Gaby and Alex looked at each other in agreement and ran towards the tentacle, swords in hand. With quick moves, they sliced it, allowing the Figaro to land and open its cargo bay. Both entered it quickly and closed the door behind them.
“What the Pits were you doing?” Alex asked through the internal comm.
“We were keeping the Bestial distracted, but when we got closer that thing hit us and damaged the weapons systems,” Sid replied, annoyed. Apparently, the effort was taking a toll on the ship because Gaby could hear the hinges and unions groaning. Added to that, the bay was poorly lit at the moment, with the emergency lights casting a dim amber hue.
“Where is Fionn?” Harland asked them.
“Doing the stupid thing he always does,” Gaby replied. Alex was silent.
Without warning, the ship shook once more, and with such strength that it sent Alex and Gaby flying and bouncing inside the cargo bay. Gaby felt the sudden change of speed and direction, which would have sent them tumbling worse than usual if she hadn’t acted so quickly, grabbing a leather strap. She then grabbed Alex by the neck of his t-shirt, holding on as tight as she could.
“What the hell? Why are we accelerating?” Alex asked, feeling pushed towards the back of the ship.
“Ba’x! Tentacle just hit us!” Sid screamed in anger. “We are on a collision course with the ground and the engines are offline!”
“Aww crap,” Alex muttered.
Gaby had wished they had waited for Fionn. Now she was wishing that Alex had gone on a diet.
Chapter 20
Famous Last Words
Fionn coughed from all the smoke that had entered his lungs. That had been quite close, even for his taste. Another explosion rocked the Bestial. He and Byron had been fighting nonstop amidst the explosions. The man… the monster had barely acknowledged them. Instead, he was full of anger and fury, judging by the ferocity of the attacks Fionn had been evading so far. He counted the explosions, six so far. According to Alex, there would be eight small ones before the ninth, the core fueled explosion.
He was running low on energy. His breathing was shallow and forced. He was under no illusions; the odds weren’t in his favor.
When the dust cleared, he saw Byron coming closer. Half of his armor was torn. Beneath it, his rotting body could be seen. Whatever happened to him had put him in contact with an otherworldly intelligence that infused him with great power, but also took a toll on his withered body. Wormlike creatures moved underneath the skin of the once-powerful warrior. His veins were visible, blue due to the lack of oxygen. His mortal body was nothing more than a walking corpse, powered by a powerful spiritual connection with whatever forsaken deity he had made a deal with.
“You think this will hamper me?”
“Actually… yes,” Fionn replied, gasping for air. He stood tall, the cracking of broken bones audible. Whatever energy he had to empower his Gift would have to be used wisely. “Y’know? For years I wondered why you did what you did. It gnawed on me. But then I realized that I don’t care anymore. I don’t even hate you. I pity you. You are just a self-entitled childish prick that is throwing a tantrum because Daddy told him no for once.”
“You pity me? You call fighting to realize my vision a tantrum?” Byron replied, his voice stammering with anger.
“Yes.” Fionn shrugged his shoulders. “A vicious tantrum, I give you that. But I will do what your father should have done a century ago. Kick your friggin’ ass.”
BOOM!
Fionn waited for Byron to come closer. On previous occasions, he had let that prick of a prince dictate the terms of their fights. Not this time. This time Fionn was going to take control of what would happen next. And then his breathing relaxed. Everything would be fine; somehow, this would end here one way or another. He just needed to stand firm. “Goddess, gimme strength to finish this,” Fionn muttered, cleaning the blood from his mouth and closing his eyes. He called forth the last ounces of the Gift.
“I will kill you, you and your new friends, and I will have your heads mounted in my trophy room,” Byron yelled while jumping at Fionn, who simply dodged the attack that almost cut off his head. With a streak of green light coming from his sword, Fionn made a cut on Byron’s face, taking an eye.
