Me: That wasn't really funny...
Lura: Yes it was. They're still smiling, look.
Me: Whatever...I don't own the story, characters...man, I just can't remember. What don't I own?
Lura: Me.
Me: I don't own Lura.
Chapter Nine
"Shade!" She screeched at the very top of her lungs, which was hard since she usually had such a quiet voice, "get away from him! Fast!" Shade glanced her way, teeth bared in his fighting frenzy, but amazingly he obeyed and backwinged away from the Vampyrum. Lura locked her echo vision onto the dark band, hoping it would work. She let a jet of sound loose, and she felt her heart flutter as she hit the right frequency. The sound spear hit the band and made it quiver for a few moments, then it splintered into hundreds of shards and thousands of microscopic slivers, all embedding themselves into the side of the monster bat's face, wings, forearm, and as he gave a massive pain-filled shriek, she realized he had been a wingbeat away from being blinded in his eyes.
"Lura, come on!" Shade yelped to her, and together they flew out of the portal. "NO!
"Lura! GET OUT! GET OUT OF HERE, NOW! FLY AND DON'T STOP!"
She jerked her head up in a panic at the sound of Shade's stricken voice. She was about to yell, "What is it, what's wrong?" but then she saw it. A disc, not unlike hers in looks; it was shining silver, but there was a world of difference in the design. It was twice as big as hers, bigger than her whole head, and it was now screaming towards all of them. "Shade?!" She shrieked in alarm when she saw Shade flying right for the disc. "Don't! Come with me, let's go together! We can't stop it!" Marina soared up beside Lura and added her voice to the din of the disc whistling through the air, the sound piercing Lura's ears painfully. "There's no time!"
"I'll make time! You two fly! And I mean it, GO!"
Marina shook her head, and Lura hovered, uncertain that she should follow Shade's orders, but Chinook dropped right out of the sky and hung right in from of them. "Go, Marina, Lura, just go! It'll be okay! Shade can do this, I know it! Trust him!" The Brightwing and Graywing finally flew off, feeling sickened and guilty for abandoning their friend. They knew they had to trust Shade, but it was difficult to ditch him like this—they might never, ever see him again. Neither of them could bear thinking about it, Marina most of all. Slowly, so that Marina didn't notice, Lura had begun to fly slowly and fall behind. She was positive Marina hadn't seen or heard her, so she turned tail and shot back towards the pyramid. Only then did she realize Chinook hadn't followed them.
Shade quickly aimed at the disc, but missed, closed his eyes, and aimed again. This time he hit it, and the gargantuan disc came to a painfully slow halt, hovering in midair, turning over and over as it floated, cradled by sound. "You cannot stop Zotz, pathetic Silverwing! It is futile; let it fall!" Shade glowered at the ancient cannibal bat and didn't let up the sound assault, not until the crooked bat latched his claws around the disc and forced it downward. Shade lost a few inches in the air; the disc was now heavier than he could bear, and he felt warm liquid on his tongue, and tasted the metallic tang of blood. No...let go...you monster, let GO!!! He howled inside his head, feeling his body start to give out.
"SHADE! Hang on!" A voice yelled, and the Silverwing risked a few seconds to glance over towards the voice. Chinook and Lura! He felt angry that they hadn't listened to him, didn't they know only he could do this, but he felt relief that he'd see his friends before he helped fulfill Zotz's sacrifice. Then he blinked in shock as the two bats fell out of the sky and landed on the bat. Chinook crawled down the huge, bent body and bit at the cannibal's claws until he let go of the disc. It fell a few feet, but Shade managed to make it float again. The elderly Vampyrum hissed and snarled violently, slashing at Lura's forearm with his dull hind claws, and biting Chinook deeply in the shoulder with horrific smelling teeth.
Then sunlight illuminated every one of the bats' fur; the eclipse was over. Shade pushed the disc higher into the air, then let it drop and shot like a bullet away from the cannibal bat, giddy with relief, but felt his wingbeats slowing. Lura and Chinook were there, both bleeding from the cannibal's assault, but they pushed him along. Lura, in a frantic rush, grabbed Shade's forearm with her teeth and tried to drag him through the air. He flicked his head side to side, but they didn't leave him. Then he heard the disc explode, and felt the radiating heat start to catch up with them. He felt his fur ruffle from the sonic boom, then begin to disintegrate from the heat wave, and hoped that it would be quick..
-
"Shaaaaaaaade, Chinoooooook, Luraaaaaaaaaa!" Marina cried into the daylight, blinking sleepily, trying to block out the sun by only using echoes. Even using only echoes, her eyes were beginning to ache from going without any sleep these past few days...more than that, actually...eight days they'd been at it, but not found any sign of their friends. Then...
"Marina?" A voice moaned from a nearby tree, and Marina immediately knew who it was. She coasted down and lighted on a branch, not bothering to roost upside down, for Shade, Chinook, and Lura were lying spread-eagled on the very highest branches, staring down at her, smiling weakly. She craned her neck, then flew up closer to them. "How'd you get here?"
"Well, we flew as far as we could..." Lura explained, "then kinda crash-landed here and decided we'd hang out for a while.." She squeezed her eyes shut and coughed, then tried to rise to a lift-off position and flap over to Marina. She failed brilliantly, however, and crashed down through the bare, poking branches of the tree, luckily catching herself on a thicker branch farther down. "Hey," she called up, her voice faint, "I don't suppose you brought Caliban with you?"
In spite of everything, Ariel, Marina, Shade, Chinook, and Lura shared a weary, but heartfelt laugh.
"Can I make it, I hope so, and I really...oh crap!" One of Lura's wings had folded from the pain of her melted and burned wings, and she quickly fell several feet through the air. The owl called Orestes dropped down and flew under her so that she fell onto his back. Squirming, she got a claw hold in his shoulder feathers and they flew the next fifty wingbeats to Bridge City. "So," Shade asked slowly, anxiously, "do you and your father...get along well?" Orestes didn't reply for a few moments. "Not...really."
"Oh."