A Higher Power

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"You'd rather let him drown than surrender him to me?" Silvia asked, "I realize you want to keep him away from me, but hat seems a bit extreme if you ask me."

"I didn't ask," Luna replied.

Silvia looked back down into the river once more, "He doesn't have to die! Just let me save him!"

Tanya scoffed at Silvia's plea, "If you really were worried for his welfare then you'd stand aside and let us save him." With Annika able to stand on her own feet, both Luna and Tanya each moved around Silvia in a semicircle pattern until both were on either side of her. Annika was worried about you and confused by the seeming lack of concern for your welfare. But given how protective Luna was of you combined with her oddly calm composure at the mention of your death told her there must have been a plan.

"Malcolm?" Silvia asked, "Are you really okay with this?"

Malcolm merely nodded at his sister before crossing his arms, "I trust their judgement."

Seeing that her initial tactic of appealing to their concern for your welfare wasn't working, Silvia shifted gears, "Do you really think you can stop me?" She asked, "I'm stronger than either one of you."

"But not all of us combined," Malcolm stated.

Silvia raised an eyebrow, "You can't be serious," She chuckled, "Don't you remember what happened the last time we spared."

"I don't claim to be a match for you," Malcolm replied, "But I can render your tails useless," He continued as he fanned his tails out.

"Do you think you can stop both of us at the same time without the use of your tails?" Luna asked. Silvia clenched her fangs as she glared at Luna.

Meanwhile, you had finally stopped sinking as you came to a rest on the riverbed. You tried to move your arms and legs hoping that being submerged in water would make it easier to move along the riverbed. Unfortunately, you very quickly discovered that the riverbed was mostly mud, which made it impossible to do much more than flounder around on the bottom of the river. You struggled for a minute or two before the silt and mud around you clouded you vision. By that time, you were too tired to move anyway. "Well," you thought to yourself, "On the plus side; Silvia didn't get me and I'm not going to drown. On the downside... I'm definitely going to suffocate." Before you could even begin to imagine what terrible death that would be, a silhouette shot between you and the surface of the water briefly blocking out the sunlight. You only able to get a brief glimpse of it as it disappeared from your view. You tried to turn your head to follow its movement. But without power, even the hydraulic joints and pistons that allowed your neck to move your head freely and cushioned the jolts of combat were frozen in place. Without being able to get a clear view of the silhouette you were left to speculate on what it might have been. "It was big," You mused, "Fast and sleek. Seemed powerful too. Definitely had a tail..." You felt chills run down your body as your eyes widened. "Oh my god, Silvia can swim.... That nine tailed witch CAN SWIM!" Less than half a second later, you felt a vibration near your head. Something had touched down on the riverbed near you. Two seconds after that, you felt your arms moving of their own accord as an outside influence lifted you. You felt a slight pressure around your rib cages as your body was lifted upright. Whatever was holding you would have had to been pretty strong to be able to cause the armor to flex with just its hands alone. You first thought that the outside force was trying to crush the armor and pull you out of it like you would crack the shell of a crab to get at the meat. However, this proved to be untrue as you felt your captor kick off of the riverbed before remaining submerged and swimming upstream. Because you couldn't move your head, you couldn't lift it to see where you were going or who had you. All you could see was the river bed moving by at an incredible speed. "I'm sure Silvia is an excellent swimmer, but I doubt that even she could swim this fast," You thought to yourself, "But that still leaves the question, who has me? And an even better question, am I being rescued or captured?"

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