Oi… long time no update -cringe- I had been planning to write this chapter at least two weeks ago, but all that durn school work got in the way…
And, er… thanks for the reviews! Lay down on the spazzing, Emily. Really. Anyone else, feel free to leave me any advice, anything you think might be better for the story. Usual stuff.
This is probably my favorite chapter so far. I really don't know why…
Anyway, this is a bit longer than the others, as promised, so enjoy.
Eternity Dragons
Chapter Seven – "Awakening"
As requested, here's a flashback to what has happened so far.
Hitomi has met up with Kei, and both have traveled to Gaea with the help of Kei's pendant. They found that they were in the Valley of the Dragons, near Fanelia. After being reunited with Ruhm and another wolf man, Olden, the four of them traveled to the reconstructing Fanelia. Before they even managed to reach their destination, Kei fell from the cliff overlooking the city, and her secret was revealed. Kei was a draconian. They quickly hurried Kei and her broken wing to the royal castle, where Ruhm and Olden took their leave. Hitomi and Van were reunited with some concerns over the problems in the castle concerning Merle, and now it's time for Kei and Hitomi to explain to Van just what was going on…. Meanwhile….
Four guymelefs were nestled in the cliffs above Fanelia, their pilots languidly stretching out on the warm rock and soaking in the sun. Four cat women, just like Naria and Eria, were purring softly, and they seemed to be waiting for something.
"Oh, how long do we have to hang around here…?" One, colored pale grey with short auburn hair, gently whined, blinking her overly large orbs that matched her fur. She sat up leisurely, observing the way the sunlight shone off her rich pelt.
"Be patient, Skylar…" Another replied, sighing softly.
The one named Skylar pouted slightly, glancing down at Fanelia briefly. "But for how long, Aelis?"
The other cat woman, completely white in color, slowly sat up. Aelis's startling red eyes, which matched the tips of her long white hair, observed the sun position for a moment before looking back at her companion. "A few more hours, at the least."
"Until darkness falls. That is what master said. Until the black of night can disguise our actions." The third cat woman, Jetta, replied in a dull, cold tone. The other two looked at her with blank expressions, used to this kind of attitude from the pure ebony guymelef pilot. Shifting her position slightly and flicking her braid hair over her shoulder, Jetta didn't even bother looking over at the two others. The emerald eyes, as dull as her voice, stayed hidden behind closed eyelids as she moved to prop her arms behind her head. "Right, Mina?"
The last cat woman nodded from her position where she was leaning against the leg of her guymelef, just out of reach of the sun's earnest rays. "Exactly. Just wait, Skylar. Rest up, get energy for tonight. We must not fail in this mission."
Skylar sighed, lying back down. "Right, Captain."
The Captain, Mina, turned her sapphire blue to gaze upon the land stretching out past the land of Fanelia, then down at her three dozing companions. There was something strange about this land. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, however.
Shaking off her inner feelings, she went back to running the plan over in her head and the message they had received just before they had left, wrapping her arms loosely around her knees as she stared off into space.
"You must not fail. Capture the dragon and pendant holder. Kill the spare." That sinister voice had hissed from the shadows.
She recalled bowing in reverence to the darkness that was her leader. "Yes, master. We will not fail you."
"… and that's it. Now we're here."
"I see."
The whole morning had been spent solely explaining what had happened to Kei and Hitomi thus far. While clearing up some things for all of them, it brought up a series of problems.
Van stood up to pace, his brow furrowed with concentration. He, of course, believed everything that Hitomi had just said. He knew well enough that she wouldn't lie. Now he had to think things over, and he didn't especially want to do that. There was an instinctive urge to get up and go. Go find Merle. But he couldn't leave these two girls here, after all…
"It doesn't make sense. We have no idea who these people are…" He muttered in annoyance.
