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A well-dressed meerkat sailed through the air until a concrete wall ceased her brief flight. "Ah!"

"Now I'm fucking pissed." Vorak stomped over to Cid, not showing signs of pain or fatigue but bleeding all the same. "You tried to blow me up? What the fuck makes a crazy ass like you think of that shit?"

"You have scales for one..." That was partially true, the fluff drake now less his entire pelt of fur and holding onto barely half of his scales intact. "You're also like ~three times my weight~."

Vorak spotted Cid reaching for her pistol and pinned the whole arm down with his charred boot. "Then I'll just have to make sure I kill you three times slower, won't I?"

"Just try it, fucker." Cid's free paw went for a boot knife strapped to her ankle, unsheathing it and stabbing into Vorak's calf without remorse. "Now get the fuck off me!"

Vorak just looked down at the knife in his leg and snorted through his snout. "Really? A fucking knife?" He yanked the blade free and flipped it on it's owner, stabbing the meerkat in the shoulder. "Bet that hurt. How about another?"

"Grah! F-Fuck y-y-you..."

"Yeah, ~fuck~ you." Suddenly Ademeus lunged from around a corner and put a haymaker into Vorak's jaw, staggering the drake's balance if nothing else. "Cid, you alright?"

"I'll l-live..."

"Kid! Little help!"

Carmine sneaked in behind Adem and grabbed onto Cid's jacket, pulling her away with all his might. "I'll get him out of here. Are you sure you're--?"

"Nope, but I'll try to handle him. Let Lilly know he's this way."

Vorak wiped some blood from his mouth and stood with a forward hunch, ready to attack. "Damn, I get to kill the lot of you today, don't I?"

"You can give it a try, big boy, but I don't think you'll get very far." Adem preemptively lunged forward and tried to disarm the fluff drake, but only earned himself a trained stab to the side. "Ah, fuck!"

Do you want it slow or fast, kitten?" Vorak eyed Adem as he tried to pull out his pistol from its holster and slashed the knife into his firing arm. "Fast it is. Shame."

Out of the dark of the hallway a flash of light barely prefaced the sound of a bullet firing from Lilly's rifle. "Vorak! Get away from him, brother! I won't warn you twice!"

Vorak scoffed at the firepower aimed at him and backed away a pair of steps. "Hello, sister."

"Vorak... You need to stop this bullshit. You can still turn back if you stop now."

"As if I'd want to." The drake played with his new knife, twirling it around his paw once he found the center of balance. "The Major doesn't favor us anymore, Lilly. I can't be a soldier with no purpose, and you know that. And I know you can't pull that trigger because you need me as well."

"I... think I finally have come to terms with that." She raised the rifle's sights up to her eyeline and slowly walked forward. "I'm bound to help you for the rest of my life, but sometimes... helping you means putting you out of your misery. So if you really feel like you can't go on under Carbon's lead, I'll help end your torment."

"Shit, sis..." Vorak shook his head and paced towards Lilith, his genetic conditioning forcing him to continue his mission. "You won't do it. Now get out my way or I'll kill this idiot."

A slug of tungsten and steel loudly ripped through Vorak's arm, taking a large piece of flesh with it. "I said surrender, Vorak! We can still be happy together!"

"You..." The fluff drake checked his wound and then stared at his sister, dumbfounded. "You actually shot me..."

"And the next goes through your head. Don't make me do it, please."

"Lilly..." Vorak fell to his knees, partially because his grievous wounds were catching up with him but mostly due to his mind finally giving up the fight. "What the fuck have I done to you? Shit..."

"Brother..." Lilly dropped her weapon on the floor, absolutely sure the threat was long gone. "Come on. Let's go get you patched up, then we can work on getting you off Carbon's death list."

"No."

"What?"

Vorak groaned as he raised himself to his hindpaws with a some difficulty. "I can't go back; it's too late for that." He walked over to his sister and practically fell onto her shoulders in a hug. "But I can make things right. Get me to the central elevators."

"What are you thinking!? You're bleeding to death!" Vorak let go and continued down the hall anyway, stumbling along until Lilly ran to support him. "Fuck, you're crazy. You do know that, right?"

"Nah, for the first time in a long while I'm feeling pretty sane."

"Adem, come help."

"S-Sure... I'll try..."