The past is a lesson, the present a gift, the future an opportunity, Fionn remembered and opened his eyes, which glowed with the same intense green light of Black Fang. He let go. He didn’t keep the Gift turned off anymore, instead, he unleashed all its power, overwhelming Byron and healing himself in the process. It wouldn’t last long, as he knew Byron would keep draining the Gift away to power his own abilities. But Fionn only needed a couple of minutes. Maybe less if the initial shock of the sudden energy release had dazed Byron enough to give Fionn the opening he needed.
The Gift was inside him, the Tempest that empowered his sword. Energy whirled around him like a hurricane. It wasn’t mindless fury trying to strike down an enemy. It was measured, each movement as simple as a sidestep, or as complex as a backhanded swing. Each blow, kick and punch that Fionn delivered hit like a meteor, sending Byron backward, putting him off balance, slicing bits and pieces of his armor, unleashing a gust of wind.
The cracks were showing, leaving the withered corpse of Byron visible.
BOOM!
Byron tried to counter the sudden onslaught, but Fionn’s speed was increasing in an unexpected way. For all his bravado, Byron wasn’t expecting this, nor the fact that the only strike he managed to land on Fionn’s left leg healed almost instantly.
“How?” Byron replied, surprised. His body trembled with spams.
“A clever kid found the weakness in your ability to drain us. Ironic, given that he is a descendant of Ywain, the only one of us that truly frightened you. But it doesn’t matter anymore. This is the end of the road for you,” Fionn said with a smile. He could smell the fear on Byron’s body.
“Stop talking,” Byron stammered, taking a few steps back. “Stop right there.”
Fionn ran and went for the left knee with a low kick, busting the kneecap with a loud crack. Next were the ribs, which received the worst of a straight swing. Black Fang’s edge cut deep into the armor, slicing the ribs and the dead heart, leaving behind a gash full of worms and black ichor.
“This is for Izia!”
With a spin on his heels, Fionn used his left fist to deliver a punch to the upper back, breaking a couple of vertebrae. With a swift motion, using Black Fang as a lever, he dislocated Byron’s left arm. Fionn finished with an upward slice that cut the tight tendons of Byron’s right leg and left a wide gash on his chest, from which worms spilled onto the deck, releasing a foul odor. Fionn readied his sword, which felt as heavy as a mountain in his tired arms.
“I will be back,” Byron stammered, with a look in his eyes that betrayed fear. “My masters, the Golden King and the Creeping Chaos, will sort you out.”
“Yeah right,” Fionn dismissed him, getting ready for the last bout, holding his ground. “I’m dying to meet them.”
“What are you waiting for? Or are you trying to plot an escape plan?” Byron taunted Fionn.
“I’m just waiting,” Fionn replied off-handedly, dodging a swing aimed at his head, countering with a kick to the side with such strength that it blasted a plate of the armor away.
“For what?” Byron asked exasperatedly.
BOOM!
The structure of the Bestial started to bloat, the metal panels deforming as they tried to contain the multiple explosions taking place inside.
“That.” Fionn smiled, glancing at the metal being deformed under their feet.
Fionn swung Black Fang, and Byron hefted his own sword to block the attack. Both blades clashed with a force that sent shockwaves all over the deck, damaging its surface and almost ripping apart a couple of hatches, leaving them hanging. Black Fang hit true and shattered the o
ther sword as if it were made of glass, leaving both Fionn and Byron dumbfounded. Not waiting for another chance, Fionn swung Black Fang with all the strength he could muster in his tired arms and aimed at Byron’s neck. Byron’s head, with his eyes bulging in surprise, fell with a thud and rolled away, degrading into a blob absorbed by the ship’s hull. The same happened to the rest of what was Byron’s humanoid body. The Bestial shook, a shriek filling the air, as its death rattles took place. While Byron was alive, the Bestial did what it could to contain the explosion. But with its master gone, the final chain reactions engulfed the place in flames.
Fionn looked around for a way to escape and ran towards a half-burnt flag, which he ripped from its pole. Then he saw an unhinged door. With a kick, he ripped the door from the frame and jumped onto it, sliding across the surface of the, by now, curved deck and into the air.
