"Send them back to hell!" Erika exclaimed, deafened out by the rumbling of cannonfire that followed as a barrage of violet flame soared over the sea.

The enemy vessel tried to turn, steering with merely its sails out of the way of one third of the barrage, but turning only made them a bigger target.

Blaze after blaze burst against the demonic vessel, tearing away at the ship, melting through and coming out the other side. There remained nothing left by a wreck, sinking away into the ocean as its surviving inhabitants abandoned ship.

At the same time, sinking was a feeling that encompassed Erika and her crew as well, reaching out from deep within as a second wave of cannonfire reached their ears...

Erika turned to stare out a porthole, just in time to see the last vessel, having turned its starport to them and firing away.

That same barrage they had decimated the enemy with, was now soaring at them twice-fold.

In that moment, her mind raced for options, but her mouth couldn't keep up and reply in time.

As the barrage approached fast, barely a meter away from their vessel's side now, violet heat rushing at them making the very air around each distort with the sudden rise in temperature.

She watched, time seeming to slow as death came at them.

She watched, as water rose up before them, entering the ship itself. A column of water formed before her.

All around her, Erika watched as flaming spheres of demonic fire burst through the ship, and people.

Screams filled her ears, joined by the crashing of cannonballs to both wood, brick, flesh and bone.

Facing the water, she watched one ball blast through, barely stopping midway as the liquid sizzled all around it. Looking to her right then, she saw Drun and Teijil meet her gaze, as with mere seconds before them...

Drun pushed Teijil, tripping her into Erika.

Teijil, could only watch, as a sphere of violet crashed through the wall.

Drun also, barely getting a word out, as out of the corner of his eye the death he had seen coming now descending on him.

"Live." He said.

But Erika couldn't just watch, as lightning surged through her body she rushed around Teijil, matching the sphere's speed she stepped to stand between it and Drun.

Reaching out, she forced all her power into her left arm, as golden flame burst alive all over it.

Claw open, palm ready, Erika moved to stop the cannonball.

Fire on Fire.

Her radiant blaze clashed with the demonic violet, and it was found wanting.

For the first time in her life, Erika felt pain by heat.

Searing through her skin, burning away at her flesh and bone, as the cannonball went right through her.

Erika screamed at the agony, as the violet light pushed past her, and a resounding crash filled her ears from behind her then.

The same sound of flesh and bone breaking beneath the barrage she heard all across the ship.

Dizzy, her vision shaking and her body crumbling in pain, she glanced to her side to see that her entire left arm had been burned right off, down to almost her shoulder.

Eyes wide, she turned, hopeful...

But the sight was like nothing she had ever seen.

Just like her arm, the sphere had gone right through.

A hole twice the size of the sphere itself lay within Drun, the entirety of his right torso and part of his neck gone as his arm lay somewhere on the floor...

She watched, as the light in his eyes simply...went out.

As his body fell back, pulled by the force of the cannonabll still he hit the wall before crashing down to the floor with a squelch of blood.

Seeing this too, Teijil gasped and screamed at the top of her lungs. Both of them and Dust who was nearby rushed to his side, but there was nothing to be done.

Teijil felt it, or did not, no pulse, no intake of air...No movement at all. Within that brief moment, her cousin, was gone.

"Shit...no..." Dust, eyes wide, clawed at the floor as he stared down at his fallen comrade. "He was just...no he cant..."

Teijil was wordless, she simply gazed down at the hole in his chest, holding her mouth with both hands as tears began to stream down them. Her bow dropped and forgotten by her side.

Erika felt the world tilt, the pain catching up to her through the adrenaline. Just like Drun's body, the cannonball was hot enough to immediately cauterize her stump but, the mere feeling of burning still shaked her conciousness. Stumbling a step back, the war relit within her.

As one side burned, rage filling her.

And the other, shuddered, growing cold with hate.

Once more, her eyes took two seperate colourations, a blazing gold and a surging blue.

But this time she could feel something else, a third power keeping both from overtaking the other.

The fox was keeping her from losing control, but that didn't stop her from losing herself to anger.

