Review Responses:
Pt35 - The tech on Darkstalker is meant to be pretty powerful (though not as OP as something like animus magic), Darkstalker is just a terrible fighter. Part of his character arc is that he's always relied on raw power to get by, and thus has little to no actual fighting experience, and doesn't know how to use his powers to their fullest extent. Winnifred deflecting his blast was less because of his lack of power and more because Winnifred works for the Tower of Doom, and the Tower of Doom does whatever it wants. Also, both Hidden and Darkstalker here are 17, and roughly the same size, and since Hidden's actually been taking time to train with Lin, he's already far surpassed Darkstalker in terms of combat skill. Why Darkstalker doesn't admit this in his own POV is mainly because he doesn't want to admit to his own weakness, and still wants to live with the notion that his raw strength alone is enough. There is another reason though why his tech might seem flawed or slapdash in nature, though that's going to be explained later, along with why it scares Luna so much (it's not exactly the tech itself as much as the creator of it that has Luna on edge). A lot of this will be explored soon near the finale, which will be a major turning point in Darkstalker's character arc. I don't know when Darkstalker will get back at Hidden, though I might save it for later on or something, especially with everything that's about to go down.
Quick Note:
These next couple of chapters will be a bit gorier and more violent than previous ones, not sure exactly to what extent though. Just wanted to throw a quick warning out there for anyone whose squeamish about this kind of stuff.
Chapter 40: Ghost Town
Shuttle 2
There was always something exciting about traveling to a new timeline, wondering what the world would be like, what perils and wonders could await at the end of the swirling blue slipstream. Of course, one usually couldn't just travel to random timelines whenever they liked, Alliance laws barred entering many timelines that had not yet achieved inter-timeline travel on their own (which was most of them), timelines marked for "noninterference". That hadn't stopped Luna from popping into these timelines from time to time, whether it be to take a look around or follow a lead, though she always had to be careful not to get caught.
But now, she had an excuse, being in the company of dragons who were unaware of such multiversal bylaws, likely having come from noninterference timelines themselves. Situations like these generally led to quick bursts of new member timelines, at least when the unassuming travelers caused such a ruckus in the ones they'd visited that further interference was deemed necessary. Of course, there would still be mountains of paperwork involved, and an exhausting amount of formalities; at least, so far as Luna had heard.
"Hey, Luna?" Lin asked, snapping Luna out of her train of thought. The SilkWing turned away from the tiny window at the back of the shuttle to the EarthWing siding beside her.
"What made you want to come with us anyway?"
Luna paused, not quite sure how to respond. "I uh…." she began, remembering the tense encounter she'd had back on the Salvation, "I just felt like getting out, you know? Besides, you may need some help once you run into the Alliance."
Lin nodded, turning to look out the windshield of the shuttle. Ricky sat behind the dashboard, relaxing in his seat as the autopilot carried them through the swirling vortex. Hidden sat beside him, playing a game on a twin-screened device that flipped open like a book. On the other side of the shuttle's main chamber sat the Reggie-tron 9000, Maple sitting in it with the cockpit open.
"Hey, how much longer is it gonna be before we reach the next timeline?" Luna asked, leaning over toward the cockpit. "We can't be going that far."
"We figured we'd keep going till the shuttle's slipdrive is about to overheat." Hidden explained, "Then park somewhere safe, scope out the area, and bring in the Salvation."
"One problem." Luna replied. "Smaller ships can travel further and faster between timelines than larger ones before their slipdrives overheat. That's why I can travel between nearby timelines in mere seconds using my talon-held one."
Hidden paused, flipping his game system shut, and turned to Ricky. "How long have we been traveling for?" he asked.
Ricky shrugged. "'About ten minutes."
"The Salvation flew for about an hour and a half before it's slipdrive overheated." Hidden mused, staring at the floor as he ran calculations in his head. "The shuttles are roughly...one twelfth the length of the Salvation end to end, I think, making the Salvation somewhere between 800 to 1200 times the size of one of the shuttles. I might be way off about that though, I never got any exact measurements, but if the size is directly proportional to travel speed...is it Luna?"
"If you're so worried about it, then park the shuttle and we'll regroup in whatever timeline we wind up in." Luna said, tired of listening to Hidden ramble. The SandWing shrugged at his SkyWing brother, who grabbed hold of the control wheel, pressing a few buttons on the dashboard to pull the shuttle out of the slipstream.
