Veltmann gazed up in awe at the enormous shape of Martinez's Primis towering before him with his hook tightly clamped onto the hull of the Ivory. Out of all the captains Blackbeard had gathered here today, his Primis was without doubt the most massive and magnificent. Shrouded in a dress of water and Ley, he concentrated water over his arms and fired multiple Eel-shaped arms at his attackers.
The battle was proceeding at breakneck speed, with the impeccable chemistry between the three strongest members of the Cotton crew heavily keeping the balance of the fight in check. Despite this, everyone involved understood that it was Cotton's inhuman awareness and reactions that kept the other two alive.
She knew where her allies were, every step they took, and even predicted every step they would take. And with this awareness, she solidified the water anywhere necessary, allowing them to fight alongside her on the surface of the water.
Almost like a Primis, Dorothy found herself thinking. Her deep admiration of Cotton knew no bounds, and she felt her feelings be reaffirmed each time they fought together. Her grace, her speed, the way she does everything so effortlessly. Its amazing.
With a roar, another round of Eels shot out from Martinez's arms, slamming into the sea and narrowly missing Dorothy's head. "Focus! Keep your attention on him at all times!" Maxwell, said from behind her. She didn't even notice him stepping behind her, so silent was his footsteps and so well did he hide his Ley. He grabbed her by the arm and tugged her alongside him, dodging the limbs that attempted to rip them apart as he ran.
"We need to get in close enough to lop his head off. Use your Ley to get me close enough to him!" As he spoke, Cotton ripped through several dozen of the limbs Martinez sent at her and flung herself towards him, only to be snatched away and tossed into the water by an Eel that snapped away from the massive dress protecting Martinez. "Useless, Cotton. I will make sure you drown in that water you so eagerly fight with." He growled, forming about fifty of the beasts underwater to hold onto Cotton. They bit each other and multiple parts of Cotton's body, all just to hold her in place.
With that settled, he now turned his attention to her subordinates far below. "And now, for you. Perhaps I'll pierce through your bodies and string you up for her to gaze at before she dies."
"Go ahead and try!" Dorothy cried, and snapped her fingers.
Martinez blinked, unable to believe what he was seeing. Right before his eyes, the dark blue colour of the sea was being stripped of the waves and the water he was wielding, and moulding itself into a wave seperate from the ocean. "Keep your eyes on me." She said, taking two long strides back and raising her left arm with her index finger to the sky.
"This is my Colour Ley: Type Blue!"
She's still alive. She knew. The water underneath her feet still remaining solid was proof enough of this. She was still the sole reason why her and Maxwell could still stand, even as she herself was underwater.
And at the same time, Dorothy knew, there was only a small time frame for them to rescue her. She could certainly hold her breath for a significant time, but their failure would mean certain doom for her.
"Azure peak!" She yelled, and the waves of blue hardened and expanded into a massive mountain, with multiple jagged ends piercing through even the strongest layers of Martinez's defenses. "What in the world-?" He muttered. The colour was almost like water, except it was thicker, and semi transparent. Sharpened and entirely solidified, it was strong enough to pierce through his colossal dress, which had been divided and pressured into hundreds of layers to make it a hundred times stronger than steel.
Yet, its defensive properties were below average. He flung his water arms into the structure, and watched as it collapsed with remarkable ease. What an intriguing girl.
Yet an intriguing ability would not save her. "So fragile." He said, and shot multiple tendrils toward Dorothy, who smoothly skidded across the surface of the blue sea and ducked down to avoid the devastating impact of the arms.
I can't keep this up forever. She thought, silently urging on the movement of Maxwell across the water. She rapidly swung the colour she had dragged up towards Martinez in retaliation, only to be blocked easily by his superior defences. "I must admit, you're stronger than you seemed to be. But without experience...I'm afraid this is the end for you."
He suddenly stopped and looked down, with his eyes bulging in surprise. Out of nowhere, he had been stabbed with seven jagged spikes from inside his dress, the blue edges jutting out as they ripped through. "What...?!" He asked thin air, with an utterly dumbfounded expression on his face.
"It was a mistake to surround yourself with so much blue, I'm afraid." He spun around rapidly despite the grievous wounds, and met eyes with Maxwell as he rose up from a carpet of blue under the water. No, from above the water.
