"Fear not!" Johnny leaped between the group and the centipede's leader, breath stinking of #######, chest bare. He began swaying his hips and beckoning towards the beast.

"Face me, if you dare."

---

[Sorry I've been absent. Oh, and thanks for not going too far. I was worried heh..]

Kairi ran back to the ship and set Maia under some of the boards so she would be safe from harm. Taking one last glance over her shoulder, Kairi took her position again and fired, she had lots of ammo but this ammo was weaker. It took about 15 bullets, plus the fact it was a slow shooting gun.

Then, as her eyes strayed to the leader, she spotted a man, bare chested and speaking to the beast infront of them.

At the same moment, she realized it was Johnny.

"JOHNNY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED!" Kairi cried over the sounds of battle, and since her voice was quite weak, she only hoped he would hear. Not that she particularly liked Johnny, but what ashame it would be to lose a crew member, especially human one on a boat full of strange creatures, against some freak of nature commanding giant bugs.

How many more disasters will they even get.

[Deciding not to post for Ash, since I have no ideas and my space bar is really getting on my nerves, it's difficult to type.]

---

((Do not worry, Kayy Z, I had refrained from posting yesterday specifically for you, though today I would have been forced, for the other players, to proceed either way.))

Johnny's foolhardy action went... completely ignored, the facette-eyes of the cowled figure, like before, did not leave the writhing pile of centipedes underneath which Helbrecht was buried.

In fact, the figure stood completely still, just staring, silently.

That was, until suddenly the centipedes on one side were thrown back, the bloodied form of Helbrecht emerging in an outburst of chitin and insectoid guts, roaring at a volume that had the pirates in his immediate vicinity attempt to cover their ears, the red of his visor glowing a defiant shade of red.

The captain of the Devil's Secret was obviousely wounded, countless gashes ran over his armor, sections of the metal torn of to reveal grotesequely-muscled pallid-white flesh, adding to the already sustained injuries, blood flowing down his form, his gait obviousely wavering, his arms visibly tired as he lashed out against the remaining ten centipedes which focused on him...

That changed, when his sweeping gaze set itself onto the leader, which he had just noticed now.

"SLAANESHI WORSHIPPER!" the massive knight shouted, before entirely ignoring his previous attackers in favor of charging at her, damaged axe raised, uncaring for the beasts that were hot on his heels.

---

"Shhhh" Johnny moved forward with the grace a man that inebriated shouldn't possess, leaning the creature down and putting his face close.

"There's no need to be shy" he stroked its cheek.

---

[Thank you.]

Kairi, suprised, whipped around to see the captain, bloody and wounded, rising from a pile of bugs. That's not good...

Uneasily, she tore her gaze away from the injured captain, to rest on Johnny, stroking the face of the creature leading the insects. Have I gone mad!? She thought loudly, eye twitching.

It was either that or Johnny was #####. Again.

Annoyed, she moved in and ran after the captain, getting behind him so the insects were facing her. Wielding her sword, Kairi brought it down onto the head of one, harshly cutting it's face in half. 9 to go.

---

((Well, Shade, for the record, it is not my fault that you have your character committ a suicidical action like that, it was hard for me not to have you killed.))

The leader... slithered out of Johnny's hazed grip, literally so, as a segmented body writhed underneath her cloth, climbing over his back impossibly fast, before she used the surprise generated to quickly wrench the pirate's arm over his back with surprising strength.

The pirate would of course try to grapple her, to which she only responded by tearing the arm upwards, the sickening sound of snapping bone ensuing as Johnny's arm was broken, before she kicked him towards the roaring bulldozer-like figure that was Helbrecht.

Helbrecht of course could not have cared less for the man that impacted with him head-on, not even reducing his charge's speed for the second it took for the pirate to bounce off his bloodstained form, thrown aside onto the sandy beach like a ragdoll.

Finally, Helbrecht reached the leader, who was still simply silently standing there, before the raging berserker swung his weapon with all his might, aiming to cut the figure in two.

With a snapping sound, the leader bent what would have been seen as the torso on a normal human to the side in a perfect 90° angle, the axe missing her by but a hair's width.

"You khornate fools."  an ugly sound was emitted from beneath the cloth of the figure, like metal scratching upon metal "Only head-on charges, your deaths imminent and set into the future, without regards for survival, nor evolution."

