Miss Brooke clutched at her abdomen. Her primary captive, the bounty hunter 'Cold Shot' and quite possibly the greatest threat to her in the fight, had been released from the watery prison she had created. Now, her companion, the skeleton man, had taken her place. Sparks of pain ran through Miss Brooke's body from how often he had broken her to pieces.

While her form allowed her to take almost any hit unscathed, that didn't mean she was immune from the pain of individual strikes. Even the water streaming from above, penetrating her watery form and fueling her to greater and greater power, came at the cost of pain. Each droplet of rain was like the pinprick of a bobby pin, launched through her multitudinous nerves spread across every drop of water she controlled.

"It's enough to drive a lady mad," her voice boomed in her giant form as she searched the deck for 'Cold Shot.'

She needed to catch the woman, no matter the cost. Her curse was the greatest counter to Miss Brooke's. While the skeleton man could hurt her, he would not be able to defeat her, not with the power of his current curse. However, she couldn't see 'Cold Shot' on the deck.

"Where are you hiding, bounty hunter?" Water boiled across her skin as she searched this way and that across the deck.

Slap. Splat.

A form with long white hair shot across her vision, and Miss Brooke batted at it as it landed a kick across her face. Water droplets sailed out through the night, landing on the ground in a line beside the ship. The skeleton man's spirit was still active, even though he was bound inside her bubble.

"Your impertinence is ending my patience, dearie," Miss Brooke said, taking in more of the water, rising higher into the sky and distending her form. "If I cannot take the bounty hunter, I will crush and break this ship in half. Ocean Leviathan!"

Miss Brooke's lowest grade of curse was simple. It allowed her to manipulate water. Her second-grade curse allowed her to become water itself as an element, which was why she had her current form. While her Ocean Leviathan wasn't a form that transcended her second grade, it was the culmination of everything she believed the form to be about. It was the raw power of the storm and the sea. It was the fury of the wind and the ripping power of a tidepool.

She laughed, and as she did, she grew taller and wider. She lashed out to the side with one arm, and a long, watery tendril formed from it. She lashed out with the other, and the same happened on the other side. She grew longer and more serpentine as her skin dissolved into the clear blue color of the ocean itself.

Her legs merged together, wrapping around the ship in a long, winding tail as she folded her arms into her body. A long maw rippling with waves of teeth opened up as she let out a guttural scream. The leviathan took control of her senses as she searched the deck below.

She was no longer the lady but the serpent. Her thoughts were bent on destruction and destruction alone. Like a storm, she would rip the ship below her asunder and leave its wreckage as proof of the consequences for those who thought they could defeat the storm.

A faint wisp tried to attack her, but she ignored it, the same way she ignored the thousands of prickling, painful stabs that cut across her form from the storm above. All that pain was just fuel for her rage. It would make crushing the ship so much easier. She pulled her body tighter as she wrapped around the ship.

"I. Will. Have. You. Dead. Dearie!" she annunciated each word as she roared and brought her head crashing onto the deck.

Groan.

Water crashed over the ship harder than the storm above. The metal shook beneath Miss Brooke's form. Already, the clamps holding the ship tight were buckling and breaking. She flexed her body against the length of the ship, pulling the end tighter as she wrapped her head around the front.

She would snap the slipship in two with her might. Then, the bounty hunter would be revealed. Then, she would have the threat beaten and would no longer have to worry. Once the hurtful cold was gone, she would be the strongest. She would be the greatest. Not even Lord Bac—

Her thoughts stopped, and some of the lady in her was restored. No. No one was as strong as Lord Bacia. She wasn't even as strong as the Hand that commanded her. She was a Finger. She may have been higher than a Knuckle in the organization, but she had to remember her place.

Not even her second-grade curse could save her if she forgot her place.

"But that does not mean I will let you get away, 'Cold Shot,'" she said, renewing her efforts to break the ship in two.

If she wanted, she could release her form and try to find 'Cold Shot,' but that would severely weaken her. Once this technique was released, it would take hours to recover to her full strength. No, it would be better to rip the ship in two and take on 'Cold Shot' once she was in the open.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Creak.

The ship's hull resisted her, and she had to pull harder. She funneled more power into her gate, wrapping tighter around the ship as she extended her body into a longer form. She welcomed the rainwater falling from above. The fools should never have let her outside in a storm. The water-fueled her power.

Whoosh.

Even as she thought it, the water stopped falling from above, fading out into light tapping before disappearing to a single drop a moment later. Miss Brooke angled her head to the sky. The storm was over. Moonlight came down through parting clouds.

"You talk too much." A woman stepped out onto the deck, her hand glowing bright blue and white in a spiraling ball. "Cold Touch!"