Vorak slowly made his way to the main shaft with the help of the two, then pointed down an adjacent hallway. "I sent them around Cid's trap. We'll stop them, I'm sure, but..." Vorak coughed up some blood, the internal wounds from the explosion showing themselves at last. "Fuck... Just don't touch the crate. It's an armed bomb."

"A fucking ~what~?"

Lilly gave her brother to the liger alone and went to grab her rifle again. "You heard him. So can we disarm it or what?"

"No. I've never seen the tech in the fuse before."

"Hmm... Well then what the fuck are we--?"

Vorak groaned as he was sat down against the lift's safety cage doors. "The only way to save this facility now is to get it away. We'll fly it out, then dump it in the ocean... and you'll need me because I know how to handle the damn thing."

"Oh, I get it. We'll take the elevator to the landing deck." Lilly raised her rifle and started firing as the armored furs finally rounded the last corner on their convoluted path. "That might work. Glad to have you on the right team again, brother."

"Sure..." Vorak pulled a paw from a gaping hole in his side, then covered it again. "Glad to be with you too, sis."

"Spanner!"

Ilaria found an adjustable wrench she was just using and readied it for a throw over to her wife. "Coming high, so heads up!"

Robyn barely snagged the tool as it flew overhead. "Thanks, love. Now--ah, bugger--get up to the linkage, Ottah."

Ilaria found the mentioned gearing linkage on an overhead maintenance shelf and sprinted over to it. "Got it. You alright there, Pillow?" She clambered up the side of a turbine and kicked up so she dangled from the bottom of the shelf. "Sounds like you're having trouble."

"Just the kids, love." Robby paused to groan her way through some more activity in the twins, but soon went back to sealing a critical valve. "We're about done here so focus on the work, yeah?"

Ari shot her wife a concerned look before pulling herself up next to the linkage. "Anything different than normal? Maybe the pups want some more of mommy?"

"Uh, no... Ah..."

The otter jerked on the connection for the linkage and slipped it into place, then secured it with a heavy lynch pin. "Well I'm done here, Pillow. That's it for the second exhaust system, right? Pillow?" Ari slipped off the shelf and onto her hindpaws, but didn't see her wife. "Robyn?"

"Il--Oh!"

Ari ran over to her wife's last known location and found her hunched over herself, a pool of liquid between her legs. "Are you...?" The otter closed the gap and held her trembling wife by the shoulders. "Crap, your water broke? Not the best timing, kids!"

Oddly Robyn didn't stop working even though she'd just had a rather strong contraction. "Ah... Radio..."

"Oh, right!" Ari pulled up a radio clipped to her hip and turned its volume up. "Uh... Ellie! Ellie, Robyn's water just broke!"

After a moment the radio snapped back a fuzzy, "I hoped this stress wouldn't be too much for her. Well fuck. We can't deliver the kids until we have a safe spot to do it."

"But they're coming now, so how can we--?"

"She'll take hours to get to the point of birthing, hon. Plus I can hit her up with some meds to slow the process, yes yes."

"You hear that, Pillow? We'll get you there soon. Just hold on." Ari checked the work her wife had just completed and hit the radio again. "Ashe, we should be good to go now. You've got working ballast tanks, so fill them with sea water or something."

"Uh... I think I can do that."

A slightly more masculine version of the same voice added, "There's a direct pipeline going through to the desalination plant."

"You..." Ari took a moment to register exactly with whom she was talking. "Doctor Holmwilt, where are you? Maybe you can help our Ashe with the details."

"Oh, I've already reconfigured the feeds. Just use the clean water intakes on the docking connector, wherever that is."

Ilaria remembered a connection linking into the ship near the airlock. "Ashe? You need a paw with that? It's outside if it's not set up."

"No, I think it's working." There was a pause, and then a valve opened and a rushing liquid sound filled the room. "There. Did that do anything?"

"Sure did!" Ari helped up her wife, then picked her up to carry her into the hallway. "Ellie, I'll hit the recreation room on my way up."

"I'll meet you there."

"Oh, sis? Carbon's asking for another update."

Ari groaned as her leg fought to hold the additional weight of a very-pregnant squirrel. "Tell him we're taking off once the tanks are full. Explosive is loaded, too. Oh, where's the charge for the rail cannon?"

"It's... about full, I think. Roughly eighty percent, if you'll pardon my math?"

