Dawning Skye

As Richard neared Skye, a loud roar was heard from overhead. As soon as everyone looked up, a stream of fire was released for Zazzy’s mouth as she torched the space between her mother, and the gross thing trying to get her.

It still had a human scent to it, under the stench of rot and muck. Zazzy had been taught not to hurt people, but she wasn’t sure if the thing before her qualified as a human or Fae.. All she knew was that her mother smelled of fear and sadness, and it angered her greatly.

Skye had been so wrapped up in the moment that she didn’t sense Zazzy above them. When she had unleashed her fire breath, Skye knew right away why she didn’t just torch the creature.

As Richard howled out in pain from getting his hand roasted, Skye tapped into her Tank magic, and jumped into the air to grab ahold of Zazzy’s tail. She flicked her up into the air, then shifted so Skye would land on her back.

Once she felt her mother was secure, Zazzy started to fly up. The stinky thing below her tried to jump up and grab them, but Zazzy was much quicker. As she gloated to herself about how much faster she was than the stinky thing, Skye yelled over the chaos below..

“I know we taught ye ta never hurt people, but that thing isna person anymore! Let’s get ’em!”

Zazzy roared her understanding, then circled in the air. Skye looked over the sparse patch of trees from earlier, and saw a large, partially dead one near the opening to the valley. Skye told Zazzy to grab ahold of it, then wack the trunk with the sharp side of her tail as hard as she could.

When the dragon complied to her mother’s request, the tree fell easily. Using all four of her limbs, Zazzy turned it so that she was holding the base with her front paws. They resembled hands more that paws now, and she could grab and hold things nearly as well as if they actually were hands.

.....

“Alright me scaly bairn! Let’s get some speed built up, then we’re gonna kick it’s arse!”

As Skye and Zazzy disappeared into the darkening sky, Richard turned his attention on the handful of humans still around. Murdoc and Tidas had ordered everyone to retreat back to base, but a few still remained.

Klaus, Kari, Ronnie, Arthur, and a couple sets of Highlanders were closest to the action, and the first targets. With a nerve-racking howl, the monster started to trudge towards them. Kari had to talk Klaus into staying on their ride, and he was lucky she had..

The monster took off at a run as they all started to pull away on their snow mobiles. As it neared the first of it’s victims, a piercing, girlish scream could be heard. Arthur and Ronnie were the closest to it, and Ronnie wasn’t handling it well since he was on the back..

“AHHHH! Go! Go! Go! I don’t wanna be eaten! I won’t taste good!”

Arthur tried to keep the snow mobile straight to gain speed faster, but it felt like Ronnie was trying to crawl up his backside. Every time he thought they were getting away, Ronnie would hit his elbow, forcing him to jerk the handle.

As the monster reached for him again, Ronnie screamed...

Out of nowhere, Murdoc and Tidas attacked it from both sides; each wielding one of Tidas’ dragon blades. With Tidas slicing at Richard’s kneecaps, and Murdoc doing the same to the backside: they cut clean through it’s legs.

The creature immediately fell backwards, and wailed louder than it ever had. The black ooze that poured out from it’s legs pooled around it, and turned into thousands of spikes. Spreading out in every direction as the monster thrashed about on the ground in excruciating pain.

In between the cries, a whistling noise was growing louder and louder..

Looking up into the twilight sky, Tidas and Murdoc barely saw the moment Skye and Zazzy flew down and passed them. A blur and an overwhelming gust of wind that nearly knocked them down were the only things they saw.. Until they looked over at Richard.

A massive tree was sticking out of his chest, and pinning him to the ground. As he howled and struggled to pull at it, Skye and Zazzy circled back around. As they hovered above the two, Skye yelled; “What are ye doin’?! Run away!”

The two barely looked at each other before they turned and took off; abandoning the snow mobiles. They were faster on foot, and since they didn’t need to worry about the others, it was more logical.

As the two ran down the valley as fast as they could Skye circled back to the patch of trees to look for the scroll, then retrieve Mickey’s body. Richard was still howling away as Skye had Zazzy drop her where Anders had been killed.

She’d seen him drop the scroll that he was trying to send Marco before the creature ate him. Once they started fighting Richard, Skye had forgotten about it. Now that he was pinned, she felt that she had a few minutes to look for it.

Suddenly, the howling stopped...

