The journey through the thick and vast layer of fog hanging over the western side of the Archipelago was arduous. The thickness of the hanging water vapor made it impossible to see where one was going or how much they still had left to go. Inside such a fog, the only way to see land-ho was if one bumped into it. The constant tapping of the rain made for a torturous monotonic harmony of the grave silence of a still ocean disturbed by the incessant tapping of the large droplets.
Andes kept cycling despite how much the icy rain brushed against his cheeks. The Kirigakure military platoon occupying that island did some meek tinkering on the bike they ruined, performing something that passed as a minor fix on the wheel they busted. Still, the cycling was uneven. Andes' trek across the ocean was composed mainly of muscling his bicycle to shoot for the sky and then resting while it slowly glided lower and lower.
The constant smell of salt and grime, rotten seaweed or moss lingered in the air. And yet… There was something more. Blood? A few times that Andes' bicycle had dipped dangerously close to brushing against the splashing waves down below, the Sky Warrior saw peeks of some sort of metallic obstacles. Wreckage of some sort either stuck in the shallows or was still in the process of being sunk. He could've sworn he saw bodies, twisted limbs barely sticking out above the waves and filling up with seawater so that they disappeared forever in the briny deep.
It was nigh impossible to tell what one saw and what one didn't see in these conditions. The fog was utterly ruthless, not to mention the constant battery of the incessant rain that made one have to squint in order to see anything, making anything that one's own eyes showed them appear like a dimmed mirage, rippling, and abstract.
Andes gasped in shock after hearing a deafening rumble. It was as if someone had shut the noise of an apocalyptic earthquake into a jar and then unsealed it in a closed room. Terrified, the Sky Warrior began scanning the mist's thickness for signs of impending doom. There was nothing of the sort. Then, a flash blinded Andes and made him cover up his eyes and turn away. Just as he thought he was blinded, the flash vanished away and reintroduced the signature gloom of the mist.
The Sky Warrior turned his hand away from his face, peering through the mist and looking around. All around him, he could see those colorful constellations of differing colors: blue ones, pink ones, magenta ones, yellow ones, and others, all flaring in colorful lines, like mosaics of rigid corners. Like circuits of blueprints dotted down with solid light and stars across something massive. Something that made Andes glad this fog existed to conceal both him from these gargantuan creatures and them from Andes, for the Sky Warrior thought he'd surely go mad trying to comprehend how ludicrously massive these creatures were.
Just as the fog became the thickest, and it seemed like Andes' situation had become the direst, the cyclist plunged through a wall of hovering vapor and punched a hole through it, appearing outside it in complete clear. The brown evening sky greeted the emerging sky-cyclist, alongside the fiery sunset threatening to make the oceans boil by plunging the blazing disc into the sky underwater. After taking the precious few seconds to admire the view of normalcy after what seemed like an entire day trekking across an existential nightmare, Andes turned his head back to glare at the furthering wall of fog behind him.
For a precious few seconds, the Sky Warrior stared straight ahead of him at a large island with a thick and luscious river flowing through its middle and splitting it into chunky pieces. It was a grand country full of sky-scraping, mossy stone buildings, yet overgrown with vegetation that almost overtook it. Grumbling and cursing his desperation and denying himself the chance to land on that miracle island, Andes gnashed his teeth and forced his steam bicycle to turn around, swerving at a sharp angle and standing up on those pedals, going absolutely mad on them as the Sky Warrior tackled the thick mist behind him again.
"Great Red Dragon Smak, do not presume to let me pass through!" Andes yelled, letting his voice thunder and echo through an endless fog he had just passed. "I don't need your mercy or your permission to pass, I need an audience!"
While most would have felt lucky to see all those horrid sights of these as majestic as they were awful creatures hiding in the thick fog hanging over this part of the ocean, Andes did not seek his survival. He sought an audience with the Great Red Dragon or any other winged creature that could inspire his next bird suit and grant him the power to destroy the Kirigakure encampment, liberating both the marked maimed and kept as prisoners in the underground facilities, and freeing the island town to once again take control over its own fate, free of foreign influences.
