The headless god stepped back from the coast and kept moving backwards while a new, smaller head began to form from a crater in her neck.
Ice slush was bead right next to her regular-sized head from which she flinched from.
"Kickbolt," Jotou landed safely onto the slush and stood tall.
Beauregard pouted like a child about to be scolded. "Go ho Beauregard."
"How dare you! How dare you command a God! Do you think I take orders from you!" she shouted out and several tendrils of her sli shot up to thud into her or grapple her.
Jotou simply charged through the tendrils and appeared on the other side where Frost froze over a new platform for the blonde to stand on, while Frost herself descended slowly from atop the sli-girl’s new head.
"You’re slower than usual Beauregard. Have you gained weight?" Jotou smirked with a spark in her eyes.
Beauregard’s eyes bubbled and grew in size as she gasped loudly. The sli-woman scread and jets of water filled up the space where her head was near-instantly to coagulate and into sli.
Jotou quickly hopped off her neck and fell away from Beauregard’s back while Frost blinked towards her and hooked under her arms under Jotou’s to grab her into a slow fall.
Frost’s descent was still slowed, but with Jotou’s weight added, they would hit the water in a few seconds. "Congratulations, your plan of getting her away from the shoreline worked; now we’re her target," Frost complained.
"This is better isn’t it?" Jotou’s truly felt like a cat being lifted in her current position.
"It’s debatable."
From their aerial view, they could spot the SS Narwhal making sharp turns in the distance, in an attempt to sneak on by through the shipwrecks.
"Right on cue," Jotou watched as wisps of purplish-black shadows popped in and out of sight, approaching their direction across the water’s surface.
Frost blinked with Jotou in tow; a much larger glowing blue ball of ice shot like a cot onto so floating debris. She placed the blonde down before landing a couple tres away herself.
"Eugh," Jotou shivered from the cold and sparked herself to evaporate the frost forming on her.
Frost checked her prongs-
"Woosh!"
She used the prong to catch Fuko’s wrist betwixt them before a gleaming purple dagger could strike her head. Frost was taken by surprise, but redirected the brunette’s arm.
Fuko grunted and blinked behind Frost; Frost dashed to the side in a shroud of ice as Fuko struck down. Frost stomped where Fuko was and missed, because the brunette had already blinked atop of the armoured figure; Frost raised her forearm above her head while the prongs in her other hand scintillated with blue ice.
"ko!" Jotou shouted out upon noticing all of the sudden movents.
Fuko blinked away and put her feet down onto the water’s surface in front of both of them.
The spell dissipated from Frost’s weapon. "I thought you were supposed to be so kind of detective," she seethed.
"Oh go fuck yourself!" Fuko walked on the water towards Jotou and stood on the wreckage alongside her. She directed her dagger at the blonde, "Have you been working with her this whole ti and kept it from us?"
Jotou raised her hands up, "What? No! She found on a shipwreck way over there," she pointed south.
"Aww, is the little detective worried that her crush is keeping secrets from her again?" Frost derided.
"I’ll kill you," the dagger was quickly pointed at the armoured figure.
"Save it for later rat, I’m motivated to stop that thing too."
"Yeah thanks, I figured that out when Beauregard’s head got turned into an ice sculpture," she sneered.
"Then why did you attack her???"
"That question better be rhetorical," Fuko side-eyed.
"Ai, ai, ai..."
Fuko glanced over at Frost—just one more an glare... before she sheathed her dagger. "Is the plan to freeze Beauregard and shatter her apart?" she much more amicably asked the blonde.
"Pretty much. If turning her into steam ends her, the other state of matter’s not a problem either. We just have to keep separating her till we can freeze her into a manageable chunk and break it."
"Cause you’re assuming she can’t have two consciousnesses at the sa ti," Fuko held a hand to her chin.
"It’s not information we can confirm nor deny," Jotou replied. "But it’s our best if not only chance."
"You think you have enough mana for that?" the brunette crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Frost.
