Void Fight - pt 2

Ky'ria soared over the battlefield, watching the carnage of the void wreak havoc below. On her left, arrows flew towards misshapen creatures spiraling out of the cloud; on her right, stelciars armed with axes swung at enemies on the ground. But right now, she beat her wings harder, looking for a safe place to land and regroup.

Yet as unfortunate luck would have it, she wasn't the only one in the sky. Void creatures were pulling themselves out of the dark cloud covering the sunny sky and dashing through the air towards any noise or movement. And Ky'ria, with her bright pink and blue flames, caught their eye right away.

“Dive!” she thought instinctively, hearing their screechy howls come closer. Twisting her wings tightly she gained speed aiming towards the ground, then at the last second leveled out and dashed across the battlefield. A few void creatures couldn't make the turn and smashed into the ground with a shriek, but a few more were persistent and stayed tight on her tail.

Ky'ria looked around frantically; over the battlefield, there was no place to hide. The only place to go would be the forests bordering the field, despite the risk. She had to take the chance to shake them off, so she shouted against her pained wings and urged them to continue on. She got closer and closer, swerving around arrows and monsters and stelciar until-

CRASH!

As soon as she hit the tree line, she knew she had made a mistake. The thick vines and trees were impossible to dodge, and one nicked her in the wing, sending her crashing onto the dirt. The void monsters were also caught up in the flora fray, but not for long, as she could see their shadowy figures locking on their target from the clearing above her.

Ky'ria gasped and tried shuffling away, but her vine-tangled wing couldn't get free in time. She wriggled out as one monster as large as her landed a few paw steps away and screamed at her face. The only way she could run was backwards, and a fallen tree blocked her exit.

She held her paws up to brace herself, unarmed and alone as yet another void landed behind the first. She heard it inhale a breath to scream again and saw its limbs move up to strike.

Suddenly, there was a high pitched screech and a blur of colorful flames from above. Ky'ria could only see through the cracks of her paws a few figures throwing daggers at the void creatures around them, which quickly disappeared into shadowy mist.

Ky’ria stood up and shook herself, trying not to think of how close she was to… something bad. She blinked her eyes to look at her rescuers, a small crowd of stelciar wearing black cloaks to hide their wings and tails from other prying eyes. Each one of them held paw-sized daggers whose silver blades glinted in the broken rays of sun from above. From the group, one stelciar came forward and reached out.

“Are you okay? That was a close call.” They shook off their hood and smiled. “I'm Funni, by the way. And Poppo is my brother,” they said gesturing to another one in the crowd. “We call ourselves the Stealth Squad, for, uh, obvious reasons.”

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Ky'ria panted lightly. “I was trying to distract some away from some of my friends, but they caught up with me too fast. Thanks for the help… I'm not sure what I would've done!” Poppo - a white and cream colored stelciar, nearly opposite to Funni's colors - laughed lightly as Funni swatted at him playfully.

“It's no big deal. Really! We've been predicting this coming a long time, so we prepared well,” Funni said. “And,” Poppo added, “we got our weapons ready too. Ranged weapons won't work the whole time, so you gotta be ready for close quarters action eventually.”

He felt under his cloak and passed one of his daggers off to Ky'ria. They were much simpler than the bows, but certainly no less mighty. It had a short silver blade with a dark wood handle, well worn in from weeks of training with an experienced user. It felt comfortable in her paws right away, and she whirled in around a few times before another loud howl from above distracted them.

“Stick to the shadows!” Funni whispered urgently. “If they hear just one of us, we'll get overpowered. Know your dagger and call on it true. Together, we can do this!” Poppo bared his teeth, then gestured for Ky'ria to follow him away from the clearing.

Above the group, a few more void creatures landed on the treetops, peering downwards towards the noise. These ones looked birdlike, with clusters of eyes on the wrong places of their faces and goopy tails speckling the trees. Almost silently the gathered stelciars nodded at each other and took shelter in bushes, preparing another ambush to strike.

The voids chittered mindlessly above them, looking for the easy prey, and crawled through the web of branches towards the group. The stelciar in the bushes hunched up, ready to leap forward at command. And it was Funni who finally called out once the voids reached the ground below…

“CHAAAAARGE!!!”

All at once, Ky'ria, Funni, Poppo and the other stelciar swung out with daggers blazing. Ky'ria aimed for the closest one, which barely had time to turn and react before her blade popped it like a balloon. Right beside her, Poppo jumped out with a yell and swung blindly in front, hitting another void creature that poofed away.

It took only a few seconds for the assault to start and end. The group cheered in their minor victory, but the fight was far from over. There were still plenty of void monsters to fight, too many for ambushes to take on on their own. Poppo was right that ranged weapons wouldn't be enough - it would need to be a team effort on multiple fronts to take them all down.

“Thank you for helping us, Ky'ria,” Funni said, lightly shaking their wings of dust. “Your bravery will be commended by the Stealth Squad, and all those who fought for Colsentia!” They knelt their head down, and so did Poppo. Ky'ria matched the gesture, and prepared to take off again.

“You can stay with us, but your help might be needed on the battlefield itself again. If you do go, find yourself a better weapon than these- they probably won't help you out there with the big guys,” Poppo chimed in. “Stay safe!”

“Thank you!” Ky'ria called, and with a few swift wingbeats she flew off again. Through the tangle of trees, she reached open sky and oriented herself westward. The void cloud loomed over ominously and enemies were still falling from the sky left and right, but she was more determined than ever that they could really win the battle.