“I’m not for caring what she’s got,” Dexter said. “She’s busy with flying this ship longer than she ought to be. I thought you wanted to learn how to fly this thing?”
Rosh nodded. “Yeah, I do, just waiting on you to tell me when.”
“You start doing that, you won’t be having time for stuff like that either,” Dexter said. “So you need to figure out right quick what you’re going to do with her… or I’ll figure it out.”
There was a solid thud accompanied by the sound of wood cracking behind the smaller human. They both looked down the hallway to the door where, a moment later, the door to the cargo hold exploded outward. The broken fragments of wood ricocheted off of the far wall, but were otherwise hardly worth noticing compared to the shape of the girl that picked herself up from where she herself had bounced off the wall. Blood ran from her fingers and lips, adding to the macabre vision that stared upwards at the ceiling, then turned to face them.
“Looks like she figured it out all on her own,” Dexter muttered, reaching for his pistol.
She walked towards them rapidly, an eerie silence emerging from her. Dexter cocked the hammer and took aim just as she turned and scrambled up the stairs to the deck three at a time. He stared after her, confused, and lowered the hammer.
“Rosh?” he asked, at a loss to explain the strange girl’s behavior.
“I’m on it,” Rosh said, already slipping past the smaller man and hurrying up the stairs after her.
Dexter stared at the ruined remains of the door then shook his head and followed them up the stairs.
On the main deck Rosh was running towards her while Keshira watched impassively from the side. The girl was charging towards the forecastle, where Jenna was only now turning her attention at Rosh’s bellowed warnings. She saw the girl coming at her and cursed, then reached for her own pistol.
On the top step she faltered, crashing to the deck under the weight of Rosh. Jenna kept her pistol trained on them, but held her fire while Rosh tried to restrain the demonic girl.
She thrashed under him and managed to backhand him across the face. Rosh felt his jaw rocked by the stinging impact and felt a wetness as well, but he put it from his mind as he tried to control the girl.
“That’s it!” Dexter demanded, coming up on them. “Put her over the side, Rosh!”
Rosh grunted as a knee speared into his stomach. He rolled her over and managed to grab hold of her arms. Another knee strike, this one against his thigh, made him growl with anger. He lifted her up in a smooth motion and turned to the port side of the Voidhawk, ready to hurl her into the void.
“Wait!”
Rosh barely heard Bekka’s plea, coming up the stairs from the bridge as she was. He slowed his steps towards the edge and focused instead on dodging his captives repeated strikes with her feet. He made it to the edge of the ship and turned to look back at Dexter, who was in turn looking at Bekka as she emerged from the top of the stairway.
“Be at peace!” Bekka said, slipping on the ring and holding it up in front of her.
Rosh gave her a funny look and then covered himself quickly, realizing he had given the wildcat in his arms an opening to strike him. No attack came from her, instead she relaxed in his arms. Rosh turned to look at her, mouth agape in wonder.
He stepped away from the ship’s railing, where he had nearly tossed her over, and turned back towards them. “You mean to say that ring controls her?”
Bekka nodded, “I mean to say,” she confirmed.
“Is she safe?” Dexter asked, eyeing the formerly fiery tempered girl suspiciously.
“At the moment, yes,” Bekka said.
Jenna cursed and hurried down the stairs. She looked at the girl and cursed again before turning to Dexter. “I heard of such things, but they looked different then. They used monsters at the time, and called them slayers.”
“Can we skip to the part where this starts making sense?” Dexter asked.
“She’s a slayer? Slayer of what?” Rosh asked.
Kragor emerged from the aft stairs and stared across the deck, wondering what was going on. He held a piece of the broken door in his hand and stared around, seeing Keshira working nearby and the others gathered towards the bow. He overheard their questions as he walked towards them.
“How about you go back to where Rosh was getting beat up by a girl again?” Kragor asked innocently.
Rosh sneered at him, which made the dwarf chuckle.
“The elves would capture creatures… barely intelligent things that lived by tooth and claw, and ensorcel them. With magic they turned them into controllable weapons, and they would send them after whatever they wanted,” Jenna explained.
“Ere I left I had heard, through the network, that they were turning hunting dogs into slayers as well, using magic to twist, strengthen, and corrupt them,” she continued.
“Seems they moved on to people,” Bekka said, stepping closer and studying the placid girl in Rosh’s arms.
“So she’s a weapon?” Rosh asked, staring at her. “Don’t seem like much of a weapon to me.”
Kragor chuckled evilly before saying, “What’s that blood running from your face?”
Rosh scowled at the dwarf and shut up, realizing as he did so that his split lip was getting puffier.
Bekka giggled while Dexter was barely able to contain himself to only smirking. Jenna seemed not amused by it all, instead she was clearly bothered by the turn of events.
“The best thing we could do would be to kill her,” she said. “She was once a young girl, innocent too, probably. But now she has been twisted from what she was into this, an abomination that responds to whomever holds that ring.”
“What kind of things will she do?” Rosh asked, looking at the ring Bekka was only now taking off of her finger.
“Anything,” Jenna said.
Rosh raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. Kragor saw his look and shook his head slightly; signaling Rosh to stop whatever he was thinking because the dwarf knew it would not go over well.
“Alright,” Dexter said with a tired voice. “Put her over the side, Rosh. Let’s be rid of her.”
“Hold on, Captain,” Rosh said. “We could use her! With that ring she’ll do whatever we want.”
“I’ll not have slaves aboard my ship,” Dexter growled.
“Well, I didn’t mean it like that,” Rosh said. He looked about to the others hoping for help, but saw nothing. Then his eyes fell on Keshira, who was minding the rigging in spite of their commotion.
“We’ve got Keshira!” Rosh said. “She’s not much different; she does whatever you tell her, ‘sept you ain’t got no ring.”
Dexter’s eyes smoldered with rage at Rosh’s words. His fist clenched and he opened his mouth to speak but Bekka beat him to the punch.
“Wait,” she said, stepping between them. She held up the ring for them all to see and spoke, “there is much of the ring’s magic in her, and there is some of her in the ring. What if we gave her the ring? Made her the Mistress of herself?”
“She’s not for being in control of anything right now,” Dexter said, pointing at her. She hung limp from Rosh’s arms, seemingly unaware of the world around them.
Bekka frowned and slipped the ring back on, then turned to face her. “Be yourself,” she commanded.
The girl’s head perked up. She looked around and stiffened, staring into Rosh’s eyes.
“Are you going to hurt anyone?” Bekka asked cautiously.
The girl turned her head to behold the half-elf. She studied her for a long moment before her mouth opened. At first a garbled sound came from it, but it quickly changed into words that were not tortured. “I don’t… want to hurt anyone anymore.”
“See, there you go!” Rosh said, startling her and making her look at him with trepidation.
“You’re bleeding,” she said softly. “I made you bleed,” she continued, remembering that she had done it.
“That’s a powerful thing,” Dexter said, staring at the ring Bekka held. “I don’t want her on my ship if that thing can be used against her. Can you destroy it?”