Dragon Prince: The Storm's Heart

Chapter Twenty: The Great War

On top of the Storm Spire, Shira was sitting there with Ibis and she was using white paint to paint runic styled marking on her arms that should help her fly.
"You're doing well," praised Ibis warmly.
"Thanks." Shira smiled at him eagerly.
"Try to say the incantation." Ibis looked at her curiously.
"Manus. Pluma. Volantus." But to Shira's disappointment, nothing happened to her arms. She looked at her Dad, and he smiled at her understandingly.
"Don't worry, it's quite a difficult spell," explained Ibis. "It takes quite a while to master it."
"But we don't have it." Shira looked at her hands helplessly and glanced at Ibis as he joined her side. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"I know that we have only known each other for a few days," said Ibis to Shira. "But I'm glad to have met you, Shira."
Shira smiled at him. "Me too."
Ibis hurried to embrace Shira, evoking a snuggle from his daughter. Shira readily returned her father's hug. Tears pricked her eyes in response to the warmth of Ibis's arms. He carried the scent of the sky, the wind, and the rain. The simple feeling of being home again. Shira buried her face into Ibis's warm, loving embrace.
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Shira dropped to the ground beside Callum as Janai and Amaya having given them a lift, watching the two united armies. The time had come. It was only just after morning, but Viren's corrupted army had arrived. True to Soren's description, they all had glowing cracks in their skin that made it look like they had fire or lava flowing under their skin.
"Fireproof," Shira noted.
"We shall manage," Janai said confidently.
Then, she and Amaya flew down to the Sunfire elves' army, and Amaya gave the signal to ready their shields by raising her own. Shira smirked, Ibis is quick to join them. Sunfire elf shields hid a very nasty surprise, as the humans were about to learn. Suddenly, before anyone gave the command, the biggest of Viren's creatures, who wore some sort of crown and wielded a double-ended glaive in one hand, roared, charging past Viren towards the Sunfire elves and the Flenimus. Everyone stood in stunned silence.
"Stand strong!" Shira yelled, able to tell at a glance that despite the creature's impulsiveness and arrogance, it was powerful.
A second later, Viren had given the rest of his army the signal as well. Shira narrowed her eyes, drawing her bow and nocking an arrow, but continued waiting. Earlier, Rayla had helped her change her arrows by doing an incantation to turn shadowhawk arrows into explosive arrows. Shira decided to wait and test it later. A moment later, just a split second before the first few dozen corrupt soldiers reached the Sunfire elves, a wall of Sun Magic appeared before their shields and they slammed them to the ground, sending the Sun Magic exploding outward. The rest of the army was not deterred by the insignificant number of kills and swarmed forward, crashing into the shields in a wave but stopping there. Shira loosed her arrow, then grabbed another shadowhawk. She chanted the incantation, and the arrow shone as she fired, expanding into a shining, midnight blue bird. It swooped down and exploded in the oncoming army, erupting into a massive, blue fireball. Then, suddenly, Claudia sent a massive ball of pitch-black flames exploding into the Sunfire elves, scattering them, killing many of them, but also killing dozen of her own forces' troops. Shira narrowed her eyes, feeling beyond mad at the girl's betrayal and blind loyalty.
The Monster Army was approaching, the Sunfire elves' and Flenimus' horror was apparent. Shira stood strongly next to Ibis and Callum, her body itched to fight. Shira could see first hand how horrendous the cursed humans looked.
Lines of magma ran through their features, eyes were endless black pits yet they looked human.
An ugly hybrid of a Sunfire elf and a Human bred with Dark Magic. The Sunfire elves, who held the shields, turned them creating a forcefield.
Dropping it pushed the forcefield out, which pushed the soldiers.
Wasting no time, the monsters attacked. General Amaya was correct; they were vicious and deadly to the untrained. General Amaya helped her people slash at their arms, knock any swords out of their hands, and protect the shield wielders.
Speaking of them, their footing was sliding trying their best to shove them away.
Janai's voice rose above the noise, "For Lux Aurea!"
A thousand cries, a thousand ready to kill for their pride and city. Soldiers moved, some out of place, some loosened their grip on their swords.
They rapidly shredded the soldiers who'd foolishly charged through their ranks, and Sunfire elves flooded forward, carving their way through the humans to reform the line, snatching up shields as they went. General Amaya joined them, holding the line for about thirty seconds before the big human, Shira was pretty sure he was a prince, exploded into her, hurling her into Queen Janai who gently gave her to Soren and led her away.
But unfortunately for her, one of the magma monsters had managed to climb up the cliff. Ibis and Callum were both occupied with the other monsters.
Shira felt something deep within her soul was set aflame and felt its warmth spread throughout her body. The monster was making her more angry than she had ever been and she wanted nothing more than to beat him. "Manus! Pluma! Volantus!" She suddenly felt something strange happening. She glanced at her arms to see that her new white markings are glowing and was surprised to see her arms have became mage wings in the color of beige. She launched upwards, caught herself flying, and have dove down to fight the monster.
Her instincts have took over, and Shira was just barely able to dodge the first swipe in time. The monster, however, wasn't an amateur, as he immediately pulled back and launched onto the offensive. He traded blow after blow, feinting and slashing with the skill of a monster.
Just as the monster swung his sword at her, she countered it with a dodge. Her eyes reflected off of the light, and it almost looked like her blue eyes was set aflame. Intense determination ran through her. Shira felt her fear being replaced with deep anger. She had already lost her family, she refuses to lose any more family or friends.
Shira kept him from getting a shot at her as she flew overhead. Her senses opened up. She saw his attacks coming and started countering the attacks. She leaned forward and tried a kick of her own. The monster deflected it easily, but she saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to attacking her with more force.