Unable to watch Drun anymore, the mere sight was enough to fuel her to push through the pain.

Clutching her stump, she gritted her teeth and rushed up the stairs to the main deck.

Fang tried to get her attention, but she went right past him.

Celest and Zen tried after as well, but they too were ignored, Celest then being called over by Dust.

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Gray though, he saw her eyes, and understood he shouldn't get in her way.

As she went to the edge of the deck, her burning eyes focused on the last enemy vessel.

"Wytar!" She called out in draconic, and the large Draem resurfaced, coming to her vessel's side.

Erika leapt off the ship's side, clutching her stump still, she landed with a crash onto the Draem's saddle.

Focusing within herself, she pulled the clashing energies out, willing them away from the fox's barrier that kept them from each other, willing them instead outward.

Half her body then lit up like a bonfire, golden flames rushing up from her feet and over her head. The other half, similarly surged with sapphire energy, blue lightning coursing from her feet and up into the air above where it dissipated.

"Where to, sister." Wytar asked, sensing her rage.

"To my foe." Erika hissed back.

The rest, some calling out to her, watched as Wytar rushed her to the enemy vessel, alit like a bomb of flame and lightning. But none of their words were getting to her.

"Did ssshe lossse it again?" He grumbled.

"I don't know, but we can't let her go alone!" Zen snapped, leaping off the edge himself and beginning to swim after her.

"He is right..." Gray mused, pondering if to follow or to join Dust, Teijil and Celest below.

Momentarily they watched the two, when suddenly, a sound reached his sensitive ears.

Perking up, his gaze shifted to the horizon.

"What?" Fang asked, noticing the movement.

"Is...that." Gray pointed, and Fang's eyes followed.

As covering part of the horizon, was a small landmass.

"An island?" Gray mused, "No...no it's!"

"Approaching, ssshit." Fang swore, stepping away from the ship's edge, as did every single other pirate too as they also noticed.

"How? What the fuck is that!?" grumbled a Mer.

"It'sss done now." Fang said, "Drop all weaponsss!" He shouted out, and all of the pirates did so leaving the rest confused.

Gray turned to him, "What, is going on?"

"It isss Deijolv." Fang said, and at the name, the Mer also dropped their weapons if paling a bit also.

"What, the fuck, is a Deijolv?" Gray asked, severely disturbed by everyone's reactions.

"The ruler of these waters." Said a Mer.

"We're done here, thisss fight, it isss over." Fang sighed, crossing his arms as he gritted his teeth.

"What?" Gray still confused, turned to glance between the fast approaching island and Erika. "Someone should tell her that!"

"The big guy will know," Fang replied, "Everyone from these waters knows...You'll see for yourself."

Swallowing hard, Gray gazed off to Erika, as Zen quickly caught up with her and Wytar.

Halfway to the enemy vessel as it had now turned to approach again.

Zen willed the waters to push him up, landing beside her over the Draem's back, causing the beast to give him a ferocious growl.

"No, Wytar, he is friend." Erika told the Draem, and Wytar refocused on swimming forth.

"I must do this, I cannot...I must avenge him." Erika said, barely looking back at Zen who was out of breath from catching up to the fast Draem.

"You do not understand, we must stop, he is coming." Zen explained, going to grasp her shoulder only to suddenly pull away as the heat singed his palm. Then, he saw her arm missing.

"Stop? Who is coming?" But this wasn't the time for that, as she asked back, Zen pulled his thoughts away from her stump.

"The apex of our lands, and a creature that lays its will on every drop of water here. This fight, I cannot fanthom that it was sanctioned by him...He's coming, to lay down the law." Zen explained, "We must stop now, or die."

Erika turned to meet his gaze now, prepared to snap back, but then she saw the fear in his eyes.

Zen turned to look at the horizon, and Erika did the same, seeing the approaching mass of earth which...slowly sunk down beneath the waves.

"Sister! Something...It comes!" Alarmed as well, Wytar called out as he began swimming faster.

"Stop...Stop!" Erika called out, and Wytar did so, gliding through the water several more feet before coming to a floating stop.

