Fowlhunter [GL]

In the dead of night…

Ropes whizzed.

Dust children, rappelling down the walls. At this time of the night, the guards were off-duty. Instead of going home with the others, the dust had hid within the secret passages of the mines until it was time. The red, ever-present light of the lava chamber shadowed their faces, reflected off the tools dangling from their belts. They were quiet about their work, only the slightest taps hinting at their presence, as well as the occasional shudder of the pulley system. During normal times, apparently, they used these systems to descend the central elevator shaft to fix the elevator in case of breakdown.

Of course, now—they were about to use it for a far more nefarious purpose.

The children were accompanied by a few adult figures. One of these was a sturdy, broad woman wearing a headscarf.

With her great physical strength and agility, Ying barely relied on the rappelling ropes, instead using her natural ability to leap and dive from the elevator scaffold, sometimes scaling the uneven walls of the rock surface to help out a child here and there.

“How are you able to do all that?” asked a little boy as she helped him to adjust his harness, which had been slipping loose.

“Because we’re grown-ups,” Ying responded with a smile.

Of course, what she didn’t tell him was that Ying had once been a lionness in the Fenlin plains, tearing across the savannah with her pride to chase down the day’s prey. She didn’t tell him that after the moon had transformed her into a pixiu shapeshifter, she had spent countless nights staking out the cliffs of Mount Casca, soaring through twirling swords and barrages of sunfire, on the frontlines of the insurgent lunar army.

The children didn’t know they were Beasts. There was enough anxiety abound already. To them, Ying and her friends were simply a bunch of strong adults that were on their side.

They were a small squad, but they fell into their roles, following the plan Jemi had set out for them. Ying was a natural fighter, so she was on-the ground helping with physical work. Asha, their grey-pigtailed scout, was a good hand with the ins and outs of the pulley and grate contraptions. Lochlan, mousy-teal pincher, did much quieter work; Moru, the leader of the dust’s resistance, had told them about the alarm systems placed on the grates to prevent people from tampering with them. Lochlan was their solution to this; though they did not explain what they were actually doing, Lochlan was using Lunaki to mist over the alarm systems, which prevented them from activating, at least for now.

“Do we have to disable the entire grate?” Ying had asked him. “Why can’t we just release one point? Then you wouldn’t have to mist so many alarms.”

“The pressure would be too much,” Lochlan answered. “Releasing all the grates allows the lava to erupt slightly slower, rather than jetting out at once.”

And they knew that the person at the helm of the entire operation would need all the time she could get.

Ying glanced outward. Circling the shaft, Ennanis Zoleil glided on white wings, not unlike a bird-of-prey. Her scorching gaze was as sharp as a hawk’s, her hair a resplendent river of rose in her wake. She had changed back from the crude fluorescent vest to her usual angelic uniform the break they’d taken before the mission’s commencement, lending her an undeniably elite air. Shimmering gold light issuing from the released fissures of the Soleki grates concentrated upon her single person, casting her alight like a beacon, reflected in the screen of glass all around them, making the chambered lava crackling beyond seem dim by comparison. One could not help but be awed by the sight.

It was she who led the operation’s front. Ever the angel commander, Ennanis was clearly experienced with organising large groups of people, condensing sums of insurmountable information into instructions that a fool could follow. She also had a towering figure and strong voice that demanded attention.

However, in the beginning, no one had listened to her. When she gave her orders, children simply stared at her with eyes wide. Some hid behind each other. None moved, as if frozen in fright or confusion.

It was then a second woman had dropped in, her cloak swooping behind her like a sparrow’s pinions. Her head was a mop of unkempt, tarnished-gold curls. In spite of the sweltering heat, a crimson scarf was swathed about her neck, the peculiar diamond-shaped hole in the knitting’s end flapping free. No one could’ve been more of the angel commander’s polar opposite.

“Why do you bark at them like dogs, Commander? Is all that Soleki burning up your brain?” Jemi laughed. She knelt next to one group of huddled kids, waving her hand with a bright grin. “Don’t mind her. She seems big and scary, but she won’t bite—at least not you guys. She’s the type to go to a party and generously tell everyone they’re singing the lyrics wrong. If she gets invited to them at all.”