The vortex quickly ripped away, revealing a vast array of jagged mountain peaks, spruce forests clustered between them, the ocean visible not far away. The morning sun shone brightly overhead, a few thin clouds stretched out across the soft blue sky.
"Back in the Claws, huh?" Hidden commented, gazing out at the sea of rocky spires spread out below.
"Looks like we're somewhere around the shoulder of the continent." Ricky stated, pointing at a small screen above the dashboard displaying their location over Pyrrhia.
Luna stepped up into the cockpit between the two brothers, staring out at the serene landscape. The rough peaks of the Claws of the Clouds Mountains were much shorter here than the towering cliffs further northeast, but they looked nonetheless harrowing. There didn't seem to be any other dragons around at first, until a faint trail of smoke creeping up from a small valley caught Luna's eye.
"Look over there." She said, pointing a talon at the twisting tendril of smoke.
"What the…." Hidden began, squinting as he leaned in for a closer look. "Is there someone down there?" Ricky leaned closer toward the windshield as well, Lin and Maple peeking in from the rear chamber.
"Think we should go say hi?" Hidden asked.
"I don't know…." Ricky replied, leaning back nervously, "Last time we did, it didn't end so well."
Hidden and Ricky paused for a moment, likely remembering something that had happened before Luna had arrived at the Salvation. She wasn't quite sure what it was, though she had noticed a few new scars on Xavier that weren't there the last time she'd seen him.
"I say we go down." she said, breaking the silence. "It's likely only a small village, and it'd be better if we made some allies here, especially if we'll be bringing in the Salvation later."
Hidden nodded in agreement, though Ricky still seemed a bit pensive. "We should at least land somewhere a little ways away, just to be safe." the SkyWing suggested, turning back to the dashboard and gripping the steering wheel. He angled the shuttle downward, Luna stepping back into the rear chamber as it dove down for a landing in the woods near the pillar of smoke.
Luna silently listened to the sound of the shuttle's thrusters dying down, barely hearing the soft crunch of soil beneath its landing gear. Lin stepped over and pulled a lever on the back wall, lowering the rear ramp to the forest floor. The EarthWing stepped down onto the soft soil, Luna and Maple following after her, with Ricky and Hidden exiting through the side doors of the cockpit.
Luna stared up at the towering treetops above her, birds singing in the deep green spruce needles. Pinecones were littered about the ground, crunching beneath her talons as she followed the others through the trees to the source of the smoke.
"My old village was in a forest." Luna heard Maple say through the Reggie-tron's speakers, the metal dragon's head gazing up at the towering treetops, "Though it was nothing like this!"
"Have you ever been to the Claws before?" Luna asked.
"I don't think so…." Maple replied, "We didn't have very good maps in our village, and I was never allowed to stray too far."
Luna grinned, stepping over closer to the SteelWing. "There's this one timeline where the Claws are a bunch of floating islands, in the sky! And they're huge!" she explained, waving her talons in the air to emphasize their scale. Even though she couldn't see her face, Luna could tell that Maple's eyes were wide with wonder.
"F-For real?!" she asked.
Luna nodded. "Yeah, they're absolutely incredible! Especially when the snow on their peaks melts, spilling over in massive waterfalls that flow into giant crater lakes below! I could take you there sometime."
"Oh, sounds cool! Can I come too?" Hidden asked, falling back to the other side of Luna.
"Yeah, sure…." Luna replied. She should have known he'd be interested.
"Thanks!" Hidden said, grinning excitedly. "I wonder what makes them float. Is it magic, or some kind of funky electromagnetic business, or…hold on, do you smell that?"
Luna paused, taking in a big whiff through her nostrils. There was an odd smell of smoke in the air, and of...burning corpses? Luna felt a slight chill run down her spine, seeing that the others were put off by the smell as well.
There was something very wrong about this place, and Luna had a feeling they were about to find out just what it was.
The closer they grew to the source of the smoke, the more pungent the smell became, eventually becoming so unbearable that Luna had to breathe through her mouth to keep from vomiting. Even then, she still felt like she could taste the odor with every gulp of air she sucked in.