Kei glanced up at him from her laptop, where she had been typing feverishly to get down what Hitomi had been saying aloud. There were 8 pages filled with information about their first day in the land of Gaea. She saved the file, knowing that they might need the facts for later. "Obviously, they're planning something big, and it required Merle for something. And, considering that last vision you had, Hitomi…"
Hitomi nodded, keeping her eyes lowered. She had told them everything. Since she didn't understand it, she had been hoping that two more heads and a lot of thinking would solve some things.
"… and also considering what you told me before... how you found out that experiments had been done on that Dilan… Dilondow… person… that changed him from female to male, then perhaps they might be conducting something similar to Merle." Kei continued, closing the top of her computer.
This thought did nothing to soothe either of the two Kei had been talking to. Van scowled, pacing as fiercely as ever, while Hitomi sighed and bit her lip in worry. There was a heavy feeling in the room. Worry, fear, a need to do something and fast. Not the best combination. Time for drastic measures…
She cleared her throat softly and spoke again. "I think we need to think this over a bit more, but later. Hitomi and I just got here, Van. We need to rest a bit, clear our minds. Plus, you two need to catch up." She smirked slightly but didn't pause even when her comment stopped the pacing Fanelian king in his tracks. "Once we've had some time, then we can think and plan what we're going to do."
"We?" The brown-haired teen turned his head quickly to face the smirking Harakei. His voice rang out sternly as he frowned at her. "I'm going alone; you two would be in danger, I can't risk that."
Hitomi was the first to object. "No!"
Van, startled, gaped at Hitomi. Surely, she should have understood by now that rescue attempts like these were dangerous. His disapproving, older adult act fell right through. "But… Hitomi…"
The girl flushed slightly, but kept up a determined look as she met her love's gaze. Her hands were clutched into fists as she struggled not to start shaking. "No, I'm going with you, Van. I want to save Merle, too."
"And I'm not staying here." Kei added, frowning slightly and feeling rather hurt at being left out.
"No!" Van and Hitomi simultaneously yelled at the newly found draconian, who cringed at the firmness in their tone of voice and the way their eyes had widened as they stared at her.
"But… But I…" She struggled for a reason to prove that she should go, not understanding why her request to come along was rejected so instantly.
"You're hurt." Hitomi answered for the two of them, looking concerned again. Van turned his head away, glaring at the door of the room as he went back to musing about the scum that took Merle away.
"So?" The schoolgirl yelled, sitting straight up in bed. She was outraged. "I just got here; I'm not going to sit around all day while you two go on rescue missions without me!"
"Kei, please try to understand…" The girl with honey brown hair said in earnest, "You'd be in so much danger if you went with us…"
"What about you!" She stubbornly went on, glaring daggers at her schoolmate that sat before her, squirming uncomfortably in her chair with guilt. The girl felt a little guilty herself, making Hitomi experience this anxiety, but she didn't want to back down.
"You can't even handle a weapon, you told me before!"
"I... well… I've been here before, I can handle myself."
"Oh, and I can't?" said Kei, snorting and pointing at her sword that lay nearby.
"Please, Kei… we'll be back as soon as we can. Please…" Her pleading eyes looked into grey ones. A few seconds like that passed, Kei glaring and Hitomi keeping her gaze on her, neither of them daring to blink.
Finally, the off-black orbs narrowed and then shut as Kei sat back in bed with a sulking expression on her face. The kind that meant she had given up, but under protest. Hitomi studied her face intently for a moment before realizing the message behind the deep frown, and she smiled gently. "Thank you, Kei. You just rest, alright? Oh, and… here. It's yours. I don't need it." Hitomi unclasped Kei's necklace from where it hung beneath her shirt and she gently placed it on the bedside table.
With another comforting smile that her friend couldn't see anyway, Hitomi stood and walked over to Van. With a last glance back at the brooding draconian, they left, closing the door softly behind them. Kei was left alone to sigh and spread her wings out again, cursing herself silently for letting that happen.
The pair, Hitomi and Van, stood outside and began to head back to the room next to Kei's. The emerald eyed girl sighed, leaning against the doorway with a tired expression.
"Hitomi, are you alright?" Van asked slowly in a soft voice, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder
With a slight nod, she opened the door to the room where her duffel bag still lay by the bed. "Yes, I think… I should rest a while."
