Aliya kept her glare on Erik as she started to freeze the door effortlessly. She kicked the dual doors, they shattered open to reveal a dark catwalk. They were the only ones in there, much to everyone’s relief. The only sound was their footsteps echoing off the metallic surfaces. The room they were in was the entirety of the central tower and continued deep into the ground. The center of the room was a massive machine with all sorts of pipes running along the walls of the room into the base of it and a complex of gears beneath them. The machine spanned stories above them tapering ever so slightly covered in a series of vents. Light seeping in through seams from the outside shone onto the top of the room, illuminating a series of gears along the wall, suggesting the ceiling could be opened.
“There’s no way!” Aliya was astonished at the sheer size of the weapon before her. She stared up in disbelief. “This technology is far more advanced than anything I’ve seen from The Lost Continent.”
“We may be good at destroying things, but how in the hell are we supposed to destroy something this big before anyone catches us?” Kindle looked around, a bit overwhelmed by the massive size of it.
“Why do you think I just stole the core when I was here by myself?” Erik had his hands behind his head as he walked a bit further down the catwalk.
“How exactly are they supposed to move this?” Aliya looked at him with frustration and confusion.
“On my first pass through, I ducked into a couple different rooms. I saw some of the overall plans for this thing. No idea how precisely it works but this whole room can move,” Erik shrugged, he didn’t have the time to find out more about it, not that he’d be able to wrap his head around it anyway.
“It’s a good thing you stole the Aurora Rune then,” Aliya looked over the weapon. “That’s probably the only thing that could power something this large. As soon as they could replace it, it would be functional.” Aliya narrowed her eyes, dread in the back of her mind. “Who in the world would be capable of designing this?”
“Everyone thought that the notes of the First Arch Druid were scribbles of a mad man but they are actually works of a technological genius!” An unfamiliar woman’s voice echoed around the room. Everyone looked around for her but all they heard was the clicking of her heels on metal and her voice bouncing around the metal room. “You know, The Order does love its documentation. They even keep things so old and dusty that its language is unknown.” The woman came out from the other side of the weapon on the catwalk above them. Everyone stood on guard aside from Breyze who was taking notes as usual. “The Order didn’t care if we borrowed their old records that no one could understand. Mirzam libraries have even older records, with translations on occasion. It wasn’t hard for my head researcher to learn the ancient languages he wrote in.”
“Who are you?” Aliya glared up at her.
She was tall and carried an air of refinement with her. Her spring green eyes were very sharp as she looked down on the Spirits and Erik. Shoulder-length and flaxen in color, her extremely thick hair was bobbed and curved inwards at the ends, two longer strands framed her face hanging below her chin. She wore a royal blue, double breasted coat trimmed with gold that was long enough to flare out like a skirt, the bottom hem of which was trimmed with white ruffles. The sleeves of her coat were puffy at the shoulders, cinched down by a black belt halfway down her upper arms. Underneath the cuff, white ruffles flared out over her black gloves. Around her waist was a black belt from which hung a rapier with a rather elegant guard. Beneath her coat white pants were tucked into black armored boots with high heels.
“Why, I am Claudia Pastoria, the Imperial Princess of the Pastoria Empire. Second in line to the throne of the Pastoria Empire,” She stated her title with great pride and a smirk.
“I see, so the Empire intends to declare war against all the Spirits then?” Aliya questioned. She wouldn’t put it past them.
“It was Fae that declared war on us first!” Claudia raised her hand and the sound of many more footsteps echoed in the room as knights poured in from all entrances on all levels in the room. “How long until the rest of you turn on us? Fae are a blight against humanity. I think you are all better off as Runes!” Her bitter expression turned into a satisfied smile as she looked at Erik, “My, they all seem strong enough to make a second core too. You did well Erik. Blacksong will be no more as we agreed. The knights are closing in on their locations like we planned.”
“I knew you couldn’t be trusted!” Aliya snapped her attention immediately to Erik. She cast Frozen Forge and crafted a spear made of ice and pointed it at his throat. His pained expression caused her to pause despite wanting to kill him where he stood.
“They aren’t a part of Blacksong! They are with me!” Erik yelled up to Claudia. He wanted out from under Blaksong’s thumb, which was why he made the deal in the first place, but he never expected for Mistral to give him a party of Spirits. “Leave them out of this!”
“Why would we do that when we can make a second cannon with them? You are being rewarded handsomely, so what does it matter to you?” Claudia smiled and motioned for the knights to attack. “Capture them!”
“Don't hold back boys!” Kindle punched the knight that charged her.
“Right!” Terbius both drew their massive curved blade from their back and started fending off the knights.
