Julian steered the ship towards the cluster. The misshapen mass of stolen airships loomed over them. Through the night sky, they could only vaguely make out a light near the bottom, which would hopefully be where to land the ship.

But a strained roar was heard in the darkness, and two dim blue eyes were dashing towards the ship. Julian managed to steer the ship to the right, with it only scraping the left part of it. Julian quickly checked the other three were still alive, and they were. Fiorella was clinging the wall, Capri was clinging to her, and Samuel was laying against the couch. The roar was heard, and Julian dived backwards. Capri looked out of the window, seeing the underside of the mechanical beast above them. She noticed the metal was poorly put together, with several patches missing , and the metal itself looked fairly weak and worn out.

"Fiorella, I might need your help."

The girls stepped outside, waiting for the creature to roar again. Fiorella summoned her axe, holding it in the air to cut slices of metal off the bottom of the dragon, leaving the pieces to fall besides them. Capri moved to the top of the ship, waiting for the dragon to come by her again. With one swing of her enlarged hammer, the dragon was pushed to the side as it let out a deadly roar. It tried charging again, and Fiorella swung her axe underneath it, taking a bundle of wires out with it. They dashed back into the airship as Capri screamed at Julian to floor the airship. The dragon fell below the clouds, letting out a deafening roar as it descended.

The girls walked back inside, handing the men panels, scales from their victorious hunt.

"In case we need shields." Fiorella said.

"Although the metal is pretty weak." Capri said, looking over it. "I'm pretty shocked that thing was able to fly at all.

"Weak?" Samuel asked.

"Good for stuff like houses where you don't expect it to move a whole bunch, not good for anything else."

"And how do you know about this?"

"Look, it was either hero work or a welding apprenticeship, okay? I made the better choice."

But with nothing else to stop them, the ship landed in the dock of the Legion's ships. The few people there to work on airships stopped what they were doing, their eyes fixated on whatever was happening.

The door swung open, and Capri leapt out first, mallet in hand. A man on the floor tried running to some kind of button, but she landed just in front of it, smirking at the young man while slowly tapping her mallet against the wall. The man's eyes crossed, and he fell unconscious without a fight. Two pulled up their sleeves and tried to approach the ship, and Fiorella summoned her axe. one swipe just shy of their noses, and they were begging for life on the floor. Samuel saw the two left running out of the room, bounding off the walls to get to them. He landed in front of the doorway just before them. He hit one with a single solid kick to the gut, and he fell to the floor in agony. Julian grabbed the other one by the shoulders and easily flipped him to face him.

"Where's Cassandra?" he roared.

"Wh-why would I know?" He screamed back, trying to pry himself off, until he felt Samuel's presence behind him.

"Look, I'm the lowest you could get around here, I-I promise you I don't know anything!"

Julian punched him in the face and Samuel delivered a knee to his back.

"Guess!"

"I-if I had to, then they're probably in some prison ship. I've never seen them, but they're near the top!"

Julian dropped the guy, and the four ran to the top of the building.

Roxanne emerged from the ship when the coast was clear. Her leg got caught on a table that was moved in the chaos, and she looked at it. It was only a few days, but her leg felt better. She slid the cast off, and she felt she could walk normally. In fact, her leg felt better than ever. So with nothing to lose, she went to follow them at a distance they couldn't see. She looked over her shoulder when she felt something brush past it, but when she turned around, the only thing was a guy someone else knocked out in front of the ship.

Or at least, she was pretty sure the body was always there.

The other people on the lower ends of the cluster kept out of the way of the four. They ended up barrelling through a few rooms, whose residents tried to hide themselves to avoid accidentally triggering their wrath. As they went through a poorly made and rickety hallway, they were faced with two people. Serafina and Daciana. Serafina threw some smoke behind her, but the clone was instantly whacked back to dust by Capri's hammer. Daciana readied her blade, and Fiorella did the same in turn. Daciana spun around, her blade meeting up with Fiorella's axe. Swings were exchanged with everyone else behind them doing their best to avoid them. Fiorella tried making a trail of dust in between Julian and Samuel, but when she put her mind in the fresh clone, Capri and Samuel laid a beatdown that forced her to cower behind Daciana. Fiorella eventually ducked underneath a stressed sword swing that stuck to the walls, and in the brief second it took Daciana to dematerialize her weapon, Fiorella had already given an elbow strike to the face.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Go on without me, darlings. It won't take me long to catch up."

The other three pushed past Serafina, who's attempts to catch up were quickly thwarted by Samuel's kicks and Capri's swings. They continued upwards. If they had to guess, they would estimate they were halfway there.

Xander paced through the hallways with an empty water bottle. If anyone asked, he was just looking for a refill. Whether or not the taps were stocked with water was a whole other question, but he was cooped up in his room for days. He could fake it if somebody was suspicious. He walked past the room Cassandra was being held in, which Cheng was guarding alongside Ziwadi and Adya.

