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Chapter 39: Promises


The Salvation

Hangar Bay

"Is that the best you've got?!"

Luna ducked as Lin jabbed the metal staff at her shoulder, sliding down and prodding the EarthWing in the stomach with the electrified ends of her metal tonfa. Lin staggered back, clutching the soft scales of her underbelly, grinning as she caught her breath.

"You're quite the tricky one to hit, aren't you?" the EarthWing asked.

Luna shrugged. "If you want, I could slow down a bit, give you a chance to catch up." she offered with a sly grin.

"Don't bother." Lin replied, before lunging toward the yellow-green SilkWing. Luna readied to leap out of the way, when Lin sidestepped to the right, sweeping her staff through Luna's legs and catching her off guard. Luna fell to the hard metal floor of the hangar, just barely rolling out of the way before Lin could bring her heavy tail down upon her."

"Wow! Good!" Maple shouted enthusiastically in Dragon (or as the dragons here called it, "Draconic"). The human was sitting up on the dashboard of one of the shuttles, watching the fight through the craft's windshield. Luna still wasn't quite sure how she had managed to scramble up there.

"If you add more of a hrrrrgle to the end, it should sound more natural!" Luna shouted back in the human language, before narrowly avoiding another of Lin's attacks. She leapt back, spreading her twin pairs of wings to steady herself.

"Three moons, you're almost as bad as that SandWing." Lin chided.

"Last I checked, he almost had you beat in that tournament." Luna replied.

Lin smirked. "Only because he had an unfair advantage."

The two lunged forward, Lin swinging and twirling about her omni-staff as Luna shielded herself with her tonfa. The EarthWing quickly separated the staff, slashing relentlessly at Luna as she held up her weapons in defense, her rear talons sliding back along the smooth floor.

Luna grinned, and just as Lin was swinging down one of her sticks, she slipped to the side, grabbing Lin's foreleg in one talon and knocking the stick out of her grasp with the other. The metal rod clattered to the floor, rolling away beneath one of the shuttles.

"Nice job." Lin said, as Luna stepped back, "But that won't be enough." The EarthWing separated her remaining stick once again, a long chain extending between the two halves. One of the ends clattered to the floor, its energized tip pulsating with bright blue light.

Lin grabbed hold of the chain and began swinging the energized end around in the air, hurling it towards Luna. The SilkWing quickly dove out of the way, but the chain managed to snag onto one of her tonfa, ripping it out of her grasp. The EarthWing quickly pulled it in, grabbing Luna's weapon and twirling it in her talon.

"Could you maybe not steal my weapons for once?" Luna asked, as Lin tossed the tonfa aside.

"Hey, guys?"

"I won't need your weapon to beat you here." Lin calmly stated, pressing a button on her half of the omni staff, the chain quickly retracting until it had returned to its previous state. She twirled the stick in one talon, crouching down on three legs as she prepared to strike.

"Guys?"

"Don't underestimate me." Luna confidently replied. She could feel her blood pumping, her heart racing in anticipation of the imminent clash.

"GUYS!"

The two quickly turned towards Maple, seeing her pointing through the shuttle's windshield toward the hangar's open rear bay door. They turned to see four bulging shadows slowly shambling up the ramp, a shiny metal SteelWing casually stepping up along with them.

Luna didn't recognize the newcomers at first, buried beneath heaps of heavy blankets, but as they drew closer, she spotted a familiar looking pale yellow snout.

"Moons above, you actually went out there?!" Luna asked, quickly running down the ramp to help them up. Lin followed suit, helping to stabilize a shivering Xavier as he walked up the ramp half blinded by the blankets covering his face.

"L-Luna? What're you doing here?" Hidden asked, pulling away the blankets covering his face. The SandWing sat down next to one of the shuttles, stretching out his wings as he tossed aside his heap of blankets.

"I think a better question would be why you were out in that icy wasteland." Luna replied, "I heard it was something about a...tower?"

"Oh, it was totally awesome!" a voice called out from inside the SteelWing. It's chest cavity opened to reveal a human with scraggly black hair sitting inside, an excited grin on his face. "Apparently, it was this thing called the "Tower of Doom", and it had like, a bunch of these crazy challenges in it, and at the top we...well, Xavier can show you!"

Luna turned to the RainWing, his blankets also tossed to the side, his teeth still chattering even within the warmth of the hangar. He seemed to be carrying some sort of weapon, though Luna hadn't ever seen anything like it before.

"Y-Y-Yeah...s-sure…." he sputtered, "I c-can s-s-show you…."

The RainWing turned, pointing the weapon out to the vast snowfields outside, and pulled the trigger, unleashing a stream of brightly colored light and loud EDM into the sky. Luna flinched back in surprise, seeing Lin having a similar reaction to the bizarre weapon.

"Well that's certainly...something." she stated. She had to admit that an energy cannon that fired condensed dubstep was a pretty cool idea, impractical as it may be.