I have had worse ideas than air surfing, Fionn thought. At least he knew that he would survive the fall if he arrested it long enough.
“Oh shiiiiit!” Fionn yelled as the Bestial finally exploded, sending shockwaves. Gathering his bearings, Fionn rode the shockwave on his improvised surfboard, closing fast to the ground. The initial stages of the heatwave and the light of the explosion soon engulfed him, making him disappear.
This is gonna hurt, Fionn thought, regretting his idea. A lot.
† † †
The Figaro was on a crash course, barreling through the skies with little control. Sid was doing his best to regain it, to little avail.
“With no power, and at this speed and altitude, we won’t make it,” Alex said, his face illuminated with the determination given only by a stupid idea with one chance in a million of working. “Sid, just give me one minute of stability and we will make it.”
“You are asking for a miracle!” Sid replied, yelling through the comm. “Not this again! C’mon! Not another crash landing! I just fixed my ship!”
“No. I’m going to give us that miracle,” Alex opened one of the access panels in the cargo bay. Inside, there were cables and conduits that routed the energy flow inside the ship. Taking the largest of the conduits, he closed his eyes and started to focus his mind.
“What are you doing?” Gaby asked, concern filling her voice.
“As always, something really, really stupid,” Alex replied. For a brief moment, Alex just stood there, eyes closed, listening to the noises made by the ship’s hull. He focused all the energy he could muster, which gave him a headache. It felt as if the surrounding electromagnetic field was water opposing his will. He pictured the electric energy inside the Figaro’s core and sent his own to jumpstart it. By doing so, he felt as if an electromagnetic field expanded from his body outwards. He pushed the energy again. He was trying to resuscitate the core the same way you would restart a heart under cardiac arrest.
“Just focus, let it flow,” Gaby whispered into his ear. Alex focused once more on Sam’s smile.
The light was restored and the roaring of the engines could be heard outside.
“I don’t know what you are doing, but keep doing it,” Alex heard Sid yelling at him through the comm. He could feel how the samoharo was pulling the yoke, trying to steady the ship long enough to lessen the impact of the crash. The core sent faltering energy to the engines, just enough for Sid to slightly arrest the fall.
He closed his eyes and just let himself go. Alex felt the waves of energy around him, like water that he could push and move at will. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes, releasing all he had left, sending enough energy from his hands to power up the engines, burning his hands in the process due to the extreme heat released by the conduits.
It had been enough to restart the Figaro, but not enough to avoid a rough landing.
The Figaro didn’t stop, still pushed forward by its momentum, and left grooves in the ground.
The lights turned off.
The Figaro finally skidded to a halt. Alex opened his eyes again and saw half the cargo bay hatch ripped apart. The soles of his sneakers were melted and he was bleeding profusely from the nose, his body shaking in a seizure. Gaby was on the floor, unconscious, and he could barely make any sense of what Sid and Harland were yelling. Smiling, Alex fainted and fell to the ground near Gaby, exhausted.
† † †
The energy blast unleashed by the explosion of the Bestial swept across the whole valley, reaching the city. From a vantage point on the hill, most students, professors, and Knights fearfully admired the incoming blast that would soon engulf the city. Only two figures stood tall against it: the Queen and Samantha.
“I hate it when he is right,” Sam mumbled. She was breathing heavily, surrounded by the dead carcasses of critters.
Sam extended her arms in front of her. She closed her eyes. A shiver ran through her body, shaking it. Samantha was leaving herself open to the full power stored inside those obelisks, the magick of a whole city. She felt her bones creaking, her muscles aching and oppression on her chest. Her heartbeat was now faster than the pace of a racehorse. She felt every cell of her body overcharging with the magick flow of energy. Her ears disappeared inside her skull and, on top of her head, were replaced by silver fox ears.