“Breyze, now would be the time to fight!” Pree whispered urgently to get her to stop taking notes and actually defend herself like he taught her.
“Oh! I guess so!” Breyze quickly stashed her book and quill into her bag and pulled out a small bronze rod with two boxes on either end. She pressed a button on the rod and the boxes unfolded into a bow.
“Aim for the ones up top! I’ll help you focus your shots!” Pree suggested pointing to the knights up on the catwalk above them. She drew back her bow and wind mana collected and condensed starting to form an arrow. She fired it and it split into three rapid bursts of wind hitting some knights above and knocked them off the catwalk. She jumped up and avoided the knights that swung their blades below her. She floated above them out of their reach and bobbed back and forth avoiding the archers raining shots from above.
Aliya backs off of Erik as the Knights went after her and not him. She easily fended them off with her ice spear and fury, however so many were on her that she started having trouble keeping up.
A group of knights on the upper levels held a strange long arm with tubes attached to an apparatus strapped to their backs. One lined it up with Aliya and pressed a button on the side of it as a dark burst of energy shot out of it straight for her.
“Watch out!” Erik noticed the shot and stood between Aliya and the knight taking the shot instead. Searing pain coursed through him as he dropped to one knee. He felt weak and it was increasingly hard to breathe.
“What?!” Aliya was shocked he would save her. To her, he never came across as the kind of person to do that. “Waters roar and surge some more! Flood Wall!” She turned and swung her spear and a wave of water burst outward pushing back the knights. “Why’d you do that?!” She knelt down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, a mix of confusion and an air of concern on her serious expression.
“Don’t get hit by those!” Erik tried to contain a cough and act tough but it did a number on him. “They will drain you of mana, right?! Just one hit and they will kill Spirits.”
“And on humans?” Aliya could tell it was doing a number on him already. Mana was the lifesource of all things. Even if it took a few more hits she could already tell it could kill humans too.
“Just stings a little!” Erik tried to put on his playful smirk again as he stood up.
“Yeah right!” Aliya was on her feet again as well. “It’ll kill you too. Even if it takes longer. Don’t be reckless like that again.”
“If you impede our capture then kiss your reward goodbye!” Claudia glowered at Erik.
“They weren’t part of our deal to begin with!” Erik drew his sword from his back and pulled out his gun. “Either way you got Blacksong off my back. Whatever you don’t give me I’ll steal it anyway!”
“So be it! Kill him!” Claudia ordered. “Capture the Fae for Devitalization!”
“Aliya! What’s the plan?” Kindle was starting to get worn out by the sheer numbers coming at her and Aliya always seemed to have some semblance of a plan. “What do we do?!”
“What we came here to do!” Aliya started attacking the knights again. “Breyze take out the knights with the Devitalization weapons!”
“On it!” Pree replied instead but Breyze was already aiming for them.
“I might be able to partially destroy it, if you can buy me enough time to gather the mana for my High Magic Arte!” Erik stated, swinging his sword and sending a wave of fire at the knights. “If you can freeze as much of it as you can then we can probably completely annihilate it. together”
“You sure switch sides easily,” Aliya leered at him over her shoulder.
“I’m on my own side alright!” Erik shrugged, playing it cool. “Right now my interests happen to line up with yours!”
“How much time?” Aliya sighed, annoyed by his sly attitude. Even if he saved her she still didn't fully trust him.
“Thirty seconds, give or take,” He shrugged again.
“Terbius, Kindle can you guys keep the knights off of us?” Aliya asked urgently.
“Not a problem,” All three of them called out in unison, moving into a better position to keep the knights at bay. Terbius on one side and Kindle on the other.
“If you are tricking us again I'll kill you and take my brother's gun off your dead body,” Aliya’s frigid stare gave Erik the chills, she meant every word of it.
“I'll keep that in mind, sweet thing!” Erik winked and started focusing on channeling as much earth and wind mana as he could into his gun.
“As the stillest waters stands, the outer world disbands! Aqua Shield!” Aliya casted a dome barrier around Erik that will repel anything for the short time it is up. “That barrier will only last thirty seconds. So make it count!”
Breyze managed to quickly take out all the knights above them. Terbius was taking out large groups at a time, throwing their combined swords back and forth between them. Kindle was punching out knights left and right with one strike.
Aliya started focusing on her own High Magic Arte. She wanted to make sure it was fully destroyed rather than partially and she had an idea on just how to do that regardless of what arte Erik was about to use.
A loud crash came from an upper catwalk that broke. Aliya looked up and saw Raven plummeting from one of the highest catwalks.
