Yrix squinted with an inquisitive gaze, ignoring Omizen's rabbling in favor of Lila. That girl's mind, more queer than ever, had become difficult to follow even for a Psion such as herself. Even as Lila began to twitch, life flowing back into her, Yrix remained utterly captivated.
"Still alive? What could she have seen in there?" Yrix pondered, amused and impressed by her student's increasingly desperate mental state. "She should be dead. But not my student."
The air around the Arch-Flayer began to fizzle with static energy, stirring a sluggish reaction in her as her gaze glided over to Omizen. There he stood, preparing an attack that the girls were completely unprepared for. And yet still Yrix had faith in them.
"Now then." Omizen snapped both his fingers as the dust around him began to levitate. "About that hope you still cling to."
With a pulsing wave of energy, Omizen ascended into the air, followed by the frightened girls and everything around them. Even the heaviest of stones, including the ceiling above, became enraptured by Omizen's field.
"Sonera!" Lunae reached out to her companion, her feet kicking at the air itself as she began to rise.
The assassin responded with her own Psionic grasp, clinging onto Lunae as they tried to stick togethor. Rena did much the same with her surroundings, bewildered by the shimpaster's decision to change the scenery so drastically. But once the sun began to creep out from beyond the levitating rubble, she realized what his game was really about.
Omizen wanted more space.
Ivy rushed to Lila's side, pulling herself to her own baton that she lodged into the earth. Both she and the Earthling were trapped in a stupor of sorts, unable to comprehend what they had just experienced in what felt like mere seconds. As far as the heiress was concerned, none of it should have been possible.
"How?" Ivy whimpered, grabbing onto Lila's leg as her limp body floated upwards. "I don't...how was she there?"
Unlike the Earthling, who experienced the Psionic phenomenon in a linear comprehensive fashion, Ivy was left with bits and pieces of her own memory, retroactively changed to include the tale of her dance with Lila.
She could hardly remember the details. The violent conclusion, and the depths of her struggle with Lila were still processing in her fragmented mind. But what Ivy could say with confidence was how traumatizing it all felt.
Not that she felt any different. It was always like that. Lila was a migraine from the moment they first met.
"Come on!" Ivy pleaded, shaking the girl. "We need you! Wake up!"
A barrage of dirt and branches poured into the cave, their path ebbing around an invisible sphere surrounding Omizen. Once the shipmaster had reached the surface of the forest, the girls still caught in his grasp, he called forth a surging bolt of lightning from high above the sky.
"Farewell." He taunted.
Omizen held his open palm aloft, its armored surface cupping a weapon forged from his unique Psionic element. Appearing in the form of a double-ended glaive, his construct began to circulate blue lightning into its nearby surroundings, nearly bursting with destructive potential till he brought it down with a mighty plunge.
The ensuing shockwave sent the girls tumbling to the ground, shattering the trees around them and leaving a crater beneath Omizen. With their Psionic ambience damaged or completely destroyed, the situation had become more dire than ever before.
"Ah!" Lunae squealed, shutting her eyes as she accepted the worst.
Sonera was quick enough to catch the girl mid-air, spinning herself around so that her back would absorb the fall. Rena and Ivy didn't fare much better, however, as their exhausted state rendered their defensive options largely moot. As for Lila, her crumpled body barely even reacted to the cataclysm of lightning.
"Oh, back to dissapointment." Omizen yawned, taking his sweet time as his feet touched the ground once more. "How tragic."
Yrix, of course, remained completely unbothered, casually sticking herself to the floor and shrugging off the explosion as she circled her way around the violent affair. As things stood, she was still far too interested in Lila and Ivy.
Omizen was quick to notice this, pointing mockingly at the heiress as she tried to pick herself off the floor. From his point of view, the Earthling should have been put down by his previous attack. Yet somehow she lived.
"Cute." Omizen strolled over to the heiress, clutching a fallen tree in his Psionic grasp before flicking it in Sonera's direction. "Your grotesque feelings for her keep that broken body alive."
Ivy panted, her staff shaking in her hands. "You would never understand why."
"Oh?" The shipmaster chuckled. "Do you really think what you have with her is special? It's not a bond I can assure you."
Omizen spun around, catching Rena in an attempt to strike him from behind. Remaining playful with each step, the shipmaster shot forth a concentrated blast of lightning from his palms, superheating the girl even in her translucent state. Rena's form glowed bright with a hot pink before exploding, throwing her real body to the floor.
"You see." Omizen continued as if nothing had even occurred. "Such a gift isn't unlike what Yrix has done to all of you. It's abuse. It's pain. Psionic torment made manifest. That's not love, you petulant brat."
As if to prove his point, the shipmaster yanked Lila from Ivy's grasp, holding her by the throat.
"No!" Ivy screamed.
Her efforts to resist were met with a quick shock, devastating her body in ways she had never felt before. She was still, however, spared from a lethal dose. Omizen wanted her to watch.
Using his singular eye, he placed another hand on Lila's temple, and after forcing her eyes to open, began to stare deep into her soul. Direct contact with the Psionic gaze was far from the potency of Yrix. But it was still more than enough to wake Lila from her stupor.
"Aaah!" Lila screamed at the top of her lungs, her mind overwhelmed by the searing image of Omizen.
She never did have the time to reflect on how afraid she was of the familiar sensation, not after Yrix flung her into far greater troubles. But upon experiencing the torment once again, Lila nearly broke. Her simple little mind frankly wasn't designed for such a burden.
"Show me primitive. Show me the power of my gift." Omizen released the Earthling, dusting his hands off as if he had discared a peice of trash.
Lila fell to her knees, clutching her head. She felt as if her eyeballs would burst out of her head.
The shipmaster chided with fervent energy. "Need some motivation? Here."
Calling forth another surge of lightning, Omizen began to electrocute Ivy with slow, calculated precision. Her body, seemingly more vulnerable to the element than her peers, reacted harshly as she began to convulse.
Sonera attempted to intervene, driven by the screams of Ivy and Lila. But a salvo of thin javelins forced her to divert, as she turned to face a group of smaller Psions wielding an armament of shoulder-mounted launchers.
"Damn!" Sonera complained, feeling a sense of guilt was over her.
The armor of the Psions was black and stained with a golden depiction of Omizen's face, proving both their rank and level of competency as both Lunae and Sonera were forced to act.
In honor of their shipmaster, the battlegroup primarily feilded equipment of the electrocuiting variety, as evidenced by the way their munitions crackled with a familiar blue light. To tire the girls out only to then unleash his most decisive pieces had been the shipmaster's goal all along.
"Come on!" Omizen roared at Lila. "Fight!"
Ivy's screams drowned out everything else around her, the image of her convulsing body and trembling legs haunting her very soul. She had to do something. And in her moment of uncertainty, a familiar little friend appeared in her mind, giving her the courage she needed.
It was Ivy, nestled deep within her dreams, clutching her beloved Ginjous. Lila gasped, realizing where the heiress had been the last two nights. And with that revelation, she was filled with valor.
The shipmaster sneered, intensifying his attack. "I said-!"
But before he could finish, a tiny leg struck him in the back of the head. It was Lila who had managed to not only position herself behind him but also amplify her attack with her Psionic speed.
The heiress half expected to hear something awkward and quippy within the depths of her ringing ears. But surprisingly, she found only silence. Lila was still.
She had nothing else to say. Not at that time. For all that mattered was the fight ahead of her.
"There she is. There's that heart I wanted from her." Yrix smiled, observing from a distance atop a large tree branch. "You cocky, arrogant, foolish idiot. She's my student. My sunshine. Lila."