It is said that a truly powerful sorcerer gets only one True Spell. The one she could cast with a mere concept inside her head, without backlash from reality. A spell that was the reflection of her true nature. Now she was on her way to becoming the first in centuries to achieve such a goal. Samantha always dreamed of reaching that level with a flashy attack spell or even a summoning one. Never with one as simple as a protective spell.
Funny.
Opening her arms, she let all the energy flow through her, as a smile formed on her lips. Her eyes locked on the energy blast that from her perspective was moving in slow motion.
The crystal obelisks resonated with the energy and from them, a humongous bubble of luminous energy spread over the city. The streets and walls of the city glowed with purple light, empowering the shield. It rapidly covered everything as a defensive shield. Tiny spheres of energy floated in the air, popping in and out of existence in seconds.
Sam felt the pressure, the heat, the kinetic energy unleashed by the explosion impacting the shield as if it were an extension of her whole being. Her knees started to buckle under the effort needed to push back, but the Queen’s hand never left her shoulder.
“You can do this, young one,” the Queen whispered into her ear.
She felt more changes in her body, which apparently now included a fox’s tail. But she ignored that, pushing back with all her strength. Samantha’s hair was now an intense, bright purple color, and her irises took on a golden hue with purple specks.
No one on that hill could take their eyes off of her. Her knees straightened up, and her arms fully extended in front of her. People on the streets marveled at the spectacle of the light emanating from the streets as the whole city acted as a massive magick sigil.
Her heart was now pumping faster than a warptrain and Sam realized one thing: She was having a heart attack. Correction, something worse. Samantha felt her heart explode inside her. Blood spilled from her mouth. The cells of her whole body started to burn. Her vision started to turn to black, while her body started to go limp. At least she had saved the city.
Then, she heard a voice. It was similar to Mekiri’s, reassuring her that all would be fine. Something warm entered her body and quickly grew inside of her, lessening the aching caused by the stress, rebuilding and restarting her heart. Her body felt whole again, absorbing magick energies at a faster pace without any ill effect.
Her Gift had awakened.
With her sight still blackened but feeling reenergized, Samantha let out a scream, unleashing the whole power of the spell.
“Haaaaa!”
With an explosion of light, the blast dissipated. Saint Lucy was safe. Within seconds, the shield disappeare
d as well, along with the bright light that surged up from the streets. Power failures cropped up all over the city. Sam fell to her knees, spent and trying to catch her breath. The Knights had their mouths open in astonishment until the Queen, with a mere glare, made them fall in line. The freefolk approached Sam and started clapping and cheering for her. The Queen helped Sam to her feet.
Every muscle, tendon, and bone ached. Her heart was still healing itself. Breathing was hard and her vision was blurry with tiny specks of light peppering her eyes.
So this is how it feels to get the Gift, Sam thought. It really sucks.
Then she opened her eyes wide as saucers and asked the Queen
“And the Figaro? My dad? My friends?”
Chapter 21
Denouement
Gaby opened her eyes slowly, regaining consciousness. Her head was spinning, still dizzy after the crash. Alex was next to her unconscious, his nose bleeding, laying on the floor of the ship. The interior of the ship was a mess, but at least they were alive. She kneeled next to Alex, trying to wake him up. When he didn’t respond, she started to apply resuscitation measures until he opened his eyes and gasped for air. Gaby helped Alex to sit up, his back against a wall while holding his head.
“I don’t know if I’m hungry, dizzy, tired, suffering the aftermath of a seizure or all of the above,” Alex said with a faint voice.
“I’m proud of you.” Gaby hugged him.
“I just wish I could have done more to keep the Figaro intact.” Alex looked around. “You know he is gonna be pissed off.” The damage to the ship was extensive.
“Let’s get out of here.” Gaby helped Alex stand up and they left the ship. They saw Harland and Sid outside, bruised but otherwise fine. Sid, however, wasn’t sharing the happiness of having survived.
“My ship!” Sid could be heard yelling from the remains of the cockpit.
“Why are you complaining? At least you are alive,” Harland yelled as well.
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