Of Two Minds

Footsteps clattered against the Black Crow's tarnished deck as Elsword and Aisha ran toward the stern. So far, the path was clear and the Crow mercenaries were still busy putting out the fires that had started on the lower decks during the battle. Running on the last of their dwindling reserves, they pushed themselves forward, against the wind and the stinging cold as sweat soaked their hair. After a hundred yards that might felt like a thousand, they spotted Rena slipping back behind an exhaust duct. Confirming that there were no crows nearby, or at least none that they could see, Aisha and Elsword hurried to join her. As soon as she was in range, Aisha leapt forward and wrapped her arms around Rena's shoulders.

"Ow..." With her arms and back strained and bruised, Rena winced and Aisha immediately released her.

"Ah, I'm sorry!"

"No, it's okay..." Rena smiled weakly and patted Aisha on the head. "That was pretty tense back there after all. Are you two alright?"

Elsword nodded. "Yeah..." He leaned back and slid to the floor, sitting with his elbows on his knees. "You okay?"

Rena laughed softly, breaking into a cough along the way. "Yup~" She beamed brightly and brushed herself off, taking a seat across from Elsword and Aisha soon followed suit. "It'd be nice if we could just stow away here without being bothered though."

Aisha sighed and her head dropped to her chest. "Considering everything we've gone through so far, I don't think we'll be that lucky..."

For a time, The three sat in silence, catching their breath and devouring what rations they had left, their thoughts converging on their inevitable confrontation with the soldiers of the Black Crow. It was impossible for them to say just how many mercenaries were on board, but given the size of the ship, more than a thousand seemed a reasonable estimate.

"It'd be best if we could sneak around without getting spotted..." Rena stretched her arms out as she considered their options.

"We might be able to hide and steal the ship once we land..." Aisha stared into the sky and sighed. "...but honestly, nothing sounds like a good idea right now"

Elsword looked around at the sparse cover of their hiding place and scowled. "Let's just go then. We're in a bad place out in the open like this." Rena and Aisha nodded to him and they stood, checking for any sign of activity around them before they slipped out onto the deck.

Glancing from side to side anxiously, Aisha couldn't help but worry that their attempted espionage would end unfavorably. Unfortunately, she was right.

"Good of you to finally join us." Emerging from just around the corner, a brash old mercenary blocked their path. From the starboard side, over a dozen soldiers marched out onto the deck, cutting off every exit save for that which would end with a swim in the sea. Slowly, Elsword, Aisha, and Rena backed together, facing down the icy barrels of a firing squad. As their minds raced to find a way through this dilemma, the elder mercenary headed across the deck to a small brass tube and shouted into it.

"Boss! We've caught the intruders. Whaddyou wanna do with em'?"

A moment's silence. After a brief pause, the tube spat out the garbled echo of Raven's voice.

"We've got no need for live prisoners."

"Heh... Well, you heard him." Strolling over to the edge of the deck, the old soldier raised his hand toward the sky. "On my mark then."

Elsword's eyes darted back and forth frantically. There was no time to think, no time to plan, no time to figure out what words he'd need to put together for the right incantation. Time seemed to drag on as the riflemen raised their weapons and took aim. Seconds split into hours and Elsword's thoughts soon became an incoherent onslaught of anxiety and distress. There was simply no time. Once he saw the old soldier's finger twitch, he reacted instantly, before he even knew what he was doing. Reaching to his right, he grabbed Aisha by the wrist and hurled his sword into the air. Instinctively, the riflemen turned and gunfire ripped through the air, their bullets bouncing off Elsword's blade and sailing into the distance. Before they could adjust their aim, Elsword dragged Aisha along and ran for the rails, diving over the edge and grabbing his falling weapon as they disappeared from view. As they ran, Rena drew her bow and took aim at the firing squad. Just as she was about to release, the elder mercenary rushed forward and grabbed her arms, forcing her bow toward the sky. As he struggled to tear the bow from her hands, something unexpected caught his eye and he jumped back, holding his hand out toward the riflemen.

"Hold your fire. Keep the guns trained on her though, but hold your fire..." Rena glanced at him calmly as he approached and studied her face. "You two, bring me some shackles. The captain will want to see her."

Confused but compliant, a pair of soldiers headed off into the ship as the old soldier pulled his own rifle from his back and held it forward, motioning for Rena to drop her bow. As she laid her weapon on the deck, the errant soldiers returned with a set of shackles. Circling around behind Rena, they grabbed her hands and jerked them behind her back, wrenching her arms back and forth as they locked her wrists in iron.

"Oh, you should get my feet too or I could kick you in the face." Rena smiled warmly at her captors.

The soldier at her side scoffed. "Just keep quiet. We can still toss you overboard- Ow!" He cringed as Rena quickly slammed her heel into his shin. Enraged, he turned to her and drew back his fist, preparing to hurl a punch into her stomach. Just as he started swinging, however, his arm stopped, arrested by the hand of the old soldier.