A few small structures began to appear through the trees, the group eventually emerging into a small clearing, the remains of what was once a quaint village spread across the bare forest floor. Old cobblestone roads buried beneath a layer of dead pine needles crisscrossed between ruined buildings, some so dilapidated that their roofs had completely caved in. Debris was scattered all about, smashed bits of pots and barrels littered around the desolate dwellings, suggesting that a large skirmish had once taken place in this now lifeless settlement.
Luna almost threw up when she spotted a small pile of burning SkyWing corpses near one of the collapsed buildings, bits and pieces of the charred remains sticking out through the dying flames. Now we know where the smell is coming from. she thought, holding a talon over her mouth.
"Wh-What happened here…?" Lin asked, her legs uncharacteristically shaking at the sight of the devastated village. She looked just about ready to curl up into a ball with her tail wrapped around her head, her steady resolve keeping her standing.
"H-Hidden, maybe we should get out of here…." Ricky said, stepping over closer to his brother. The SandWing gazed about the village, seemingly swallowing back his fear as he scanned the area, before his eyes landed on something near the village center. He immediately bolted off toward it, Luna and Ricky quickly chasing after him, Maple and Lin taking up the rear.
"Wait, hold on!" Ricky shouted, "What is it?!"
Hidden stopped near a small stone well at the center of the village, the limp form of a SkyWing hunched over it. The SandWing briefly reached over to it, but hesitated, instead grabbing a large tree branch nearby and turning over the body with it. The others stood aside, tensely watching as the SkyWing was rolled onto its back.
"Oh...sweet moons…." Hidden said, retching at the site of the mangled dragon. A large chunk of flesh was ripped off of its chest, flies crawling about its blood stained ribs and decaying organs. It's jaw hung loosely from its head, barely held on on one side by an odd vine-like growth. Upon closer inspection, Luna noticed similar growths on other decaying parts of its body.
"Hidden...we really need to…." Ricky began, as Hidden reached down to poke the corpse with the branch.
Just as the tip of the tree branch touched the dead dragon's bloodstained scales, its left foreleg snapped forward, grabbing hold of Hidden's wrist. The SandWing yelped in fright, quickly pulling his own foreleg out of its grasp and leaping back, the branch clattering to the ground.
The whole group quickly backed away, watching in horror as the SkyWing's body lurched and shifted, a low, guttural moan creeping out of its decaying maw.
"I-Is...is that a…." Ricky sputtered, terror stealing his voice from him. The whole group was scared speechless, even Luna. She'd heard a few stories of things like this happening in some timelines (rumors about dragon necromancers always seemed to be floating about), but it couldn't compare to how horrifying of a sight it was to witness first-talon.
"Alright, everyone just back up slowly...and…." Hidden began quietly, cautiously taking a step away. The undead SkyWing let out a low growl, and sprang toward him, eyes white and glossy, what claws it had left outstretched and reaching for his throat. Hidden quickly leapt out of the way, swatting the rotted dragon aside with his tail.
"Aw! I think I got some of it on me!" he groaned, wiping his tail on the ground to try and clean off the SkyWing's blood, instead causing pine needles to stick to it.
"Hidden, watch out!" Luna shouted, as the SkyWing leapt back toward him, flies bursting out of its chest cavity. Lin quickly leapt forward, whipping out her omni-staff and smacking the SkyWing's head clean off with it. The group watched in disgust and horror as the head rolled across the ground, its jaw falling off part way. The SkyWing's now headless body fell forward, Hidden quickly rolling out of its way.
"Th-Thanks…." Hidden said, wiping some off the SkyWing's blood off the side of his face.
"Something tells me this place wasn't destroyed in an ordinary raid…." Lin warily stated, holding her staff at the ready as deep moans and growls echoed from the surrounding ruins.
The group clustered together in the center of the village, watching as more undead SkyWings in varying states of decay crept out into the open. Each of them stared on with blank white eyes, their gaunt bodies shambling out of the building's shadows. Some of the dragons' limbs were twisted and broken, others missing them altogether. Chunks of their flesh were rotted away, one dragon missing half of the scales on its face, its skull gleaming brightly in the light of the corpse fire not far away.
"So, we're in zombie apocalypse land now?" Hidden asked.
