached his ears.

Breaking free of the weakened chains, the yeti let out a triumphant roar before it charged towards the both of them once more. Kristoph prepared his gun to fire but before he could pull the trigger to shoot, the beast leaped into the air and opened its mouth wide once again to fire a rain of energy beams down onto them.

[butterflychains]

The most Soubi could do at that instant was put up a shield to stop the incoming beams. It was quite obvious now that this monster was becoming more than a match for them. But what could they do? Leaving was not an option, that would leave the engine open to attack.

The monster seemed to realize that it should have resorted to using the energy beams sooner. The two humans before it had to spend their time avoiding or blocking it to stop it, and it once again opened its mouth to attack again.

Soubi could, fortunately, see this coming, and he set up yet another shield. But since he had a few extra seconds this time, he was able to make it stronger. Namely, give it a reflection property. When the beam hit the shield, it was bounced back to the yeti. Hopefully, if it didn't hurt it too much, it would make it think twice about using it indiscriminately.

[thedevilsmile]

The beam reflected due to the shield's reflective properties, heading and striking the yeti right at its chest. The beast let out a pained roar as it flew backwards and landed with a loud thump onto the metal floor. The quartermaster emptied his third cartridge of normal bullets to the beast as it got up, driven back slightly by the offensive comeback. They were alright once again. For now, that was. And who knows how long they were going to be able to hold this advantage.

Finally managing to get a chance to speak, Kristoph loaded his pistol once more as he glanced slightly at the direction of where his stepcousin was. "We need to drive the thing out from the engine room," he first started with the obvious statement as he loaded the gun with a fourth set of bullets. "Not a lot of people know this, but there's a back door in the engine room that leads to the outside," the quartermaster explained as he glanced to a corner of the engine room. It was times like these where it was a good thing that he had been first mate of the vessel - he had long memorized the floor plans, and all he needed was a little recollection to remember these things. "Its used as an emergency exit, so I'm guessing it'd be big enough to squeeze it though and we can bring the fight outside without any worries."

[butterflychains]

A back door in the engine room? Well, that showed how much Soubi knew about the Victoria II. But that could partially be due to the fact that Soubi never visited the engine room. He was Radio Ops, not a mechanic. Where he worked was actually pretty far from the engine room.

"And how do we get this thing through the door?" He asked. Did they lure it through?

[thedevilsmile]

Soubi wasn't the only one who wasn't aware of that - in fact, most of the crew weren't aware of this passageway. Kristoph himself only knew of it after he became first mate of the ship back then, when he managed to get a hold of the proper floor plans. And then even with that it took him nearly a month before he could manage to figure out where the passage was. It was almost like a secret passage, to be honest. Kristoph doubted anyone else save the captain and perhpas Edgeworth would know of this.

"That's a simple enough question for a simple enough answer," replied the quartermaster as he cocked his pistol back up and fired a few shots in the general direction of the yeti. The beast roared at the bullets and took a step back, growling at the duo. Kristoph let a smirk cross his face for once as he emptied the last of the cartridge quickly and moved forward, reloading his gun once more. "We press on with the attack. We drive it back until we get near where the exit is. Don't give the beast a moment to even breath or it'll all be over," he finished the same time as he reloaded his gun and quickly went on the offensive once more, firing his pistol towards the yeti and driving it back.

[butterflychains]

That was a very risky plan. They didn't know for sure how the yeti would react to a repeated, aggressive result, but they were out of options by this point. Taking out his gun again, Soubi began alternating between firing at the monster and casting spells at it. Fortunately, Kristoph was right. The yeti was forced to go backwards more and more as it endured the repeated attacks. Finally, the two of them had forced it back towards the exit.

[thedevilsmile]

Having no time to recover from the continuous offensive assault towards it, the yeti was forced backwards to a corner of the engine room, far away enough from the engines and contraptions that made the ship fly and keep it in the air. Another smirk crossed the quartermaster's face at that, knowing full well that this was all going according to how he imagined it. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Kristoph finished off the last of the bullets in his current cartridge before he reloaded it with a new set of bullets and quickly fired them at the beast without hesitation.

The moment the bullets struck it, tendrils of electricity sparked around the beast, overloading the nerves with more electricity than the beast could handle and effectively paralyzing it. Kristoph breathed out heavily though his nose as he emptied the shells of the lightning elemental bullets and holstered back his gun.

"The paralysis won't last for long," informed the man as he started to head nearby one of the machines. "Hold it in place while I unlock and open the emergency exit." If the beast broke free before he could open the exit, they were totally done for.

[butterflychains]

Hold it in place, as if that was a simple task. The first thing to do was to restrain it once again. For now, the paralysis was doing a fine enough job of keeping the beast in one place, but like Kristoph said, it wouldn't last long, possibly not long enough to open the hatch. Preparing some binding spells, Soubi's first priority was to seal its mouths shut using a shackle. If the beast was unable to use that beam attack, it was a much less fear some opponent. As for the rest of the monster, weak restraints would do fine. Even as it regained mobility, the monster would hardly be at full strength or have the coordination to be much of a threat at this point. They were eventually going to shove it out anyways.

After a while, the beast did in fact, start to move. But it was still weak from the electric shocks and was only able to put up a few pathetic struggles before twitching violently and flopping back down. It seemed like Kristoph would have plenty of time to get the emergency exit open.

[thedevilsmile]

It had been quite a long while since Kristoph had accessed this exit - three years long, that was. It took a bit before the quartermaster managed to find where the access console was within the messed up confines of the engine room (hidden behind one of the rarely-used boilers), and even after that it took even longer to recall what was the access code for the damn thing. The man almost wanted to smash his head against the wall before he recalled what the code was and entered it.

No response.

"Damn!" the man swore with a frustrated growl as he smacked the console in annoyance, kicking the old machinery as well for good measure. There was a click, and then the door to the battery compartment swung open to reveal crystal set inside there, its usual gleam lost. At once the man understood what had happened.

Of all times... just why did the console decide to run out of battery now?