Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Two

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James went into Armin's room. "Hey man, watcha working on?" he asked, seeing that Armin was sewing.

(bwhahaha ahahahah ahahahahahaha bwhahahahahah *ominious thunder*)

Ethan had his dakkon bayonet still, at least. Yay.

Although the E-Team might not actually arrive in time to help Starr.

(Oh dear, lol)

The Keeper stode into the room, raising his blade for the finishing blow on the dragons who dared to try to stop him.
How DARE they!?

Meanwhile Tala and her team would attempt to attack the slavers who were going after the children, trying to surprise them with an attack from behind.

They had helmets this time, so yay.

~~
Vestia would try lobbing another shuttle at the anti-magic generator. "We need to take this thing down, any way we can," she told the Silver Devil.

The attack from behind did indeed catch the slavers by surprise, but with their numbers they could recover fairly quickly and split effectively into two groups. One shooting forward, the other shooting behind at Tala's team.

They tried using their stun flash grenades to blind both groups to give them an advantage.

---

The magic generator's shield was definitely failing now, they could see the shimmer and ripple as the shuttles hit it.
Luka focused on it, a few more shots and the shield would fail, then it wouldn't take much to take that thing offline for good!

The dragons on the bridge looked at the keeper, scrambling to try to get back up and attack again if they could, though the one was certainly out of the fight.

Starr heard the commotion on the bridge and waited tensely behind the desk.

~~
Rigel frowned as he worked, "We are not going to be able to take much more without losing life support." He warned

Tala bellowed a warcry and blasted the slavers with bullets from her gun. The grenades, and the sheer enemy numbers, really put the odds against them, but her team had to try to help even if it killed them.

They really needed magic back right now. Without it, they were probably going to lose this fight pretty darn quickly.

Luka nodded. "Do we call this off captain?" She asked. It was his call after all. They were SO CLOSE.

---

The Keeper laughed at the Dragons, clearly they had a death wish huh? He swung at them.