Between her jokes and silly acting, the heavy tension in the air lifted somewhat. The mood lightened, despite the danger they were in. No one knew it, but that was Jemi Garen, the Beasts’ very own princess of war. Charisma was one of her most powerful talents, even more so than the Death Eye the moon had bestowed upon her.

Carefully, Ying studied them. Then, tensing her muscles, she made a few great leaps down the shaft, landing beside Jemi.

“Hey. You alright?” she asked.

Jemi startled, her fingers loosening from the scaffold for a second, before her grip recurled around the bars, steadying herself. She threw a glance at Ying, her jewelled-violet eyes glittering under the vermillion light. Sunblooded eyes—she was part angel herself, yet the greatest bane of angels that had ever lived.

Though at this moment, she looked less like it.

“I, uh-” Jemi shook her head. “Never better. Why?”

Ying gave her a long look.

Asha liked to call her a worrywart, and by Medusa, Ying knew it to be true. But Ying had also stuck by Jemi the longest, both of them being frontline brawlers on the night-shadowed mountains of Casca, and in the undercloud beyond. The Cockatrice and her ferocious pixiu mount. She had fought alongside her long enough to notice the little idiosyncrasies about the Moon’s Ace that easily went over the heads’ of others.

Like the woman’s drained complexion; she was fair-skinned, but was still supposed to be more tan than she currently was. Her scarf tucked tight around her neck, the occasional shiver quivering down her frame despite the red-hot lava boiling all around them. That scarf had only appeared when she’d returned from her last fight on Mount Casca, and she hadn’t taken it off since. And, a master of stealth herself, Jemi would never have startled at as obvious an approach as Ying’s just now.

Ying had known her long enough to be familiar with these little signs, and long enough to have the guts to call her out on them.

“You don’t look well,” she said. “Did something happen? Did the Queen do something to you? Did she discover what we’re doing?”

“Hey, don’t jump to conclusions,” Jemi said. “Queen Medusa also gave the go-ahead for this plan.”

“Then…” Ying wavered. “Did you do something?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jemi raised her brows. “It’s just a big day ahead. Not every day you put out a volcano. Maybe I’ve been missing a few nights’ sleep, but it’s nothing a big nap afterwards won’t fix.”

Ying grunted in frustration. She had her guesses about what Jemi was doing, but anything solid evaded her reach. Even as Jemi called them her friends, the woman kept them in the dark about a lot of things. For instance: how she performed certain miraculous and unexplainable feats. How she and the Queen were controlling the Kraken on Mount Casca.

And how she’d taken an arrow in the neck for her archenemy, vanished, and reappeared a week later.

For someone so laissez-faire on the surface, Jemi held many secrets. And as close to her as Ying was, the pixiu didn’t have a knack for interrogation, nor was she nearly sharp enough to piece together the picture with the parts she had. That didn’t stop Ying from trying, though.

“How exactly are you going to do that, anyway? Putting out the eruption?” Ying furrowed her brow.

“I have a plan,” Jemi said helpfully.

“What is it? Surely we can help with it.”

“You're helping plenty by being here right now,” Jemi assured her. “But for the eruption, you must leave together with the children.”

Ying was silent. “What of the Graveyard Commander?”

“She will remain here,” Jemi said. “She has to withdraw the Soleki from the grates and trigger the explosion. The angel is the only one who could survive the feat.”

“But you… and her… alone in the same place…” Ying said uneasily. She knew that the angel had pledged them their allyship, but she also remembered how quick she’d been to turn on them in the palace lake of Wataron. She knew that the angel was not above betraying them. And Ying had seen firsthand too many times, Jemi on the brink of death from fighting her… and always wearing that damned smile.

Ying could not be there to save her every time. After all… the pixiu had already failed her once before.

“It'll be fine. What do you think’s gonna happen?” Jemi laughed. She lowered her voice. “Besides… I will be in my true form, after all.”

“Even so,” Ying persisted.

“The children need you. Lochlan and Asha, too,” Jemi said, voice quiet. “Please.”

It was then that Ying knew that further arguing would be of no use.

“You know, you’re more similar to the Commander than you think,” she said simply.

“…” Here Jemi paused. Then, darkly, she said, “Don’t compare her to someone like me.” After a lingering moment, she inched away, then climbed her way down the shaft, red scarf trailing behind her.

And all Ying could ever do was watch, and worry.