Crowe ran to the edge of the airship, rapidly picking up speed, and launched himself overboard with considerable force. Soaring across the bottomless gap, charging the cold and blustering wind, his eyes locked onto the faintly glinting air. His open hands suddenly ignited a fiery red, streaming with light and magic. Bracing, Crowe slammed into the invisible luster of the large ship's defensive shield, his fingertips impaling the glass, creating small, falling fragments mixed with colors of white and red. On impact, the shield pulsated with a silvery glow, revealing itself. Gripping the shield with his left hand, Crowe cocked back his right arm, red magic swirling around his clenched fist, and with a powerful initiation of force, he slammed his fist into the shield. It shattered completely. Beautifully. Cracks formed all throughout the extensive defensive spell, caving into fading dust with the added grace of snow. With the dust, Crowe fell, until his feet thudded upon solid purple glass conjured below him in mid air. He thrust his gloved hands backwards and the glass multiplied, creating a usable path for his two crewmembers waiting impatiently on the ship behind him. Receiving their cue, they ran and leapt from shard to shard without hesitation, following their captain to the enemy ship.

Leaping from the last purple shard, Crowe's hands once again swarmed with blazing red energy. As he landed amongst a horde of enemy sailors, he unleashed a fiery storm on impact, instantly repelling them with the sheer power of the energy burst, powerful enough to send a few of the men overboard. Some of the sailors collided into each other, some bashed against the floor, and one flew across the deck to the bridge, crashing into a sealed barrel of gunpowder. The blow sent a tremor up the cabin, rattling a lantern hanging from a metal arm. Damage dealt, the red magic dissipated gently as Crowe's two crewmates landed on deck.

The man stood up straight, taking in the sights, extending his metal staff, revealing the extensiveness of the green glowing inscriptions. A steel spear point pierced from both ends of the staff, glinting coolly against the last mist of Crowe's magic. He dashed off toward the ballooned ship's aft, dodging stray bullets and rapidly approaching the first sailors who were just regaining their balance. He attacked with his speared staff, slashing at a red-and-gold uniformed sailor, knocking his sword and hand to the side. The sailor staggered backward, trying to stabilize himself, but the man finished his turn and landed a high kick to his enemy's face. The first sailor hit the ground, and a second one rushed from the side, swinging his sword and aiming for the man's head. The man's body and torso bent backward, eyes narrowing as the steel sword hovered inches from his face. He recovered as the second sailor attacked again, backhand swinging his sword, metal clashing as the man lifted his staff to block it. The man slashed the sailor upward with his bottom spear, and shoved him to the ground with his shoulder. His fighting style mixed agility with smooth movements, skillfully maneuvering his entire body, creating openings with the most precise conditions. The woman, however, threw finesse out the window and preferred brute strength.

The woman brandished her two sabres, eyes gleaming with excitement. She sprinted forward and cut down everything in her path, whether it's the enemy or the ship itself, all things in front of her were decimated, struck down with power. Retreating sailors drew out their pistols, firing incessantly, trying to find a weak spot on the voracious woman, but she blocked each bullet with her fortified sabres. With each hit, the glowing purple inscriptions on her swords intensified. She raised her sabres in the air and ferociously slashed them downward, discharging two purple energy beams that sliced into burly sailors and snapped taut rope, singeing the free-flying edges. The woman basked in the aftermath of her intense attack, but it was short lived as another sailor leapt with a brandished sword. She spun to meet him, clanging metal against metal, smiling.

Across the ship's deck, unnoticed in the chaos of battle, the metal arm of the lantern hanging from the bridge creaked painfully. It jarred and suddenly tipped downward, pointing toward Crowe, currently enthralled in his fight. Unable to hold up the weight of the glass, oil, and flame, the metal unhinged, and the lantern slipped off the shallow hook on the end. It fell and hit the top of the gunpowder barrel below, bouncing off and cracking on the ground, remaining mostly intact. Crowe blasted away a soldier with a pulse of magic, and in that slight pause, the glint of the lantern caught his eye. He turned his head, and with a thrilling clarity, he drew one of his holstered blue-lit pistols and aimed at the weakly burning lantern. He fired, and the light blue bullet seared across the air and pierced the glass and ember. The small flame, ignited with a surge of magic, ruptured the glass case with a crude cracking sound, and within a fraction of a second the flying embers latched onto the gunpowder and detonated the barrel.