"I know, right! So cool!" Maple replied, eliciting confused glances from all the others. "I mean...not the 'trying to kill us' part…."
One of the zombified dragons made a break for the Reggie-tron, Maple quickly pounding its head into the cobblestone road with one of its steel talons. Another leapt up at it from behind, Luna quickly spinning around and grabbing its tail, hoping to throw it to the ground. Instead, the tail ripped clean off, the rest of the dragon falling to the side as Maple crushed it beneath the SteelWing's own metal tail.
"We should really be going!" Luna shouted, swinging the SkyWing's severed tail into another one making a run for her. The zombies were surprisingly fast, though Luna was quick to adapt. One couldn't let their preconceived notions get the better of them while travelling the multiverse.
The zombies continued to pour out over the ruins, the undead dragons scrambling for a taste of the newcomers. "They won't stop coming!" Hidden shouted, activating the energy shield on his wrist to block a couple zombies, their jaws snapping as they desperately attempted to get past the pulsating barricade. He quickly deactivated the shield and spun around, knocking them back with the side of his tail.
"Why don't you use your tail barb?!" Lin shouted to Hidden, jabbing her staff through the neck of a zombie dragon reaching for Ricky. The SkyWing was crouched down at the center of the group, staring at the carnage around him in horror.
"Ew, gross! I'm not putting my tail through these things!" Hidden shouted back. "What about you Maple?! You got any other weapons on that thing?!"
"I don't know!" Maple shouted through the Reggie-tron's speakers, smashing the heads of two unread dragons together. "Reggie and I never found anything!"
"That's a civilian SteelWing! It doesn't have any weapons!" Luna explained, ducking down and jabbing one of the zombies in its half decayed stomach with her tonfa, kicking it away with her hind legs.
"SteelWing?!" Hidden asked, ramming an attacker back against one of the crumbling walls with his shield, setting it alight with his fire breath.
"They're mechs designed to level the playing field between humans and dragons!" Luna shouted over the cacophonous moaning and squelching of the undead horde.
"Why does this matter right now?!" Lin roared, spinning and whirling around as the two halves of her omni-staff carved through the oncoming tide.
Luna knocked another of the undead dragons away from her, noticing an odd twitching coming from one of the fallen corpses, the one Lin had beheaded earlier before it could reach Hidden. The headless SkyWing slowly got to its feet, limping over to its severed head and jaw, picking up both and placing them back on its neck, more of the vine-like tendrils growing out of its flesh to reattach them.
"Oh moons…." Luna muttered, rushing over toward Lin and Hidden, the SandWing tripping up an especially large undead MudWing while Lin drove her staff through its skull.
"We need to leave, now!" Luna shouted. The other two nodded, Hidden quickly rushing over to swat away the top half of a SkyWing that was reaching for Ricky. They had managed to thin the zombies' numbers considerably, though many of the ones they had taken down were starting to pull themselves together again.
"Let's go!" Lin shouted, darting out of the settlement in the direction of the shuttle. Luna wondered for a moment why she hadn't taken to the sky, only to notice more undead dragons hiding up in the treetops, waiting for any unsuspecting prey to pass them by. She quickly followed after the EarthWing, Maple, Hidden and Ricky right behind her.
The moaning and screeching of the undead dragons followed them through the forest, the crunching of branches signaling their hot pursuit. Every now and then, one would leap out of the undergrowth, or down from one of the treetops, desperately grasping for fresh dragon flesh.
One of the jumpers managed to land on Luna's tail, the undead dragon sinking its teeth into her left hind leg. Luna growled, jabbing it with the electrified end of one of her tonfa, the undead dragon letting go long enough for her to kick it away with her other hind leg. She quickly scrambled to her feet, wincing, as blood started to drip from the open wound.
"You alright Luna?" Hidden asked, casting a concerned glance to her wounded leg.
"Yeah, I'm fine…." Luna groaned unconvincingly, "Come on, we need to keep going!"
The group continued pushing forward through the woods, Hidden and Ricky helping to stabilize Luna until the shuttle came into sight. The two brothers quickly hopped into the cockpit, slamming the doors shut beside them. Lin and Maple took up positions at the bottom of the ramp, Luna limping up between them, trying her best not to look as pained as she was.