"Don't touch her." The old soldier glared at them sternly. "This might be somethin' serious, so shut up and leave this one alone. Just shut up and take her to the Boss's room. Any of you lay a hand on her, you might not have that hand by tomorrow. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir!"

Two decks below, Elsword slammed his hand into solid steel, dropping his forehead against the wall and twisting his face up in frustration.

"Damn it... Damn it!" With his eyes fallen to the floor and regret swirling through his stomach like a twisting knot of vipers, he listened as Rena was led away into the hall of the Black Crow. In the bitter, smoke-stained wind, Aisha clenched her fists and stared at Elsword fiercely.

"You... You idiot!" She shouted with no concern for whether or not anyone else could hear. "Why did you take me!? Why didn't you save Rena instead?" Her hands began to tremble. "I could've just pretended to get caught and teleport away, or I could've burned through the handcuffs, or anything else! Rena's always the one who gets caught in the most dangerous situations all on her own. Why didn't you save her..."

"I don't know!" Elsword turned to her and threw his hand out. For a moment, the air swirled with an anxious tension, both Elsword and Aisha glaring at one another viciously. With the tide of adrenaline receding and the reality of Rena's capture looming over him, the rage quickly drained from Elsword's eyes and he turned toward the vacant sky. "I don't know..."

His face was as full of conflict as his thoughts, unable to grasp his own motivations and incapable of answering for himself. Faced with his apparent remorse and Rena's captivity, Aisha couldn't stay angry at him. Stifling her fears and frustration, she grabbed her wand and gathered her resolve. "Alright, let's go save her."

Elsword dismissed his unease and nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."

Sliding between the shadows of the lower decks, they ducked into an open door and darted through the empty corridors of the Black Crow. Far exceeding their previous attempts at subterfuge, they went entirely undetected as they moved from room to room, save for the three soldiers they had to knock out and lock in a close, and also the two that ended up falling unconscious just outside of the armory. Once inside the ship's stockpile of weapons, they sifted through piles of rusted swords and broken rifle barrels to find Rena's bow, jammed unceremoniously into the bottom of a scrap heap. Just as they were about to make their exit, a parade of boots marched down the hall just outside.

"They're somewhere on this level! Seal all the exits and then sweep every room!" A coarse voice issued orders as soldiers bounded off into every corner of the deck. Looking to one another silently, Aisha and Elsword searched for any other possible way out of the area. There was just a single, wide door at the entrance to the armory and the room itself was filled with weapons and supplies, all of which were inconveniently arranged in a way that left no substantial place to hide. With the sound of shoes pounding against steel fast approaching, Aisha held her breath and fixed her eyes on the door.

"Hey, I found- er..." Elsword fiddled with a large panel on the wall.

"What are you doing!?" Aisha whispered emphatically.

"The wall's hollow here, there might be somethin..." Elsword dug his sword into the side of the thin panel and popped it off, revealing a narrow dark, narrow passage. "Ah, it came off."

"Don't stand there, hurry!" Aisha rushed over and pushed him through the opening, grabbing the panel and doing her best to pull it shut behind them. Within seconds, a pair of voices echoed through the armory.

"Check the junk over there too! Clear out every corner!" A group of soldier filed inside and started sifting through the crates and lockers, searching for the intruders.

"Hey, you two!" The sudden shout sent chills through the air as Elsword and Aisha tensed up, staring at the flimsy panel that separated them from their pursuers. "You two, wake up! What're you doing?"

"Nn? Huh?" A groggy soldier stumbled to his feet and surveyed his surroundings in a daze. "Oh... what?"

"What happened, did you see anyone come through here?"
"Uh... I don't think so?"

"Tch..." Sharp irritation cut through the air as the two soldiers laying against the wall outside the armory stumbled to their feet, their memory a fortuitous blur. With the immediate threat of discovery behind them, Aisha and Elsword lit fires in their palms and headed down the twisting narrow path. All around them, pipes poured mist and steam into the air, coursing throughout the ship like a bundle of hissing vines. Just ahead, they reached an intersection and the passage opened up slightly, it's tangle of copper pipes joined by brass and steel and twisting off throughout the ship's interior.

"This looks like some kind of service area... maybe it runs throughout the whole deck." Aisha ran her hand along the wall and ducked sharply as a puff of steam shot out at her from overhead.

"Wait, hold it. There's a light up ahead." Elsword pointed to a distant speck to their right, a tiny glimmer that seemed to be coming from inside the ship. Slowly, they made their way over the mess of pipes and toward the light. As they approached, a dozen other small lights flickered against the walls up ahead and they hurried to examine each one. Mounted in the wall, small fans pulled air out of the service space and into a large mess hall where they could see a crowd of soldiers raising a ruckus and turning over tables as they searched for Aisha and Elsword. Further down, a small ventilation faced out into a hallway lined with soldiers who were jeering and laughing amongst themselves as they stood guard. Around the next corner, however, they spotted someone they didn't expect.

"Rena!"

The bridge of the Black Crow was entirely unlike its lower decks. While the soldiers below ran through the halls searching for Elsword and Aisha, those on the bridge were silent and almost completely still. Standing at the helm, Raven stared off into the horizon as the old soldier who had captured Rena finished his report.

