Airo stood up and raised his arms to the level of his chest with the palms facing towards him.

“What the heck are you doing?” Kaili could not wrap her head around his plan.

“Well, what do you think? Calling lightning.”

“You mean right now? Immediately?”

“No, I’m planning on waiting until the pirates ransack this whole ship and maim half the crew.”

“Okay, keep that sarcasm to yourself. What do you need me to do?”

“Just stay quiet. It’s already so noisy around here. I need to concentrate.”

Kaili did as he asked and simply sat down onto the captain’s bed. She had seen the Cloudfolk rituals countless times before, when she would go visit Airo in his family mansion, but this one looked different. She remembered seeing him dance with fluidity. Slow and careful movements dominated the ritual dance. According to his own description, it was all about moving like the calm summer sky, and allowing oneself to flow like the clouds. If that was the case for the cloud-calling ritual, then whatever he was doing now made complete sense, considering the desired outcome.

There were only a few hints of fluid movements. One moment the boy was merely shifting his weight from one leg to the other as he leaned from side to side, then suddenly, the sprung into action, stomping his feet, waving his arms through the air like a panicking madman, and sometimes, he even interrupted the relative silence of the room with a loud yell.

Kaili grabbed the captain’s pillow and used it to hide her face. It served as a great way to muffle any giggles that may have escaped her lips. She understood well that each species had their own cultures and crazy traditions. Her own homeland was known for such practices. Nevertheless, seeing such an unusual and silly dance gave her quite the challenge when it came to keeping a straight face.

The clouds outside grew even darker. They merged together and compressed into a raging force of nature that was just about ready to be unleashed. Few stray bolts of lightning began flickering through the clouds, always illuminating the ongoing struggle on the deck below for but a few moments. The rain picked up. It was now a full-blown downpour. The layer of water flowing over the glass warped the image of whatever was happening in front of them.

The dryad pulled her legs closer to her chest as she grew more and more restless. Airo was quite knowledgable when it came to Cloudfolk traditions, but knowledge and skill were often two vastly different things. Chances were that he might as well cause a natural catastrophe that would cost them their lives.

Then finally, after minutes of waiting, a bright flash illuminated the sky and a ray of lightning struck the pirate ship. Airo backed away and covered his mouth with both hands when he saw the vehicle get torn open. It wasn’t just a simple lightning strike. He put way too much effort into it. An entire beam of electricity pierced the ship. The attack may have easily taken the life of anyone who was in the way of it at that time.

The fighting stopped for a moment as everyone’s eyes turned to the broken ship. Smoke shot out of its engines and it didn’t take long before it began involuntarily descending. A few of the scoundrels quickly ran over to the edge of the ship and jumped across, hoping to at least help with a making the crash landing a bit safer for whoever was left onboard.

Others had different ideas and began their final desperate struggle. They attacked even more viciously, eager to bring the sailors to their knees. A wasted effort.

Finally, there were the few smarter ones who raised their hands and surrendered. They had nowhere else to go and no more reinforcements. Fighting any longer would only bring them more unnecessary pain.

“What have I done…” Airo gasped.

“You did it!” Kaili tried to encourage him.

“I killed them!”

“No, you didn’t. Look how slow they are falling. They’ll be fine.”

“That’s not true. You don’t know that. W-What was I thinking? So many of them can lose their lives now. What if they fall overboard? What if the ship crashes into trees and they get crushed against them? What if the lightning just struck someone and turned them to dust? What if–“

Kaili stood up and wrapped her arms around the boy. “Come on, take it easy. That was self-defence, and all of this is just a bunch of speculations. The ship didn’t blow up or anything. Besides, they picked this fight. God knows how many people they’d hurt if you just left them be. You saved those sailors down there.”

“I… I’m not too sure about that.”

“Well, let’s not assume the worst right off the bat, okay?” For now, let’s try thinking about getting out of here. I’m still worried about Jin.

One of the pirates slammed his back against the wall, forcing Cia, who was still hanging on to him, to jump more onto his shoulders. Finally, at long last, he managed to grab a hold of her. With all his strength, he tossed her over his head, but it seemed like the imp would not give up that easily. She clung to his arm, biting him around the wrist. When he attempted to punch her, she braced her feet against his chest and jumped away, leaving behind six bleeding claw marks and a torn tunic.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Had enough? Cause I’m still hungry!” she yelled at the man as soon as she landed. Her tongue slid over her fangs, licking them clean.

The bandit raised his fists, but quickly changed his mind and instead lifted his open hands instead. He had enough. He felt light-headed and dizzy from all the blood she drank from him. Not to mention that he simply didn’t want to go through a round two of the most terrifying encounter of his life.

“I… I give up,” he muttered and went down on his knees. “Leave me alone, please. You can toss me into whatever cell you want. Just leave me alone.”

Cia smirked and crossed her arms. “Well well well, you ain’t so tough now, are ya? Guess I have no choice but to–“

Airo’s lightning tore through the pirate ship. The bang was so loud Cia jumped up for a second and her fur automatically puffed up. She watched with quiet awe mixed with shock as the enemy vessel began descending and the few people still left on its deck began calling for an emergency landing protocol.