A deafening squawk that seemed as if the thunderbird emitting this sound had cracking lightning for vocal cords made Andes space out at the absolute overload of his senses. A thick wall of air smashed into the Sky Warrior, knocking him off his bicycle and sending the warrior flying back while his bicycle fell and flopped into the waves below. A swirling, concussive bubble of air caused by a titanic wingbeat had cleared the fog out.
Andes coughed up upon hitting something solid with his back and hanging in an awkward inverted position upon this platform that saved him from plummeting a good half of a kilometer below into the waves. Grumbling, Andes rubbed his pounding head and rolled over, grabbing hold of the solid black obsidian rod, several times thicker than the burly Sky Warrior. As he could confidently stand atop this rod without the need of much balancing, Andes gazed forth at what he was standing on. He exclaimed in megalophobic dread and shock.
He was standing on the very tip of what passed as an obsidian feather of a gigantic stone condor, cluttered with those energized lines he saw earlier as constellations in the fog. This gargantuan creature had flapped its wings, causing the fog to clear out and knocking Andes all the way back, causing him to get stuck on the uppermost feather of its wing. Seeing a simple way ahead and no other alternative, Andes rushed across the wing, heading toward the head of the creature that looked like a hand, except, instead of a wrist, it had another long middle finger sticking out, similar to the beak of a hummingbird.
Merely the dash across the creature's wing feather, then the rest of the wing and its shoulder, closing in on its head, was already an impressive marathon that would tire most lesser warriors. If such was the destructive potential of this monster's wingbeat, then even if it possessed no other destructive powers, it could still clear out the Kirigakure encampment and level their militarized island shore with just a couple of beats of these majestic wings. When Andes neared the head, it slid back, revealing a capsule of tempered glass and a muscular, long, and gray-haired man, dressed in a military-style uniform of a red overcoat with golden decorations and a white shirt. The man stood up from what seemed like a leather chair and stepped away from a complex control panel to address the approaching Sky Warrior.
"We've chosen to let you pass, traveler, and yet you returned into the fog as if you were seeking conflict. Before I destroy you, you have the permission to live for the duration it will take to brief me about your identity and your purpose here," the strict and sinewy pilot of the condor-like titan said with something in that cockpit augmenting the man's voice to make it audible to Andes outside.
"This… This is no Great Red Dragon. It's not even a thunderbird or some condor god… It's a… A plane of some sort. No, it's… Like a high-tech bird-suit!" Andes exclaimed, marveling at witnessing the absolute pinnacle of what his culture did. A creation that allowed man to control a fusion between a mountain and a bird with unimaginable destructive potential, yet one that could still coexist with the nature that hosted it, just like this mountainous condor plane remained hidden in the mist amongst its peers.
"Are you some raving lunatic?" the pilot winced the left side of his face in disgust as the feeling he was wasting his time began permeating the man's body language.
"No, I am a Sky Warrior from the Land of the Sky, I am on my Sky Walk and I am seeking breathtaking winged beasts to inspire my bird-suit. I suppose you could say I seek power and guidance. Could you bring me to the builder of these incredible soaring fortifications?" Andes requested.
This time, the noise from the soaring obsidian condor's cockpit was cut short. The stoic pilot sat back down in his leathery chair and pressed a button on his control panel. After a brief conversation, the obsidian helm slipped back into the cockpit and the condor leaned forward, blasting off with a tunneling plunge through the mist. Andes stiffened and grabbed hold of whatever he could. Initially, he pulled out a pair of knives to plunge into the creature's shoulder to maintain his hold, but he quickly found that his knives chipped and broke on contact, proving the toughness of the condor's armor plating. Instead, the Sky Warrior skidded and bounced back until he found an opportunity to grab hold of the wing feather rod and stayed that way with his arms and legs wrapped.
The soaring mountain, shaped like a condor, took Andes to the same island he had seen previously, however, it swerved and flew over the island's ruins like it was its own home. At the very edge of Andes' stamina and at the dawn of the point where even his mighty arms and legs could hardly hold him attached to the wing of the majestic obsidian thunderbird, the condor leveled itself upright and began hovering above a massive, four-hundred meters tall pyramid with a flat top and stairs ascending its faces from every side.
