The Outskirts: The Sky Raiders (Jace x OC)

Part 21

My next few missions were pretty easy compared to the first one. The worst involved getting chased by headless semblances through a maze of ruins. On the days that I didn't have to scout, I hung out with Jace, Cole, or Mira, depending on who was free.
For the last few days, there had been some weird tension between Jace and Cole. Whenever they were in the same room, they would snap at each other or one of them would leave with a fake excuse. I had tried asking both of them about it, but they wouldn't tell me, so I left it alone.
Today Mira was harvesting floatstones with Durny, and she asked me to come with her, because I had nothing to do. Cole was coming to, but he was scouting, to see if the castle was safe enough to harvest floatstones.
When they got on the skycraft, we and Mira joined Cole on the bench.
"Hey guys." Cole said. "What brings you guys aboard."
"We mean to harvest floatstones." Mira said.
"Durny wants to teach me how to extract them."
"And I'm here because I had nothing to do today because Jace was scouting." I said.
Durny summoned Mira to do something, leaving me and Cole alone.
"Speaking of Jace," Cole said. "Were you on the roof with him a few nights ago?"
I whipped my head up to look at him. "What?"
"He came back to our room, super flustered.
Then he teased me about being on the porch with Mira. He said you guys were looking for me, and saw us."
I'm gonna kill him, I thought. "Well yeah, that's true. I was looking for you, and I met Jace in the hallway, and he was looking for you to. Mira wasn't in our room, so we went to find you guys.
We saw you on the porch." I said.
"Okay, but I got back like twenty minutes before he did. Not to mention he was grinning like an idiot when he came back. Where were you guys?" Cole asked.
I decided just to tell him the truth. Lying would only make it worse if he found out.
"After we saw you guys, Jace took me up to the roof to see the stars. You saw them right? They're amazing. Anyways, we stayed up there and talked for a while, then he walked me back to my room. That's it."
"What's going on with you guys? Your always together." Cole said.
"Yeah, we hang out, because we're friends." It hurt, because I wanted to be more than Jace's friend, but there was no way I was telling Cole
that.
Cole snorted. "Seems like more than that."
"You know what? I can't even talk to you right now. Come find me when your done being a jerk." I walked away, ignoring his protests.
I went over to Mira who was leaning against the railing.
"I'm going to kill Jace." I grumbled.
"Why, what did he do?" Mira asked.
"Apparently Jace was teasing Cole about you guys being on the porch, and Cole found out that we were on the roof, so he totally grilled me with questions. He's being such a jerk that I can't even talk to him right now."
Mira smiled. "Boys are jerks sometimes."
"Tell me about it." I said.
The Domingo circled around one of the castles.
The captain came over and started talking to Cole. I mostly tuned out there conversation.
Cole came over to me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been such a jerk."
"You shouldn't have. But I'll forgive you, as long as you drop it. And partly because you could die in ten minutes." I said.
Cole cracked a smile.
"Die bravely." I said to him.
"Will do." He said with a mocking salute.
I rolled my eyes at him, but pulled him in for a hug. "Please don't actually die." I said.
"I'll be back." He said. "I'm not done annoying you yet."
I shoved him playfully.
Cole spoke to the captain one more time, before descending the ladder. He spoke to the semblance that had seen them for about ten minutes.
"If he loses this I'm going to need to get out of here quick!" Cole yelled up to us. I gave him a thumbs up and repeated what he said to the others.
The semblance lit a bowl on fire and yelled something inaudible, and a mighty lion anneared The semblance fought it, eventually winning.
"You guys can get the floatstones!" Cole called.
We climbed down, and Lyrus, the semblance, told us where to get the floatstones.
We had only cotton one floatstone when Coke started yelling. "Watch out! Emergency! Get to the boats! Take off!" I looked around for Cole. He was standing beside the ring Lyrus had fought in. Lyrus was standing in the middle of the ring again, surrounded by 4 different creatures. A serpent, à cyclops, a tarantula, and a rhino. The all charged him, except the cyclops.
The guards on the castle ground had started launching fireballs at the life boats. The raiders had started running towards the lifeboats. A few jumped in at the last second. All the lifeboats were already in the air.
A bastille skewered the tarantula and it clenched into a ball. And Lyrus had decapitated the rhino. The cyclops chased after a few men who had tried to run back toward the castle, and swatted them with its giant club, sending them flying and landing in a crumpled heap. Lyrus was still fighting the serpent.
The cyclops charged toward me. I realized my time as a bystander was over. It had all happened so fast.
I aimed my sword toward Durny and Mira and shouted "Away!"
They were running down a path between two buildings. Durny was moving as fast as he could on his bad leg. The spider was chasing them. I thought that it had died.
Apparently not.
One of the fireballs connected with a lifeboat and it exploded. I saw bodies falling with the debris into the Brink.
I landed next to Mira, who was helping Durny.
The tarantula was gaining on us, fast. But the cyclops was headed our way too.
The tarantula leaped on Durny, as if it was biting him. The shaper cried out, then all of sudden the tarantula tore in half, black gore erupting all over me, Mira and Durny.
Jed and Eli were coming for us in a lifeboat, with Cole in it as well. Eli leaned over and reached for Durnys hand, their fingers brushed and Eli shouted in frustration. Cole jumped out of the lifeboat and tumbled to the ground in a heap.
The cyclops was charging toward Mira and Durny, but hadn't seen me. I grabbed my sword And without a second thought, I aimed it towards the cyclopes head and shouted the command. I soared forward. Air rushed around me as I flew towards the cyclopes head. The sword slowed a little as I neared its massive head. Straining forward, I stabbed the cyclops through its massive blue eye. The sword disappeared, so did most of my arm. The cyclops collapsed and I pulled the sword and my arm of of its head. Thick red blood poured from its ruined eye. The cyclops had died, but it's club had caught my thigh, and I had a deep gash that was bleeding a lot. I limped over to Cole and Mira and Durny, and promptly collapsed again a wall.