"I’ll be fine," she mimicked the brunette’s posture.
"And what if her ice lts?" Fuko glanced back over at the blonde.
"We’re trying to be quick," Jotou said as she watched Beauregard reforming in the distance. "If you’ve noticed, she’s not exactly regenerating quickly."
"Except she did when you pissed her off," Frost corrected.
"Which probably used up her magic at a higher rate," Jotou reasoned. "Speaking of which, does anyone else’s magic feel fuzzy all of a sudden?"
"Now that you ntion it," Fuko tapped the tip of her boot on the tal.
"It’s cause of her," Frost pointed a thumb behind her. "She’s sucking up all the mana in the vicinity faster than it can refill the space.
It’s the sa principle as the weather tower in Array that the Trailon Regi used; the capital was devoid of all magic for months, though I don’t think the sli’s using it up to that extent."
Fuko furrowed her brows, "Wait, that’d an she’d run out eventually."
"Problem is we can’t know when eventually is gonna be; we don’t have an Ordinate to track the mana levels in the area," Frost replied.
"Well in the area sure, but Beauregard herself will run out. If we keep disrupting her and play it conservatively, she’ll get weaker and weaker each ti."
"You got any proof of that?" Frost doubted.
"It’s a gamble," Jotou shrugged one shoulder. "But why should we believe any differently? Beauregard functions with an affinity; just because it’s heightened by so spirit-magic doesn’t change what it is.
We’re not dealing with an actual omnipotent god, we’re just dealing with soone with higher limitations of magic. It’s actually more possible to win than we first thought."
"And you know what those limits are?" Frost added.
"Doesn’t matter, Beauregard’s been at it since yesterday. She doesn’t strike as soone strategically intelligent; for all we know, she might actually believe she has unlimited power which is why she doesn’t care to waste mana," Fuko argued.
"You better be right," Frost looked over at the reford Beauregard who lifted herself above the water.
"I keep my expectations high," Jotou smiled. "I’ll let the world decide if it wants to stop ."
Shadows glimred in the brunette’s eyes. She spun her dagger into her grasp, "I can try doing sothing."
"Get Tiffany over to Beauregard; her scream can shatter the ice too."
"Are you kidding, I’m not gonna be able to convince that captain to get the ship closer, even if it could."
"Then you get her here," Jotou gestured to Fuko’s feet.
"Who the hell is Tiffany?" Frost interjected.
"Aww, does sobody not like not having information," Fuko made fun of.
"Alright, let’s keep the spite for after the fight shall we?" Jotou diated. "Plus, we have sothing that Beauregard doesn’t~"
"And that is?" Frost queried.
"Rejuvenate," the blonde giggled.
Fuko blinked away with another leer at Frost.
Frost blinked away in the direction of Beauregard.
...
Jotou glanced in both directions and lifted her hands in the air. Then Frost blinked back into the water beneath Jotou and ford a bridge to follow.
The blonde rolled her eyes and with a running start sprinted onto the ice to slide off in the direction of their quarry.
Now more enraged, the sli-girl had not only lifted herself onto the surface of the sea, but her lower half began to swirl with seawater.
Forming the centre of a whirlpool, the giant Beauregard ascended further into the air; her ire on the blonde that she searched for. "Co out, co out wherever you are plaything; you owe much," she spoke.
"FWSH!""SWSH!"
Both of Beauregard’s shoulders were frozen by beam of ice. "CRSH!" However, it did not matter as vortex of water crashed into them and broke off her shoulders.
She ford more sli and reattached her arms near-instantly while the ice dissolved into her ascending form. Waves began to ripple and crash as Beauregard then faced the Malecise Regi and for a mont reattained the thought of her true goal.
From below, ice paths followed the water’s spiral upwards and directed Jotou up and up till she and the sli-woman locked eyes with one another. "Co on Beauregard, let’s have so fun," she said with a spark in her eye and a cocky grin.
