Kit’s mental dialogue was pretty much every swear word she knew as she ran to the meet up point with Sora on the beach. She wasn’t sure that she had any way of fighting, but knew if it came to that she would have to try. With the orange hues of dusk turning to night above, Kit followed Esther until the two reached Sora, who had that box they were carrying around beside them. The swarmer ship was slowly descending on us.

“I thought we said tomorrow!” Esther said.

“Sorry, last minute schedule change!” Sora said. “If we went tomorrow, we’d get no ships.”

Sora readied a revolver, and Esther pulled out Ihli’s sword. Kit wondered if she was the only one that didn’t have a weapon on hand.

“Just stay near me.” Esther said.

A swarmer ship, a bulky, slow flying piece of machinery, slowly landed over the shoreline. Kit wondered what would have happened if the landing point was over the wreckage of Esther’s plane. She was too busy shaking to think clearly.

A door on the side of the ship opened, and Kit could see Sora’s informant was right, there were empty seats filling its main hull. But the ship wasn’t entirely empty, as a squadron of drone soldiers marched out of it.

“Conjured beasts,” Esther spat.

“Just a bit of security for the automated deliveries,” Sora said.

“Just a bit?” Kit asked.

Their skeletal bones glowed in vibrant neon colors through the metal armor. Kit didn’t know much about how the swarmers worked but it was clear they weren’t alive, just machinations held together by magic. They marched on digitigrade legs, looking almost lost without humans to guide them. When they noticed the group, though, it was like they had found purpose again. Their eyes turned to burning crimson as they charged.

Sora started firing right away, and the closest to them fell apart with a few clean shots.

“See? Nothing to worry about.” Sora said.

The others moved towards the group, with glowing green acid dripping from their claws. 

“Maybe a little to worry about?” Kit said.

Like Esther said, it was a stupid plan. She was willing to overcome the stupidity of the plan though, darting forward and slicing two of the swarmers in half in one swing.

“This thing is incredible!” Esther said as she cut another in half. Kit marveled at Esther’s sword skills, finding her more incredible than the blade. Even though it was a legendary sword, it would have been useless without a skilled fighter wielding it.

In spite of the terrifying sight of the drones, Esther and Sora rushed through them. Sora blasted the last one, making it look too easy. Sora chucked the box into the ship and hopped in. Esther was close behind them, leaving only Kit. 

Just a few more steps. Easy, right? 

Kit forgot to count for the excitement and panic freezing her legs again. 

“Kit, come on!” Esther yelled.

Like she was walking with glue stuck in all her joints, Kit struggled to move forward. She felt a chill down her spine.

Sometimes after Kit read a scary story, she’d go back home and look around every corner expecting some kind of monster built from her imagination to be hiding, waiting for her. When she turned around, something worse than every monster she ever imagined stood there.

It wasn’t one of the drones. It was a mostly human shaped being clad in Colony armor. Except it was like no Verdant Colony soldier Kit had ever seen or heard of, as shadowy smoke billowed from every crack and joint. Its entire face was made up of the shadows, but she could see teeth past them as they flowed in the wind. Sharp teeth.

The creature moved towards her, with red eyes glowing, staring into her. It looked closely at Kit as it advanced like the tolling of a bell.

A hand grabbed Kit’s arm at the elbow and pulled. She stumbled as Esther brought her into the ship, barely regaining her balance as they jumped on. Sora was in the pilot seat, frantically hitting buttons and flipping switches.

“Go already!” Esther yelled.

“One second!” Sora said, and then their next button press changed all the lights in the ship from a sickly bright light to a warmer color. “Everyone buckle up!”

Esther put Ihli’s sword on the chair between them as she buckled up.

Kit could barely look back, but had to as she scrambled into a seat. The being of shadows was deathly still. It looked in the group’s direction, and then turned toward the temple. 

“OK, here we go!” Sora said. 

Kit wasn’t prepared for how fast the ship would move given how slowly it approached, and felt sick as soon as they lurched upward.

“What the hell was that thing?” Kit said.

“We have a bigger problem!” Sora said.

Kit regretted assuming they’d only send one ship. Or that they would be able to fly off so easily. She cursed her optimism as she saw at least twenty more ships ahead of them.

“Alright this might get a little dicey.” Sora said. “But nothing we can’t handle!”  

The ship jerked, and then for a second it felt like they were falling. Kit looked out of the nearest window to see how far above the city they were, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Have you even flown anything before?” Esther said.  

“Yeah! Just not…this.” Sora said, frantically flipping more switches.

“Do you need me to take over? I haven’t flown one of these either, but…” Esther trailed off.

“After your last landing, maybe let Sora try it?” Kit said.

A muffled sound came out of the box.

“You cannot fly this now!” Sora said. “Stay in there until we land!”

Sora sped up, and Kit felt like her fingers were going to break from how tightly she held onto her seat. She couldn’t close her eyes, but she still screamed as they flew higher and higher. Sora went straight through the formation of ships, forcing them to turn around, moving the group farther away from the city.

“You aren’t going to like this part!” Sora said. “Hold on tight!”

Kit could see why from the troubled waters ahead. They headed toward the remains of the leviathans. Sailing through ribcages that clawed out to the sky, Kit never wanted to be done with something more in her life. Behind them, a few of the ships crashed into the bones of the long dead beasts, but there were persistent ones close behind them.

“Sora. doesn’t this thing have like blasters or something?” Kit said.

“I don’t think so, but…” Sora trailed off, moving the ship side to side to try and lose them to no avail. The enemy only got closer.

Kit wondered if Myles would ever find out if she died here and fell into the ocean. If they found her here would they tell her sister? Kit felt an eerie calmness as the ships closed in on them, ready to ram them and likely make all of the ships crash and explode.

Before they could meet their watery graves, the box Sora brought with opened up, and a small dragon jumped out.At this point, Kit admitted she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she still shot a stunned look to Esther to make sure she hadn’t lost her mind or was having some kind of near death vision, but Esther saw the small creature as well. 

The dragon ran up to the front and sat in the chair beside Sora, deftly operating the ship with more finesse than Sora had, despite his size forcing him to stand on his chair to reach all the buttons. Something mechanical groaned beneath the ship, and then a wave of energy bolts came out behind the ship, barraging the enemy ships.

“I told you to stay in the box!” Sora said.  

“We were going to die!” The dragon snapped back.

“Well, we still might.” Sora said. “Those last two are persistent.”

“Blast forward when I say so!”

They dove towards a leviathan skull, its jaw barely open. Kit’s voice had gone hoarse from screaming.

“Now!”

They smashed through the bones as the dragon blasted a ship sized hole in the back of the leviathan’s skull. They barely made it through, but the other ships exploded as they flew into the bone shards.

Sora and the dragon were laughing, and as soon as Kit could see the shoreline of safe land ahead, Esther and Kit did too. Miraculously, they survived. 

“The ship doesn’t have much left.” The dragon said. “We need to–”

The side door opened. Kit didn’t register it for a second, but the massive wind threatened to pull them all out, and worse yet, they had an unwanted guest. The monster that confronted them had returned.

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