Ari grunted as she shifted her wife and slipped into the rec room. "Good. That's more than enough for the range we're firing." She gently slid Robyn out of her arms and long-wise onto a large couch. "Sorry to leave you alone, Pillow, but--"

"You've got a world to save." Robby shifted a bit until she was comfortable and pulled her wife's paws in for a kiss. "Make it safe for our children, Ottah. I'll be fine."

"You got it." A thought occurred suddenly as Ari reflected on the location of the ship relevant to the rest of the battle, and then she clicked her radio onto another frequency. "Carbon? We need someone to open the dry dock's doors or this plan won't go very far."

"Bit busy here!" A few loud cracks exploded from the speaker as the Major obviously fired off a few rounds. "Get your shit fired up and I'll get something going. Trust me."

Ari checked outside a porthole window and frowned at the thick bulkheads and doors in their way. "Oh, I trust you. I just don't trust physics right now."

Carbon raised her shotgun and spewed a few pulses of flying death towards two nearby invaders, then ducked back behind a supply crate and the little protection it granted. "I'm pinned down pretty good here. Yoyo, little help? We need to clear a path to your sister."

The otter grumbled over the radio as he let off a round into a flanker's forehead. "You'd be dead if not for me. Can't we get the others to help?"

"Not getting a response. Maybe some kind of jamming?"

"I'll do it." Adrian poked out from inside a cargo container, Ilaria's modified MP7 in his paws. "I'm not much good here so..."

"Great!" Carbon threw out a paw towards a nearby surface hatch. "Take that down two and follow the red pipe. Ari needs you to disconnect it from the ship and open the doors. Got it?"

"Yeah, undo some pipes. Got it." Adrian waited for a break in the surrounding weapons fire and bolted for the hatch, barely lifting it as a blast of energy slammed against the metal door. "Oh, fuck!" Dee slipped down the ladder beneath and slid two floors lower as instructed, but that's as far as he could manage when the details didn't match up. "Uh, Major? There's no red pipe. I see a yellow one and an orange striped one going different ways."

"There's no red one? See, Eve? I told you we're colorblind." Carbon groaned as she clutched her radio. "What're the diameters?"

"Uh... about a foot on one and eight inches or so on the other."

"The smaller one. That's fuel, so follow it."

Dee jogged down the cramped access hallway and followed the smaller, striped pipe until he hit the hanger. He found the connection of about a dozen pipes and hoses, then started closing and unscrewing them one at a time. However soon he had to scramble as it was clear he wasn't alone, boots clacking on the sealed concrete in various corners of the dark space. When the last connection was severed, the otter stood right against the ship to mask his profile and pulled out his radio.

"Ari, you there?" Dee gave it a second before changing the radio frequency and trying again, softer this time as the surrounding noises grew louder. "Ari, you on this channel?"

"Oh, Ellie?" Ashe paused a moment and then came back less confused. "Oh, Dee. You sound alike. Sis is on a different channel but she's standing next to me. What's going on?"

"I got you disconnected from the terminal and I'm just outside. What do I do now?"

A brief silence drove Dee nuts as the invaders grew ever louder, but finally Ilaria answered. "There's a control panel close by that handles the bay doors. It's as easy as holding the open button."

"Got it." Dee checked and sure enough found a large swatch of industrial red and blue control buttons. He picked out the one that said [Dock Mn - Opn] and held his paw down on it. "Alright, it's going. We're not alone in here though, so hurry up."

"Already ahead of you."

The main engines, two large wing-shaped vents on omnidirectional pivots, fired into life while folded downward. This was great news for the ship and it's skeleton crew as they took flight; it was not, however, advantageous to the lone dock worker. The noise and heat attracted the invaders like flies to a fire, and Dee was smack-dab in the middle.

Adrian hid behind his control panel, paw still depressing the door button over the top lip as the attackers opened fire. "Any time now!"

The thrust increased greatly and the ship rose a fair ten feet higher, then it angled it's vectored thrusters and slowly went for the gap in the dock doors. "I think we're good. We can squeeze through that if we take it easy."

"Thank the gods." Dee withdrew his paw, then his whole self once he found a stronger piece of cover. However it was during his relocation that he realized it wasn't himself the invaders were attacking. "Shit. Ari, you've got guys behind you with guns."

"Not for long." The engines roared up as the ship found its necessary orientation, sending the vessel forward and out over the sea. Then it fell into the sea. "Uh... oops."

"What the hell was that?"

