Barnes left the fighting to the other crew members and hoisted Minny up into his arms, quickly carrying her over to a more sheltered part of the deck. He carefully propped her up against some water barrels and crouched down in front of her.
"Minny?"
No response came from the girl other than her her lolling limply to one side, orange bangs strewn messily against her damp forehead.
"Minny!"
Barnes began to panic, having no medical knowledge to check her vitals, he focused on trying to wake her up - raising his voice louder and louder, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her violently. There was a loud clunk as he inadvertently caused her head to hit the barrel behind her.
"Uuurrgh... Sto-o-o-op."
Minny spluttered as she awoke to pain and nauseating motion. She was aware of rough hands leaving her shoulders and blearily opened her eyes to see her uncle's relieved face inches away from her.
"Ya bloody idiot! What were you thinking?" His voice was rough with anger, but he still pulled his startled niece into a fierce hug, continuing to mutter under his breath, "I'll ruddy skin you alive if you do anything like this again."
Breaking the hug as quickly as he had initiated it, Barnes rose up to his feet and extended a hand down to Minny, "Let's get you below deck."
Laslo surveyed the battle situation with a mixture of pride for his crew and trepidation for the beast's latest attack - he hoped that no-one had been too badly injured. This thought snapped his attention back to the man that he had just pulled from the flames, he was shocked to see that the man was in a worse condition than he had feared. His worried eyes met Louis' grateful ones, at least he was still concious. The captain hurried over, Louis' health now his first priority.
From his limited knowledge of first-aid, Laslo could tell that the burnt man was in a dangerous condition, but he didn't know the first thing about how best to help him - he needed to get him to Kira.
"Do you think you can stand?"
Without waiting for an answer, Laslo awkwardly lifted the taller man to his feet, supporting all of his weight with his shoulder and began to half carry his injured shipmate towards some stairs leading below deck.
As they rounded a stack of barrels, they almost bumped into Minny and Barnes. Laslo noted grimly that Barnes had definitely seen better days, with various burns and claws marks decorating his arms and clothing, but at least the girl looked mostly unharmed, if a little pale.
"You two! Help me with Louis."
Minny seemed alarmed by Louis' state, but Basrnes quickly moved forwards to help, wrapping a strong arm around Louis' waist, as his short stature stopped him from positiong his shoulder under the man's armpit, as Laslo had.
The battle torn trio reached the stairs in no time, with Minny anxiously tailing behind.
"Thanks. You guys get him to Kira, I'm going to help the fight up here." Laslo ordered, helping Minny to take some of the vice captain's weight from him. "And make sure you get yourself seen to aswell Barnes. That's an order."
He didn't bother listening to Barnes' grumbled response, relying on Minny's bossy attitude to make sure that the engine master got adequate medical attention and didn't try to rejoin the fray. His long legs taking him off toward the ranged attackers and back in to the literal heat of the battle.
The ravens streamed towards the ranged fighters, many from the column plummeting to the deck as they were hit with pistol shot and arrows, but their numbers were so great that it hardly seemed to matter. As their ranks smashed into the crew around Felix, the larger monster roard and took off from the side of the ship, rocking it once more.
Its great wings raked the air as it gained height, positioning itself over Felix and the ranged fighters and preparing to divebomb the already occupied crew members.
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