Video: Love at War

Chapter VI - Dreams and Wishes

Aerrow, Piper, and Radarr headed towards one of the ancient buildings. They looked quite similar to the underground city they were in before, but the difference was that the normal buildings were very small, probably containing only one room, while the temple was huge. They walked for quite a while, studying the place.

"Do you think they were built by the same people?" - the Sky Knight asked.

"I don't know, but that's very likely." - the girl commented.

They reached the temple, and when they went inside, they had a surprise: several crystals of many different kinds simply laid around all over the place. They gasped, they couldn't believe their eyes! That was such a convenient stroke of luck! Piper kneeled near some of the crystals and grabbed a few of them in her hands.

"This is great! They're exactly what I needed! I can do so many things now!" - she said excitedly.

But not one second later, they all felt the ground shaking a little, and then the roof simply exploded. From the hole formed in the ceiling came several Cyclonian switchblades shooting everywhere. Aerrow pulled his blades out and readied himself for combat, but he was ultimately overwhelmed by several waves of blasts aimed at him.

He managed to avoid being directly hit, but the explosions near him sent him flying. He landed on his back, then tried to get up, but an awful pain on his torso prevented him from doing so. He had definitely broken a rib or two in that attack.

Piper gasped and ran to help him, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the talons flying closer. She hid behind a broken wall, so she'd not draw the fire towards the boy again. She looked around, searching for somewhere she could go to flank the enemy soldiers, but other than that broken wall, there was nowhere else to hide, the place was pretty much an open field. She then noticed Radarr beside her, staring worriedly at Aerrow, who was still lying on the ground, unable to move and in the view of the Cyclonians.

"Radarr, I need you to distract those talons for a minute while I gather some crystals." - she told him.

He nodded and ran out of that wall. He picked a small rock up and threw it at one of the soldiers. That drew the whole troop's attention and they all flew after the little animal. He ran as fast as he could, dodging shots aimed at him. Piper worked quickly, picking up several different crystals from the ground. When Radarr got eventually cornered and it seemed like that was the end for him, the girl was ready to step in the fight.

"Over here!" - she shouted.

All the talons stared at her and saw the crystals in her hands. They immediately charged at her. She smiled confidently. Now those guys would learn a lesson! She jumped in the air and started to float, thanks to a levitation crystal she had with her. She focused a little and released some energy of one of the crystals, creating a strange aura shield in front of her, which deflected all the shots coming in her direction. Now protected, she absorbed a lot more energy from the crystals, shooting a bolt that turned one of the switchblades into dust.

Aerrow watched that surprised. He wished he could get up and help her, but he simply wasn't able to. Piper smiled proudly, but her joy was turned into despair when the rest of the talons got a lot closer to her. She quickly flew away, the enemies chasing her. She turned around and shot a red beam of energy from her hands, exploding three skyrides at once.

There was only one left. The Cyclonian tried to outsmart her and shot at the ceiling right above her. The roof gave in and fell. The Sky Knight and his co-pilot gasped and blinked in horror as they saw the ceiling collapsing on top of Piper. Or so they thought. She suddenly reappeared right behind the talon. She had used one of the crystals to teleport herself away from the danger. Grinning triumphantly, she touched his skyride with her index finger and transformed it into a cloud of butterflies. The Cyclonian fell on the ground and was knocked out.