Chapter 3:
Ascending once again
"HELP!" Heero woke up to a piercing scream, eyes snapping open and jumping to his feet.
Was that... RELENA?
Without thinking about it he ran off in the direction of the scream, cutting through the forest, feet pounding the ground and cursing at himself for having fallen asleep.
"Relena!" He yelled. "Where are you?!"
There was no answer.
"ANYBODY!" Relena screamed, madly dashing away from her persuers. "HELP!"
The thieves were only about 25 yards behind her now, and she was focusing all her effort on increasing that distance.
She wasn't paying attention to where she was running.
No.... Heero thought.
It WAS Relena. He'd heard her voice screaming only an instant before, and he was still following the fading echo.
She'd better be okay...
He ran faster.
Oh God...
Relena's mind raced thruogh the events of the past few minutes.
Funny, they'd seemed like hours.
She'd been carefully searching for a plant that she knew to be a fairly good painkiller when she'd been surrounded by a band of thieves.
Needless to say, they weren't the nicest of people.
She'd barreled past the shortest of them, but had run away from the clearing where she'd left Heero. He was in no shape to get in a fight, and if she wasn't going to come out of this, she wanted him to.
Too abruptly, she reached the end of the path.
She'd backed herself against the edge of a cliff.
The thieves circled around her possible escape route, sneering.
"Not so tough now are we, pretty?" The leader croaked. "Just for that little stunt, we're going to cut you up real good."
They drew their swords, and began to advance.
Unthinkingly, she stepped back, and the weak lip of the rock face crumbled under her, sending her over the edge.
Just as she was taking that step, Heero burst out of the forest, onto the top of the ciff.
He saw her fall.
"Relena!" He screamed, forcefully breaking through the ring of gruff men. Before he knew what he was doing, he had jumped over the side of the cliff after her.
She was only falling a couple of yards ahead of him. If only he could reach her... he didn't know what he'd do, but whatever it was, it'd sure as hell amount to saving the Dryad Princess.
Wings... Heero thought. That'd save both of us.
The thought triggered something, God only knew what, but Heero felt a lot more confident now.
Gotta catch her.
He folded his wings back in a suicide dive and continued his insane plunge toward Relena.
Relena was falling with her back to the ground, eyes squinted shut, [I'm gonna die.] when she heard a familliar voice from above her. [Heero?]
Her eyes snapped open, in time to see something extremely strange.
"Heero?" She called, "Is... that you?"
There was no answer. Instead, he--Heero--whoever he was-- passed her in her decent, stretched his arms out, and caught her in midair.
Got her. Heero thought triumphantly.
He flared his wings, taking the horrible strain of stopping their decent with gritted teeth, and began their ascent, the baffled dryad clutched in his arms.
He was able to get them back over the top of the cliff easily, pristine white wings expertly navigating the sky. He landed and drew his sword, facing the group of briggands who'd assaulted Relena.
"That wasn't nice." He growled. "Somebody should teach you a lesson."
"What... what the hell... IS it?" One of the thieves asked the leader, anxiousness plainly coloring his voice.
"It's just a birdie." The leader spat. "A DEAD birdie."
He charged Heero, sword flashing.
The angel was too fast for him, though. He feinted to the side, grabbing the man's collar and bringing his own blade to the criminal's throat.
"I SHOULD kill you." He said, fingering the blunt edge of the sword. Blood began to drip from under his adversary's chin.
He paused for a moment, as if considering this, and letting his threat sink in.
"But I'll let you go, because I don't want Relena to have to see that." He released his hold on the thief, spun him back towared his band, and kicked him to the ground.
"However." He said, voice hushed and bending down so Relena couldn't hear what he was saying. "If this ever happens again, you have my solemn vow I won't be so generous."
The man picked himself up and looked at Heero venomously.
Heero returned his glare with one equally poisonous.
"Let's go boys." That bandit finally said, walking off and taking his fellows with him.
"Good riddance." Heero spat after them.
He turned around, and there was Relena, shaking her head in disbelief.
"What?" He asked.
"What... was that? Who are you?"
Everything that happened that day finally caught up to her, and the Dryadic Princess fainted.
Rolling his eyes, the fallen angel picked her up, and spread his wings.
"You and I have a lot to talk about."
To Be Continued...
Author's rant: (yeah.. I know. You're probably tired of these little post chapter things but... too bad!)
Mwahaha.... wasn't it all mushy? Rellie got saved by her knight in shining armor! Kawaii, ne?
Please also note that this is NOT a copoff of Escaflowne. I wrote this several months ago, and thought I'm an Esca fan now, I knew extremely little about it then so... any way the two are similar is entirely coincidental. Falling off a cliff is pretty much the only way I could think of to make Heero fly and end his amnesia, cause THAT was going a big nowhere. Anyways, thanks for reading!
Comments & Criticism welcome!