***
They went for it in single file, Swift leading the way and the rest of them locked in on his Tailwind Vector.
"Hawk! Raven!" Shinji called. Since he had taken the lead in protecting her, he acted as commander. "Break in three! Two! One…!"
Hawk and Raven split off as they approached the northern trio of Saucers. They were three of the bigger ones, but the two approching from north-east and the two from north-west were smaller, quicker, and they were closing in fast. Hawk went right, Raven took on what was left. Both tapped their badges and called in Comrades. Birds appeared in the skies around them, and they moved to intercept the smaller saucers from north-east and north-west.
"Swift! High arc {now}!" Shinji called again, and Swift took them into a steep climb even as green bolts started shooting past. "Heron! Break!"
Heron broke formation and charged downward at the trio of larger saucers. He warped in his birds and a flock of long-legged, long-beaked flyers charged or rained down elemental attacks on the saucers on each flanker of the oncoming trio.
"Go, Swift!" Shinji ordered, and then broke formation himself, summoning those of his swans which were still capable of fighting. They added an overhead bombardment to Heron's charge, sending down an exaggerated hailstorm of ice lances at the central saucer and threw in some lightning bolts while they were at it.
The saucers tumbled. Shinji's firepower knocked the central one off-course. The smaller saucers intercepted by Hawk and Raven were blocked or disabled entirely.
But the saucers that Heron had to divide his strength between managed to fire back. They counter-charged, and tall birds fell from the sky or vanished in the face of green beams and bolts. Both of them closed in on Shinji, unleashing yellow cluster-bombs that exploded in mid-air, sending spheres of destruction wide enough to wipe out half his remaining forces before they sprayed the survivors with more and more firepower. The central saucer that suffered Shinji's wrath recovered and added more streams of destruction to his flock, and Shinji's swans vanished in short order.
Shinji's mount dodged as best she could. She ducked, and wove, and spun aside, but as more and more swans were taken out, she quickly found herself with absolutely no cover, and too many attacks to evade completely. Hit after hit hammered into the brave swan, until at last her HP was depleted and she vanished to respawn back at Shinji's Home Base.
But when she vanished, Shinji alone fell from the sky.
Katrin smiled grimly, imagining what the Cult commander might be saying right about now. {How? Where's the girl they were chasing?}
"Grace!" Katrin tapped her badge and warped in her own Comrade.
Grace appeared, quite surprised to find herself leagues from where she last was, but happy to see Katrin again. She neighed as if to ask, {Why are you falling through the air?}
"Long story." Katrin grabbed onto the saddle, hoisted herself in, and said, "Lock Tailwind Vector with Swift!"
Swift was watching her for precisely this moment. She gave him a thumbs up, and he said a word to his Comrade. Go!
And with that, Swift and Katrin shot out from under all the fighting, right past the saucers who had been so busy fighting the Wind Knights or looking for her among Shinji's flock, that they totally missed seeing her drop out of the sky, completely unaccompanied. Locked in to Swift's Tailwind Vector now, Katrin zipped right under their bewildered noses and through their perimeter before anyone could do more than exclaim in surprise.
Grace dashed northward, scarcely thirty feet above the waters of the clear blue sea, somewhere between Lamico and the Hourglass Continent, with nothing in the horizon except sea, sky, and Swift. And Katrin laughed, feeling oddly, unexpectedly, bewilderingly free.
And though she was too far out of earshot, somewhere in her heart, she could almost hear the Wind Knights Swift, Swan, Heron, Raven and Hawk, as if they were right next to her.
All of them were laughing too.
***
Colin kept his eye on Phillip as Neptone and Silver fought in the semifinals of the Ocean'sTournament of Ascension. It was Doom Whales against Colossal Eels where one contestant had the advantage at long range, and the other at short range. Once Little John Silver closed in to short range and his Eels entangled up Neptone's Doom Whales, Colin figured it was as good as over.
But he wasn't paying much attention to the semifinals just then. The contestant he watched was Phillip.
{Why do I feel so… angry? So… left out?} Colin wasn't quite sure what he was feeling as he watched the boy sitting quietly with his blue bunny and the horse with blue edged wings. {It's not about the Tournament. It's not that he's competing and I can't take part. It's… something else.}
"What's wrong?" Alicia noticed the look on Colin's face. "Worried about Phillip? I'm not sure how he's going to win this, but I have a feeling…"
"It's not that." Colin said. "It's… {him}."