They were both growing tired, so Shira decided to do her own technique. Shira tried the kicking maneuver. Her feet hit the base of monster's and Shira pushed, putting her whole weight into a downward kick.
CRASH! Shira caught him above the monster's sword and continued fighting for her family. As she finished him off, a roar sounded as Ezran returned with dragons as reinforcements. The dragons unleashed a flood of flames on the humans, catching a few elves in their attack as well, and Shira's eyes widened at the sight.
But unfortunately for her, one of the magma monsters had managed to climb up the cliff. He sent Ibis flying into a rock and fell down unconsciously, while Callum tried to keep the monster away from him. But the monster didn't let Callum finish the spell and took him by the throat.
Ibis regains consciousness, but is too weak to even get up.
The monster prepares to strike one last blow, but suddenly his hand is shot through by an arrow. This one is followed by two more piercing him. It wasn't long till Shira had swooped down and pushed him off the cliff, making him release Callum.
Shira ran towards Ibis and bent down to help him up. "Are you okay, Dad?"
"I'll be fine," replied Ibis.
Just then, a voice began to shout.
"Ready!" the young female's voice shouted. "Launch!"
Arrows began to whistle through the air and rain down on the corrupt humans, Shira turned around to see a young blond human dressed like a warrior queen and sitting astride a white horse before an army of humans from every kingdom. Just as they spotted them, however, about a thousand shadowhawk arrows fell among the monsters and exploded. Shira spun around, then grinned as she saw over a million Moonshadow elves racing toward the battle, either on foot or on their mounts. Around the same time, she saw over a thousand of Skywing elves flying from the fierce sunrise and some of them shot magical arrows or carrying staffs in their hands.
A moment later, the Moonshadow elves had entered the bounds of the battle and had become the deadliest force currently on the field. Shira looked around as she suddenly realized the dragons weren't fighting and realized they'd all been secured by massive chains. Soren gained the same thought as she did and fought his way to the closest dragon. His way to the nearest dragon where he drew her sword and slashed the chains, freeing the dragon. It went on the offensive instantly, and Soren moved to the next dragon, then the next. Janai freed the last two, and the pair of them rejoined the battle with Amaya and Soren. The battle raged on as they continued fighting.
The adrenaline rushed back to her muscles, Shira jumped at any hybrid who was near her like an angry falcon. Soren pushed one towards her allowing her to slash them across the torso. Raising her eyebrow, he shrugged and ran past her.
It was over. Before they knew it, it was over. The air seemed still without the cries of soldiers, even if Shira was able to hear it, the ground was complete dirt, her body was still tense expecting something to go wrong. As she landed, her arms have transformed back to normal.
When Shira saw General Amaya and Commander Gren hugged each other, her figure went to auto-pilot going there. Concern went over her features, Shira looked at the general in confusion, but she didn't say anything. Janai gestured to her right eye and her left arm. "You have scars. You sure you're fine?"
Shira was proud of herself for hearing herself say, "Yes, I'm fine."
Ezran flew down on Pyrrah and looked at them. "Now that the battle is over. We need to help the wounded and free those dragons."
General Amaya signed with Gren translating, "I'm worried. This isn't over until we find Viren, we can't let him slip from our grasp."
"I'll order a massive search of the entire battlefield. We'll find him and capture him," Janai said. "We won't let him get away."
As the adults dispersed, Shira called him over. Shira looked at Ezran straight in the eyes, "Your parents would be very proud of you."
Ezran smiled at her tearfully. "Thanks Shira. By the way, Callum is with Rayla and Zym."
"Good." Shira started bandaging and tending her injuries as Ezran and Soren both went to help the dragons.
"Shira!" She looked over her shoulder to see Ibis running towards her. He was uninjured, thankfully.
"Dad!" He wrapped his arms around Shira. She wrapped her arms around them and squeezed him tightly. Shira felt his strong arms wrap around her. She shut her eyes and let her whole body relax into the embrace.
But they pulled back once they realized that Callum and Rayla hasn't joined them. Shira saw an eerie, terrible purple glow coming from the top of the Pinnacle. Viren, Shira growled at the sight of him with the corrupted staff and... is that a Startouched elf standing next to him?
"Callum! Rayla!" Ezran and Shira both started to run up at the staircase towards the top of the mountain with Soren, Corvus, and Ibis behind them.
Ezran and Shira both ran up to the Pinnacle just in time to see Callum coming in for a landing. Callum had massive brown wings instead of arms, and Rayla was hanging onto him around the neck as they fell forwards. Not a smooth landing, but a landing nonetheless. Rayla seemed to be checking them both over for injuries before Ezran ran over to them. Zym was butting his head against Rayla's arm and she pulled him into a hug with Callum. That was when Shira noticed the tears in Rayla's eyes, as well as in Callum's eyes.
"What happened?" asked Shira.
"Viren's gone," Callum replied, his voice breaking a little. His wings turned back into arms and his arms were wrapped around Rayla very tightly. "Thanks to Rayla."
"He's on the ground by now," she whispered, her hand in Callum's hand. "No way he's survived."
That was when Ezran realized what had happened—how close he'd come to losing Rayla, a girl he now thought of as an older sister and who would be his older sister eventually. But how had Callum...?
"We'll tell you about it one day," Callum promised. "For now, I want to get down from here and make sure Rayla's on solid ground. No more cliffs for you." She didn't even protest, simply nodding as they headed down the stairs. But he settled his gaze on Zym. "But now it's time to see if Dragon Queen has woken up to your summons."