Then the ground shook. The little imp stumbled and nearly fell as the pirate ship bumped into their neighbouring vessel. The Fortulan engine sitting nearby let out a painful “Hrnk!” followed by moments of periodic metal banging, and finished by a loud crunch.

“Oh crap,” Cia gasped and watched as smoke began rising from underneath the engine’s lid.

“Don’t just stand there! Help me!” she yelled at the pirate and ran off towards the failing machine.

“H-Help you? What are you–“

“Yes, help me! That sound was not good. Something got stuck in the engine and if that thing blows, the ship goes down with us still on it, so move it!”

Cia jumped up onto the metal cover and began undoing the security clasps of the cover. The pirate stared at her for a moment but her loud yelling of “NOW!” quickly pushed him to act.

“What should I do?” he asked.

“Get the cover clasps on the other side. Push them to the middle, then lift them up until you feel them click. When all are undone, the lid should slide open.”

The man nodded. For some reason, his heart was now beating even faster than when he was supposed to fight the sailors.

“Okay, they’re undone!” he called out to the little imp. “What now?”

“Now step away or the lid will cut off your hands when it comes sliding.” No further words were needed. The man backed away even much further than necessary, but to him, the only truly safe distance would be at least a few kilometres away.

Smoke rushed out from inside the machinery. For a moment, it was all Cia could see. Like a massive lightbulb shining in a complete darkness. Her feet trembled as he couldn’t bring herself to move closer.

“So? What is it? Hey!” the pirate’s yelling helped her regain some level of clarity, at least for a moment.

“I… Yeah, engine. Big, good, they are supposed to be.”

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with it?”

“Umm…” She felt her own eyes sliding away from the machine as they tried to avoid it. With both hands, she slapped herself on the cheeks and looked again.

“Okay, yeah, pistons are not moving. Bad. But why? Pipes are trembling. Bad. Pressure is building up. Clogged pipes? No, impact wouldn’t cause it. Unless there was something in them in the first place? No, that would clog one pipe, not all of them.” Her hands trembled and her tail wrapped around her leg. “Pistons are stuck. Why? Something in their way? Unlikely, they’d just crush it. Unless it would already be crushed, but still in the way?”

She shuffled her feet a bit closer. Each centimetre that brought her towards the engine felt like descending into a boiling cauldron. Despite the storm raging like crazy around her, she could hear the engine the loudest. It was almost deafening to her.

“I can see the problem!” she yelled at the pirate.

“Great! Can you fix it?”

“N-No! You’ll have to.”

“What? I don’t know anything about engines!”

“Just d-disconnect the indigo cable and yank out the control unit.”

“Indigo? You mean blue? All of them are blue!”

“No, but only three are indigo and… Damn it! There’s no time!”

She watched in horror as the rumbling of the pipes became louder and louder.

“Screw this!” she muttered to herself and ran up to the engine. Without thinking, she jumped onto it, the adhesive properties of her limbs holding her in place. Her eyes slid across the indigo cable. What was it connected to? The modifications done to the engine only made her work harder.

“Oh, who cares!” she grumbled and cut through the cable with her claw. The charge running through it stung her hand, but left no visible damage. Now came the difficult part.

She looked into the depths of the processing chamber. The control panel lay there, bent and scrunched up, blocking the way of the pistons. Cia’s eyes slid down to her hand.

“It’s okay. Calm down, it’s okay,” she whispered to herself. “Worst thing that can happen? It’ll rip my arm off. That’s okay. People live without arms. Manuel can heal anything. He can probably get me a really fancy prosthetic. Maybe a magical one. Or a modular one. Yeah, that will be cool. I’ll be like part-golem. How cool would that be? Right…?” she spoke through the tears gathering in her eyes.

She momentarily looked around for something that could pull the panel out. There was nothing. No object that would be capable of grabbing. The idea of using magic briefly came to her mind, but the best she could do was to summon her aura. No matter how hard she’s try, there was no way it would be durable enough to protect her hand from the pistons.

She slowly inserted her arm into the chamber and wrapped her fingers around the edge of the control panel.

“It’s just pain. Pain is fine. I’ll probably pass out, that will make it easier. That guy will take me to a healer, right? Oh god, I hope he will. Of course he will. What sort of question is that? They will stop the bleeding and then it’s just the question of getting back home to Manuel. He will deal with the rest. It’ll be fine,” she kept muttering to herself.

Tears slid down her cheeks, soaking into her fur. She slammed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth.

“Damn it!” she yelled at the top of her lungs and pulled her arm out as fast as she could. The engine rattled as the steam suddenly rushed through the pipes once more. As it shook, it tossed the little imp aside and back onto the wet main deck.

“Am I alive?” She yelled while gripping her shoulder.

“Y-Yeah, you’re okay,” the pirate tried to assure her.

“D-D-Do I… Do I have my arm?”

“What? Yeah, of course you do!”

She carefully opened her eyes and finally let out a long sigh.

“Oh thank the Ley-lines!” She rolled over onto her back and covered her eyes as tears began pouring out of them. “I did it. I actually did it!”