Sky Swimmer

Cloud Cruiser Battleship, Part 22

Transgressa looks up to the sky and curses. The clear blue sky is like an ocean, all but swallowing a vast, dark Cumulus cloud structure that is plowing it's way across the heavens toward the Soilers at incredible speed...

"Defense positions! Shields!" commands Transgressa to her troops and turning to her second in command who first brought her news of the onrushing Aireons, "You are to hold them until the Guardian is finished."

"Yes, your eminence," he accepts the order and starts barking some of his own to his scattered men.

Chanting and signing, the Soilers raise huge sheaths of rock from the ground... they build a defensive shield.

The skies wake with contrails behind the Cloud Cruiser Battleship that carves it's way forward toward the very rock defenses that the Soilers build to thwart the attack... defiant figures stand on the prow of the ship.

---

Bollingsworth joins the attack against the Guardian... shooting pulses of shock waves.

Olphina calls forth her deadly jets of water from the bedrock and aims the lethal streams at the Guardian.

The creature absorbs the attacks, advances with crab-like, stuccato motions...

Dan assesses the situation and with a bright tone that does not match the dire circumstances he says to Floe, "Now would be a good time, girl, to unleash some of that raw power you got stored up inside you."

"No kidding, you think? I'm trying!" she quips.

The Guardian prepares to defend itself and raises its multitude of arms and hands. Floe moans inwardly when she notices that within each sculpted hand flourishes a different elemental power. Above one hand a rotating ball of electric energy, above another hand a mass of steaming viscous acid... another has a frenzied cloud of yellow gas... another holds a miniature spinning tornado... another has minerals constantly changing from blades to spikes. One hell of an arsenal.

---

The Soilers are hard at work building their defense when the ground itself turns dark, covered by the immense shadow of the attacking Cloud Cruiser speeding towards them on a kamikaze collision course...

Amidst shreds of storm-darkened mist Fuegar stands at the prow of the ship; his battle axe reflects the grim determination in his eyes. He is joined by his Aireon brethren, the young men still wearing the uniforms of Firemen, Coast Guard and Police... they are all armed to the teeth, wearing the guarded masks of young men steeling themselves for battle.

As the cloud ship races forward it is pummeled by exploding balls of ore-dinance as the Soiler Warriors fire upon them. Blast after deafening blast explodes around Fuegar, rocking it back and forth, chunks of hardened cloud falling like dead weight behind them.

---

The Guardian launches its weapons in an eerily mechanized dance. The cloud of yellow gas is thrown directly at Olphina. She manifests a Water-Shield and the gas is absorbed.

The glob of acid hurtles toward Bollingsworth... Eric unleashes a countering blast of White Energy; his lance pulsating like the body of an angry bee that has just buried its stinger deep into flesh; the lance energy hits the acid, vaporizes it. Bollingsworth is saved for now.

Eric ducks as a retaliatory electric ball tears past his head, explodes behind him, leaving a gapping exit to the city outside.

Dan wastes no time, "The gate is open! Everyone out!"

Now the Guardian faces Floe. She is mesmerized. The disjointed, crazy puppet-like movements of the Guardian fascinate her. She has seen this creature before! She has been here before! When? What was she doing here?

Everyone rushes through the blasted rock wall seeking safety from the Guardian, except Floe. She is transfixed. Immobile, she stares at the strange creature that strides toward her.

The Guardian holds forth its hand that momentarily contains the wild gyrations of the miniature tornado, Floe is paralyzed, the whirlwind envelops her...

From Floe's perspective it appears as if time has slowed down outside the whirlwind, she can see the others moving in slow motion... and then she hears it, at first just a torn whisper from the twisting wind funnel, but soon enough she hears the Wind Voice.

It is Frayel, "Forgive me child, I had no choice. My brother has forced me to betray you... for only with the destruction of the Guardian will I be allowed eternal peace, and I long for it child, I long for it. And yet if you destroy the Guardian you will only empower the Underlord Hamada, for the Guardian's demise will release my brother from the Red Curse that the Originals imposed on him to keep his powers in check. He will become a hundred fold more powerful."

Floe tries to take it all in, Frayel lied to her? Then it is all a lie?, "What about me? Who am I?" she can not stop herself from asking.

"That you will know," says Frayel, "when you know the reason for your being... but I beg you, do not harm the Guardian... it is what the Underlord has planned all along. Nobody but you can destroy it, that is why Transgressa ensured that you reach this Great Hall. It is her mission to have you confront and defeat the Guardian."

"Why should I trust you now! You have all been manipulating me from the start... I don't trust any of you!"

---

Eric is already outside the Great Hall when he looks back and sees Floe floating inside the whirlwind, the Guardian heading her way on multiple legs. He doesn't hesitate, he turns and runs back toward Floe.

The movement catches Floe's eye, she can see Eric racing toward her, but the danger that poses does not seem to compute for her. She is badly shaken by Frayel's confiding and the sudden turn of events that leaves her without a mission, without a way to stop Underlord Hamada, without a future for herself, her friends or the other countless humans who depend on her without them even knowing it.

Eric reaches into the whirlwind to pull Floe out... but it is a spinning mass of sand and like sandpaper it scrapes and sandblasts his fingers with such painful violence that Eric is thrown backwards.

Floe viscerally reacts to Eric being hurt, she understands the danger that Eric has placed himself in to try and save her... and beyond Eric... the Guardian prepares to attack.