Alicia paused. "You don't look happy to see him. Quite the opposite."
"It's… complicated."
"It's not." Alicia said flatly. "It's Katrin."
{Katrin…?} Colin hadn't thought about it before, but Alicia's statement struck true. "What are you saying?"
"You're jealous." Alicia summarized. "He's done more for her than you ever did. Now they're spending time together, and you have no idea what she's up to any more, but we're all pretty sure he does."
Again, Colin felt that she was right. About Phillip knowing what Katrin was up to, anyway. He wasn't about to admit that she was right in the first part. The part about him being jealous. "Why would I be jealous?"
"Because up till now, Katrin's been a big part of your Dreams, hasn't she?" Alicia pointed out. "She was a friend to you… and only you. At least, until you broke off."
"What?" Colin blinked.
"She was playing on a farm where you both had your Home Bases. But you left that farm. You set your Home Base to the Forest of Legends." Alicia tapped her head. "I have your memories, remember? Every minute of every night. You didn't leave anything out. That hurt like crazy, by the way. But I guess it's useful, after all."
"Every minute…?" Colin blinked. "Wait. Are you saying… you can {remember} my memories?!"
"Duh." Alicia paused. "Don't tell me you didn't know? Or that you thought I'd just forget? What did you {think} happened to someone you shared your memories with?"
Colin stared. "I thought… I thought it was like watching a show… once it was over... it was over."
"Not exactly. Colin, Lynn shared some memories with you, didn't she?" Alicia pointed out. "Can you {remember} them?"
{Like my own memories.} Colin gulped, eyes wide. "You're saying… you remember {everything}?"
"Like I was the one going through them." Alicia paused. "You really had fun with her on Edward's Farm. In the barn… with the hay…"
"Stop!" Colin covered his ears. "Just stop!"
{What have I done?!}
But Alicia didn't press on. She didn't throw torment upon torment on him. She just said, "I'm sorry. I thought you knew."
{Wha…? Did Alicia just… apologize to me?!}
Colin thought this night couldn't get any weirder.
He was wrong.
"Winner! Phillip, Oceaneer of Serentide Ocean!"
***
The audience was astir.
Colin didn't know what he was seeing at first. There was Phillip, with his blue bunny and the blue-wingtipped pegasus… and there was a pile of Comrades heaped over a pair of legs sticking out from under the heap. There were a bunch of different sharks, a trio of swordfish or something, and a sleek silver pike about thrice Colin's height. All of them were floating about or piled onto the pair of legs.
"Instant knock-out." Someone gulped. "In one shot. The entire school…"
"Time: zero point three two seconds." The girl who had called Iylara aside announced. "That's… the fastest on record. Ever."
"He took down an Oceaneer in less than a split second…" muttering arose from every side.
"How?" Colin stared blankly. All Phillip had with him were still just the bunny and the pegasus.
"Lightning." Alicia pointed. There were crackles of electricity still sparking around the heaps of fallen Comrades. "I imagine that water-based Comrades are especially weak against electricity."
Colin remembered now. Last night, Phillip's blue bunny had used a kind of mixed-elemental bolt against the Wisp. A single snap shot from that bunny had done more damage than Shiro and Raiki's charged-up powers combined. {Add in the Oceaneer's bonus and the elemental weakness… if that bunny had done a serious shot…}
"A combined attack using the Pegasus' Wide-Spread ability and the bunny's Oversurge…" The girl aide shook her head. "Charlie didn't stand a chance."
{That's like using fire against Forest Wilds.} Colin thought. {Nearly everything in the forest is vulnerable against fire. And what's the common weakness of Mountain Wilds…? Sonic attacks?}
But still. A bunny and a flying horse underwater? That just didn't make sense.
{Well, this is Dreamworlds, after all. I'm literally Dreaming. It doesn't HAVE to make sense. Which is odd, considering how much else makes sense around here.}
What else did make sense was that Phillip was prepared for this Tournament. Colin knew it for sure. That guy had reason for his confidence. He had overwhelming firepower, he'd trained the techniques of his Comrades, and he used a combo that took advantage of his enemies' weaknesses. He probably trained those techniques until they became his Comrades' strongest attacks just for that combo attack.