"Will wonders never cease!?" Andes exclaimed when an energized shine emitted through the cracks in the pyramid's façade and the entire structure came to life, splitting the staircases and the walls of the pyramid apart while the upper flattened top opened up, revealing barrels of giant cannons sticking out. The staircase of the pyramid turned into belts with tank-like links and the pyramid's walls became thick, armored walls that guarded the interior of the pyramid. When the transformation of the massive pyramid into a tank was complete, the crown of the main turret slid off, letting a grandma in a red military uniform, filled with countless medals, emerge from it.
The woman was of tanned skin and wore shades and had her old white hair ruffled into a wild afro that was kept somewhat orderly by a headband with a kanji reading "War" engraved on it. She held and carried herself like an established military commander, walking with her back held straight and stiff and her hands crossed behind her back, despite the war granny having a visible belly of thickness and being relatively overweight for her size.
"General, this man here approached us while we were hiding out in the Archipelago with a request for an audience with you. He is a Sky Warrior on a Sky Walk and claimed to be stupefied by your Cursed Warriors. He was strong enough to survive the trip here atop Batsudoru after spending the entire day cycling across the strip between the Archipelago and the Land of Whirlpools. He could be a perspective pilot of a Cursed Warrior," the pilot reported after landing his condor monstrosity and sliding the head off, letting him emerge from the cockpit. Not wanting to set off any red flags, Andes followed the pilot inside the cockpit and onto an elevator that brought them down to ground level where the pyramid tank could welcome them inside while it transformed back into the form of a ruined ancient building.
"I see… So, you think my Cursed Warriors are fly, don't ya, Daddy-O?" the army grandma winked at Andes, who could only blush and become flustered at the unorthodox behavior of this woman.
"As your associate said…" Andes tried explaining his position before the grandma passionately interrupted him with a smack of her cane across his waist.
"Cool it, Daddy-O!" the battle granny grumbled. "Get with it, goof, these spazes here are my subordinates, we're not tight or anything."
"I-I see, I apologize…" Andes bowed his head in submission.
"No sweat, no need to be so square about it, big daddy," the battle granny winked at Andes again before taking him through hallways upon hallways lined up with soldiers clad in bronze plates and built entirely out of steampunk and clockwork technology, standing lined up and saluting the military grandma and her guests. "This is my galaxy, my army of clockwork soldiers. Nothing too hip, just walking gadgets, these cool cats…"
"General," Andes cut through the introduction, using the title that the pilot controlling this "Batsudoru" as he called it addressed the woman by. "While these soldiers are indeed impressive, the reason I approached your subordinate was that I too seek this power. You see, where I come from, the Land of Sky, Sky Warriors leave on a pilgrimage known as…"
"I've been…" the General waved Andes' story off. "I've even had some of you cats and chicks haul ass in my hot rods, see? So if you wanna tango in one of my Cursed Warriors, that's all hip and fly with me, get it?"
"I think so…" Andes sighed. "However, I don't want to just pilot one of your soaring mountains. I don't believe that is what a bird-suit is. That would not suit the purpose of a Sky Walk. Instead, could you merge me and your Cursed Warriors more intimately?"
"H-Huh!? Don't you presume to tell the General what to do!?" Batsudoru's pilot stomped his foot down, grinding his teeth and rolling back his sleeves, ready to beat some sense into the insolent Sky Warrior.
"Nah, cool cat, I'm digging it," battle granny waved at her pilot, forcing him to stand down immediately and button up the sleeves of his uniform again to make himself stiff and presentable after his outburst. "Before we make any deals with the devil here, Daddy-O, I'm gonna need to see if you ain't a stoolie, but a genuine angel, that fly with you?"
"I… I think so…" Andes nodded, somewhat baffled by the curious speech mannerisms of this so-called general. He wasn't sure what exactly she was the general of, since, from what was known in the Land of Sky, the Land of Whirlpools was a no man's zone, a once great and prosperous country that was destroyed during one of several great continental wars that the Land of Sky had mostly stayed out of, except for a handful of pilgrims who were on their Sky Walk and lent their services to one side or another, depending where their Sky Walk had brought them.