"...That's generally the size of it. The two who escaped are trapped on the lower decks and we should find them soon enough. As for the other... We've locked her in your room."

Raven's right hand was trembling. It wasn't the escape of the two stowaways that rattled him; rather, it was the woman who was now locked in his cabin and who his subordinate said she resembled. A wave of memories and pain washed over him and he clenched his jaw as a pulse of electric shocks coursed through his body. His constitution wavering, he turned and stormed from the bridge as his claw arm shook violently.

"You have the helm."

"Wait, Boss!" The old soldier called out after him to no avail. Within seconds, Raven was already down on the lower deck.

Laying in wait beneath an austere four poster bed, Rena glanced around at the sound of her name, scanning the walls until she found the tiny slotted vent nestled in the corner of the room.

"Aisha!" She smiled and waved with her cuffed hands. "Actually, where are you?" She looked to another point in the wall and waved at it cautiously.

"We're in some kind of crawlspace between rooms. Are you okay?" She pushed against the vent but it held fast, bolted firmly to a thick steel plate on each side. "And what are you doing under the bed?"

Rena grinned and chuckled deviously. "They left me in the captain's room, so I'm going to wait till he gets here and then jump out and take him hostage."

"Hold on, we got your bow" Elsword pushed her bow toward the vent but its slots were far too narrow for anything of that size to slip through.

"No, hold on to it." Rena shook her head. "I can't use it very well in really tight spaces like this. We'll have to meet back up outside somewhere. Hopefully, when I take the captain hostage, they'll at least let us off somewhere. It might be too much to expect that we'll be able to get the El back from them in this situation..."

Elsword scowled and slumped back against large, humming steel pipe. Leaving behind the El, even if it was the only way they could think of to get out alive, was the last possibility he wanted to consider at this point. As if she could see his dissatisfaction through the wall, Rena smiled brightly and clapped her hands together.

"Don't worry. We'll find a way to get the El, but right now, we've got to find a way to get off this ship" She shifted her legs and pulled herself closer to the wall. "You two should go on ahead and see if there are any life boats or anything like that on board, I'll be along in a little while."

Aisha peered through the vent, her anxiety bleeding through to her voice. "No, we're not leaving."

Beside her, Elsword nodded. "If you get in trouble, we'll just bust through the wall and roast that guy."

Rena blinked, a gentle smile spreading across her face as she sighed. "Alright, but try to stay hidden if you can."

Aisha's response was interrupted by the heavy click of a key turning in a lock. As the door to the captain's room opened, Aisha and Elsword pressed their faces to the vent and stared, their breath arrested as Raven entered the room. Panting heavily, he turned and slammed the door shut behind him. Unsteady on his feet, he staggered over to his desk, leaning on his right arm as his left twitched and trembled. Pulling a knife from the nearest drawer, he turned it on himself and drove it down toward his left arm.

"Stop... toying... with me..." He thrust the knife into his claw, its blade snapping and shattering until he was pressing nothing more than a jagged hilt into his arm. A surge of electricity ran through his body and blood seeped from the corners of his mouth as his eyes filled with spite and rage. "I won't... let her... see me like this!" He braced himself against his desk and hurled his body against the wall, slamming his left side into the reinforced steel as hard as he could manage. Upon his third attempt, a violent shock seeped into his bones and he fell to the floor. The air hung heavily in the room, thick with the smell of sweat and smoke. Rena stared out uneasily at the man who lay prone just a few feet away. He was clearly unconscious and clearly in immense pain, so much so that it didn't seem like he would be standing on his own any time soon. She knew this, and yet her eyes were drawn to his left arm and the steel-clad claw that Raven seemed to be fighting against so desperately. Pulling herself closer, she finally got a good look at the captain of the Black Crow: His body was covered in scars and scrapes both new and old, his face vacant as his faculties failed him. His thin shirt was torn open and soaked in sweat, its sleeves tattered and covered in the stains of a hundred battles. He lay prone, completely defenseless and in the perfect position for Rena to spring to her feet and tie him up. As she stared at him, however, she couldn't help but hesitate. While the rest of his body was limp and lifeless, his left arm was still moving, sliding across the floor and pushing Raven onto his side. Once he was off the ground, his eyes opened faintly and he climbed to his feet, his face drained of all expression. His movements became mechanical and his eyes fluttered across the room. Soon, his gaze fell upon his bed.

"There."

His left arm closed around the edge of the bed and threw it up, revealing Rena beneath. Reaching behind him, he took hold of his sword and leveled its edge at Rena's face. She rolled to her side quickly and hopped up to her feet. Just as Raven raised his weapon and started to swing down at her, his hand sprung open and his eyes went wide as his sword clattered against the ground. With his mouth agape, he fell back and just barely caught himself against his desk. Wary and confused, Rena kept her distance and readied herself to attack, but Raven never moved. Instead, he stood aghast, staring at her intently. Gradually, he pushed himself up to his feet, his eyes full of a distant pain as he struggled to speak a single, broken word.

"Se...ris..."