She just realized the toll of awakening so early in the morning and then using up all her energy worrying over her friend's safety. She felt drained, and she had a feeling that a hot bath would help assemble her mixed up thoughts and feelings.
With an understanding smile, Van pulled the girl into a hug. "I thought you would be. You rest then, and I'll come back later."
"Alright." Allowing herself a moment of peace as she stood in Van's embrace, she slowly pulled away and managed another nod as she stepped back past the doorway. In the last moment, realizing that she couldn't just leave him without one word, she looked up at him once more. "And Van?"
"Yes?" His arms itched to reach out for her and hold her once more, but he resisted and simply blinked questioningly
"Thank you." With a soft smile, she shut the door, leaving Van to gaze wistfully at the wood barrier that now separated the girl whose presence he had ached for these past three months from him. Finally, with a contented sigh, he turned on his heel and walked slowly back where he had, not too long ago, sprinted at full speed to see the girl from the Mystic Moon who was now, although he didn't realize this, laughing happily with a wide grin on her face.
"I'm back…" She whispered softly, gazing through the window out at the city of Fanelia. "I'm really back."
Kei, meanwhile, had finally pulled herself together out of her dreary mood and explored her room. Finding a door that led to a room with a bath, which is what she had been looking for, Kei grabbed the pendant, an extra set of clothes, and immediately went at it.
The bath, as she had expected, wasn't too different from the baths at home. Plumbing was rather primitive… but she could deal with it. Dumping her clean set of clothes on the ground, she observed first how to get water into the bath. That was simple enough. There were two handles above the large tub that was actually built into the floor. After a series of tests, she concluded that the red handle was hot and blue was cold. It really couldn't get more obvious than that. She pulled out a bubble bath bottle she had packed along with her and poured a bit into the stream of water, then stepped back to let the bath fill itself. Placing the bottle by her clothes, she noticed a mirror nearby and peered curiously into it.
"AHH!" Kei screamed in shock, stumbling back and almost tripping over the clothes on the floor. For a moment, a dark figure with gleaming red eyes glared back at her, then faded away. It was replaced by an image of herself. Pale, breathing heavily with wide eyes, and looking fearful. Shaking off the feeling of terror she had just experienced, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming her frantically beating heart and willing away the sudden knot in her stomach.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to look in the mirror once more. The only image there was herself, as was expected when one looked into a reflected surface. Hair could use washing, though… That thought stealthily crept into her mind, despite the sudden shock she had just received. With a scratch of her head, Kei turned away from the mirror and went back to the bath, turning off the water.
The raven-haired girl smiled slightly, pleased with the hot bath that she now had before her. Sliding out of the hopelessly ruined school uniform that not only had multiple rips, but also suffered two large holes in the back from her wings, the teen thankfully stepped into the bath. Very hot water, her mind registered.
She couldn't help but sigh with pleasure as she sunk into the hot, bubbly bath. After ten minutes of serious hair-washing and grooming, Harakei brushed back the wet strand of hair to lean against one side of the tub.
She reached out, dripping, to grab the pendant that she had brought with her. Holding it before her, hanging on one finger, the pink pendant shone and reflected the light coming from the small window in the room. Once, it had just been a reminder of her old parents. Who, according to her foster parents, died.
"This is all that came with you." They said whenever she asked about where she had come from. "We don't know anything else, Kei. Sorry."
Now… not only was it a memento of her past. It was a link to Gaea. A thing of… her brow furrowed in thought. .. a thing of Atlantis.
After all, this is what Hitomi has as well. And as she had explained the first time, the pendant had been both a curse and a gift. It had allowed her to see the unseen… but also granted wishes through the power of Atlantis that had changed fate. Changed fate to the worst one out of multiple possibilities.
Was this the same? Would her own uncontrollable wishing pull bad destinies into place?
Then there was always something else bothering her.