The violent eruption blasted away everyone on deck and sent blistering wooden pieces in all directions. The hot fragments punctured the ship's swollen balloon and caught on the material, igniting it, burning it, and as the fire quickly spread across the balloon, it ripped and tore, threatening to surrender all lives to earth's gravity. The man and the woman halted in their tracks, staring at the flames with wide eyes, orange tinting their faces. Crowe, knocked to the ground from the explosive force, smirked, proud of himself.

Realizing the strain of its own weight, the ship groaned a deafening cry in pain and suddenly jarred downward. In an instant, every sailor on board realized the severity of the situation.

"THE SHIP IS FALLING!"

Enemy crew members scrambled in panic as they attempted to save their doomed vessel. Crowe got up and glanced behind him, looking to his own ship. He could clearly and noticeably see it rising further and further in the sky. But it wasn't gaining altitude- they were undoubtedly falling to the earth. He rapidly scanned the deck, looking for his crew members, taking his first steps to the ship's edge.

"VAL! REN! JUMP NOW!"

His voice boomed across the raucous chaos of the ship, cutting through all noise obstructions and clearly reaching the ears of his crewmates. They didn't hesitate. Valerie and Ren sheathed their weapons and took off running to meet their captain, hurdling over fallen sailors and ducking from falling flames above. The three of them sprinted to their initial landing spot, all from opposite directions. Valerie and Ren turned sharply to the port beam and launched themselves off the railing. Crowe, just a second behind, met them in the middle. His thick boot thumped on the wooden rail and he jumped, arms moving to stabilize himself. The three sailors abandoned ship, leaving the sinking behemoth to die.

The orange blaze of the searing flames coated their backs as they propelled from the ship's edge into the darkness of the night sky, with nothing below them to catch their fall- only an endless expanse of air. Just as their bodies began to plummet to the earth, they lurched forward, suddenly stopping forward momentum. With a seamless transition, the three of them started to gracefully float back to their small airship. Valerie looked behind her to see Crowe's softly glowing hands, the reason they were able to defy gravity and escape to safety.

Ren and Valerie finally rose above the small ship and landed safely back on deck with faces full of pleasure and accomplishment. They're immediately greeted by the blond, glasses-wearing man from the bridge, looking entirely unimpressed and irritated. Next to him stood the engineer named Jasper, wearing his orange goggles pulled above his forehead. As per usual, he didn't have a particularly strong expression on his face. Crowe floated above the ship and landed with a dull thud on the ship's railing, standing proudly above his crew members.

"I'd say that went well," Crowe declared triumphantly. He stepped off heavily and walked toward his crew to meet them.

"Are you kidding?" the blond man started. "You blew up their ship!"

"Yeah, I did, and wasn't it just spectacular? Look on the bright side, Gideon, they won't be following us now." They all glanced back to the sinking ship, only the top half of the balloon visible, bursting with flames.

"That's beside the point! You three are reckless, absolutely reckless! And you instigate them!" He called out Jasper, who only responded with an intense side-eye. "What would have happened if one of you got hurt, hmm? What would we have done? You could have easily been shot and-" His voice cut off as his eyes notice a small, sharp, light blue glint from the top of the Great Frigate's balloon, followed by a dull, almost inaudible rifle shot. The shining bullet whizzed down, just to the right of Crowe's face, and pierced Gideon in the chest. He fell backward and hit the deck unforgivingly, startling the rest of the crew. Crowe glanced behind him, trying to pick out the shooter, but the last of the balloon sunk below the ship, succumbing to merciless gravity.

The crew quickly surrounded Gideon, hovering over his unconscious and bleeding body. Their faces were full of concern, but Crowe's had a slight tinge of annoyance. "Well..." he began,

"That's unfortunate."