Even while the knight was still recovering from his missed attack, the leader, literally tearing a wicked, curved blade out of her own flesh, still in her bent position, struck her weapon directly into ########### sword arm, adding another gash to the already sustained injuries, faster than a normal human eye could have perceived.

With a roar, the knight, ignoring his injury just like the others, again struck, only for the leader again to dodge with her impossible speed, before she countered by slicing her blade across the dark knight's chest, tearing through the armor with ease.

By now, the centipedes had caught up with him, one of them slamming its mandibles onto his already-wounded left shoulder, while another tore into his upper back, forcing the knight almost to his knees.

---

Kairi looked back, away from Johnny, and her eyes widened at what she saw.

"Captain!" She gasped. This was bad. Very bad. She only took a moment to run inbetween him and the centipedes, pushing most of them back with all her might. They tore her clothing and eagerly tried to reach the captain.

Kairi winced, her skin penetrated by the snapping jaws of centipedes.

She grabbed a centipede and pulled it back from him, clenching her teeth from the pain.

"KATERINA!" Called Kairi, "BACKUP!"

With that, the young human kicked one back and pulled out her sword, clutching her wounded arm, blood of insect and human covering her. She looked like a mess. Kairi distracted the centipedes and, for the moment, they forgot about the captain as they tore at her viciously, and Kairi blocked, dodged and swung. Now there were only 8, and it was taking awhile. God spare us...

[Okay found a use for Ash.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ash watched, dumbfounded for a second. The day had started to end, the sun was going down, and it was safe for him to go out. For awhile, atleast.

"OVER HERE YA FREAK!" Ash called out to the leader, who continued to only go for the tall man.

Figuring he had to distract it, he ran behind the creature and hit it, barely damaging the thing, but it must be getting annoyed.

---

Katerina was watching the events unfold before her in her peripheral vision, odd things were happening, but there was no time to think about them now, she took another swipe at a centipede.

The axe reflected off it's armoured chitin so she deftly raised her tail and brought it down heavily, crushing the creatures back.

She looked upwards, the battle was very stacked against them...

She rushed forwards towards a centipede, her bulk knocking it up against a rock where she collided with it. Katerina swung an axe up into the creature, landing a hard blow against it's carapace.

---

((Sorry that I could not post yesterday, I felt quite bad, now let me make amends...))

Helbrecht was barely conscious, so much blood was flowing from his wounds that one would ask oneself how this massive knight managed to remain standing, but to him all that could matter now was the next swing of his weapon.

"Weak, flawed by birth." with a grace of perfect efficiency, not too little, not too much energy used, the leader evaded his attack, again slicing her blade in retaliation over the knight's torn leg "All you can do, kill and be killed, nothing more, nothing less!"

Another strike, led with deadly speed and impossible sharpness, cut the axe-head from the shaft, leaving the knight without a weapon even as he still pulled back his arms to attack again.


Another slice of the leader, combined with the sheer amount of blood lost and the other already-sustained wounds, finally forced the dark knight to his knees, the now-useless axe-shaft discarded in the crimson-drenched sand.


"Indeed, so weak you are, that your ultimate aim, that to be the strongest, must be your greatest nightmare!" The leader just kept slicing over the knight's torn chest, calling forth another lance of blood to mix with the lifefluid-soaked ground.

Only for a moment did she hold still, her facetted eyes gazing the medallion etched into the knight's breastplate, the trinket somehow unweathered from the battle, undirtied, undamaged. With disgust she noted the obvious flaws in the design, every single little imperfection, an insult to craftsmanship, an affront before her own, perfect form, just like the knight himself!

With contemptuous ease, she cut the chain holding the medallion in place, causing the trinket to fall into the blood-soaked dirt "Why would you bear something like this, all peace, all serenity you discarded as rightfully petty things in service for your weakling-god!"

With the victor's arrogance, she raised her blade for the final strike, seeking to decapitate the knight.


Then the strike of the vampire came. For the first time, the leader seemed surprised , but yet, mid-movement, managed to bend her torso directly around the incoming sword.

However, the vampire's own supernatural speed would still allow him to clearly notice one thing: The leader relied purely on speed, her own flesh was vulnerable to any sort of physical attack.

With contempt in her insectoid eyes, the leader, deeming the knight to be as good as dead, shifted her entire focus now onto the vampire "Another flawed lifeform... I wonder, if I stepped just a bit to the side, into the sunlight, would you still be able to do more than spit insults at me?"

---

Johnny slowly sat up.

"Don't mind me" he grunted. "I'm just gonna... go into shock or something."

---