Ven: Part 1

Ch. 14: Thy King Has Arrived

A hail of bullets rains down on me, my skin stinging as they make contact, the sound of tearing metal piercing the air.

The ground begins to give way. I stumble my way backwards, shielding my face from the onslaught.

The bullets cease, leaving a ringing in my ears.

My legs fill with electricity and I squat down.

"Ven, wait!" Marney yells.

I ignore her and jump, speeding through the air. The castle is impossibly high up, and even bigger up close.

The entire underside of the castle is full of hundreds of rectangular holes with glowing red lights in them.

I'm within arm's reach when one of the huge, brick shaped ships that took Horse Friend bursts out from one of the holes and slams into me, sending me flying back to Earth.

The first one was followed by another from my left, then another from behind. The whole underside of the ship swarms with the things.

On and on they came, slamming me from every direction they could until I slammed to the ground.

I grunt as I hit the hard metal.

"Ven!" Marney yells, I can hear her footsteps clanging on the metal ground.

I struggle to my feet and hold my hand out towards her.

"Stay back!" I give her a pleading look, "Please..."

"No." She slugs me across the chin. I barely register the hit, but I can see her knuckles turning bright red. "You aren't involving me, I'm involving myself! I don't have anywhere else to go, and I don't want to live in this nightmare of a country! I'm going to fight!"

I grit my teeth.

"You don't understand." I grunt.

"Then explain later!" She shouts, waving her wand.

I hear a loud bang, one of the brick shaped ships crashes to the ground.

"You sure?" I stare evenly down into her eyes. "There's no going back after this."

"I'm sure!" She meets my gaze, there's a resolve in her that wasn't there yesterday.

You've ruined another life.

I can hear the rush of wind as one of the ships barrels down at us.

Electricity courses through my whole body, my arm shooting up to catch the ship and stop it in its tracks. It puts us in an even darker shadow beneath the castle, my hand comically small on it's large hull.

"Get on my back then," I say. I tense my arm and lightning arcs from my forearm into the ship.

"Why?" She frowns at me.

I drop the ship, all it's lights turning off.

"Right now it's the safest place for you to be."

She nods and quickly climbs onto my back.

"Your hair seems bushier than normal," she says.

"So?" I begin running, no real plan in mind.

"It's in my way," she says, tugging at my hair and coaxing it all together.

"Does it matter right now?" I jump and dodge as the ships slam into the ground around us.

"I need to be able to see to help." She says absently.

"Well then hurry it up!"

How are we going to get up there?

These ships are so annoying.