A thin layer of blue disguised to appear similar to water. For how long has it been mixing with my Primis?!
"Its over."
He watched the eight needles flying through the air. They were aimed right for his face and neck, an immediate kill. Or what would have been an immediate kill.
He smiled, unaware of the chilling impact it had on the man before him as he used his extraordinary Basic Ley to stop the needles midair using the water from the raindrops that fell from the skies above. Like threads of his own, the strands of water stretched across the air in front of him and tangled around the needles just millimeters from his head. "No, my good man. Its not over until I say so." He tightened the water strands and sent the needles flying upwards, leaving Maxwell entirely unprotected for a moment.
"Disappear." He growled, raising his arm.
Before he could connect, he felt something hard slam into his chin, nearly making him lose his consciousness. With his head spinning, he turned to find Cotton standing over him, her right arm raised and left extended across his face. She threw her right fist forward as she drew her left arm back, now punching his left temple and sending him backwards. He was faintly aware of the girl and the man retreating rapidly, but knew they wouldn't give up just yet. They were a major threat as long as they remained on the battlefield supporting Cotton, and their chemistry was simply too good for him to allow them to outnumber him any longer.
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"Cerulean Moray Garden."
Cotton felt the familiar feeling as the whirlpools began to form around them once again. There were only about five of them this time, perhaps signalling Martinez's weakness and the extent of his limits, but she was painfully aware of how powerful those beasts were and that Dorothy and Maxwell were at serious risk now. Dorothy's experience was still lacking, and Maxwell was useless without an actual physical opponent to fight and disable. After all, there was absolutely no way to stop a creature made of water using medical science.
But now she realized there were two other individuals within range of her Ley, two individuals who would be pivotal to turning the tide of this battle.
Before she could prepare a plan, she felt something twist itself into her waist and force her off the top of Martinez's enormous dress, leaving her entirely exposed and vulnerable as she fell.
Can't...breathe...chest...heavy...
She choked and clawed at her throat, momentarily unaware of the six Eel heads Martinez had extended from his arms closing in.
"Cotton!" She focused her eyes and saw Maxwell leap in front of her, taking the deadly hit from all six heads to his shoulders and chest. With his teeth clenched, he grabbed two of the heads and held onto them as gravity beckoned him to fall.
No! NO! She couldn't get the desperate plea out, but the shock of the water hitting her back took the words out of her mouth.
"NOOOOOOO!!" It was not Cotton, but Dorothy who shrieked, and shaped up a long blue drill from the surface of the water and shot it at the arms trying to rip through Maxwell's defensive Ley. The impact sliced through four of them and significantly damaged the remaining, allowing Maxwell to fall into the arms of the waiting Cotton.
Dammit...what the hell was that supposed to be? Maxwell thought, staring at the concerned expression on Cotton's face as she looked down at him.
"I...blame you for this. Looks like...you've rubbed off on me." He whispered, tasting blood in his mouth as he spoke. Cotton's reaction was, as usual, unpredictable as ever. She first seemed overcome with sadness, but now was angry and upset. Not at him for berating her in his usual gentle way, but for trying to save her. "You're insane. That was...that was..."
"Reckless? Stupid? Moronic? Just how many times have I...used those words to describe you?" He shrugged himself off and stumbled onto the water. "Wait a minute! You -"
He ignored her protests despite the blood leaking from his neck and chest. "Shut up and stop worrying about me. Isn't that what you always say whenever I told you to be careful?" Dorothy was still trying to hold off Martinez, but she wouldn't last long. Cotton was the only one who had a chance against him. His own ability was nearly useless against Martinez. Who knew where Borris was, and the fleet captain was fighting Blackbeard.
He felt a sudden surge in Ley, and a chain of explosions bloomed across the sea, destroying a couple of Beasts in its path. "Borris." He murmured, struggling to stay on his feet.
He was not alone. Leonardo was also alongside him, though he looked battered and beaten. "You seemed like you could use some help." He said, and raised his sword to strike the rising form of Martinez.
"Wait a minute!" Cotton yelled, making him pause with a slight smile on his face. "That's my prey. You don't get to steal my opponents after going off on your own like that!"
