Captain Nightingale stared down the outsiders with bemused disappointment on his face as they pointedly did not surrender. With a casual wave of his hand, he ordered the rest of his team forward.

"Take them."

The slimmest of the dragonblood elites leapt backward, landing in a low crouch atop the ship's forecastle, but the other three charged forward. Nightingale remained where he was. Kaleb and Arden stepped forward while the others fell back in an arrangement they'd honed into second nature, but their usual plan was immediately disrupted.

The lead elite slashed at the air with armored claws, opening a ragged tear in space itself. A twin rip in reality opened up behind the outsiders, and the elite leapt smoothly into one and out the other. He was on Xigbar in an instant, pinning the animaborn to the deck with one hand.

The elite let out a reptilian laugh that sounded metallic inside his helmet. "Hope you don't mind if I use the backdoor."

Xigbar grunted, transforming into a snake to slither out of the elite's grip before immediately transforming back. He rolled away, covering his retreat by throwing a fan of daggers. They bounced harmlessly off the elite's armor, and the enemy laughed again.

Arden and Kaleb were in no position to help. A dragonblood with a lance slammed into Arden, and even though the priest summoned a divine shield to block, he was forced back a step. Then the strangest thing happened.

The elite started making a noise like a child imitating the sound of heavy machinery, and flames began to spray from the end of the lance the dragonblood was holding. As the flames grew larger, the elite's noises grew more frantic, until he shot forward like a missile, taking Arden across the deck with him on the end of his lance.

At the same time, the largest of the elites fell on Kaleb like an avalanche with a massive, double-sided axe. Kaleb had just enough time to think how impractical a shape that was for an axe before the blow struck his shield, and the floorboards underneath his feet cracked. He didn't even have time to be relieved that he hadn't gone through the deck before an armored tail lashed out, taking his unstable legs out from under him.

While he was still falling, her axe swung, crashing into him and sending him sail backward. He expected to crash through the ship's railing and go overboard, but instead he ran into what felt like a steel pillar after flying only a foot. Then that steel wrapped around his midsection, pinning his arms to his body.

"That usually breaks most men," the elite said, and Kaleb was surprised to hear a feminine voice with an almost hungry purr to it. "You're quite sturdy, aren't you?"

Kaleb's reply came out as a grunt as the air was squeezed from his lungs.

List shouted Kaleb's name in alarm, but then she and Valerie were both leaping aside as the elite that had leapt to higher ground unhinged the jaw of their draconic helmet, and a beam of blue white light shot out from it. Where the beam struck the deck, ice formed, creating a miniature glacier that cut the two sisters off from their companions.

Valerie returned fire, and soon she and the elite were trading shots at one another, and List was further and further separated from them.

List found herself face to face with the captain, who gave her a smoldering grin.

"Well, it seems everyone else has found a partner for the evening," Nightingale said. "May I have this dance?"

White hot irritation rose up in List's chest, and she forgot the rest of the fight. She summoned her halberd, gathering her power along the edge of his head. She swung at a distance, sending a crimson crescent tearing across the deck toward Nightingale.

So fast List almost didn't see it, the elite captain drew his cutlasses and dashed forward, slashing through List's attack with both blades. The weapons shone white along their edges, matching the glow of his armor, and when they met List's blast, the chaotic energy was shredded to harmless essence. Then he was on her.

List didn't even see the move that cut her, just felt the red hot sting run up her arm followed by something warm and wet running down her skin. Nightingale stood behind her as she hissed in pain, flicking her blood off his swords.

"You know, it's not normally my color, but you might have a point about the red cape," Nightingale said. "Is that why you wear red?"

List growled, and swung her halberd again.

Arden summoned a suit of divine armor over his entire body and prayed for enhanced strength as his opponent came streaking toward him once again. With a deft movement, he sidestepped the charge, gripped the lance in both hands, and detonated his armor.

The blast provided the boost he needed to tear the weapon from the elite's grasp and fling it off the ship. Its own thrusters carried it off, and it splashed into the sea fast enough to create a small geyser.

With his opponent disarmed, Arden stabbed him in the chest with his cane, and summoned golden chains to wrap around the elite and lash him to the deck.

The elite harassing Valerie with freezing blasts paused her barrage to cry out. "Heartthrob!"

"Not to worry, Vixen," Nightingale said, parrying List's attacks without looking. "Heartthrob is perfectly at home on his back."

Heartthrob continued making the bizarre, puttering noises, and as he lay chained to the deck, his lance burst out of the ocean, streaking through the air on a trail of flames before crashing into a startled Arden. His concentration on his binding prayer broke, and the chains holding Heartthrob dissolved.

Jets of flame sprouted from his armor, spinning him like a top while he lay on his back, so fast he came a whirling blur of steel and flames that spun after where Arden had gone.

That was a line too far for List. She'd dealt with Xigbar long enough to be used to people who ran their mouths. She'd met scavengers with stranger names Vixen or Heartthrob. But dragonblood elite clad head to tail in armor turning himself into a flaming wheel of death? That was too much to just ignore.

"What the fuck are you people?"

"Ah," Nightingale said, sounding not at all surprised by her reaction. "We get that question sometimes. My team and I are something of a unique case among the King's Chosen. As a human and outsider, I was forbidden from joining the true upper echelons of the elites. And the rest of my compatriots were spurned for advancement or employment for their…unique prerogatives."

List tried to take advantage of his distraction, but he parried her thrust effortlessly as he continued his story.

"However, despite my lack of draconic ancestry and filthy outsider origins, I have a keen eye for talent. I managed to bring this team together under my personal supervision…what was it, twelve years ago?"

"Fifteen," Vixen corrected from the forecastle, before ducking a crossbolt from Valerie and returning fire with a belch of frost.