Starr's guards were not going to give up until they were too hurt to fight. It was their job to protect their young queen.

~~~
The other dragons that could would keep up the fight while the injured were gathered to the cargo area on the shuttle they were using.

Vestia would concentrate her handful of remaining guns on the ship with the generator. She didn't have much firepower at this point, but it was clear that the only way to win this battle was to get the generator GONE. And extra bit of damage might help a little.

The Keeper wasn't going to give up till he had these dragons incapacticated, and without any magic at his disposal and with no goons that meant fighting them with his sword and hands.

---

The shield flickered, begining to fail as Vestia shot at it. YES!

The dragons didn't have the dagger, Starr had it, so they couldn't stop the keeper except for distracting him. They would even give their lives if they had to to try to stop him.

The Keeper was single minded, he figured the captain HAD to be here somewhere. Ahh, another door, the office? He swung his sword at one dragon, punched another and headed toward the door.

Vestia would concentrate the last of her firepower on the ship. Hopefully the Silver Devil had opted to do the same. "Come on, shields, please break," Vestia muttered.

Starr was waiting as things got quiet for a moment before the sword was used on the door. She prepared the big gun she had to use it before pulling the dagger out.

The door was cut through and kicked in as the Keeper strode confidently into the room. "Ahh, there you are. Hello again my dear." He smiled unpleasantly. "are you planning to shoot me too?" He laughed "See how well that worked out for your friends?"

---

The Devil kept firing and with their combined power the shield failed at last. Luka sent the ship closer into a sweeping firing run, shooting everything the ship had at that damn generator.

The bigger ship and several smaller fighters tried to shoot them down to stop them, but the devil was a fairly quick little ship and Luka was an excellent pilot. The generator exploded dramatically.

Vestia's crew had magic again!

---

Matt's team was being pressed back by the slavers. He himself was blinking spots out of his eyes from the flash grendades. Damn photosensitivity.

Ivor gasped as voices rushed back into his mind. VOICES!
He could hear all the slavers, every single one of them and he didn't like it one bit.

"SHUT UP!" He yelled as he held his head, it hurt.
Unfortunately he kinda screamed that telepathically as well. Oops? Thankfully it was a fairly short distance scream, directed almost entirely at the slavers. But the others on this floor would probably get it ringing through their heads too.
At least it would distract the slavers more.

Matt winced. Oww. But wait, that meant... "the generator's down!"
Fuck he had a headache though.

Once he could think straight again, he rose himself up on one crutch, grinned wickedly and raised his other hand. Oh these slavers were fucked now.

He set his attention on the still distracted and disoriented slavers to whom Ivor had directed most of his shout unconciously, focused, and began to freeze them to the floor where they stood.
Ice crept up their legs as they panicked.
They knew they were all going to die now, with their magic back, Vestia's crew were pretty terrifying.

----

Kay hesitated in his work. He could hear thoughts again and oh fuck someone just screamed. He winced, shook his head and went back to work.

---

Starr frowned at the keeper, firing the gun she had set up there before grabbing the dagger and going to stab him. She was mad and she didn't want to let him survive again.

"We have magic back!" Vestia broadcast to the crew as the generator went down. "Kick their asses, guys!"

~~
Moriah yelped at Ivor's yell. It surprised her, okay? But then she heard the news and grinned. They had magic back! Nothing could stop the crew now!

~~
Tala would let her dragons take the lead now. Magic was their specialty more than hers.

~~
Ellie smiled a little at the news. Yay, now they could win! And maybe her magic could help Hewitt's wounds, at least a little.

Ellie could totally do some plant healing magic shit, whoo go Ellie!

---

Esk nodded. "Good." They hurried to get to Starr.

----

The Slavers weren't gonna last long against the magic users and dragons, oooo noo.

---

The Keeper's smugness faded pretty quick when he recognised that dagger. He swiped at her with the sword, trying to keep some distance between them and attempting to disarm her.

Shit, he hadn't accounted for those damn daggers had he?


---

The Silver Devil was struggling now as Luka tried to get them away from the blast and out of the line of fire.

Ellie would use her powers to start sensing the extent of the damage to Hewitt. She kind of knew what to expect, since she knew what happened when a plant got such a huge electric shock, but she wanted to get as good a sense of the damage as possible.

Always best to know what you were doing before using your magic, after all.

~~
Ethan and the others headed with Esk toward Starr's location. They really weren't that close yet though, Starr was still gonna be on her own probably.

The damage was fairly extensive, the water inside him had flash boiled and the steam had escaped explosively.
He did seem to still be alive though, plants were pretty damn hardy after all and Aketi were no exception.

Ellie would start using her magic to start trying to heal the worst of the damage. The extent of Hewitt's injuries meant she probably didn't have the energy to fix most of it, but she could at least fix some of the cell damage from all that liquid boiling away, and maybe help start the healing process on the hole in his chest.

It wasn't much, but it was probably better than nothing.

Things would start to 'scab' over, which was a good sign right?

Ellie thought that seemed like an improvement, at least. She sat back to rest, she'd need to recover more strength to heal him more later.

Starr grinned a little at the news, fake dodging one way then slipping around the other to stab at the keeper.

The rest of the dragons that were not hurt or wounded too much would suddenly get a boost of energy as they turned to their magic to fight off the slavers and their ships.

Rigel felt his magic and grinned, moving so he could see the slaver ships "Get us home Luka." He said as he focused on the ship and using the steel and such to start crushing the slaver ships.

Luka nodded and started the route home, dodging and weaving between debris, dragons and ships. The ship couldn't take many more direct hits, life support would fail and they'd both die.

She tried not to think about that.

Around them Rigel's magic took effect, hulls buckling under his power. It was pretty terrifying if Luka had actually been paying attention, but she was totally focusing on getting them BACK to Vestia.

---

The slavers were definitely on the defensive now, the dragons were winning.

---

Deep within Vestia too, the tide had turned and slavers were dropping like flies at the hands of dragons, Tala's gunfire and Matt's magics.

Matt got tazed in the crossfire, which hurt like hell, but he managed to get back up angrier than ever and from a half prone position maintained the ice pinning the slavers down. Unable to run, they were easy pickings for the dragons and soldiers.

Ivor covered his ears again, folding in on himself. The Slavers were loud and frightened, their thoughts a muddled mess of noise. He hated it, he hated THEM. He wanted them all to just be silent.

And pretty soon he got his wish. They didn't survive long.

---

Meanwhile the Keeper tried to avoid Starr's attacks but she was a clever fighter. Keepers were too accustomed to being powerful, using their invincibility to decimate their enemies rather than actual tactics.
Starr had both raw power and training on her side.

"Team E" made it to the bridge just in time to witness Starr's revenge as she plunged that dagger into the Keeper's side, the blade slipping between two ribs easily.

He screamed, a combination of anguished pain and disbelieving anger. NO, this wasn't how this was supposed to happen!
but it was too late. The power of the Dakkon dagger activated as Starr stabbed at him, she was an assassin, she knew the vital parts to hit and hit them she did.
The jewel in the dagger's hilt glowed as all that energy drained into it and as the Keeper died, the gem cracked...

The glow faded and the crystal shattered, sending all the energy contained within outward in every direction.

---

Luka got the ship back to the hangar.

Tala bellowed a war cry, glad to see the tide turning. Oh yes, this was better. She shot a few more slavers, although by now the dragons were doing most of the work.

Moriah stayed near Ivor. She couldn't hear the telepathic chaos, but the screams and sounds of gunfire were plenty terrifying too. At first she was relieved as the sounds of fighting began to die down, but then she realized that meant... people were dead.
It was horrible.