Lin shook her head, sighing. "I'm going to check the storage bay for something warm. Try not to blow anything up with that, would you?" she asked, striding out of the hangar and into the adjacent hall.

Luna chuckled, watching Xavier flop down on his pile of blankets, Ricky lying down nearby. "So, the Tower's real?" she asked, turning back to Hidden, "I've heard a couple rumors about it here and there, but I never thought something like that could actually exist."

"Trust me, it's real." Hidden replied, standing back up, "And of all the things we've seen in this multiverse, talons down, it's the weirdest."

"So, what kind of challenges were there anyway?!" Maple shouted through the windshield of the shuttle, eyes wide with curiosity.

"Oh, it was some wild stuff!" Reggie excitedly replied, "We got trapped in a giant pinball machine, we had to fight slimy ghosts in a haunted manor, and Darkstalker sang on some kind of music gameshow thing!"

Luna froze.

Had she heard him right? She quickly whipped her head around, scanning the hangar, and noticed the fourth blanket covered dragon, slowly pulling the dense coverings off of their shiny black scales. Twisted white horns emerged from the heap, a dull grey teardrop scale behind each of the dragon's eyes.

A Darkstalker, no doubt about it.

That alone would be enough to put Luna on edge, but the nodes and cables covering the NightWing's body were even more concerning. Luna was pretty sure she knew whose tech it was, the thought of it sending shivers down her spine.

"W-Why is there a Darkstalker with you?" She hesitantly asked, attempting to avoid thinking about the cybernetic enhancements covering the NightWing's body.

"A Darkstalker?" Hidden asked skeptically, stepping up beside her, "How many of these guys are there?"

"More than enough." Luna replied, the NightWing having now returned her gaze. He didn't seem nearly as big as he was in most other timelines, and the dull grey teardrop scales were an odd detail. He briefly glanced down at the portable slipdrive strapped around her left foreleg, before strolling off into one of the side hallways, his talons clinking against the metal floor.

"Do you know what he's done in most timelines?" Luna asked, turning to Hidden.

The SandWing shrugged, staring at where the NightWing had left. "What if he's not from one of those timelines. He could be a perfectly nice guy for all you know."

"Really?"

"Oh moons no. But he's only ever come across as irritable and moody, not exactly evil."

Luna sighed. "Well, if you want someone like that around, then that's your problem." she said. The devices on the NightWing's body still unnerved her, but she didn't want to think about him; not now, nor ever again.

"Alright, I found these things. Apparently they're heat blankets, or something." Lin stated, stepping back into the hangar. She tossed a rolled up white blanket over to Hidden, and two others to Ricky and Xavier, the RainWing eagerly wrapping it around himself and pressing a button on its edge, letting out a sigh of relief as an orange warmth spread across its surface.

"Hold on, where's the NightWing?" Lin asked, gazing around the chamber.

"I'll take one to him." Reggie offered, closing the SteelWing's cockpit and grabbing one of the blankets, strolling off with it to where the NightWing had left to.

"So, are we going to finish this fight, or what?" Lin asked, stepping over to one of the parked shuttles and reaching under it to grab the second half of the omni-staff.

"I dunno, with these guys here…?" Luna replied, casting a glance toward the SkyWing and RainWing flopped down on their piles of blankets, lightly dozing beneath their softly glowing heat blankets.

Lin sighed, snapping the two halves of her omni-staff back together. "This is why I wanted to wait until they were gone to do it." she said under her breath.

"Aw come on, you know I'd want to see this!" Hidden replied, his heat blanket hastily draped over his back. "Perhaps you can finish up in the next timeline we visit?"

Luna stared out of the hangar at the vast snowfields stretching into the distance. "A change of scenery could be nice." she said, turning back to Hidden and Lin. As pretty as the Ice Kingdom could be, it was nothing compared to the sheer white cliffs of the southern coast of Pyrrhia, or the sweeping mountain peaks of northwestern Pantala.

"Alright." Lin agreed, stepping over and grabbing Luna's travel bag, tossing it over to her. "Come on, you can stay in one of the bunks for now. It might be a little while before we're settled down like this again."

Luna nodded, and followed Lin over to one of the arches along the side wall of the hangar. She briefly cast a glance back, seeing Hidden grinning back at her, and set off into the curved hallways of the Salvation.


The Salvation

Level 3 Bunks

Luna stepped out of the elevator after Lin, following her through the brightly lit halls of the Salvation's third level. Strips of glass ran along the walls, much thicker than the ones present in most modern Alliance ships of similar build. Every now and then she'd spot a piece of paper taped to the walls, marking off what certain rooms were or giving directions toward important parts of the ship.

Walking through the Salvation's halls, she was reminded of the last time she'd been aboard an alliance ship, a year or so back. Nobody had told her that there was a secret underground military base beneath that timeline's Agate mountain.

