Dragon Frost (20 page)

"Doctor, what do we do?"

Nafury didn't have an answer for the woman. He looked behind her to where a spirit form of a woman with long, blond hair stood watching him. It wasn't Cirrus here with him, but Alexia. The last thing he remembered was falling into the Soph Aur.
You brought me here?
Nafury asked by psi to Alexia.
I thought Cirrus had captured you.

'The griffin was able to disable me and push me through the Gate to Earth. I am captured by no one unless I wish it. You landed rather rough and I had no choice but to let them bring you here until you recovered.

"Earth?" Nafury asked aloud and sat up, before looking at his arms and chest where several wires had been hooked up to him. So he had made it.

"Yeah, welcome back to it," one the white-dressed workers said to him. Then he pushed him back down.

Nafury found the man's words ironic. The last time he was on Earth he had almost destroyed the whole planet. He pulled the wires off of himself and started to get to his feet. The doctors backed off when he struck their hands away and started to call for security.

Alexia silenced them by pulling all the air from their lungs. The doctors were left gasping and fleeing into the hallway for air.

Sybl didn't save his life so he could cause havoc on Earth all over again, and he called Alexia's attack off. Nafury knew that he was pushing his luck with how far he could harm the humans before Hino retaliated. Even if there was no guessing to how long it would take the One God's Sentries to try and kill him.

He sensed more trouble coming from the voices at the end of the hall and Alexia's energy began to rise in response. In the time it took him to blink his eyes, people were blown against the surrounding walls with a vengeance when they entered the room. They were then held there by Alexia's intense wind.

The shouting in the room became chaotic and he looked at the nurse that had moments ago been looking down at him. She sat shaking against the wall of the hospital, a smear of blood behind her. He crouched down in front of her and the woman trembled. Nafury wondered if this was how so many had been terrified of him once. It was a sad kind of irony, as he had always hated his adoptive father for instilling fear on others. Now, he had become just like Simera. He reached out to the woman and used his aeri to heal the wound on the back of her head.

She seemed to have some idea of what he did as she reached to where he had touched her and found that the wound was now closed. "What are you? Some kind of wizard?"

"No," Nafury replied, wiping the blood from his hand onto his black pants. "Wizards are imaginary, but dragons are real." Standing up straight, he looked to a nearby window. He opened it and looked down to the busy city street twenty stories below, before stepping off of the ledge.

Atrum City was in chaos when Sybl emerged from the Gate and left the black castle. The aeri still stuck to the Sentry and made them visible, but they were outnumbering the phelan shifters in the streets. She walked with her festra in hand for the first one she saw, and made sure that it saw her in turn. It was enough to get all their attention, as the giant, insect-like creatures were all connected to one another. She swiftly cut down the Sentry focused on her, then took to the rooftops as she sung her song of death, and trailed one attacker behind her. It made her presence known, and the Sentry were agitated by the aeri pulsing now through the Animus Threads, which betrayed their invisibility even more. Sybl wasted no time going for the next one as it joined her on the rooftop and cut its legs out from under it. The Sentry fell helplessly into the waiting teeth below.

All Calls ceased for mere moments, as Prisca reorganized the song of death. Only the Caelestis had ever sung it. She could see Sybl from the window of the Atrum, as she attacked non-stop the Sentry with her festra and aeri. Sybl was luring them away from the City and into the fields.
Assist your Caelestis! Don't let them capture her!

The Packs re-synced with their ayames, as the song of death continued. They immediately turned their focus and energies to pulling of the Sentry off of Sybl's tail.

Sybl held her own against the Sentry, as she sent several flares of aeri energy back at her pain train. The ones she hit dead on were vaporized, and any nearby were blinded. She knew she had only so much energy to get this done. The phelan assisted her in tearing asunder the ones temporarily blinded. They ganged up on the bigger, more dangerous of the Sentry by instinct and experience, and made quick work of the creatures.

Blood covered the field as the slaughter continued. Sybl's bladed festra didn't slow as it cut down enemy in a flurry that lasted for thirty minutes. Finally, the phelan overwhelmed the last Sentry and the fight was over. Many of the Sentry corpses remained, as the estus energy in the air didn't allow their bodies to turn into stardust.

Sybl was spent as she collapsed to one knee. She held onto her festra that she stuck upright in the ground to keep herself from toppling over.

"Sybl!" Feryl's voice said and he unshifted as he ran to her. "Are you hurt?"

"Just a bit...tired," Sybl replied and pulled herself to her feet. As she did, the Call went out that the Sentry were all dead. Cheers erupted from the phelan and they unshifted in their own exhaustion. The entirety of the massacre strewn around them made for an unbelievable sight.

"Well, that went a lot better than expected. I feel like kicking myself for not believing Nafury that you were back," Feryl said as he looked at his Pack. They were equally happy to see the Caelestis again.

"It's not over yet," Tank said as he pointed to someone behind Sybl.

Sybl turned around and saw Cirrus walking over to them. The shifters took in hand their blades at the sight of the Awl, as others shifted and flared their teeth in warning. But the Awl wasn't alone, as Cirrus dragged and held Loki hostage in the grip of his arm. "Let him go you bastard!"

"I will, as soon as you give up this pointless fight and come with me," Cirrus replied.

"I will not let you kill anyone else who is important to me!" Sybl snapped back and got a grip of Loki's Threads. She pulled her hand back, and Loki vanished in a blink of stars. In a heartbeat, he reappeared under her hand, whole again.

