The one thing Jake always enjoyed was the stars and when he was young, he would always try and touch the stars by flying towards them but as one would expect, he was never able to reach them. Tonight, he decided after the ten years since the war, he would try to reach those stars again to maybe see all those he lost again. He leapt from his mountain homes balcony and extended his fire orange wings and climbed higher and higher. He past the trees, the head of the statue, the mountains peaks, climbing through the dark clouds and the slowly rising moons. “Higher, I need to go higher.” Jake said alone in the empty dark sky. The higher he flew, the more difficult it was before he eventually couldn’t go higher. He glided his way back down flying to a large iron bark tree before landing within the branches.

He sat alone in silence before a set of pure but glowing black. “You one hell of a sight going as high as you did Igneous.” said a voice coming from above his perch. Jake looked up to see as he guesses, a member from the Nyx clan sitting on his own perch. He looked older than Jake, maybe 18, maybe older.

“How did you see me?” Jake asked the Nyx.

“How on Domum would I miss a set of bright orange wings flying in the black of night.” The Nyx returned sarcastically. “Names Brandon. And I’m part of the Nyx clan if you somehow didn’t realise that.”

“Jake, nice to meet you. Question, why did you follow me?”

“Cause I was curious as to why a someone was flying straight up into the sky in the dead of night especially when only a Chrys would stand out more.”

As Jake tried to think of a convincing lie as to why he tried to fly to the stars Brandon noticed the stalling and stated “I know what your doing, why did you actually fly into the sky?”

“Because I needed to see my family and I thought maybe the stars could answer my call.” Jake finally solemnly stated.

Brandon looked at him realising his mistake and despite him wanting to and try fix his mistake, he visibly was conflicted at what he just said and stayed quiet. The two of them sat in silence for a while, eventually parting ways after agreeing to meet up later as both moons were at their highest points signalling midnight. Halfway home, Jake was hit by the first shockwave sending him out of the sky crashing to the ground. As he was correcting himself, he saw the explosion on the side of the mountains realising that they were under attack and whoever started this knows how to kill and capture Winged effectively. A second followed by a third, forth and dozens more explosions kept the soldiers out of the sky and on the ground were their fighting was limited. Jake had managed to reach a lookout and sit there and watched as the explosions finally settled leaving a crater filled hillside. A hundred or so winged of varying colour all took off to check for casualties and damage before a final shockwave, large than the others knocked them all out of the sky.

He then saw what had bombarded the hillside.

A large metal ship that flew through the air over the mountains with the markings of the ancients. It shrouded the ground below it in darkness and flew over where the defence force landed before figures started descending on ropes. Jake darted over to the ship, aiming for the descending ropes, in order to knock the people descending off before they could harm the downed Winged. As soon as he arrived, he charged the people going down the ropes sending those who threatened his people to a painful drop. He was fully aware that those who fell are likely dead but that didn’t matter to him. It was these people or his. Brandon also appeared and helped send the people to what was likely an early grave. His small frame for his race allowed Jake to dash in and around the ropes and people without worrying about him being hit or his small wings being clipped. He eventually managed to give his people enough time to help or escape with the injured before he was hit from behind and was grabbed.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

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Slowly opening his eyes letting them adjust to the darkness of the space he was in, Jake found himself in an enclosed space with his hands and feet tied together and only the orange glow of his wings provided any comfort. Looking around, he saw several cages, one of which he occupied along with three other winged and knew from the blue, red and white colourings, a Serena, Ruby and Chrys had been taken prisoner as well. He tried to speak only to notice he had been gaged and couldn’t talk. He managed to keep himself calm and not freak out which would of most likely damage his wings due to struggling in a confined area. Within the other cages was several others who in the darkness looked like humans but one of them had yellow lines streaking up her arms, legs and face marking her as a Traced. They all were in similar situations as him, but they were more cramped than Jake as despite him being the bulkier of the races, he would be considered small in almost all the others. This gave him the advantage as the smaller you are, the smaller ones wings are. Reaching his wing around and using the surprisingly sharp edge of them, cut himself free of his bindings before removing the gag. He stood up and to his surprise, his cage wasn’t locked. These guys know how to get the upper hand on our entire race yet they don’t know how to lock a door? Jake in his surprised stance thought.

He quietly stepped out and made his way to the other cages, all of which were also unlocked much to everyone’s surprise. Cutting the three warrior Winged free first, he moved onto the female Traced before clearing the final cages of two humans, one male and the other female, a male Starred and male Clawed who was a wolf as evident by his animalistic features. Not talking and doing this quickly as possible allowed all the prisoners to be freed.

Once all of the captured individuals were free, Starred lit up the otherwise shadowed room to show it was a brig that was ancient in design with more modern editions. At the door was a drunk Human who likely was the guard. They tied him up, removed any escape objects, tossed him into a cell and being the responsible ex-prisoners they are, locked the door. Now somewhat free, Jake got a proper look at his fellow captives.

The two Humans looked very similar. Both had tanned skin and brown hair. The man had gold eyes while the woman had blue. The starred had very fair skin and silver hair. His eyes shone a silver, closer to white then grey. The three captured wings looked identical other than their respective red, blue and white wings and eyes. They had a similar darker skin colour to Jake along with black hair.

During Jake’s look at everyone, the two humans decided to look out the door which to their surprise, was not only completely unguarded, had an armoury opposite it. Jake thought to himself that either the ancients who designed this ship were incredibly brave or stupid, or the more likely option, their captors are just incredibly fucking stupid. Now that all of the prisoners were free and armed, Jake using his small frame scouted ahead of the group of misfits.

About a minute after careful stalking opened up to a view of a foggy swampy setting that surrounded the ship. And looking around brought up another disturbing fact.

Were the ship was currently stopped was a slave market which only meant one thing for the rag tag group. It was going to be a bitch to get home.