"Forgot you need more thrust over soft surfaces like water. We're air tight though so no biggie." The engines re-vectored more vertically and raised their output, bringing the ship out of the water slowly. "Just need to get the cannon clear and--"

An odd, blue explosion hit the side of the spaceship, but it wasn't a propelled charge. Dee slipped closer to the doors and checked the ship's hull, finding several of the attackers had hurtled onto the outer hull and were holding grenades. "Wait! You've got some on the outside, Ari! ...Ari?"

Adrian tried his radio a few more times but the signal was breaking up all of a sudden. He assumed it was something the attackers were doing, but whatever the case he didn't have time to dwell on it. He picked up his machine gun and jogged over to the lip of the dock, peering down at the ship that was now practically crawling with bad guys.

"Well fuck me." Adrian jumped down before the gap became too wide, slipping and nearly plummeting another two stories into the sea below. "Woah! Those guys must have cleats or something. The hell...?"

«Dee?» Ilaria fired off a wireless link between the two, the signal getting though near-perfectly in this manner. «Please tell me you hear this. It's hard enough piloting this let alone thinking like this.»

«I hear you. Hey, you've got intruders on your hull.» Dee raised his gun and fired off a quick volley, clipping one of the Sect's attackers and forcing him to slip off the side. «Make that one less. Four more now.»

«Shit, really?» The ship banked slowly and steadied itself out in a new heading. «I have that big freighter in my scope... I need to shoot it down, Dee. Hold off those guys.»

«I'll try my best.»

Adrian brought his weapon back up to his eye and skewed the sights over to another pair of enemies who were trying to reach an engine port. He pulled the trigger to shoot them both, but his bullets flew skyward as the whole ship slid sideways with a twist of the engines. By the time Dee regained control of his MP7 the two targets had scattered, one flying off the tail of the ship due to the new path of the engine exhaust while the other clung to a piece of paneling for dear life. Dee snapped to the survivor and let loose a pawful of bullets that more than encouraged the invader to release his grip.

«Two more, you crazy ~bitch~. Try not to throw me overboard as well.» Dee tried to target the remaining two attackers, but they deftly hid behind one of the tail engine pods. <Okay, scratch that. Hard to starboard.»

«But I have a lock...» The ship angled its nose upward just a bit, only for a massive concussion blast from the underslung cannon to torque the front nearly into the water. «Ouch! They didn't fucking think about that when they built her, did they?»

«Fuck, I'm glad I'm in the middle now.»

Off in the distance a small spec of a ship exploded with dust and debris from a hard impact, then a secondary explosion from the slug's payload added some delightful fire to the mix. «Woo, yeah! Solid hit!»

Dee stared for a moment as the freighter hit the water and skipped across the surface a dozen times. «Oh, I guess that's why Carbon said to shoot it down far away.» The otter suddenly remembered he wasn't alone on the ship's hull and turned to find the pair of stragglers, only to realize one had been knocked off the tail by the cannon shot. The other was staring in disbelief at the wreckage of his own team's efforts. «Uh... you still have one on the tail. I'll get him.»

«Nah, I think I can get him. Hold on to something.» Dee did as instructed just in time as the whole ship started yawing into a spin. «That do it?»

The remaining enemy combatant indeed slipped off the hull and hit the water in a painful belly flop. «Looks like it. Job well done, I guess?»

«You bet. Now I think I'll need your help landing this thing. We need to get Robyn to the infirmary.»

«Wait, why? She's not...?»

«Lulu? I pick that up correctly» Iolvin let it be known he was spying on the two, but with good cause. «I've cleared my end of the deck. I'll make sure it's a clean path to the--»

Catching everyone off guard, one of the panels behind the top-side engines exploded. «Dee!? What was that!?»

«A fucking explosion! What do ~you~ think?» The whole ship started into another tailspin, this time not intentional, as the contents of the port-side ballast tanks leaked back into the ocean and deprived the engines of thrusting material. «Shit! We're going down, aren't we!?»

«Hold onto your butts!» The spaceship once again mingled with the ocean, this time on worse terms. Once the ship had more or less settled Ari emitted, «Everyone okay?»

«Ugh... yeah.» Dee rose to his shaky legs and scrambled towards the center spine of the ship, just in case they were taking on water. «What's going on in there? You guys fine or should I come to help?»

«Looks like we're still sealed up. I'll get Robyn out through the top hatch for now.»

«Good idea. If she's delivering, she can't do it in there.» Dee looked around for the mentioned hatch, but found nothing but a smooth surface. «Where's the hatch?»

