Fallen Stars

A Means to an End

A woman stands before a girl with a starry mask almost looking down on her saying, "You have no true power...not like me." The woman convulses with metallic ooze forming around her, transforming into a gryphon. The starry masked girl stepped back with fear in her eyes readying herself in a wide stance. The Gryphon throws its head down to roar in the girl's face, showing dominance, as it pushes her into a glass and stone wall to the outside. The loud crash from the impact of the collision and the debris disrupts the regular city noises of the mid afternoon. As they continue their trajectory into another building of glass and cement, the debris falls causing the people to frantically run to avoid chaos. The starry masked girl shakes it off as she grunts, "Code red! Code red! Starlights, there has been a change of plans! I need you all to evacuate the city. I will see if I can buy some time!" Crowds of people run around her, almost trampling each other as the Gryphon circles above wildly as it destroys more buildings.

The starry masked girl begins to run through the once organized streets yelling, "Get to the Starlights. They will get you to safety!" to anyone who could hear over the screams and yelling of the people around them. She notices a little boy trying to call out for his mother and father. She looks in the direction of the fallen rubble behind her and sees the people trapped under the rubble unmoving, some with terrified faces. The starry masked girl shakes herself out of her trance and runs to pick up the boy. She frantically looks around as she sprints. In the crowds of many faces, she finds someone she recognizes, a girl with a feathered mask. The feathered mask girl moves her bow to her other hand to take the boy from the girl with the star mask. For a second they look each other in the eyes with scared, but knowing expressions. Then the starry masked girl leaps away in the opposite direction before saying anything to the other girl seeing that the gryphon landed in front of a group of people ready to pounce. With a blue light surrounding her fist, the starry masked girl punches the beast into the ground. She looks at the scared people as she is struggling to hold the gryphon down, yelling "Run!" The gryphon pushes her off  in the opposite direction of the frantic people. The starry masked girl jumps up and punches the Gryphon in the face and it hurt her with a hard paw forcing her to the ground. Before it could stomp her, she rolls away to get back up and runs further into the city. Hearing the Gryphon slowly approaching she kneels behind a piece of rubble, heavily breathing, trying to catch her breath. The starry masked girl readies her fist to fight again. She lowers her fist in front of her while she loses more control of her powers. She furrows her brow in frustration, noticing she doesn't hear the heavy steps of the Gryphon she looks from behind the rubble. In the instance she does see the gryphon in her line of sight, she is suddenly rammed multiple times by a silver streak into the air. All she sees is the silver of the Gryphon as she is pushed into the air, then the ground. Before she can stand she is hit into the smooth black building. The girl can't even catch her breath between hits. She lies on the ground seeing the Gryphon stop for a bit to taunt her with a maniacal smirk.

The girl starts to get up, but the wind is knocked out of her as she is pushed backwards into some of the debris. She lets out a blood curdling scream and looks down to see a piece of long glass with lavender blood trailing down it. She never looks down at her pained stomach, only feels the area of her stomach with her hand gulps with the taste of blood in her mouth. She takes hold of the shard of glass, pulls it out with a muffled scream and tears pouring out her eyes. When she gets the shard out, she throws it on the ground beside her. The girl looks at her hands that were on her stomach and around the glass shard; they are covered in the lavender liquid and she gets a knowing look with a bit of sadness. She stands up with a bit of a struggle, almost falling. She begins to limp towards the Gryphon, who is not moving with a malicious smile on its face amongst destroyed buildings. The girl feels her blood trickle down her legs and pool in her boots. She only limps a few steps before tripping over a sizable piece of broken stone.The girl struggles to keep her eyes open with her breaths becoming increasingly labored.

The gryphon gets closer to her and whispers something unintelligible. The girl punches it in the jaw and it stumbles backwards stumbles backwards in surprise. She lifts her head with blurry vision seeing a blue light around her fist.

The girl's eyes open up with hope. She props herself up on one knee with even more of a struggle as she feels more herself leaving her body as she coughs up the lavender liquid. Lifting her hands to aim for the gryphon. It runs towards her, both of them screaming as the light blue light beams in the gryphon's dark purple beam.

"No-!" The feathered mask girl and the rest of the Starlights call out to her. She turns her head slightly toward them to see their concerned, sad faces. The girl in the half star mask smiles back to them in response as if everything would be fine despite her state. When they approach her, they all collapse as a stream of gray light passes through them. As they fall over with anguished surprise in their faces, their lavender blood starts to pool around their twitching bodies. The girl's smile turns into one of shock and overflowing tears as her mask falls. She turns back to the gryphon and screams in pain, the ground cracks around her. There is a bright yellow glow that surrounds her and hits the gryphon in the eye, knocking it out. The girl falls to the ground like a rag doll on her side with hollow eyes with tears still cascading down her face. The gryphon was still breathing, but not moving.

Then, a woman in gray and cyan runs through the ruins of the city as she calls out for the Starlights. The woman sees and runs to the girl with hope in her eyes only to turn into grief when she sees the girl's hollow eyes. Then the woman's eyes trail to the blood running from the girl's face to the hole in her stomach.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" the woman cries out as she hugs the bloody dead corpse of the girl.

She flops her head just over the girl's face. Tears run down her face and she opens her eyes slightly and sees something that brings back the hope in her eyes. In a flash, she grabs the bracelets from the girl and the other fallen Starlights.