Video: Kiss from a Rose

Chapter I - The Lone Tower in the Sky

Once upon a time, in a strange planet called Atmos, all lived in kingdoms in the top of extremely high mountains, the Terras. Everyone used ships and skyrides to go from one place to another. Some brilliant stones, called crystals, had special powers and were used in an infinite number of ways to aid people's lives. In this world, there was an Empire in a Terra called Cyclonia, which attempted to rule every kingdom. Of course, most were against that, so the Atmos faced a long age of wars.

After one of the biggest battles, the kingdoms suffered a great loss, since many of their Sky Knights, guardians of the Terras, were slaughtered in the conflict. However, the Cyclonian Empire was also severely broken due to the battle, so the invasions stopped for a while and the world entered a temporary period of peace. And it's in this relatively peaceful time that our story happens.

Driving his red, blue and silver skimmer as fast as always was a young man, probably in his 16 or 17 years old. He was Caucasian, with red spiky hair and emerald green eyes. He wore a red and blue shirt, dark blue pants, brown boots and brown and blue gloves. He also had a plated armor protecting most of the vital areas. Sitting in the cockpit on the left booster was a monkey-rabbit-wolf looking animal, with its blue fur, brown irises in the middle of the yellow eyeballs and pink skin on the paws. It also wore clothes: a blue and purple uniform with a plate on the shoulder and a brown backpack.

The two were running away from someone: a wallop, a race that's known for being short-tempered and extremely strong physically. So, one can guess how much trouble that combination could cause if you get on their bad side. And that's exactly what those two had just done...

"Hey, you! Get back here!" - the wallop yelled angrily - "You stole my crystals!"

"Oh, c'mon, it was only one tiny bag of fuelers. You're not going to miss that. You have plenty of them." - the red-haired teenager said.

That only made the non-human man mad, though. He growled in rage and hit his fists against each other, lighting up his knuckle busters. When the boy turned around a tree in an attempt to lose the wallop, he punched the tree, taking it down in one blow. The animal with him chirped in fright as its eyes widened.

"Yeah, I'll admit this guy is tougher and smarter than most wallops." - the green eyed human commented - "But don't worry, Radarr, he can't get us in the sky."

At that, he accelerated the skyride towards the edge of the Terra. Radarr closed his eyes and the boy squinted his as they got closer and closer to the abyss. Without blinking, the teenager pushed the skimmer off the Terra. The skyride shined under the sunlight and then nose-dived quite fast. The wallop halted his ride and looked down as the other two went beyond the cloud layer and disappeared.

"Hmpf... I'll let the Wastelands take care of him." - he said, then he drove back to his village.

The boy and the little animal kept falling until they reached the land of spiky rocks and lava, the most dangerous place in the Atmos: the Wastelands. Radarr squeaked in terror and pulled on the pilot's arm.

"Too late to go back now, buddy." - the red-haired teenager smiled.

What?! All he had to do was pull up and fly away! The co-pilot crossed his little arms and glared at nowhere. Too late his... Ahhh! The animal ducked before a giant lava worm bit his head off. Phew... That was close! The skimmer had passed really close to that beast for his liking. He growled at the pilot.

"You know what they say: if you're going to hell, might hug the Devil as well." - the young man spoke nonchalantly as he sped up the skyride.

Radarr looked at him in disbelief. Uh... No? Nobody says that. Why in the world would someone ever say that?! Was he out of his mind?! But then the little guy realized: they were heading straight to the volcanic area, where several small tunnels shot out lava at an impressive velocity. Oh, God... No, no, no, no, no, no... No! The poor animal tucked himself inside the cockpit in order to avoid being barbecued by the lava.

The skimmer flew smoothly, narrowly dodging the volcanoes blasting their lava away. The teenager brought the skyride even closer to the river of lava, taunting the creatures that lived there in the process. The huge lava worms jumped out of the river attempting to swallow the whole skimmer. Aerrow did some barrel rolls, easily avoiding the huge beasts.

"Hahaha, this is even funnier than the last time we came here." - the boy said - "I guess these creatures must be mad at me for waking them up already."

The co-pilot glared at him. Oh, yeah, because bothering the deadliest beasts of the whole world was such a fun idea... Well, fun for him! The poor thing here was scared beyond recovery! He'd never pull himself together after that trauma... Radarr blinked as he saw another volcano nearby and ducked inside the cockpit when it blasted some lava upwards.

A few fiery droplets got caught in his tail though. The animal smelled the smoke, then looked behind him and noticed the flame on the tip of his tail. It took him a few seconds to feel the pain. Oh, there it was... His tail was on fire! On fire! He leaped up and down uncontrollably then glued himself to Aerrow's face, blocking out his view.

The boy screamed as he felt the skyride losing control. He grabbed on his co-pilot, trying to pull him away as the skimmer kept flying randomly in the air, luckily dodging the lava blasts and the beasts jumping from the lava river.

"Radarr! Get off me!" - he finally managed to make the animal sit down in front of him.

He looked at him a little angry, then stared forward. He blinked as they were closing in on a huge bat-like creature. The beast squealed in terror at that, but Aerrow quickly made the skimmer turn sideways so they narrowly missed the animal. He let out his breath, then looked at his friend. Radarr stared at him with puppy dog eyes, begging him to go back to somewhere safe.

"Okay, okay, enough fun in the Wastelands for today." - he rolled his eyes playfully.

The skimmer sped up towards the sky again. It pierced through the clouds really fast, dragging some smoke with it, and spun smoothly before steadying its flight. Radarr sighed in relief. Phew... Good thing he had some sense knocked into him.

"See? No sign of that guy." - the teenager said after he looked behind them - "I told you he couldn't outfly us." - he grinned confidently at his animal friend.

The creature smiled back at him for a moment, but then he saw something that caught his attention. He chirped in alert and pointed forward. The red-haired boy looked at where the animal had pointed at and blinked in surprise: a few meters away from them was a gigantic rock solid brick wall!

In the blink of an eye, he yanked the skimmer to his right, slowing it down just in time. Woah, that'd have been a pretty painful crash... He stared at the enormous structure. Just where in the world were they?