Hello! Here is my final piece for Cyril. I can hardly believe I managed to get this done in time (just BARELY), but I did it! I hope you all enjoy, and I hope you like reading about Cyril being a badass on his wyvern.
Cyril should've known that the mission was heading south the moment the professor whipped out the Sword of the Creator. Cyril was flying high up on his wyvern when the chaos started, harrying between two groups of war masters that kept trying to flank the foot soldiers. He and his battalion of wyvern riders swooped down at blazing speeds, achieving their main goal of holding back the enemy until other battalions could arrive. There weren't that many of them, but their armor was tough as steel, and Cyril had only managed to fully take down one of them while his teammates cut down the rest.
"Everyone, move right!" Professor Byleth shouted. She raised the Sword of the Creator high above her head, and once she saw that everyone had begun to move, she plunged the sword into the skull of a sniper that had peered out from behind a tree.
Wait, a sniper?
Cyril circled his way towards the right side of the battlefield. Ashe and his group of archers were sniping at the mages that had positioned themselves far away from the main foot soldiers, and Cyril caught a glimpse at his silver-haired friend counting down his troops' next barrage of arrows. He harried the group of soldiers heading towards Ashe's battalion, giving Ashe time to react to the attack, but he kept angling his wyvern so that he could keep an eye on the professor. Professor Byleth had told them that the scouts had seen no snipers, and it was part of the reason why she let Cyril and his battalion fly so far away from the main group.
Cyril's wyvern let out a loud cry as Cyril shot an arrow through a soldier's neck. The man went down instantly, and Eliza roared in victory.
"Good girl," Cyril said as he patted Eliza's back. He gripped her reins and flew her off to the side. "We should head back to the professor. She's still—"
A whooshing arrow flew across Cyril's face.
"Aaah!" Cyril yelled as a slight pain flared up in his right cheek. Eliza roared underneath him, flying at an even faster speed than before. His battalion followed suit. Over a dozen wyvern and their riders plunged downwards, following the draft made by Cyril and Eliza. More arrows whooshed by, but only a few of them managed to graze them. Cyril tightened his legs around Eliza's saddle, and he just barely managed to catch a glimpse of the sight behind him.
More than a dozen bow knights trotted out from underneath the thick trees. Their riders set their arrows and aimed high, setting their sights on the only fliers nearby.
"This isn't good," Cyril whispered. He turned to his battalion, who were still weaving in and out between volleys of arrows. "Fall back! We're no use if we're dead!"
"Cyril!" The professor shouted. Cyril looked down to see the professor slicing her way through a horde of enemies. The enemy had used the distraction from the bow knights to send the war masters towards the professor, and Cyril saw and her Crest of Flames shone brightly amid the blood flying out from the soldiers she and her battalion cut down.
Cyril immediately turned towards the professor. Releasing his grip on Eliza's reins, he knocked an arrow and began to take aim, but was interrupted by the professor before he could let it loose.
"Cover Lysithea!" Professor Byleth yelled. The Sword of the Creator bloomed bright orange, and the professor let it extend into a whip. The weapon hummed and sliced the air, catching half a dozen soldiers in a single strike. "She and her battalion will get ambushed if she doesn't get back up!"
Cyril's heart stopped for a brief moment. But only for a moment.
"Follow me!" He screamed to his battalion. "Hya!" Cyril turned Eliza around and flew over the professor, rushing over the trees and far away from the bow knights that no longer had them in their range. Eliza beat her strong wings furiously as Cyril led her across the battlefield. They flew over more war masters, a battalion of mercenaries, and even a pair of bow knights, but there was one spot where the enemy kept advancing.
Cyril launched an arrow at the war master heading directly towards Lysithea and her battalion. Lysithea was holding, and her voice rang out clearly on the battlefield as she sent a wave of Dark Spikes directly at an incoming cavalry unit. The unit went down, but Cyril could see the panic rising in Lysithea's battalion. Her mages fired spell after spell, and though it took down many of the incoming enemies, there were too many on their way towards her.
"All of you, go straight to her!" Cyril yelled to his battalion. "Lysithea and her battalion can't handle physical damage. Get between them and the enemy and push them back. Either you take them out, or you give Lysithea time to take them out for you."
"Commander, what about you?" Cyril's second-in-command asked over the rushing wind.
"Don't worry about me!" Cyril raised his bow again and took aim at another war master. "Go!"
Cyril didn't know what it was about his voice, but something in it made his second accept the order with a battle cry. She and the other riders flew straight towards Lysithea, and they all began harrying the incoming enemy troops. Once Cyril had seen that they were off, he let his arrow fly directly at the war master below him.
"Up here!" He screamed at the enemy. About a third of them turned to look up him, and seeing that his battalion was gone, their commander shouted an order for them to turn and change targets.