“Shoot for the skies! Geiser Rise!” Aliya pointed directly below where Raven was falling. A glyph appeared and water shot up out of it, catching Raven and slowing her fall. She ran over to Raven seeing she was beat up pretty badly. Her cloak was shredded and half the light armor she had on before was missing or cracked. Her skin was littered with scratches and bruises. “What happened?”
“He can’t be injured, he doesn’t die…” Raven’s voice was raspy as she looked up.
“Who?” Aliya’s voice trembled when a sinister laugh echoed throughout the metal room they were in. Far louder to Aliya than the battle that was occurring around her. She looked up and didn’t see him but the overwhelming fear she felt told her she had to make sure whoever was there didn’t make it in the room.
“The darkest shadow is cast in moonlight, all the while the ocean will turn white,” A massive glyph formed off center at the base of the weapon, closer to the wall the laughter came from. The area around it turned a deep blue as though it were deep water. “Rise from a raging frigid sea! Prepare for the finale!” A pillar of water swirled up, engulfing half the weapon riding along the wall she so desperately wanted to block off.
“No! She’s going to destroy it!” Claudia draws her rapier and jumps down onto the catwalk Aliya was on. “Stop her!” The knights charged and distracted Kindle long enough for her and a few knights to slip through. Breyze managed to pick the knights off but Claudia was too close to Aliya for her to hit.
“Lost in eternal suspension,” Aliya spun out of the way of the thrust of Claudia’s rapier as though she was dancing. Aliya didn’t lose focus for a moment, in fact the motion was in perfect time with her rhythm, “Frozen Ascension!”
The water pillar froze solid at her final words and her mind was at ease from the fear she felt before. When Aliya turned her attention back to Claudia she was no longer the target of her attack since the barrier around Erik was down. Erik wasn’t ready yet, his eyes were closed as he was still gathering his mana, which turned out to be a lot harder than he was expecting due to some of his mana being drained before.
“You’re dead, thief!” Claudia planted herself and was about to go straight for his neck. Aliya was hot on her heels but she knew she wouldn’t make it in time.
“You’ll miss Claudia!” Aliya yelled as she smashed her ice spear on the railing. Claudia’s focus was shifted if just for a moment by the noise and the movement causing her rapier to barely nick him instead of her intended fatal blow. Before she could reel back and prepare for another attack, Aliya closed the gap and elbowed her in the ribs, knocking her away from him.
“Thanks for that!” Erik opened his eyes and smirked at Aliya. “It’s time to end this!” Erik pointed his sword upwards towards the frozen weapon. He rested the side of the gun atop the large Fire Rune embedded in the blade and sparks began to fly between the small gap down the center of his blade. “Rail Burst Cannon!” Erik smiled and pulled the trigger. A massive burst of heat and lightning tore right through the weapon and the ceiling of the tower until the lighting started arcing off and striking Kindle. “What?! It’s not supposed to do that!” Erik looked her way in shock. Steam filled the room making it hard to see anything but everyone could vaguely see Kindle’s body began to change form as it sparked with electricity.
“You should be careful using lighting around a Thunderbird…” Kindle spread her wings exposing the blackened x-pattern among her crimson feathers as lightning sparked off of them. Three long and thin plumes extended from the back of her head down the length of her body that now filled the place the weapon once stood. She looked to her comrades and opened her golden beak, “Get on! Let’s get out of here!”
Everyone climbed on Kindle’s back aside from her brothers which instead held onto either leg and rested atop her talons. She flapped her wings and knocked all the knights back and cleared the steam.
As they rose to the sky Aliya spotted a figure on the highest catwalk grinning up at her with jagged teeth that looked like they were a shark’s. Tears filled her eyes as memories came back while her eyes were on him. The half white and half black long hair was parted evenly down the middle. His golden eyes that pierced the darkness revelled in her terror. A man she thought was long dead…
“Mystic…?!” Aliya choked out the name of the man she saw below.
“I’ll be waiting, Aliya,” his smooth sinister voice hit her ears even though she was too far to hear his whisper. Aliya couldn’t stop herself from crying.
Before the knights could even recover they were gone.
“Find them!” Claudia yelled enraged. “Don’t let them escape the city! Don’t let them escape the Empire!”
“Claudia,” Golden eyes looked down on the raging princess as he played with the Water Rune created from Aliya’s High Magic Arte. “See to it that I get that Water Spirit in particular, alive.” He pocketed the Rune in his long white bloodstained coat. “That gun the human boy had with him as well.”
“Make sure you bring that Water Fae to the Head Researcher, alive,” Claudia elaborated on her order. “The others I couldn’t care less whether they are dead or alive! Make sure to pry that Mana Gun out of Erik Tiereny’s dead hands!”