Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

A single bit was how it started and then came the screams and eventually bloody gurgling. The dark mist had taken over and the zombies were piling on every ship. What she'd assumed to be a single arrow was shot at every single ship in their fleet. Laced with concentrated necrotic power the arrows spewed poison into their victims and raised them as undeads.

Cautioned by the screaming of others or protected by their armor, the remaining crew–the majority, tried to conjure more light but with the mist moving towards them, the darkness grew thicker and the lights grew ineffective. Growing ever more hysteric, the warriors began swinging their blades, their halberds and spears at the faintest noise.

"AHHH! WHAT THE–UGHHH!" To their dismay, however, the ones they were hitting were their allies, not enemies.

"WHERE IS THE CAPTAIN?! WHERE THE HELL IS HE?! WH–" The screams of a woman cut short, echoed through the mist. Something had gotten to her, but was it the zombies? The hysteric crew or the enemy? None of them knew.

Enveloping each and every person on the boat, the mist had isolated the crew from each other. Watching it from above with even the head of the crew now masked underneath the mist, Choux frantically looked around as more and more people began screaming.

Out of nowhere came a blast from a ship at one end of the fleet, a massive blue fire erupted from the vessel and smoke filled what little visibility the crew had left.

"NO STOPP! DON'T–" With the dying scream of a man begging for his life, everyone's attention turned to the flaming ship. The light from the flame died as quickly as it had erupted and in a matter of seconds, the ship and its crew were put to sleep.

"That's it, I'm gonna get you one way or the other!" Pointing her rifle at the ship right next to the sunken vessel, Choux awaited the first flicker of a flame to shoot the ship and the enemy on it out of existence. But that's when something reached from the darkness and yanked the rifle out of her hands. "What the–-"

As she turned with a jolt, she saw a colossal eye bigger than their ships right next to her body. Staring at her through the dark, the giant chuckled at the quiver in Choux's eyes.

"I'll take care of this, why don't you take a nap? You and your drake?" Pulling away from the fox-girl, the giantess disappeared into the mist for a moment. What appeared next, however, had Choux hyperventilating.

An open mouth with a fleshy tongue and spiders dangling in the back of the throat, she was being devoured alive by this giant and there was nothing she could do. Flying away? She thought but looking to the sides she found herself already trapped inside her mouth. Trying to free the giant's face? It would take her years to freeze the entire surface alone.

"N-no…NOOO!" She screamed, tearing up at the thought of leaving her behind.

Eventually, her voice was muffled as the giantess closed her mouth around her and the next thing the crews knew, their ships were overrun with zombies and being taken down one by one by that ball of blue fire.

"This is fucking fun, AHAHAHA!" Finally hearing the Djinn's voice–the enemy's voice, the crew knew that they hadn't gone insane and were actually being attacked. Walking through one of the burning vessels to kill a running woman himself, Jahandeer was the first to be spotted by someone.

While he casually walked towards the woman standing at the edge of the sinking boat, Seraphim was halfway inside his body with her upper frame looming above him like a shadow. Providing him with magic and the flames–something he had little command of, she was helping her cousin brother by boosting his abilities.

"Stop playing around!" Screaming Aria from the boat next to him. "Just kill her and get this damn vessel, I'm done cleaning up here!"

Turning his head towards that vessel while the woman quivered in the corner, Jahandeer's eyes burned with anger. Not one to accept orders, he wanted to sink the ship with Aria on it right that instant.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Don't listen to her brother, we have a job to do, remember? We can kill her later," Seraphim whispered, even though she too was beyond furious as Aria was being aided by her sister just as she was aiding her brother.

'That low-life elf, I'll show her later…'

She thought but her distraction was cut short as the screams of the woman in front echoed through the ocean.

"Anyone left?" Back at the ship that had now been turned invisible thanks to Riyanzah and Linkle's last-minute return, Mel turned to Raven, her eyes seeing through his eyes and him seeing through her as well. "Regalia got the rest, right?"

Looking through everyone's gaze and keeping everyone's vision and mind connected to each other for the most part, Raven tried to see through Regalia's eyes and found her breathing heavily at the very edge of their mist-covered boat. Thanks to her, the ships with the most troublesome people were torn asunder by her summons–giving both Aria and Jahandeer a chance to clear one side of the fleet while she cleared the other.

Even so, many of the ship's crew were still alive and flailing around in the ocean. The darkness had disoriented them heavily and none seemed to have any rhyme and reason to their strokes.

"She's okay, just tired…" Thanking her through telepathy since half of this plan was Regalia's contribution, Raven moved to those up ahead and decided to have them retreat back to the boat. "It's gonna take a while for the mist to go away, we need to gather and capture everyone who's still alive."

"Aye…Aye…captain, ah-ahaha…" Chuckling to herself, Regalia picked herself up and began moving to the ship's helm.

"Why are we saving them again?" Mel asked, understandably confused. But this time it wasn't Raven that responded but the witch Linkle.

"I need some strong test subjects…" That's all the answer she gave, and given the nature of Linkle's usual tests, Mel didn't even wanna think about what kind of torture she had in mind for these moronic souls.