They rounded a corner, and arrived at a slightly wider hallway, small metal doors spaced along each of the walls. Luna got a brief chuckle out of the tiny human sized door at their end of the hall, sticking out like a sore claw.

"You can take one of the rooms next to mine." Lin offered, pointing a talon toward one of the doors along the right wall, the number six etched into the wall beside it. Luna began to walk over toward the door on the far side of it, when the next one down slid open, the shiny SteelWing from earlier stepping out.

"Oh, hey Luna!" the voice of the pilot called out from the inside. "Didn't expect to see you up here! What's up?"
"Nothing much…." Luna began, casting a wary glance toward the bunk the SteelWing had emerged from. She had a sinking feeling she knew who was staying in there.

"You know, we were never really introduced." The pilot continued, flipping open the metal dragon's cockpit, "I'm…."

"Reggie?" Luna interrupted. "Don't worry, Maple's already told me all about you."

The dark haired human let out an embarrassed chuckle, scratching the back of his head. "Yeah, well, I should probably get going." he said, closing the cockpit back up and setting back off toward the elevator, "It's her turn to pilot the Reggie-tron now that I'm back." The SteelWing rounded the corner, disappearing from sight, Luna donning an amused grin.

"What a name…." she muttered under her breath, stepping over to the door on the other side of Lin's, closest to the side of the hall where they had come in. She cast one last glance towards the bunk on the opposite side of the hall, and pressed a button on a control pad next to the door, causing it to slide open and reveal a small chamber with a cot mounted to each side wall and a small desk at the back.

"See you in a bit." Luna said, waving to Lin as she stepped inside, the door sliding shut behind her. She tossed her travel bag and tonfa down onto the metal desk, hearing the sound of Lin's bunk door sliding open and closed through the wall.

Looking up at a small window above her desk, no more than a mere slit of a skylight cut into the Salvation's curved hull, she saw the bright blue sky of the Ice Kingdom, scarcely a cloud dotting the sliver of it she could see.

She was just about ready to flop down on one of the cots and get some rest, taking a large swig from a water canteen stored in one of her bag's side pouches, when she heard someone banging a talon against her door.

She groaned, setting her canteen on the desk and stepping over to the door, reaching for the panel next to it. Did Lin have something else she needed to say, or was it just Hidden here to bug her?

The door slid open, revealing a dark-scaled dragon covered in wires and nodes standing just behind it. Luna leapt back in fright, quickly grabbing her tonfa and holding them at the ready, electrified ends poised to strike.

Darkstalker sighed. "I'm not here to fight." he said calmly, taking a step forward. Luna wasn't buying it.

"No, that wouldn't be your style, would it?" Luna snapped back, ready to strike at a moment's notice. "What do you want with me?"

The NightWing glanced down at the slipdrive strapped to Luna's foreleg, the SilkWing quickly pulling it away.

"You're here for my slipdrive, aren't you? Well, you're not having it!" she hastily replied, briefly staring at the nodes and cables on the NightWing's body, her heart racing.

Luna expected the NightWing to grow irritated, to assert his superiority over her and demand that she give up her slipdrive. Yet, to her surprise, he seemed much more...downtrodden, staring up at the miniscule skylight forlornly.

"I was just going to ask if you could take me with you when you leave, at least to a timeline where I can acquire my own slipdrive." he stated, seemingly just about as eager to end this conversation as she was.

Luna paused to think, never dropping her guard for even a second. She certainly didn't trust this dragon, not any more than she trusted any other dragon with his name. And if he really wanted to leave, then why didn't he just take one of the shuttles?

"I'll...think about it…." Luna finally replied, hoping that it would be enough to drive him away for the time being.

Darkstalker nodded, stepping back through the open doorway. The two stood silently for a moment, staring at each other, neither willing nor able to come up with something to say, before the door automatically slid shut.

Luna stood staring at the metal door, as if Darkstalker's haunting presence were still standing there in her room. There was no doubt about whose tech adorned the NightWing.

Talk about a nightmare combination…. she thought in the back of her mind, attempting to lighten her mood. It didn't work.

She flopped down onto one of the cots, tossing her tonfa to the floor. She pulled out her miniature slipdrive, staring at its shiny blue shell in the crisp afternoon light, before setting it down on the desk.

No matter what she tried to think of, the image of the cybernetically enhanced NightWing never left her mind, forcing back up old memories buried beneath a decade's worth of repression. Luna could feel herself shivering, her breath growing erratic.

She wasn't going to be sleeping tonight.


AN:

I'm pretty proud of how this chapter turned out. My only gripe is that the ending portion may be a tiny bit rushed, but it still seems to flow pretty well. I hope you all like Luna's POV!

The team travels deeper and deeper into Alliance territory, what new adventures could await them in the next timeline? Stay tuned!