----------------------------------------

When the woman transformed, Wen gave up on finding her gun on the deck. No matter how much she wanted to stand and fight, that was a losing battle. While she was out in the rain, the woman was nearly invincible. Never in her life had Wen seen a person that possessed such a powerful curse. Generating water was one thing. Being able to throw it around could be devastating.

However, becoming water, being able to become invincible on a whim, was just plain unfair.

She threw herself past the door and closed it behind her. Hopefully, Jean's skeletal form would allow him to last longer inside the woman. She had just been drowning the entire time. Her mind was still wrapped in a haze from the minute inside that bubble. It was like it had a gravity that refused to let her escape.

She couldn't even take a breath to call on her cold.

However, now she had a problem. She had no way to beat Miss Brooke. She could get her rifle, but those six shots didn't seem like they would be effective. All the woman had to do was cut off her form to get around Wen's cold, and that was assuming she didn't just create holes for the bullets to pass through.

Wen had also lost her distraction. Without Jean, she was certain not a single shot would land. That left her with the problem. She had no way to win. She collapsed against the door, hanging her head as she focused on her breathing. She needed to recover first.

Hock-pt.

She hocked a bit of water from her lungs on the floor as she stared at the metal floor. Outside, she could hear the faint echoes of the woman yelling along with the constant rhythm of the rain. She needed a way to fight back and wracked her mind for options.

She could create a ball of cold. That was what she did when she made her bullets. That was all she did, and that was why she needed to have the bullets made in the first place. Unless someone wanted a convenient air conditioner or cheap ice, her powers weren't good for much else. They took minutes to work their effect.

However, that was a good point. She was safe at the moment. She had a minute, at least, right?

She opened her gate, embracing the chill of her curse as it blew through her body like a wintery breeze. A cold sensation expanded from her heart, chilling her limbs out to her fingertips as they flowed into her arms and legs. Wen focused that power even as she channeled it, calling the strongest chill into her hands.

"Cold Touch," Wen whispered, cupping her hands into a ball and focusing on opening her gate wide.

She would normally hold an object there, but she didn't have that option unless she wanted to get her bullet charger from her room. No, she wanted a sphere of cold, something she could jab into Miss Brooke the moment she least expected it. She closed her eyes as she embraced the cold inside of her.

Groan.

The ship groaned beneath her, and she knew that Miss Brooke was attacking it directly. If the woman couldn't get at her, she would break the ship in half to find Wen. However, Wen couldn't stop to react. She needed to focus. She huddled closer to her ball of cold, even as a seat formed and froze across her hands.

She needed it colder. Colder than ever before.

She knew a little bit of science from her undergrad at Cambridge. There was an absolute cold that ate at so much kinetic energy that nothing happened. Absolute zero. That was what she was aiming for. She wanted the freeze to ripple across Miss Brooke faster than she could react. If Wen could pull that off, she was sure she could take all of Miss Brooke in one shot.

Crack.

She focused despite the sound of metal creaking around her. She focused on the ball in her hand despite the fact that she was closer to death every second. If she failed with this ball, there was nothing else she could do. Alex and the others would come back to a broken ship with her dead. Maybe Jean would survive to tell them what happened. Maybe he wouldn't. She didn't know enough about him and his curse to tell.

Tap.

With a final tap on the hull, the sound of rain dissipated outside. Wen looked up from her orb. Was the storm over? She listened closely, still drawing more cold into the ball in her hands. She didn't hear any more rain outside.

She took it as a sign. With her hand cupped around the orb, still pouring her cursed aether into it to draw it ever colder, she stood and flung the door open, stepping out onto the deck. Wind blew past her face as she looked out over the watery loop of a tail wrapped around the ship.

"But that does not mean I will let you get away, 'Cold Shot,'" the voice boomed out of a head that was up and above Wen, far out of sight.

Wen ignored it, rushing across the deck toward the tail wrapped around the ship. She wouldn't aim for a harder target, not when a guarantee was in sight. She thrust out with her hand as she reached the tail, crushing the ball into the whirling water with one solid hit.

"You talk too much!" she yelled, pushing the cold orb into the water until it broke. "Cold Touch!"

The ambient heat of the water resisted her touch at first, but Wen didn't let up. She didn't let her cold infusion stop for a moment as she jammed her hand deep inside the water. The orb was just the initial strike, and white ice expanded out from where the orb struck Miss Brooke's form.

If Wen had just stopped there, it would have been for nothing.

Instead, she focused, pouring more cold through her hands and into the serpent form, drawing more and more aether into her gate and willing it to transmit more cold into the serpent. Instead of a tiny orb, it was the entirety of Wen's curse that the serpent's water fought against, and the water lost to the ice.

White shards cracked along the serpent's form, freezing it against the hull as it raced up the body. The last thing Wen heard from Miss Brooke was a guttural scream and a crash of water far away. She collapsed to the deck moments afterward, spent as ice shards clung to her fingers.

She wasn't sure, but she thought she won.