"That was...scary," Loki said as he regained himself and started looking for Cirrus' Threads.

"Impressive, Sybl. Or with the presentation of your latest remembered powers, should I call you Asteria?" Cirrus taunted.

Sybl lifted her Cursed arm as she tried to resist the control he tried to force over her.

"You cannot resist," Cirrus said and cut the Threads to one of her legs, causing her to collapse. "You belong entirely to me!"

Loki retaliated as he snapped the control to Cirrus' arm, then sent one of his daggers for the Awl's heart. But Cirrus caught the weapon before it could hit its mark with his other hand.

Sybl picked up her festra as she channeled Sial's power over Gravity under Cirrus. "I've had about all I can stomach of you. Begone!"

The ground exploded and hurled Cirrus into the air. Loki swiftly grabbed every Thread he could of the Threads to the Awl. He snapped them, but just as he did, Cirrus vanished into thin air.

"Is he dead?" Feryl asked as he looked everywhere.

"I can't kill him as long as he Bonded to Sybl," Loki said and looked to Sybl. The black Thread of the Bond to Cirrus was still on her wrist.

"You cannot defeat me," Cirrus said. The Packs scrambled to try and find him.

"Sybl, can you Nova him out?" Loki asked.

"He's holding my voice," she said as she collapsed to her knees. She raised her festra, just as a scythe-like arm came down on her.

"I've played long enough with you," Cirrus said. He pulled back and tore her festra from her hands, throwing it across the field.

Before anyone could react, his other arm swept them across the field. Then Cirrus pulled Sybl into his invisibility.

"Sybl!" Loki shouted as he tried to grab a Thread--any that led to her or Cirrus, but they had all vanished. "Sybl, no! Bring her back!" He collapsed to his hands in tears as there was no way to follow as he couldn't see them or their Threads.

Prisca caught up to them and looked every which way for Sybl. "Where is the Caelestis?"

Feryl had just peeled himself off the ground. He bled from the scythe having cut his chest.

"Where is she!? Sybl was just here--where did she go?" Prisca demanded. She struck Feryl hard across the face, and he landed on his backside.

"He took her," was all Feryl could say in reply, uncaring to the blood that trickled from his mouth.

She then went straight for Loki. "Why didn't you protect her!?"

Loki said nothing as Prisca grabbed him by his shirt and lifted him off the ground. When she didn't get an answer, she threw him against the ground.

Prisca paced about for a moment, before looking back at Loki. "We are going after her--but I need to know when it's sunset on Earth. Can tell me that at least you useless dragon Awl!?" Prisca shouted at him.

Loki came around enough to understand what she was saying. He quickly tapped into the other Awl's psis. "Two hours. It goes down in two hours our time."

"Then we don't have much time," Prisca said and looked around. She turned to the Packs who stood on the field. "Seven alphas and two more ayame are coming with me to Earth through the Atrum's Gate. We are bringing Sybl back. If anything gets in our way of that, then we will reduce it to what lies on this field right now."

"Lady Prisca, Earth's sun will kill us if we can't get back in time," one of the alphas spoke.

"Then you will die and be remembered by Aragmoth when he reincarnates you on Aster. But there will be no Aster left if we don't get the Goddess back! I will hear no excuses or cowardice--get yourselves together, right now! That's an order!"

The Packs consulted amongst themselves as they chose their strongest and smartest alphas. Within minutes, the six chosen from the ranks stepped forward.

Feyrl and Tank were locked in disagreement of who should go.

"Speed won't be of much use on Earth. We're going to have to intimidate the shit out of them before they can open fire on us," Feryl said.

"Are you sure, Feryl?" Tank said as he briefly looked at Prisca who had no patience left in her. "Fine. It's better if I'm there if things go wrong. You still have some years left in you."

"Dad, are you sure?" Prisca asked, in concern of his age.

"I couldn't save Sybl's mother from Simera. But I'll be damned before I meet my death having failed to save her daughter. I'm going, and that's final. With some luck, Boss will be watching over us on Earth and make sure we don't get turned into ashes."

Feryl patted Tank on the back, before looking to the leftovers of the Packs. The task of cleanup before the bodies of the Sentry could start to rot was left to them.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Kenshe didn't know how he got to where he was now, but that wasn't enough to make him wake Ubi. Not even as Earth's sun began to rise in the horizon and creep its light into the room of the tower they were in. It was a magnificent sight, and it should have burned him to ashes. But as the rays passed his knees and rose to cover him completely, he remained alive.

 He looked at the Aliyr on his wrist that bound him to Ubi and let out a sigh of relief. Being Bonded to a Fay had its advantages. He had not only survived sunrise on Earth, but he had healed and never felt stronger. His other half, however, was completely out cold.

Kenshe went over to the bed and contemplated waking her up. He was completely lost with just what was going on and what they were to do next.

Kenshe lowered his head and closed his eyes. He had to think straight. He had seen Sybl's memories before--all he had to do was remember her memories of Earth. He hated Tech, but he had to make it work in his favour while he was here. He opened his eyes and turned around, and found the thing with a screen that they called a TV. He went over to it and examined its buttons. Picking the one that could only be red as his eyes couldn't pin a colour to it, he pushed it. There was a beep and the machine came on.

 
...in the unveiling of the latest weapon to combat extraterrestrials, its founder was nowhere to be seen today. There have been ongoing speculations of his health, and as our financial advisor...