Why did this all seem familiar? Shouldn't the sight of wolf men and the cries of dragons have freaked her out? How they were teleported to another planet that she hadn't even known existed by being rushed up into the sky in a blue light, produced from their wishes and thoughts? And her wings. Why didn't it seem life-changing that she could suddenly sprout wings from her back? It's not like everyday something new happened to her. But now, everything was different. But the difference… seemed like home, and she couldn't understand why.
There was a sharp pain in her shoulder blade, right where her wing grew out of when they were spread. Sighing, Kei tossed the pendant gently to the pile of clothes on the floor and sunk back into her bubble bath to think.
Hitomi slipped into a fresh pair of jeans and a tank top, sighing. She had been right, a hot bath had helped.
Her school uniform was draped over the window ledge, drying. Running her fingers through her damp hair that she had been growing out ever since her departure from Gaea, she tried to slip on her sneakers without untying the laces or looking down. With a last glance out at the afternoon sun, she knelt down hurriedly to fix the tongue of one of her shoes, then straightened and went to the door. Just as she had begun wondering where she could find Van, she opened the door to find the boy she had just been thinking about. He blinked in surprise, lowering his hand that been about to knock.
They stared at each other for a moment before Van grinned and took Hitomi's hand in his, leading her out of the doorway and closing the door behind her.
They walked through the castle, talking softly. "Hitomi, are you sure you want to do this? Come with me to save Merle?" He glanced down at her, worry in his dark brown eyes as he voiced his concerns.
"I'm positive." Hitomi gazed up at him as a soft smile touched her lips. She was happy. That much was obvious. It had been so long since those auburn wells flooded her mind, ages had gone by before she had her chance to look upon his tanned, gentle face. Their last moments together had been heart-wrenching, in all the ways possible. He had held her tightly, and then let her go. Now, she happily looked down at their clasped hands, Van was not as willing to release her from his grip as before. There was no promise holding him back. No promise to send Hitomi to the Mystic Moon. This time, she had come willingly. She had come for him.
Van sighed softly, but found he had no heart to try and steer her away from going with him. In a way, he was grateful that she was coming. Deep down, he didn't really mind her tagging along. Chuckling softly, and gently squeezing her hand, his reply came softly. "Alright, then. But I suppose I have to give you back something…"
"Hmm?" questioned Hitomi, looking up at Van once more.
Instead of answered her confused noise, the young king stopped and, after reluctantly releasing his hold on her, raised both his gloved hands to his neck, fiddling with a chain for a moment before finally undoing the clasp and pulling forth Hitomi's old necklace. And from the chain hung…
"My pendant…" Her eyes softened as her hand automatically reached out to take her old good luck charm. She stared down at the palm of her hand where the pink stone gleamed back at her. It was funny, in a way. Kei's pendant looked exactly the same, and yet now that she could compare the two, her own seemed so much more familiar and so different from her friends.
"I realized you're going to need it more than me, now…" He said softly, uncertain whether she was happy or saddened by the return of her necklace.
Hitomi was having mixed feelings. On one hand, she would have to use it to find out where the enemies would be, and to assist Van in battle, if needed. But, on the other hand, would she accidentally wish up bad fates again?
Hopefully not. If there was one thing she had learned, was that she could not underestimate the power of wishes, and to have faith that things can turn out alright, even if all seemed dark.
With a soft smile, she attached the necklace around her neck and tucked the pink jewel beneath her shirt. "Thank you, Van."
With a relieved smile, Van took her hand once more and the two continued on their way, but they were forced to stop again when Hitomi paused upon passing a room whose two wooden doors were thrown open. Within was the old home of the Escaflowne. It was exactly the same, but for two things. There was no large rock, the resting place of the guymelef, hanging from the ceiling. And, a shrine had been built at the far side of the chamber. There had been three coffins there before, but those were nowhere to be found.
"This is…"
Van frowned slightly, following her gaze. "Yes, this is the shrine. It was barely touched in the fire… so we barely had to rebuild anything. But for the wooden areas and…." He hesitated, looking off at the large memorial.