Each glanced around at the water, still if for a small amount of waves made by the approaching enemy vessel.

The air, quiet if not for a cold breeze here and there...

All was silent, till the sea around them began to rise enmasse.

From below, a large shadow came, darkening the water all around them.

Then, it broke through the surface.

A humongous snout of rocky scales, the head larger than any ship they had by at least five times.

Then, follow the massive flippers, the length of at least ten vessels.

And lastly, came an island of a shell, surfacing out like a volcanic eruption.

Erika gazed at the rising beast, all her anger, all her hate, drowned away by the sight.

She fell to her knees, as did Zen, grasping tightly to Wytar as they were pushed far away by the ascending waves.

Pushing the two vessels aside, the great monstrosity crashed back down after ascending, parting them even further.

Before them, it was like a mountain had just risen out of the sea, as the creature's gigantic slitted eyes gazed down at both ships.

It huffed, a torrent of flame leaving its rocky nostrils, as it then opened its mouth.

"Beg, squirm, run. I care not. You dirty my home, so now, you pay the price." Deijolv's voice echoed out through the shoreline, sending swats of birds fleeing all across it.

Before them like an enraged diety, the Dragon Turtle lay.

Erika stared in disbelief, losing all her will to fight, she could only let the tears she had been holding back begin to fall.

A thought entered her mind then, her Draem friend asking what was wrong.

"I was reminded...Wytar...I was reminded what it means to be afraid."

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Elsewhere In Hell...

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A forest of emerald flora lay surrounded by a cove of hills and mountains, and at the very center, a field of budding giant crimson flowers lay surrounded by pale-white trees whose roots all grew out of the earth and flowed to the flowers, forming at their stems.

There, the largest of the flowers began to open, as violet pus and pale white fumes oozed out from the peeling petals.

As the last petals fell open, a lanky pale figure pulled themselves out, covered in violet muck.

Yoz breathed out a gasp, rising to his feet shakily, he gazed up and then carefully breathing in hell's fumes. "They think this is over, but no one escapes the coalition...My lord, I shall return there...I shall bring you your prize." The creature beckoned at the cavernous cieling, cackling evilly as he did.

When, a cough came from his right, breaking him out of his moment.

Yoz turned suddenly, confused and immediately on guard, coming to face a figure in the shadows beneath the treeline.

"Wh-Who!? No-No one can find this place! T-The charms and...the illusions! T-Then the...The..." His panic paused, as he glanced about more carefully, seeing the piles over piles of dead demonic corpses, each singed to a crisp.

Then, the sound of wind parting refocused his gaze back to the figure, as their wings now lay wide open.

A single step forward the figure took, and hellish light uncovered their form.

Erik stood before Yoz, flame and lightning curling about his body like clothing.

The demon's eyes met his briefly, seeing the golden slits of flame staring right back.

"Who..." Yoz began to ask, his voice shuddering.

Then Erik raised one hand suddenly, making Yoz drop in fear, the demon slowly raising his gaze back to see Erik having only raised one finger.

"One." Erik said, "You will tell me where your lord is."

Then, a second finger rose, and Erik took a step closer.

"Two." Erik hissed, "How does one get there from here."

Closer and closer he got, as Yoz crawled back with each step till his back hit the flower's stem he had just came out of.

A third finger rose now.

"Three." Erik's voice crackled with energy, as a devastating pressure befell the demon, forcing him down further, his face now eating the crimson dirt.

Erik crouched down, grabbing the demon's face and forcing it to stare right at him.

"If you find your, and your entire species's fragile immortality, precious. You will answer all, and most importantly, this next question."

As he spoke, the mountain behind him shifted, part of it breaking open to reveal an absolutely titanic eyeball, gazing down right at them.

Erik refocused Yoz's gaze from it and back to him, clenching his chin tightly. Almost bursting his head with the power behind the hold.

His eyes, crackling with golden energy, were almost searing Yoz's eyes with the heat.

"Where,

is,

my,

daughter."

Yoz could hold nothing back, the demon knew now what was before him.

Fear, fear itself had paid him a visit.