Sky Swimmer

Just Like Floe's Dreams, Part 29

The President and General Fieldman see the GFI building explode.

President, "Now we wait."

General Fieldman, "And pray that they achieved their mission."

They stare together out at the window at the Heat Matrix. And then.

It wanes, sizzles out, and the Heat Matrix starts to disperse.

The room explodes with cheers. The President feels like throwing up, his fear of what was happening to his world suddenly manifest in his gut like some kind of acid. The long hours of unknowing, of feeling vulnerable after he had convinced the other world powers to stop all and any operations that would emit any amount of heat, the doubt that had gnawed away in silence at him was now fully felt in the pit of his core.

But they pulled through. Agent Torres and his Special Forces did the job. The cheering was evidence enough of that. And then the cheering suddenly stops.

The President looks up at the monitor. Flying drone views of the far side of the airport show Soilers gathering behind their makeshift fortress wall there, facing the Pacific Ocean. One camera zooms in on a figure in dark clothes. It is Hamada. Transgressa by his side.

The President vomits into a wastebasket.

---

Floe stands alone on a mighty Cumulus Cloud. She directs her Cloudcruiser toward the Soiler stronghold.

The Soilers coalesce behind their fortress wall, aligning their machines of war.

Underlord Hamada and Transgressa emerge from a Battle Boulder. Scanning the horizon Hamada raises binoculars and focuses on the onrushing storm front. He is not impressed, vast as the clouds are, they are barren except for one figure. Hamada hands the glasses to Transgressa.

"Alone?" she says.

Hamada chuckles, "Apparently she has grasped her true position in this life. And now she desires to rid me of my throne."

"She did destroy the Guardian, she broke your curse. She has power."

"Obviously she is the true Restorer, but my dearest Transgressa, she has had no time to learn or harness the true depths of her powers. If her father and mother combined were not able to vanquish me, then why should I fear a girl who thought she was a Walker a mere few days before?"

Transgressa likes what she hears, but none-the-less warns the Underlord, "Overconfidence may sway the Houses to join your war lust for this surface world, but I have seen many a warrior dissolved because of their overfed egos, their underestimating their enemy."

"No, she has great power," whispers Hamada mostly to himself, "but she does not know how to wield it yet or she would know that she need not ride Clouds to come here. She would simply appear here and break my neck. No, this girl is still a Walker in heart."

The storm front charges forward, and like a great tide the clouds spill forward, too fast to be natural, they rage, spewing lightning and thunder in supernatural quantities. Floe's Cloudcruiser ploughs ahead of the rest and comes roaring down toward Hamada's wall.

Floe's ship throws lightning bolts as it crashes into the Soiler's Fortress. Other giant clouds also collide with the fortress, wreaking havoc and destroying massive swaths of the structure.

Great plumes of fog clear from Floe's vision. Then, like in her dreams, the Soiler warriors emerge. The dark enemy confronts her. Thousands of them.

Floe walks toward the Soiler warriors, their monstrous probe creatures and their Battle Boulders.

She shouts, her voice carries far on the winds, "Listen to me! I am the RESTORER!"