Here There be Witches

Untitled Part 23

"Aaanghhh owwww fuuuuuuck..." Anara whined in pain, clutching her side tenderly. She wasn't bothered by the sudden darkness and didn't bother to even process what was around her until her head stopped spinning and she was sure that her old wound hadn't reopened because unfortunately, it wasn't actually that old. The hard landing on the wooden floors had knocked the wind out of her and even made her see stars when her left side collided with the ground. Taking so long to re-orient herself could probably get her killed, but she wasn't even sure which way was up at the moment.

When she was sensible she quickly realized that the intense rocking wasn't the ship, but Liz, shaking her and digging her perfect nails into the other girl's shoulders. She flapped her hands around near her face to get her to back of for a moment, mumbling something almost incoherent, and reformed one of the lamps that had dissipated sometime during the fall. Her eyes quickly adjusted and took in the scenery of nothingness around her. Literally, it was all just wooden planks on every side. She assumed that the wall gravity was keeping her anchored too was the floor, and stood up. At the very least, the shock and disorientation had forced her to take a moment to fully calm down.

"I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T DO THIS!!" The older Thompson sister yelled while already dragging her friend down the empty corridor. They must be in one of the lowest parts of the ship. Aw, who am I kidding? I have no idea what the hell a big boat like this is like. We could be on the squeak deck to the best of my knowledge. "Hhhh...Patty, Kid, where are you? Where are we? Anara are you even awake!?"

"Yep...yes. I'm here. Unfortunately." She took a deep breath in and stopped them for a moment. "Ok, it's gonna be ok, we can both fight, anything we run into down here will be no problem."

"No I can't!"

"What?!"

"I can't fight hand to hand like you and Kid can!! I'm only ever using Patty or someone else is using me!! Please please let me turn into my weapon form! You know how to shoot! I can help that way!"

I--what!? You lived on the street for how long and never learned any way to defend yourself alone!? She sighed. "Fine. But you need to calm down first! Otherwise it'll be harder for me to adjust my wavelength to you." She never liked the idea of constantly having another person with their own opinions and possible lack of abilities dragging her down all the time, it would be exhausting and time consuming to always have to plan your moves with someone else. But right now it did sound nice not to have to use her own power for once. She focused on the feel of Liz's soul next to hers and fished around for the parts of her own personality and temperament that were similar hers. "Alright, go ahead." In a flash of pink there was a shiny silver pistol in her right hand. Again, not her ideal weapon, and she didn't enjoy only having one blade-or in this case gun-to attack with, but if she thought about that now their resonance would fall out of balance. She could already fell the other girl's soul relaxing in her non-human form even though she was still very much on edge. Right now Anara had to stay composed for both of them. She gently sent calming waves in her new partner's direction.

"This is bad! This is really bad! I hope the ghosts haven't eaten them! Kid won't be able to use Patty without me! It would be asymmetrical-he'd get a nosebleed and pass out!" Oh shit. She hadn't even thought of that! Some friend she was. Now they really had to get back as soon as possible! She hoped ghosts could still be hit by physical attacks.

Why were they going this way anyway? Wouldn't it be easier to just smash open the ceiling they fell out of and climb up? No that probably wouldn't work. This is a magic ghost ship. It we are even able to break it we probably wouldn't even end up in the same place. Even right now we could be Death knows where. There's really nothing else to do but continue on this path and hope for the best.