The next thing Skye and Zazzy knew, the creature was rushing them. Skye took a step back, and pulled out her swords, but Zazzy stuck her head in front of her. As she saw smoke beginning to billow out of her mouth, Skye smiled as she said; “Torch his arse..”

Acknowledging her mother with a small trill, Zazzy took a deep breath. Right as the monster reached them, the dragon opened her mouth wide, and unleashed..

The creature cried out as it tried to smack and brush the fire off of itself. It clawed at it’s face and slammed into trees, lighting several on fire. Seeing the potential danger, Skye tapped into her Water magic, and told Zazzy to melt some of the snow with her fire.

Seeing the dragonfire again, Richard backed away, then fell over when he ran into a dead tree. It gave way under his weight, and caught fire as well. It only took Skye less than five minutes to put everything else out. Richard and his tree were all that remained still burning.

Knowing that he could start another fire, Skye doused him once he had stopped moving. She doubted that he was dead, but he was definitely injured. As she climbed back onto Zazzy, Skye sighed as she argued with herself about cutting off his head..

The moment she sat down, Richard let an ear-shattering wail escape, then he started to move..

Knowing not to tempt fate; Skye took off on Zazzy. They stopped to quickly grab Mickey’s body, but other than that, Skye was finally retreating. She had a lot of research that she needed to do on the black ooze, to figure out how to kill Richard for good..

She’d hoped that Zazzy’s fire would’ve been enough, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It could hurt him like their dragon swords could, but none could kill him so far..

‘Ima gonna have ta find somethin’ that the goo doesna stick to so we can at least have a fightin’ chance.. But how do we kill him?! Dammit! I wish Maevis and Nicolas were here ta talk the out wit..’

The sun was gone, and snow-filled clouds were starting to cover the starlit sky. As Skye looked down at the ground below, she saw Tidas and Murdoc running at a decent pace.

“Should we offer ’em a ride?” Skye asked Zazzy, who shook her head enthusiastically in the positive.

Diving down, they surprised the two men when Skye called out; “If ye two want a ride, yer gonna have ta jump on!”

Tidas chuckled and jumped on similarly to how Skye had when Zazzy first showed up. When she looked at him with amused surprise, he said; “You’re not the only one who takes Zazzy out for rides anymore!”

Murdoc missed his first time, and tumbled to a stop in the snow. Skye smacked Tidas for laughing hard at him for it, then had Zazzy circle back to scoop him up. Once he was behind Tidas, Zazzy took off, and joined the mass of snow mobiles heading for the entrance to the RMC bunker.

It took a good chunk of the night to ride back, and the survivors arrived a few hours right before dawn. Out of the two groups that went, just over half returned. Skye felt bad that the only body she brought back was Mickey’s, but it was all she had time for.

As they readied to land, Tidas asked what was bothering her. She told him about her issue, and the fact that she couldn’t find the scroll that Anders was going to send to Anders..

“You mean this one?” Tidas said as he held up the familiar roll of paper over her shoulder.

“Ye got it! But how?!” Skye exclaimed as she grabbed it.

“I found it when I was looking for an opening to attack my uncle,” he replied with cockiness in his voice.

As they touched down, Skye lept from Zazzy, then hugged her husband the second his feet had touched the ground. Murdoc basically had to be pried off of Zazzy. Apparently, he had a thing about heights..

As the Highlanders and RMC members gathered around them, they all cheered for Skye, Zazzy, Tidas, and Murdoc. They were the only ones who had caused damage, and distracted the creature as everyone else had escaped.

Murdoc, with the help of Ronnie and Klaus, told them about how Skye and Zazzy had dived out of the sky to skewer the monster. Zazzy puffed her chest out, and wagged her tail with abandon as everyone cheered for her. As everyone removed their gear from their snow mobiles, Zazzy gently placed Mickey on the ground..

Everyone fell silent at the sight of him. He still had patches of black muck on him from the creature, and inside the large puncture in his chest. As the group shared in a few minutes of silence for their fallen, some of the RMC members came running out of the bunker.

Seeing their expressions, Tidas and Skye had immediately asked what was wrong. Ralph came out with a dower expression as he told them what was going on..

“Both the RMC and Amara are on lockdown for charges of treason. Someone tried to blow up the Highlanders’ hydro dam, and they’re blaming us. They even say that they have evidence..”

As Murdoc walked over and asked what was wrong, Skye looked at him and her husband and said; “I think I need ta tell ye what Mickey told me before he died..”