Among them, Raffi stirred. The entire ship was crowded but this man was stoic that he was sleeping stadning up.
His wrists were chained, his head throbbing. The air was heavy with the stench of fear. He blinked the haze from his eyes and looked around.
"Ms. Mary...?" His heart kicked into overdrive. "Ms. Mary!"
He stumbled forward, scanning the dim interior until, there. In the far corner, a familiar silhouette slumped against the metal wall.
"Ms. Mary!" he shouted, she stood across from him aside other female prisoners.
"R-Raffi..." she whispered.
"Hey, boo," he breathed, a trembling smile breaking through the panic.
Raffi "I'm sorry"
Ms. Mary "Don't be sorry, it's not your fault."
Raffi "I promise you I am going to get you out of here."
Raffi forced himself to breathe. Around them, whispers rose among the captured. One soldier shuffled closer. "We've been captured, Raffi. They've rounded up thousands of us, we're all going to die."
"Calm down, panicking isn't going to help anything, its just gonna get everyone else worked up, where are we?" Raffi demanded.
Another soldier spoke up. "A cargo ship. They're taking us to the island's edge, to throw us to the Surface."
Raffi froze. His blood ran cold. The Surface, the cursed wasteland far below the Skylands, swallowed by Renku's pink smoke. A place no one returned from.
His jaw clenched. "No. No, that's not happening."
He turned to the small knot of Zoner soldiers nearby. "Can any of you fight?"
"I can," one said. "But I don't have a weapon."
"Same," said another.
A third added, "And it's worse than that, there's a Sedmo unit piloting this ship. And one of the Zeta Elders is here too."
Raffi's chest tightened. "Then we're outnumbered."
"Maybe... maybe you could use your knight armor to stop the ship before we reach the edge?" one soldier suggested.
Raffi shook his head. "No. It might be better to let them take us there."
"What? That's what they want!"
"Yeah," Raffi said, his voice low and hard, "but we're not taking down a Sedmo and an Elder trapped in this tin can. If we wait until the edge... we'll have a fighting chance."
The soldiers exchanged uneasy looks. "Then what's the plan?"
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"The moment that hanger door opens," Raffi said, fire burning in his eyes, "I'm going in guns blazing. I'll hit the Sedmo first, I can hurt it."
"And the Delta robots?" one asked.
"That's your job. Put all your Abi into your fists. You don't need weapons, one clean hit and they'll break apart."
The soldiers nodded grimly. It wasn't a plan built on hope. It was a plan built on rage.
The hours crawled by, until the ship reached the end of its journey.
The Edge of Deer Point stretched before them, an endless cliff where the floating island ended and the cursed Surface began.
Below was an abyss of pink smoke, swirling like a living storm, swallowing everything in its reach. It stretched so far down that even the light vanished into it. There was no ground, only a void that devoured everything.
A fleet of drones hovered above, broadcasting the event across Deer Point for all to see. The King's will, carried live across the skies.
Outside the ship, Fanok stepped down from his transport, his robes swaying in the dry wind.
Beside him, Sedmo Blue, a towering robot with a crystalline core and cold, lifeless optics, waited for the order.
"Rajan bless this purge..." Fanok muttered, summoning a heavy tome into his hand. "Sleeper's Penalty. I'll impose sleep in case our Zoner friends get any ideas."
Sedmo Blue gave a mechanical nod.
Delta robots exited their vehicles, forming firing lines behind the cargo ship with their rifles aimed squarely at the door.
Fanok glanced up at the drones and smiled. "Let the people watch. Let them see the fate of rebellion."
"Open it," he ordered.
Sedmo Blue stepped forward, placed its heavy hand on the steel door, and began to pull it open.
It never finished.
?? BOOM!
The door exploded outward in a burst of smoke and Abi as a massive figure surged through.
RAFFI.
His chains were gone. His gray knight's armor glowed with earthen energy. He slammed his colossal hand around Sedmo Blue's head, and crushed it like glass.
CRUNCH.
The robot's body convulsed and collapsed, sparks spilling from its shattered core.
Fanok's jaw dropped. "He's so strong...?"
Raffi turned, his back facing the Elder. "How dare you kidnap my fiancée," he growled, his voice trembling with rage.
He summoned his Gray Stone sword.
Fanok stared at Sedmo's twitching corpse. "Kill them all!" he roared.
The Delta robots opened fire, streams of electric bullets tearing through the air. Raffi roared and swung his blade, one colossal arc that split them apart like paper. Robots exploded into scrap, sparks flying.
Some rounds tore through his armor, searing flesh beneath, but Raffi didn't stop.
"Soldiers!" he shouted. "Get the selected out of here, as far from the Surface as you can!"
The Zoner soldiers obeyed, rushing to free the captives and shepherd them away. But the cost was heavy, two soldiers were gunned down in a hail of electricity, their bodies crumpling lifeless to the ground.
Fanok's hands shook as he turned another page of Sleeper's Penalty. "Spear of Slumber!"
A spear of dark energy tore through the air and ripped through Raffi's chest. He staggered, but instead of falling, he grinned.
"That all you got, old man?"
Fanok stepped back, a chill running down his spine. He's still moving? How?
"Now," Raffi said, blood soaking into his armor, "I'm really mad."
Abi exploded from his body, cracking the ground beneath his boots. He raised his colossal sword high.
"Art of the Knight, Gray Horn Beatle!"
He charged forward. Slow. Heavy. Every step shook the cliffside, every breath like a furnace. Fanok's terror rooted him in place, his feet refused to move.
"This is it," Raffi snarled.
With a roar, he brought his sword down in a devastating arc.
SHLAAAAAANG—!
The earth split. The sky screamed. And Fanok split clean in half.
For a heartbeat, silence. Then the Elder's body collapsed to the ground, lifeless.
Raffi stood over the corpse, sword dripping with blood and oil, his chest heaving. The abyss beyond the cliff howled, the pink smoke swirling hungrily far below.
Somewhere behind him, Ms. Mary's voice cried his name. But Raffi didn't turn.
His eyes were fixed on the sky, and on the kingdom that had tried to erase them.
"Not today," he whispered.
To be continued...