A moment of silence passed where they both stared at the shrine, Hitomi realized what it was after noting two carved dragons guarding the tomb. "It's for Folken, isn't it?"
"Yes. This is the first one. His body rests by my father… in the royal forest." He replied softly, lowering his eyes to hide them in the shadow produced by his large bangs.
Automatically, the Mystic Moon girl reached out to comfort him. But as soon as she touched his shoulder, everything faded out of sight.
She gasped, her hand no longer in Van's. Around her was darkness, but not for long. Four pairs of eyes loomed out at her. Blue, green, grey, and red, all regarding her coldly. Her swinging pendant suddenly erased the cold eyes. Beyond the chain, she saw a dark figure. Next to it stood… was that Kei? The girl's wings were spread out behind her as she looked up in horror at the figure.
The vision focused on the girl, and the situation changed. Kei was falling again, and this time, she was screaming, reaching out to her. "HITOMII!"
"Kei!" She tried to grab her hand, but it was useless, and the visions were swept up into a blur.
The vast, swirling images came to an abrupt stop. A black dragon loomed at her. A mechanical dragon, flying past with the wings made from steel and cloth.
"A black Escaflowne?" She gasped softly again.
The ground beneath her cracked then collapsed inward, carrying Hitomi with it.
She screamed in distress, reaching out for someone. Anyone. This seemed strangely familiar. But why wasn't anyone coming? Surely Van would come flying, like he always would? But where was he?
"VAN!" She screamed, dismay and terror filling her very soul.
Eight guymelef claws reached out, the four faces of cat women grinning wickedly at her.
"Hitomi!" Van's face broke through the vision, his eyes wide with fear.
Quickly exhaling air, her shaking legs would no longer hold her, causing her to collapse into the Fanelian king's supporting arms.
"Another vision?" He inquired, holding his love closely.
"Yes…" She answered breathlessly, holding a trembling hand to her head.
"What was it?" Asking quickly, assuming that the vision was about Merle, Van stared down at her.
Sluggishly, Hitomi recovered her footing and stood straight. Taking a step back, she gazed down at the floor and recalling Kei falling, screaming for her name. "Something's coming. Kei… Kei's life is in danger. Oh no, Kei…"
"Calm down." Van said in as comforting tone as he could muster, rather disturbed by her words.
"Hitomi? Are you ok?" Another voice broke the tensed air as Kei walked towards them.
The two looked up in surprise at Harakei, who was now dressed in a pale gray shirt with white letter "Kama-Kita" on it, along with dark jeans and sneakers. Her hair was tied back in a braid as her own pink Atlantean pendant gleamed on her chest. She blinked in a blank sort of way, not realizing what had just happened.
"What's wrong?"
Hitomi Kanzaki wasn't too eager in explaining her recent vision to her. Not now. "Eh…" She flushed slightly. "Nothing. I just tripped."
Van nodded, his face expressionless as Kei looked at both of them with a skeptical expression.
"Well... alright…."
An uncomfortable silence followed, but Van thought fast. "You two are probably hungry…"
"Me." Kei raised her hand, sulking slightly.
"Yes…" Hitomi quickly agreed, glad for the change of subject. "We haven't had breakfast, either."
"Now that I think about it… I'm starving…" The grey-eyed teen poked her very empty stomach.
Van nodded and turned, starting to walk down the hall. "Follow me, then."
Exchanging looks, Kei shrugged and the two pendant bearers followed after Van.
Some time later, moments before dusk, the two girls were full with Fanelian food. They sat contentedly outside on some steps that led up to the castle. Van stood behind them, his arms folded across his chest. They were relaxed, watching the city below them slowly begin to settle in and prepare for night. Newly built stores were closed, children ushered in by mothers for their bedtime. Even stray cats and dogs slinked off to find a place to sleep.
"It's so peaceful…" Hitomi said softly, as if afraid to break the calm that the three had been keeping. She took the silence from the other two as their agreement and she settled back once more.
