Logan Starbright (& Ludwig at the end)
SLEIPNIR ~ Flight Deck (South)
Monday ~ Morning
Deriding yourself for your carelessness, the sting of plasma against the side of your stomach serves as a grim reminder that your foe had seemingly managed to turn the tables on you. It's but a grazing blow from it's sword, something that appears as a brief flash of pain in your side as you come out of your desperate roll, black fire erupting from your palm as you calmly take steps to correct this scenario.
---A blast of black fire to force a movement from your opponent, and then a mimicry of the technique it had just used on you, an attempt at both rearming yourself and attacking in the same instant, taking advantage of the fact that your opponent's movement options were somewhat more limited in the air-!
---But surpassing your wildest expectations -or perhaps meeting them completely- the reality that your eyes show you is not the assassin dodging the black flames -that much is easily expected- but that it has once again turned your own strike into an opportunity for it, namely-
"Haaaaaah-!"
-it has grabbed Amelia on her way back, using her as a means to close the distance between the two of you.
---Ah.
Again, it proves itself as both a clever tactician and a gambler; to somehow manage to catch Amelia on her return flight was a feat of either powerful perception and speed or sheer luck... Was it also using a perception type formula? Or was this simply how skilled it was as a fighter, that it is able to grasp the still sparking spear as it passes it, and turn that movement into it's own strike.
Like this... You have no choice but to face it head on, and it knows that...
It is akin to disarming your opponent and standing atop their weapon, if they want it back, they have to face you for it... Ordinarily this might not be impossible, as being this close to Amelia meant that magic was still available to you, but...
You had pushed your COMP right up to the line of overheating, while you might be able to force one more spell out of it in this moment, if you do so... It's going to break to the point of being unable to manifest spells, and at that point, you might as well call this match a loss on your part-!
No...
No you'll have to get her back with your hands, or at least defend yourself with simply physical force until she is able to vent herself-! It's not ideal by any means, but to think that even a Tamer can walk into a battle and expect not to get hurt is foolhardy, that was simply the reality of battle-!
---It's a clash that's not in your favor, but-
"...Don't beat yourself up quite yet."
-one that changes in a heartbeat as a certain someone finally reveals herself once more, or rather-
"I think you distracted it just fine."
-reveals the dozens of ice-based mines she has placed on the battlefield while she had hidden herself away, waiting for an opportune time to strike, and one that had manifested itself in the enemy's arrogant charge to your disarmed and weakened position on the battlefield. While the enemy's general attributes are unknown, the spell formula she had used didn't care about such things, and her auto skill "Blasting Zone," made the existence of her mobile mines invisible to most general forms of perception, in other words-!
---The moment the opponent had approached you in a manner that didn't allow them to dodge, she had detonated everything she had planted all at once inside of it's path, the result-
"Looks like all it needed to do was chill out a bit."
-is your friend making bad puns as she appears at your side, an icy wind blowing past you both as the frozen form of the android reveals itself to your gaze.
While it is possible for Tamer class fighters to break free of this sort of thing with their spiritual pressure alone, the fragility that the robot seemed to possessed made it seem unlikely that it will actually be able to do so... Yes, while it's body still seems to be mostly intact, the damage it had taken before being frozen over seems to have momentarily shut down it's systems, in other words...
She had managed to more or less knock it out.
As a Tamer, that was almost always the better option... While Demons would always 'reincarnate' eventually as themselves and thus more extreme force wasn't really looked down upon, it was always better to capture humans or androids if possible, as their deaths were typically of a more final sort... Of course, capturing this android was the more pragmatic move as well, as information about who sent it and why might be able to be obtained from it, but having been put into a situation where your friend had seemingly felt fit to rescue you, the usual self-deprecation is probably playing through your head again in spite of your own role in it's defeat, but...
But...
But...
Even though her joke is a clear intent at heading those feelings of yours off at the pass, there's no need for something like that, as a certain 'occurrence' you spot in the distance pushes all other thoughts aside and forces your body to move reflexively, throwing yourself into Astra with all the strength this body can muster and-
-avoiding the stream of energy that had just threatened to slam into you both.
The culprit is not the android -who remains frozen- rather-
"..."
-It's someone else, someone who has come striving into this particular battlefield to save one of her allies.
---Just as Ludwig had predicted, there was a certain part of Lara Karlfeldt that was hesitant when it came to taking certain actions... But those actions were much more limited than one would first assume, yes, while she didn't want to attack her brother and had thus turned her back on him after doing her best to remove him from the battlefield...
She felt no guilt when it came to protecting her own comrades.
---That much hadn't changed about her. It was bizarre, and her reasons for doing so didn't seem to make any sense at all, but when it came to feelings of guilt...
She didn't feel any when it came to attacking this ship, she was a warrior with a mission, someone who had been sent here to accomplish a task, and thus the only 'guilt' she felt was what came when attacking her little brother, and upon having that guilt magnified... She had simply put her all into other aspects of her mission, deciding to focus on rescuing her allies rather than attacking him herself, and-
"...Stay away from him."
-that had ultimately manifested in her attacking Logan and Astra from afar, a full-power Aura Blast erupting from her fist even as she made a flash-truth induced dash to get between them and her robotic ally.
And even as Ludwig draws near...
"..."
She keeps her gaze on her two new opponent's instead, seemingly doing her best to avoid even acknowledging his presence, while going so far as to challenge two other Tamers while being completely alone, and...
As for Astra...
"...Well, guess we saved each other then huh?"
She takes the diving save -and the fact that you had landed on her- with good grace.
"But they never make it easy..."
It's not two on one... But rather three on one...
Even so...
The dark-haired Karlfeldt... Doesn't seem to believe this is a problem for her...