Cyril pulled back his bow again. "Eliza, spin!" At his command, Eliza flew down into a spinning dive. Cyril held tight as Eliza twirled down towards the troops, pulling up only at the last moment. That's when Cyril took his shot and fired at the incoming troops. His arrow hit the commander right in the shoulder, and he let out a furious wail of pain.
Cyril spun Eliza once more, making her twist above the surrounding enemies. Some soldiers dived out of the way, others tried to sink their axes into Eliza's hide, but she was too fast for them. Cyril took every moment of respite from Eliza's turns to launch arrow after arrow, hitting many foes in rapid succession. It wasn't the most accurate strategy, and rarely did he take down an enemy outright, but it was enough.
An incoming battalion of war masters suddenly exploded in a haze of purple light. Cyril grinned as Lysithea's explosion burst against the ground, making every soldier rushing towards Cyril fly off in a trail of misty magic.
Cyril launched another volley of arrows, this time hitting another commander in both legs. Cyril's fighting style may not have been enough to take down the enemy, but it was more than enough to let others finish the kill.
"Cyril!" Ashe's voice screamed above the roaring sound of war. "Behind you!"
But before Cyril could process the warning, and before he could even wonder what Ashe was doing all the way on this side of the battlefield, something flew through Eliza's wing.
Eliza roared in pain as the arrow pierced her wing. Cyril grabbed on tight as she started spinning wildly, tumbling out of the air and towards the ground.
"Eliza!" He yelled, but all his wyvern did was scream more. As Cyril fought to control their descent, he spotted a bow knight peering out of the trees in front of him. In a flurry of rage, Cyril angled Eliza downwards, towards the bow knight. The knight didn't seem to mind, setting another arrow in his bow.
Cyril swung his ax before the arrow even left its string. The ax hit hard and deep, piercing into the knight's chest and knocking him off his horse. Cyril landed Eliza next to him and raised his ax high above his head—but there was no need.
The knight was dead. His horse had run off.
Eliza howled in pain once more. Cyril immediately slid off of her and went to stand beside her. "Hey, it's ok. It's ok." He said, stroking her long nose. "You're gonna be just fine."
Eliza whined as Cyril stroked her head, and he took a look at her wing. The tear was small, but for a wyvern, any damage to the wing caused loss of control in flight. Not to mention the immense pain it caused. "It'll be ok. We just need to get you to a healer and you'll be good as new!"
Eliza pressed her nose deeper into Cyril's hand, and Cyril stroked her once more.
A cry from the battlefield made Cyril look away. The cry was faint, but it was slowly getting louder. Cyril grabbed Eliza's reins and pulled her deeper into the trees, and yet the noises kept following them. Cyril ran further and further, until finally, he found something.
A low stone outcropping lay hidden amid a set of tall bushes. Cyril pulled Eliza there and set her down beneath the rocks. "Stay here," he said.
Eliza whined in protest. She began to lift herself off the ground again, but Cyril pushed her down with a firm and steady hand. "Hey, don't worry about me. I can take care of this, no sweat. I just need you to stay here. Can you do that for me?"
Eliza's red eyes met Cyril's own. She whined again, but after Cyril patted her nose once more, she let out a soft cry. She didn't make that noise often, but it was enough for Cyril to know that she'd stay put.
With a final pat, Cyril walked away from the outcropping and readied his bow. The sounds of shuffling footsteps were getting louder with each moment.
"Yeah, no sweat," he said to himself. Slowly, he raised his bow and aimed at the path he'd come down. He forced him to breathe deeply, even as his heart beat in his ears and his hand twitched beneath controlled nerves.
His first arrow caught a soldier in the neck.
The war master fell without a word. Cyril wasted no time in preparing another arrow, but the element of surprise was gone. The next arrow he shot only caught a soldier in the arm, and the following arrow only grazed another's leg.
Cyril ran back to give himself more distance and launched a volley of arrows. Some hit, some missed, but none of the war masters went down. There were about six of them, and all of them had blood seeping out of the wounds Cyril had caused, but for once there was no one else to finish them off. Cyril pulled up his bow again—
A single arrow pierced the chest of the war master closest to Cyril. It hit deep, and the man fell down with a thud. The thing was, the soldier had been shot in the back, and Cyril was pretty sure that the war master had been running straight at him.
To Cyril's right, a sphere of purple light enveloped the body of another soldier that was coming up on Ashe's right-hand side. The sphere hit the soldier in the leg, but the impact coursed through the man's entire body, and purple light oozed out of the wounds Cyril had made. The war master dropped dead.
Cyril grinned. Of course they'd show up.
"Ashe! Lysithea!" He called out as he took aim once more. "Thanks!"
Cyril launched another arrow into an incoming war master who had taken too long to react to his new attackers. The arrow hit him in the leg, but Ashe's arrow flew straight into his chest. "Cyril!" Ashe called out. He was positioned by a far tree, and Cyril could see him preparing another arrow for his enormous sniper bow. He was alone, but if that made Ashe nervous, he didn't show it. "We're coming!"