Ever slowly, but with practiced precision, the sun slowly made its way over to the horizon. Orange rays flooded through the city, but this time from behind the palace. Kei glanced back at Van, who was framed with the light and almost appeared to glow. He didn't notice her gaze, too busy with watching over the city.
Before she even had a chance to say something about the glorious sunset, the draconian king cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the two sitting girls before him. "It's getting late, both of you should get your rest."
The girls stood wordlessly, knowing that Van was right. They began making their way back to the two guest rooms Hitomi and Kei now used. The palace was nearly unoccupied of the hoards of people from before that had, through the entire day, gawked at the two Mystic Moon girls. Now, thankfully, there was no one left to stare, and Hitomi sighed inwardly. She had never imagined her arrival to have such an effect on everyone else. Then again, she hadn't really thought about it either.
Their first stop was Kei's room. She bid then both goodnight and closed the door with a soft click behind her, immediately heading for the bed to flop over and throw a few blankets over herself. She was asleep in minutes.
Hitomi was standing in the doorway of her room, staring out the window where, in the time they had taken to walk to their current position, darkness had already fallen. She sighed softly, turning back to face Van. "We didn't really think about the rescue plan… are we going tomorrow?"
He frowned slightly, gazing out the window as well. "The sooner, the better. Tomorrow would be best." He looked down at her, that familiar determined look in his eyes. "That's why I want you to get a good rest, Hitomi."
With a nod, Hitomi looked off to the side, uncertain of what to say now. Van, noting her discomfort as if it was his own, softened his rigid expression and tenderly pulled the girl before him into an embrace. Without realizing it, that was exactly what Hitomi had been waiting for. Her arms slowly laced around him and they stood like that for a few moments, letting their worries, just for that moment, wash away. They allowed themselves to find solace in one another, Hitomi more than Van. What would come tomorrow would come. That didn't matter now. All that mattered was that after three oh so long months… they were reunited.
But, as all good moments, they must come to an end, and so did this one. Hitomi pulled away, but not before quickly planting a kiss on Van's cheek. With a gentle smile, she walked backwards into her room. "Good night, Van."
He smiled his rare, entrancing smile. "Good night, Hitomi."
And with that, they parted. Van headed down the hall to his own room, leaving Hitomi to lie down on her bed and, after a bit of staring at the just appearing pinpricks of stars which could be seen through her window, she fell into a deep, visionless sleep.
Unknown to anyone in Fanelia, four guymelefs silently launched from their hiding position high above on the cliffs. Mechanical wings silently slid to catch air and the melefs glided over the top of the slumbering city. With meticulous accuracy, the four circled exactly above the royal castle. Two figures silently fell from the melefs onto the roof with soft thumps. Freezing in place, they waited for any reaction within, but none came. They continued on, padded as only ones with cat blood could. Reaching the edge of the roof, the two grasped the border with one hand and with synchronized fluidity, slipped right through windows that were, conveniently enough, open. And, it was with the deadly accuracy that the rooms happened to be the ones containing two girls from the Mystic Moon.
Van shot from his sleeping position in an armchair, hearing a piercing scream through the whole castle. Grabbing his royal sword from the mantelpiece in the room, he scolded himself for dozing off. His booted feet hammered along the corridor as he sprinted to the guest rooms. Growling, he threw open the door to Hitomi's room.
What he saw was the last thing he had expected. A cat woman, like the one Folken once controlled, had an arm tightly around Hitomi's neck from behind. In another hand, a strange but sharp throwing disc was pressed against the young teen's throat.
"Van…" Hitomi managed to gasp out, trying unsuccessfully to rip the arm from her neck, but the cat woman hissed and slowly began to back up to the window, her grip as tight as ever.
"Stay back, Draconian King. That is, if you want the girl to live…" Striking grey eyes glinted at him cunningly.
"Rr… let her go!" Van drew his sword swiftly as a crash in the room over sounded. It had resembled something collapsing. Then he looked past the grey colored cat to see a dark grey guymelef, like those the Enhanced Luck soldiers used, hovering by Kei's room. In its open steel hand was another cat woman, this one pure white and dressed the same as the woman before him. They seemed to have a dark red body suit that completely covered their neck, but had no sleeves, or cloth extending for their legs. Clasped to either side of their waists was what looked like half a skirt, which fell to their knees and had three black stripes at the bottom. Long, knee-high boots were colored dark red as well.