And just like that, her attention was back on the Thundering Blade. "DFF!" Geysers of seawater shot from under her, obliterating the ice and sent her flying into water.
A triumphant smile ford on Beauregard’s face as she paused the one river of water Jotou was caught in and connected it to her hand. Her ocean-blue sli rapidly bubbled through the water while Jotou sparked up.
The water pressure attempted to crush her. The blonde’s eyes widened; her spark spell fizzled and the water like rubble was caving in on her faster than she could evaporate it.
She zapped the water and kicked her legs towards the tip of the river. The jerking force was just enough for her to escape from the water’s grip, although multiple tendrils shot out to grab her and the acid of the sli had just made it to the edge of Beauregard’s new limb.
An extended right arm the sli-girl now had that she flung to one side and a torrent of water burst in all directions like bullets. While falling the bullet-rain fizzled against her electricity.
Beauregard’s arm returned to the previous size and new fingers stretched out to command whirlpools to catch the blonde. "FWSH!" Water did in fact catch Jotou, but it froze over in an instant and all she had to do was break a leg out of it.
Jotou smiled and ran forward. Frost blinked across the width of Beauregard’s stomach where her lower body t the roiling waves. Ocean-blue sli shot out tendrils to ensnare the blue speck of ice, but she was much faster.
Frost took a spiral path up along Beauregard’s height and popped back into a corporeal form where she aid her prongs behind her and shot beams of ice.
All the tendrils that were about to retract into Beauregard’s body froze over, giving the perfect set of stairs for the blonde to leap across from frozen tendril to frozen tendril.
"CRASH!" Beauregard detached all of them and blasted forth new jets of water and sli. The halfway up Jotou stepped to one side and aid her shoulder into Beauregard’s chest, "Shoulder-Charge!"
Jotou was thrusted into ocean-blue sli and sparked up a storm in Beauregard’s centre. Beauregard’s eyes lit up with ocean-blue spirals and she smiled.
The blonde’s open eyes noticed that her electricity was not as chaotic as usual. Instead, her sparks were in line along her form, almost like the pressure of the sli was pushing her magic back from whence it ca.
Pure magic against magic were battling for dominance, but Jotou’s concentrated spark spell tore and the sli seeped in between the cracks of her spell and the floodgates had been opened.
"NGH!" The acid rushed beneath her sparks from various directions sizzling and burning through her adventuring attire with relative ease. "ZAP!" "TSHSHHHH!!"
Jotou lit up like a light bulb as she tazed the acid and had to shut her eyes before any of it reached her face.
"FWSH!"
Ice encased a sphere around the blonde and blinked her out Beauregard’s back. Frost blinked with the blonde farther away and threw her into sea.
Jotou hissed and groaned under the water before Frost pulled her up onto a platform of ice. Jotou got onto it on all fours and panted, soaked in water.
Once her eyes no longer were blurred, she checked her left arm and inhaled through her teeth. Her skin was burning pink across her forearm, where much of her black garnts had holes in them, with the centre being largest.
"Just breathe."
"Shut up!" Jotou winced her eyes shut. There were holes in her yellow coat and the flaps were dissolved as if so large creature had bit and tore into them.
The centre clasp of her coat under her chest had broke apart again, leaving two strips of fabric hanging loose on either side. The white dress was burned away from the skirt up, with strands of fabric flapping in the wind that picked up.
She surveyed her leg where similar holes and burn marks were on her left thigh and right lower leg. The tip of her left boot was in tatters.
Acid burns went up the left side of her collar, across so of her collarbone and a bit of her neck. Her right arm being the only one intact checked her back, where there were gaps in her attire at the hips and upper waist.
The fabric was present, but barely so. In fact as she prodded it the seams actually ripped to her probing, but fortunately her skin remained unscathed.
"We don’t have much ti Howllett, are you good to go?" Frost demanded to know.
Jotou tried to ignore the stinging pain as best as she could as she stood up. The Skyslayer was poking out of a hole in the sheath before she pulled it out, "Just get to her head," she huffed.
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