"I'm Mama Bebop. Obviously, that ain't my real name, Daddy-O, but that's beside the point. When you look me over, how old do you think I am?" the army granny posed to Andes.
"Umm… I am not too good with that sort of thing. I would not wish to offend you out of my own ignorance and lack of experience in this sensitive area, ma'am…" Andes bowed his head in excuse before refusing to answer the question.
"Nah, that's just swell, cool cat. That's cause no matter how much you said, I'm much older than that, Daddy-O," Mama Bebop waved Andes' worries away. "Let's just say there ain't a single big daddy alive that's as old as I am, and these Cursed Warriors are the reason why."
"General, is it truly okay to tell this stranger all this sensitive intelligence!? He could be a spy from one of the ninja villages!" Batsudoru's pilot objected.
"Nah, that's fly, baby. That's 'cause either way, he's either becoming the first humanoid Cursed Warrior, or he's a stiff already, he just ain't fly with it yet," Mama Bebop shrugged it off.
"The first humanoid Cursed Warrior?" Andes gasped. "Is such a thing truly possible? For a man to become something like those majestic flying fortresses or this very pyramid?"
"I've been tryin' for centuries to make it happen, Daddy-O. To de-automatize my legions. You see, whenever a cool cat's turnin' into a big daddy, their body fills up with all sorts of bad buzz. Sickness, madness, pure death, some real square stuff all that, let me tell you. So when you die of being too square and too big daddy, that's 'cause your body's too swollen with all that bad buzz, you feel me?" Mama Bebop explained, drawing a sword concealed inside her cane, and, against Andes' shocked and unintelligible objections, thrust it into her body. Instead of drawing blood and driving guts out, Mama Bebop pulled out the sword, flaming with ephemeral violet fire stretched across its blade.
"All this negativity, all this malady, when I create my Cursed Warriors, I pour it inside them, filling it up with all of my sickness, all of my pain and deterioration. That's what's keeping me alive all these years," Mama Bebop explained in a whole lot clearer of a language compared to her previous slang. "But most ordinary men don't survive that sort of thing. Having a deadly amount of malady and the curse of aging poured inside them. That's why I usually direct all that nasty stuff into mountains and statues, making all that malady come to life as these violent manifestations called Cursed Warriors. Honestly, I'm doing the world a favor by building weapons out of them and making my pilots control them, as opposed to letting them do what they want."
"Since you've given me your reason, you should hear mine!" Andes clutched his fist in front of his chest, filling himself with determination. "The reason I left the Sky Country and why I departed for my Sky Walk to seek a new inspiration and philosophy and the reason I seek the power of your Cursed Warriors, that is!"
"Amusing…" Mama Bebop cackled, sitting down on a regal red leather chair and crossing legs while inviting her guest to sit down in front of her. A handful of mechanized clockwork soldiers strut up behind Andes and bent their backs and knees backward, becoming bent into the shape of chairs and offering the Sky Warrior the opportunity to sit down and pour his soul out for their immortal general. "If your spirit is strong, your vitality and desire to live might yet overpower the malady of my curse of aging. Let's hear it, your reason for departing on your Sky Walk and the reason you seek power. Rest assured, if I find those weak and lacking, there won't be any use in trying to pour my malady and curse into your body. You'll just end up dying anyway and spill all that bad buzz out into the world, corrupting my cockpit. If I think you suck as a host, I'll just have my army execute you here and now."
"That is acceptable!" Andes declared. "I've already forsaken my old self, the philosophy that guided me as a youth, and I am now seeking for new power and a new purpose. If I cannot find them here, there may not be a use to my meaningless life anyway."
After a long time wandering, Andes finally sat down with the immortal general and the architect of the Cursed Warriors, ready to spill his soul, hoping to become the first ever humanoid Cursed Warrior and to be chosen to contain all of Mama Bebop's accumulated sickness, decay, and creeping death. If she would have him, then he could put all that cursed power to good use, help many people, and in exchange, he'd wage all the wars Mama Bebop tells him to. There would once again be a guiding principle and a point to the Sky Warrior's life.