"Eighteen, what would I do without you, Vixen? Anyway, ever since we've been letting our results speak for themselves." He blocked List's next slash, opened a wound on the side of her knee, and kicked her in the chest, sending her flying into the forecastle with a crack. "If there's one thing the Chosen can respect, it's results."

List had noticed he attacked less when he was talking. Even if he wasn't any more vulnerable, she'd take whatever reprieve she could get. She was hilariously outclassed. Nightingale was taking her apart and toying with her while he did it. The second he treated this like an actual fight, she was dead. So she might as well keep this a conversation.

"And the stupid names?" she grunted as she steadied herself with her halberd.

"I always thought freelancer companies were such a romantic idea," Nightingale said. "A band of outcast vagabonds donning new personas in pursuit of fame and fortune, so we've borrowed the idea of aliases—but what do you mean stupid? We've great names."

List reconsidered her previous position. Maybe death would be preferable to this.

Kaleb rolled across the deck of the ship, groaning, bleeding, and sick to his stomach. The axe-wielding dragonblood woman would have been a difficult opponent on solid ground. With his sense of balance this compromised, he considered it a miracle he was still alive.

Part of that had to be how much fun his opponent was having slowly killing him.

"It's been ages since I've had a man who lasted," the elite laughed. "You have quite the stamina for a human."

"Enziri," he coughed out.

"Oh?" she crooned, sounding even more intrigued. "You don't say? Well little enziri, how would you like to find out why they call me Bedrock?"

Kaleb staggered to his feet, leaning against the ship's mast for support. As Bedrock reared back to swing with her axe, he shakily raised his shield. He braced for another blow, but then his opponent's armor flashed.

The light in her armor ran down her body, spreading out across the deck of the ship until every seam in the boards glowed softly white. All at once, the deck felt impossibly solid and steady, and Bedrock felt rooted into it. Some kind of magic to anchor herself to the ground and put more power into her swings, Kaleb guessed. But that assessment was distant in his mind.

Much more prominent was the immediate relief that washed over him as the power of her anchoring magic passed through the deck beneath his own feet. It was as if the ship had come to a complete halt, or like he was back on the land. All at once, Kaleb could breathe, think, see straight. He wanted to weep with joy, but there was an axe coming for his chest.

In the single breath of time between Bedrock took to swing, Kaleb drank in the state of the fight with the spatial awareness of a trained fighter.

Xigbar's opponent was batting him around like a bored cat with a ball of yarn near the stern. Heartthrob's massive lance had Arden pinned against the railing of the ship. Valerie was pinned down by constant ice blasts from Vixen. And List was cornered by Nightingale.

The enemy was dictating too many of the terms of the battle. They needed to take control, throw them off of their game.

Kaleb read everyone's position on the ship relative to his own and to each other, and the idea struck him as Bedrock's axe closed in. Instead of trying to block, he threw himself to the ground. Her axe passed over his head and cleaved into the mast, taking a massive chunk out of the wood, but not enough to topple it.

Kaleb sprang back up, even as he felt the steadiness from Bedrock's magic stance dissipate with her attack. With the last of his balance, he drove his shield edge first into the weakened mast. Here, at last, all those hours breaking his training targets paid off. Like the pillars of stone before it, the mast shattered under Kaleb's blow. With a groan, it tumbled like a felled tree—straight onto the forecastle of the ship.

Vixen yelped, having to dive for safety as the mast crashed through the entire structure, and the chain reaction followed. Without having to dodge Vixen, Valerie was free to loose a blackfire bolt into Heartthrob's back. With the lance wielder staggered and wreathed in black flames, Arden was able to knock him aside and fire a beam of divine light to relieve the pressure on Xigbar.

That was as much as Kaleb saw before Bedrock's tail caught him under the chin, and he went sprawling across the deck again.

"Bad boy," Bedrock chastised. "I think it's time to break you after all."

"Step off, bitch."

A whip of steel and red lighting cracked Bedrock in the faceplate of her helmet, and the dragonblood elite growled as List drove her back with a dazzling twirl of her weapon. Bedrock backed up a step—and tripped over Xigbar, who had bent down to catch her in the back of the knees. She tumbled over him and the ship's railing, disappearing over the edge.

Valerie and Arden fought Nightingale two on one. He didn't seem particularly pressured, but as he looked around, he saw lots of enemies, and a lot fewer allies than he'd started with. He gave them a grimace of a smile.

"Well, this is awkward. I'm not sure there's enough of me to go around."

He was met by an arc of red chaos, a beam of divine light, and a crossbolt blazing with black fire. They all lost sight of him in the ensuing blast, but they heard the splash of another body hitting the water.

As soon as he was gone, List sagged in relief, dropping to the ground next to Kaleb and applying pressure to the slash on her leg. He had yet to get up from the deck—the motion sickness was easier to deal with while lying down.

"I was actually worried for a second there," she said with a wince. "Nice work with the mast."

Kaleb offered her the best smile he could muster through injured pride and an even worse injured body. "You know me. Just happy to be of service."

In the waters behind the boat, which was still slowly pulling away under its own momentum, four armored draconic heads and one thoroughly soaked head of jet black hair broke the surface. With the armor on, they had absolutely no buoyancy, but they were compensating by sheer strength.

"Well everyone," Nightingale said cheerily. "I'd say we can call this a valuable learning experience."

With the exception of Heartthrob, who was still whimpering incoherently even now that the black flames on him had been doused, none of them were hurt, per say. They'd either been pushed into a situation where they had to abandon ship, or been thrown overboard. On dry land, the enemy wouldn't have been able to slip away so easily.

And really, this hadn't been a real mission. Just their Chosen testing a theory.