"Cyril!" Lysithea said. She showed up amid a cloud of purple smoke, jumping over the body of another soldier she had downed with Dark Spikes. She didn't look injured, thankfully, but bits of grime and rock were mixed in amid her bright white hair. And just like Ashe, she had come with her battalion. "Are you ok? We saw you go down!"
"I'm ok. But Eliza's hurt pretty bad." Cyril said as he launched another arrow, and he couldn't help but glance over at the outcropping where Eliza still lay hidden.
"I'm on it!" Lysithea's shining pink eyes met Cyril's for a brief moment, and then she took off between the bushes.
Cyril turned back to the incoming soldiers. Arrow after arrow, Cyril whittled them down enough for Ashe to get the kill. The war masters tried to dodge their way to them, but the trees, and the arrow Cyril shot into their legs, slowed them down just enough. By the time Ashe had downed the final soldier with an arrow to the gut, none of them had gotten close enough to lay their axes into Cyril.
"Cyril!" Ashe ran up to him, skipping over the dead soldiers around them. "Are you alright?"
"I am now, thanks to you guys," Cyril said, and he was finally able to breathe again. "Eliza got hurt. Lysithea's patching her up."
"The professor sent us to help," Ashe explained as Cyril led him towards the outcropping where he had hidden Eliza. "Lysithea and I left our battalions to keep the reinforcements back. It was the only way for us to get to you without having half the enemies follow us."
Cyril nodded. "That's pretty smart. Thanks."
The two of them ran through the thicket and back to Eliza. Lysithea was running her hands over the damaged wing, her hands glowing with a white aura. Lysithea hovered above the wyvern for a few more moments, completing the healing spell with a little prayer, before finally dissipating the spell. "There," she said, her voice no more tired than it was earlier. "It should be alright now. The professor has taken care of the main advancements. We only need to worry about the stragglers now."
"Thanks a bunch." Cyril went up to Eliza and stroked her nose. She let out a happy whine and swished her tail, and as she moved her newly healed wing, a yell of joy roared out of her lips. "Eliza's doing so much better now! Now we can—"
A cry of soldiers echoed towards them. Ashe and Lysithea, the ones closest to the edge of the outcropping, immediately started firing at the incoming crowd. Lysithea knocked a bow knight off of her horse with Dark Spikes, Ashe finished her off with an arrow, but behind them were more and more soldiers rushing towards them. They filtered in through the trees in groups too clustered together for Cyril to properly count, but he didn't need to see much to know that they were getting surrounded.
"There's too many of them!" Ashe cried out as he shot another arrow through a war master's thigh.
"I don't have many spells left!" Lysithea said as she launched a Luna spell. A moon appeared over a stumbling sniper, finishing him off. It was effective, but Cyril knew that it was far from Lysithea's most powerful spell.
Cyril's mind raced as he tried to come up with a plan. Eliza whined next to him. Her eyes darted rapidly between Cyril and his friends, over and over and—
Of course. "That's it!" Cyril exclaimed. In a huge leap, Cyril threw himself onto the wyvern's saddle. "Eliza! Up!"
Eliza roared as she stepped out of the outcropping. Her wings beat steady and strong, and she launched herself off the ground with a powerful flap.
"Hey!" Lysithea yelled up at them. "Don't tell me you're leaving uuuus—"
Lysithea's scream curdled as Eliza's talons wrapped around the mage's torso, lifting Lysithea off the ground. With her other talons, Eliza reached out to grab Ashe's middle, and with another hefty flap, Eliza took to the sky.
"Oh, dear Goddess!" Ashe screamed. His legs flailed wildly as they left the ground, and they kicked at the air with unbridled panic..
"Keep firing!" Cyril told them. As Eliza flew higher and farther away, Cyril twisted himself around. With his bow firmly in hand, Cyril launched arrow after arrow at the crowd beneath him, pushing back their pursuers. Ashe and Lysithea kept the arrows and spells firing, and though they weren't as accurate as Cyril's shots, arrowheads and Luna spells dotted the ground below them.
The soldiers tripped over and stumbled away from the assault. Many stood up to regain their balance, but by then it was too late. Eliza had picked up speed, and as Cyril launched the last arrow he had left in his quiver, the wyvern was now barreling through the sky.
"Cyril!" Ashe yelled over the winds. "That was brilliant!"
Cyril leaned over to see his friends. Eliza still held Ashe tightly within her talons, so much so that Ashe felt no need to grab onto the wyvern. Lysithea, on the other hand, was gripping Eliza's leg with both arms as the winds blew her air in every direction possible.
"I have to admit, it kind of was," Lysithea yelled, her voice even louder than Ashe's. "But next time, give us a bit of a warning!"
Cyril laughed. "Will do," he yelled back. "Hyah!" Cyril urged Eliza forwards, and with the wyvern's triumphant roar, the four of them flew away.