storm - a sky cotl au

chapter 25.5 - moon

I gaze nervously at Fox, Vale and Mizuto as they slide down the slope to the village's ice ring. Surprisingly, it hasn't broken under the pressure of the darkness crystals on it.

There's multiple different 'zones', as I see them, anyways. One is full of crabs with glowing red crystals growing on their backs. Another has flying dark plants that float in the air like spores. The last has huge, flying boulders.

In the centre of it all is a huge, glowing red crystal. It shines with a light that reminds me of the pictures of dark dragons the Light Whisperer used to show me.

"How do we get the darkness crystals to lose power?" I hear Mizuto yell over to Fox.

I glance over at the kimono skykid from earlier, tilting my head to suggest she answer the question. She hesitates, then murmurs, "Burning the dark plants would be a good start."

"Thanks," I nod softly, before glancing over and yelling, "Burn the dark plants! You guys can all take one zone!"

"Oh," I hear Fox murmur. "Okay then, I'll take the flying plants zone."

"I'll take the rocks," Vale quietly states. The hardest zone. I hope he's careful.

"Okay then." Mizuto nods as he makes his way over to the crab zone. I watch him quietly, wanting to see how the corrupted crabs will react. Most crabs like hitting skykids, but these will probably be more aggressive.

Like I predicted, the crabs all immediately turn their attention to Mizuto as he begins burning the plants. They bonk into him constantly, throwing him off balance.

Frustrated, he lets out a deep call, but the crabs don't flip.

"You okay?" I glance over at Fox, who's busy flying up and burning the floating plants as they yell.

Mizuto sighs. "I'll be fine. Moon, make sure you keep an eye on Vale," he shouts, glancing up at me. "He's in the most dangerous position."

"Right," I murmur under my breath as I change my focus to Vale. He's busy burning some dark plants in the middle of the rocks' trajectory.

I notice a rock charging towards him and open my mouth to warn him, but he flies up without my warning and the rock misses him.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

The next few minutes pass like that — he burns the plants, flapping up every now and then to avoid an incoming rock.

After a while, I start getting complacent, assuming he'll be fine without me watching him. My mind floats off into another tangent, but my gaze still flashes towards him every now and then.

Another rock comes.

He flaps up.

I can see the other rock hurtling towards his back.

He'll never see it in time, I realise.

I run towards the slope and slide down as fast as I can to jump at the back of Vale, just hoping I get there in time...

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hi :)
I'm so sorry for the long wait this time :') I kind of ran out of motivation for this. I'll keep trying to write this story, but the updates will probably come a lot slower. Sorry ;-;