Borris shrugged. She did have a point. "Good grief. If that's what you want, I suppose I'll stick to slaying these pesky Beasts until you beat him." As he spoke, another group of the Eels rose from the water and thrust themselves at him, prompting him to cleanly slice them into two even pieces. The explosion that followed dissolved them into thin air, though more would be coming.
Cotton still looked on as Maxwell stumbled away from her, gingerly tending to his own wounds. "I'll see myself out of this fight. Watch over Dorothy for me." He said, waving a hand at her lazily.
She sighed. He was not usually the type to be reckless, or to encourage it from others. "I think I like the side of you that tells me off better than this."
"I think I like that me more too."
As he walked off towards the ship, Cotton turned towards Martinez, who was still fighting Dorothy. She had crafted a massive sheet of blue and was trying to wrap it around Martinez's dress to restrain him, though with little success. Her lip and nose were bleeding, and a deep cut across her waist was staining her dress a dark red. "Stop...moving already!" No matter how hard she tried, trying to stop his dress was like trying to stop a hurricane. As it spun it ripped pieces of her blue sheet aside like paper, and made it even more difficult to get a solid grip on him.
"Sorry, girl. But you're a decade too early to try and stop me." He said, finally rising forward to crush her with his arms.
Before he could reach her, Cotton rose and slammed her open palm into his stomach, using water pressure to send him flying backwards. "You look pretty damn ugly in this form of yours you know." She said, forming two claws over her hands. "Captain! Let me fight with you!" Dorothy cried.
Before she could answer, one of Martinez's arms slammed into her face and sent her flying. "YOU WILL NOT KILL ME, COTTON! I WILL CRUSH YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS AND SEND YOU TO HELL UNDER THE WAVES!" He screamed, sending a flurry of arms barraging into her body. Each hit made saliva and blood fly out through her mouth and nostrils, and gave her no time to even inhale.
Even then, her mind remained clear. Terrifyingly clear. She still continued controlling the water beneath Borris and Leonardo's feet as they fought, and still went through possibilities to counter this attack.
One second. Just one second should be enough...Dorothy!
As if she heard her thoughts, the girl pulled back a long web-like string of blue and weaved it together around Martinez, criss-crossing the strings around his body to restrict him. If I can't kill you, I can still bind you! She thought, determined not to let herself be thrown aside so easily.
The string covering his mouth and parts of his neck all the way down to his waist were loosely wounded, yet so elastic and strong that for just a moment, Martinez found himself completely immobilized. Enraged, he rolled his eye to look at the girl behind the little trick.
Unaware of the unsettling smile creeping across his face, he raised a single finger and shaped the falling rain to thin, foot-long spikes before sinking all five into her waist and chest.
Dorothy collapsed onto his dress, the strength fading from her limbs almost immediately. The water forming the spikes were cold...so cold. She couldn't even feel the pain in her torso, but she certainly felt the warm blood that ran down her waist and thighs. It felt nice.
Ah...I hope there's more blood. Its so cold...let me bleed...I want warmth...bleed... If this was some kind of an ability, she thought, it was working.
And she did feel warmth, except now it was in the form of a body pressing against her shoulder. She raised her head weakly, but all she could see was a jet-black color. Slowly, but surely, the coldness in her body disappeared as Cotton carefully disabled the water spikes and changed them back into flowing water. All this happened in a matter of seconds, and Dorothy was entirely helpless to react to the sheer speed of either Cotton or Martinez. They were simply miles above her.
"Rapidly changing body temperatures like that can kill you." Cotton whispered in her ear, softly and gently. "Go to sleep, just for twenty or so minutes." Dorothy smiled, and even as she felt herself drifting away she still managed to talk. "You're so strange. One minute, fighting like...an animal...and the...next..."
Her head lolled against Cotton's breast as her consciousness faded away. "BORRIS!" She called, and he appeared next to her with speed so frightening that it made both Cotton and Martinez twitch nervously. "I trust you want me to return her to the ship?" He asked, and without waiting for an answer, took off with her in his arms.
"Quite the terrifying one, isn't-" He never finished the sentence. Cotton's claw sank through dress and ripped through his waist, sending droplets of blood and water flying into the air. Ignoring the pain, he flung his arms around and struck her squarely in the middle of her back, sending her foward and nearly right off his Primis.
Perhaps for the final time, they engaged in battle once more.