«I think... this opens it?» A dull clack sounded beneath Dee's hindpaws as the paneling unclasped from the hull, then he was forced to move as the upper spine revealed itself to be a blast cover for a clear roof! «Well fuck me. I'd never have thought there was an observation deck.»

«It sort of is and isn't one, though. I'm almost there; one sec.» Ilaria soon climbed out of a central shaft inside the vessel and looked up at Dee. She found her way to the ceiling and pulled on a hatch made entirely out of clear aluminum, a hole opening in the surface. "Okay, that was weird. I'll need a paw with Robyn."

"Sure. No elevator power or something?"

Ari pointed down from her vantage at the squirrel as she rode up a small wall-mounted lift. "No, she's here. The real issue is that the room's ~upside down~."

Dee checked the rest of the observation deck, and Ari was absolutely correct. Equipment and furniture was bolted to the ceiling, with lighting mounted on the floor. "What the hell?"

"I think the ship is supposed to spin for gravity. This deck flips because of the inverse pull when you do that." Ari generated a long pair of tendrils from her nanites and let them hang inside. "Go down and hook her to these. I'll pull everyone out."

"So we can do what, exactly? She needs a proper hospital or--"

A smaller explosion erupted near the previous one, soon to be followed by scattered secondaries. "Shit, that wasn't intentional. The fucker's grenades were caught in the engines or something." Ari looked over to find Dee clamping down a paw over his right eye, blood liberally coating his face. "It's not safe out here! Let's hole up in this... lab, or whatever it is, and do our best with that eye!" She looked up to the edge of the tower's main platform and beamed out an echo of her frustrations. «I hope you and Carbon can hurry up, lil' bro! Dee's hurt and we're dead in the water without you!»

Lilith fell to a knee just ahead of the bomb crate as red started leaking from her leg. "Fuck. Just what I needed."

"Suck it up, sis." Vorak groaned as he carefully lifted the case and moved it out of the elevator car. "You're still good to fight, so keep them off me."

"Well ~some of us~ didn't have our pain receptors neutralized." Lilly hissed as she stood, then casually fired a triplet of bullets into her assaulter's face. She caught up with her crazy ass of a brother, noting the bodies she had to step over to do so. "Carbon's been busy. Looks like things are almost wrapped up here."

"Except for the bombs." Vorak slowed to check the horizon, a grin slipping over his muzzle. "Huh. He actually shot it down."

"Shot what down?"

"Not important now. Well, it'll blow up here soon but if it's at the bottom of the ocean then who cares?" The large drake set down his cargo for a brief moment to think and to gather up his wavering strength. "What's faster in the air? Landers? Orbiter?"

"Landers, actually." Another enemy popped his helmeted head out and Lilly put two into the visor out of reflex alone. "Closest one is up the stairs to the right. Let's get this thing off the rig."

"Not until I know what you're taking from my rig." Carbon rounded from behind the elevator column with her shotgun firmly locked on Vorak's head. "What's going on here, Lilly? I thought you were smarter than him."

"I am," she smirked as she punched her brother in the shoulder, "but he's just been ~really dumb~ lately. We're trying to get this bomb off the Tower."

"So ~that's~ the other bomb. I guess you're thinking of using an aircraft?" Carbon walked over and placed a tendril on the case, the whole package lighting up a pulsing red on the edges. "Oh... Fuck, we need to get going then! We've only got about two minutes!"

"Then... fuck..."

"Yeah, that's about the gist of it." Vorak heaved and started moving the package again, picking up the pace as he rushed up the stairs. "Someone's going to have to take a hit for the team, you know."

"Maybe we can..." Lilly paused as she found the nearest lander and ran for the side hatch. "Fuck. It's my brother that did this, and I'm the only one of us that can fly..."

"Noble of you, Lilly, but that's not happening." Carbon saved a load of time by touching the external controls and hacking the rear gate open with Evelyn's help. "I'll fly it out. I'm responsible for this elevator complex and all souls aboard."

"Carbon!?" Evelyn suddenly stopped opening the gate, refusing to believe what she was hearing. "You can't do that! That's a suicide mission!"

"Eve, not now. We've lived a long life already--"

"Not one, _ two _. I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to die."

Vorak grunted in disbelief and braced himself between the gate and the frame of the ship. "That bitch of yours is gonna get us all killed." He forced the hatch open with brute force, the hydraulics now completely broken as a result. "Eh... it'll hold up. Time to go."