"Hurry up and fly this thing already!" Lin shouted, grabbing the dubstep cannon from the floor of the shuttle. She took aim at the oncoming horde, when an undead SkyWing leapt out of the thicket, knocking the cannon out of Lin's grasp and tackling Luna further back into the shuttle's rear chamber. Talons thumped onto the roof of the shuttle, more zombies gathering on top as they tried to claw their way inside.
The undead dragon on top of Luna quickly spread its tattered wings, briefly stunning Lin and Maple beside her, and was about to slash its claws across her throat, when a spear suddenly pierced straight through its head, blood spurting down onto Luna as it fell limply to the side.
The SilkWing quickly crawled over next to Maple, grabbing the dubstep cannon, and watching as the undead dragons shifted their focus from the dragons in the shuttle to something rustling in the trees behind it. A flash of bright red scales leapt out of the overgrowth, a familiar looking SkyWing landing in front of the shuttle's open ramp.
The SkyWing's body was covered in scars, a few claws missing from a couple of his talons, a black leather eyepatch covering his left eye. He pulled a small dagger out of a pouch around his left foreleg, twirling it around as he glared at the undead dragons surrounding them.
"Why don't you come chew on this ya flesh eatin' fiends!" he growled, as the horde began to close in on him.
The SkyWing leapt into action, leaping between the assailants as his blade carved through their joints with pinpoint precision, quickly disabling them one by one. He briefly leapt into the shuttle, pulling his spear out of the zombie that had nearly killed Luna, and leapt right back into the fray, his two weapons carving wide arcs through the onslaught.
Luna watched on silently, before remembering the dubstep cannon nearby, quickly grabbing and pointing it at some of the zombies further away from the eyepatched SkyWing. She pulled the trigger, unleashing streams of brightly colored plasma and bass-boosted dubstep upon the horde, the energy beam scorching anything that lay in its path.
Minutes passed, Luna struggling to bear the pain in her leg as she let loose with the dubstep cannon. When the zombie's numbers had substantially fallen, she dropped the heavy device, leaning against the wall of the shuttle as she gasped for air.
"Luna, are you alright?" Lin asked, noticing the bleeding bite mark on Luna's leg. The EarthWing started toward her, but Luna held up a talon, nodding.
"I'm...I'm fine…." she said through heavy breaths.
Lin frowned, unconvinced. She reached for a small first aid kit mounted to one of the walls, flipping it open and sifting through its contents. She briefly looked over a few bottles, seemingly unsure of what to make of them, before tossing them aside and grabbing a roll of white cloth, quickly wrapping it around Luna's leg.
"That should stop the bleeding." Lin stated, fastening the end of the wrapping with a small metal hook. "You'll need to get that looked at later, though."
"So much for our fight...huh?" Luna said, grinning through the pain.
Lin smiled back, and helped Luna to her feet, the two making their way down the shuttle's ramp as Maple dragged out the bleeding corpse, Hidden and Ricky having already stepped out of the cockpit.
The group silently watched as the SkyWing effortlessly cleaved through the horde. The few remaining zombies began to keep their distance, hissing and growling as the SkyWing kept them at bay with sweeping bursts of his fire breath.
Soon enough, what remained of the horde was retreating into the woods, the carved up bodies around the one-eyed SkyWing twitching and jerking as they struggled to pull themselves back together.
"We'll need to burn 'em, before they get back up for round two." the newcomer said, taking a deep breath as he slipped his dagger back into its pouch. He twirled his spear around, skewering the corpses and dragging them into a large pile away from the shuttle.
"Hold on...who are you?" Hidden asked, approaching the familiar looking SkyWing as he set the first pile alight.
"The name's Ricky." the SkyWing replied, the group's eyes growing wide, "Who are you?"
AN:
I'm pretty proud of how this chapter turned out. I managed to squeeze in a decent amount of character interactions, and also deliver some more info about the greater multiverse society as a whole. I'll admit the violence is definitely ramped up here, though I think it could help transition into the slightly darker, more serious chapters to come (especially after the Tower of Doom). Apocalypse Ricky is also introduced here, so that's nice.
Some of you may have already figured out what this zombie virus really is. The zombies aren't going to be the main threat of this episode going forward, though.
What other perils could await the team in this harrowing timeline? Stay tuned!