"Hey, Xander." Ziwadi said casually. "Nice to see you out of your room."

"Oh, well, you know." Xander said, trying to look casual, barely stopping himself from sipping water that didn't exist. "Figured being holed up in my room wasn't helping anything I have going on, so why not step out, you know?"

"Yeah, good to see. Maybe we could work out sometime."

"Yeah, maybe!" Xander nodded. "So what's up with the door? Something important behind it?"

"Miss Cassandra." Cheng said, keeping his eyes focused on the hallway the heroes would be forced to go through. "Some intruders have come in to rescue her."

"Wrecked your dragon, too." Ziwadi said sadly. "Sorry about that."

"Oh…yeah, that's pretty sad." Xander sighed. "But you know, it's just a side project. I'll work on a better security system when this boils over. You guys got this."

He snapped finger guns to the trio, before scooting out of their view and opening his phone. he texted Tsuki.

'Still in the weapins room?'

'no'

'is it empty'

'think so'

'cool, were doing this.'

Xander made sure nobody was following him, and dashed to Chelic's room. He felt a weight in his hand, and when he looked down, the dagger was back, and it pierced through his water bottle. This was good, he had a weapon, He opened the door, hesitating for a second. But screw it, he had to burst in. Tsuki was behind him, checking over her shoulder every couple seconds. She nodded to him, and they both burst in. After one scrambled look, nobody was inside the room. Tsuki darted towards the desk, handing Xander the shield and taking the bow for herself. They both made their attempt to run out of the room, but the sound of a toilet flushing was heard. The door swung open, and a chain was attached to the door, pushing it shut.

"Woah now!" Chelic announced. "One minute earlier, and you'd have caught me in the middle of the worst…I won't go into it, but you might have gotten away."

Tsuki didn't respond, choosing to fire from her bow. Chelic dodged, taking a step forwards to avoid the mess of foliage sprouting from the door to his private toilet. Tsuki tried again, but her aim was unsteady, and the arrow brushed past Chelic's head. He didn't even have to move.

"Nice shot, Tsuki! Maybe we can take up lessons at some point. Now then, put the weapons down, and I'll put this behind me. After all, harming someone as pretty as you is the last thing I want to do."

Tsuki lay the weapon down. She needed to know what he was planning.

"I'm willing to blame Xander here for putting a bunch of ridiculous ideas in your head. So I'll cut you a deal. Kill him, and you get to walk free. Heck, I'll give you all his old stuff to play around with. He's got a new computer, a bunch of games. All his money's yours, by the way. Should mention that too."

Tsuki pointed the arrow towards Xander, who started panicking. He put the shield on his arm, readying his dagger just in case. But as Tsuki pulled back, manifesting an arrow. She quickly spun to face Chelic again.

"You need to rot!"

She fired the arrow, and Chelic jumped out of the way. He didn't look sad. Just annoyed.

"Well, you can't say I didn't give you a chance."

Chelic shot a chain forward, aimed squarely at Tsuki's forehead. She dropped the bow, and her face went pale. Her eyes glazed over and her body went numb. Chelic pulled forward, and she lurched forwards. Guttural noises formed in her mouth, followed by blood being coughed up. Chelic undid his chain, and she fell to the ground. She was convulsing on the ground. Xander took a step forward, reaching out to her with his free hand, which got caught in a chain.

"Well, this is an issue for me." Chelic sighed. "I know that Manuel likes you, and probably some of the other big names. Killing you would be a pain in the ass, so I'll give you one more chance. Hand over the weapons. And when the time comes, defend this place against those who would harm your friends. Sound good?"

He grinned at he finished his statement. Xander tried struggling to get the chain off, but the sensation of the chain against his bones reverberated against the rest of his body whenever it moved. He was struggling not to vomit. The dagger faded into the air, and Xander knew what he had to do. He fell to his knees in despair, sensing Chelic's smile widening. Xander felt the blood rush to his shielded hand, and with one cleave, the chained arm was gone.

Xander stood up, seeing Chelic's smile drop to an expression of anger. Xander was pumped up, and he needed to act before the pain kicked in. The blood flowed to his legs through the tubes connecting to his body, as he grabbed the bow from Tsuki's corpse. When Chelic reached out to stop him, an intense amount of blood flowed to his shielded arm, as it shot upwards to hit Chelic in the face. Chelic flew backwards, falling on his back just short of the foliage. When he got up, blood was leaking from his nose. He tried to form a sentence, but his mouth just leaked curse words as he shot another chain towards Xander's head. Xander turned around at the perfect moment to block it with the shield.

Xander ran to the cell where Cassandra was being held. He had two relic weapons, and getting her out was his only chance. No matter what, he had to fight off whoever was waiting.

But when he got there, the three guarding Cassandra's cell were staring off with the three about to rescue her.