The white one was holding tightly Kei, who would have made every attempt to escape, if not for the bladed weapon at her neck.
The strange winged melef, with long black hair and a pale grey faceplate, turned to took into the window where Van and Hitomi were. A cold voice was heard from it, which was, no doubt, another cat woman. "Skylar, we've got Hitomi Kanzaki. Kill the other one."
A guymelef hand broke though the wall of the guest room. The one named Skylar nimbly jumped onto it and was lifted out of the room, Hitomi trying to reach Van, but in vain as the king ran forward to look helplessly at the two imprisoned girls.
Skylar, standing on the hand of a dark blue melef with a pale brown face plate and pink hair, was arguing with her white furred accomplice. "Aelis, that's not Hitomi Kanzaki, this girl is!"
"But they've both got pendants! Which one's which?" Aelis, strangely calm, looked from the real Hitomi to Kei, who was glaring at her.
The one in the blue melef replied instantly. "Persuade them a bit, you two…"
Van gasped, pausing in his irritated growling. That voice… it seemed so familiar…
With a shrug, Aelis drew a long, deadly dagger. Holding it to Kei's throat, she gently ran the blade across her skin, making a thin, but painful scratch.
As blood collected into a single drop and began it's descent down, Kei screamed and pushed Aelis away violently. "No!"
Aelis, hissing softly as her tail bristled , brought up a fist to punch the girl smartly in the cheek, but she underestimated her strength and knocked Kei completely off the hand of the guymelef.
Kei seemed to fall as of slow motion, crying out in distress. Hitomi began to scream as well. "Nooo!"
But before Van could rip off his shirt and sprout wings, before any of the four assassins could managed a gasp, a rumbling somewhere deep within the castle began, quickly leading up to an explosion. Something shadowy flew from the eruptions. It gleamed in the moonlight, gliding beneath Kei and catching her before the ground broke her fall. The shocked stillness that followed seemed almost too loud as all eyes turned to look in one place.
Flapping slowly, a black Escaflowne, in dragon form, had saved Kei, who was lying, dazed, in the piloting seat.
"A black Escalfowne!" Van's eyes widened. "It can't be!"
Hitomi shuddered. Kei falling, black Escaflowne… the vision had come true.
The pilot of the pink haired melef hissed. "The dragon and the pendant carryer… master did not say they were one. Quick, drop the other girl, grab the dragon!"
Skylar silently shoved Hitomi off into emptiness and jumped to the roof, where her own dark red melef awaited her. Aelis did the same, hurrying to the dark green guymelef that was her own.
"Hitomi!" Van regained himself and, quickly ripping away the red cloth that restricted him, he spread his white wings and jumped. Flying after the falling girl that was Hitomi, he caught her neatly in his arms in the nick of time. As they both floated slowly to the ground, Hitomi shaking still with fear, they could do nothing but watch as four winged melefs quickly departed, two grasping the wings and the remaining each holding onto a claw of the black Escaflowne. Kei was still unconscious, not even realizing that she was being kidnapped.
"No…" Hitomi softly murmured as the five figures escaped. "Kei… KEI!"
There we go. Nice looooonnnggg chapter. As an apology for the long time no update phase.
I still couldn't resist a cliff-hanger, though. Please don't kill me…
Some of you may be a little disappointed that Hitomi and Van aren't kissing anymore, and that, like in the series, their whole "relationship" consists of them hugging and holding hands. But, you have to remember, that's really that kind of relationship that they have as of now. In modern terms, they've really just started going out. You can't rush these things xD
No worries, kids. They'll get closer soon enough. Plus, Allen and the rest are going to come in pretty soon, and we'll find out more about the four cat assassins, along with new enemy that they're facing. Don't forget to review, folks! Thankee!