"Carbon, if you step on that lander you're not just killing yourself. You're murdering me." For once in her life, Evelyn started crying in fear. "I don't want to die..."

Lilith opened the side hatch and stepped inside. "I said I'll do it, so I'll do it."

Without notice, Vorak hurled his sister from the side of the lander and locked the door closed. "No you aren't, sis. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, so now you get to be their gift."

"Vorak!? But...!"

The drake reached for the rear gate and bent it shut enough that nobody else could enter. "I don't need to make a perfect landing or anything. It can't be too hard."

Carbon tried to fight back, but Evelyn's own fear was starting to paralyze her own body as well. "Lilly... maybe...?

"No! He can't die! It's my whole life just to protect him!"

Vorak fired up the engines and flipped on the external speakers. "Sis... You've helped me enough. This is my mission now, and it's the hardest yet." The lander lifted off the surface and wobbled about as the drake familiarized himself with the controls. "Thanks for everything, Lilly. I... I l-love you."

"Lulu!"

Ilaria climbed out of the upper hatch of the ship as her twin brother slid down a fast rope he'd thrown over the edge of the landing platform. "Yoyo! Gods, it's good to see you in one piece!"

"No shit. Same here, sis." Yoyo unclasped himself from the rope line and ran over to hug his sister. "So Robyn's trying to have the pups now? What's going on?"

"Ellie says she still has a few hours, maybe even the whole night." Ari looked down through the clear material that built the observation deck's floor and stared at her wife. "I'd like to get her to the infirmary sooner than later though. Is it safe now?"

Zoë slid down the line right after her patron. "More or less. There's a few stragglers we'd missed, but they know their plans are done so they're giving up the fight."

Yoyo slipped his rifle off his back and laid it down on the hull. "I shot more than I'd like to admit, too. That rifle of yours is a great performer."

"Well thanks for keeping us safe, bro. And thank you, Zoë, for keeping ~his~ ass intact." Ari gave her twin a kiss. "I love you."

"Love you too, Lulu." Yoyo presented a set of fasteners that were clipped to his belt. "So what do you say we winch everyone out of here?"

"We need to anchor the ship to the side first. Don't want our hard work drifting aw--"

A huge wave of water suddenly bubbled up from the location of the downed freighter and began moving towards the frigate. "The hell is that?"

Ari braced for impact as she answered her brother. "Fuck if I know. Was there a bomb on that thing?"

"Yeah. Carbon was mentioning that." The wave washed over the ship harshly, but thankfully the shape of the lower hull scooped and absorbed most of the impact. "He said there was another somewhere too. If that was how strong the first one was..."

"Oh, shit." Ilaria spotted a small landing craft flying away with a broken rear hatch and instinctively grabbed for her radio. "Carbon, what's on that ship!?"

"A dirty bomb. You might want to find cover, maybe get in the core of the frigate."

"No time!" Ari looked down to her wife and friends, then all around for some form of cover. "They're behind solid aluminum but we--"

"I got this." Yoyo threw up an extremely thick barrier of compressed air and pulled his sister and Zoë behind it. "This should do it."

The lander exploded with a very unimpressive blast at first, but the secondary explosion was much greater, and far from just a dirty bomb. It was atomic. "I... need to help the others!" Ilaria dropped down near the topside hatch and threw a barrier of amber nanites over to seal it.

"Lulu, wait!"

The blast wave flashed over the hull of the reinforced frigate. It tried to find any way inside possible, bowing Ilaria's barrier inward until it snapped. Then it gave up on such a hardened target and just dissolved the more simplistic matter outside. Iolvin's barrier held up perfectly to plan against the heavy blast, even if it pressed back against him from the return force. In mere seconds the hellfire cooled to normal, leaving behind the distinct smells of evaporated sea water and stressed metal... with a dash of charred flesh.

"L-Lulu...!" Iolvin dropped down and grabbed his sister's limp body. "Fuck! Why'd you have to reach for that!"

"My... wh-whelps..."

Iolvin held Ilaria up until she passed out from pain, or potentially loss of blood. Where she'd reached her arm out to emit her barrier had completely vaporized from the shoulder out, leaving the deformed otter even more so. "Lulu... Oh gods, Lulu..."

From below a solitary voice could be heard screaming in terror at her wife's fate. "Ilaria!"