{He earned this win.} Colin acknowledged. {With preparation and hard work and training, he's earned it. And everyone here knows that.}
Colin fell silent as the stage was cleared for the finals between Phillip and Little John Silver. One of these two guys would become the next Ocean Prince, but right then, Colin had other things on his mind.
{When is Lynn going to call the Forest's Tournament of Ascension? I want to take part, and I'll do whatever she asks to get a place in it. Casiphia announced hers just nights before the actual Tournament. Iylara announced hers soon after. That means, Lynn can't be far behind. It's probably going to be due this week or the next.}
{In other words, I only have a few nights to prepare.}
Colin thought about his Comrades. {I have the Lord of the White Wolfcats, a Stormcat, a Sonic Wolf noble, a Shadow Hawk noble, a Storm Swan, a Whitestreak Fox, and a Redeemed Red Panther. Of all my Comrades, Cour is the only one who uses fire. I wish I had a powerful fire-type. Something like Scarlet's Vines or better yet, a Phoenix like hers…}
{But it's too late to go looking for a specialized Comrade now. I'll have to make do with what I have and train them up. Shiro aside, my best combo attack right now is an Oversurged version of Kirin and Raiki's Triple Zap.}
Colin winced. {Basically, if I trained them up, the best I could hope for is exactly what Phillip's pulling off here. A wide area-of-effect electric attack.}
"Time for the Finals." Iylara announced. Colin blinked, surprised at how fast this Tournament was progressing, but it was supposed to be a secret one, after all, and the sooner it was over, the less likely anyone would discover it by accident. {Anyone else, that is. I think Alicia, CC and I being here might have hurried things along a bit.}
Phillip moved up with his bunny and his winged horse. Across from them, Silver moved down with…
"Electric Eels?" Colin mused. "Those aren't going to be weak against lightning like everything else Phillip's fought so far. He might have some trouble there."
Silver obviously thought the same thing. He had a rather confident grin.
But Phillip didn't look at all perturbed. He didn't smile, didn't wince. He just studied Silver's Eels with unwavering eyes.
"Begin!" Iylara called.
**
About that time, Katrin was doing something unbelievable.
"Your plan is WHAT?!" Geoffrey was aghast.
"Suicide." Katrin told him, and her words were sent to him via Comms Relay borne by the Wind Knight who just arrived, the one known as the Sparrow. "The moment I die, I respawn back in the far south. What I'm going to do is play bait. They'll all come chasing me right into your line of fire, and you can hammer them with the big guns before I pull a kamikaze on their main stronghold. So give me a target."
Next to him, Val laughed, bemused at the girl who (since the Sparrow joined them) now rode with all of Val's subordinates. The leader of the Wind Knights suggested, "Command Tower at the Midway Metro spaceport. That's where their defense headquarters are."
"Or you can try to take out the Planetary Defense Cannon Control." Geoffrey said. "Midway built those to fight the Cult, but they took the city with ground forces and turned them against us."
Val shook her head. "That's in an armored bunker near the city center. It's too deep in, and too well protected. Go for the Tower. If we can disrupt their defense coordination, we might be able to push the siege to the very walls."
Geoffrey studied the map. "Wait. The spaceport isn't unguarded either. One girl on a Pegasus isn't likely to make it through alone."
"She's not going in alone." Shinji told him.
"You're all going to do a suicide run?" Geoffrey blinked.
Val burst out laughing. "Wait for me! I'm coming to join you!"
"Val!" Geoffrey spluttered as the leader of the Wind Knights darted for the door.
"All yours, Frey!" she tossed back as she warped in her Cloudstrider, a horse that needed no wings to fly. She warped in her armor and her lance and her winged helm, and the Valkyrie took to the skies to join her Wind Knights in their suicide attack run.
***
"Hello. I'm Val."
Katrin waved to the armored girl who rode on a horse very similar to Zoe's. "Hello..."
That was all she managed before a brilliant green beam blasted Heron's mount out from under him. The Wind Knights scattered at once, Katrin and Val splitting up though they only just met.
"Sparrow! Swift!" Val called. "Screens!"
"On it!" Sparrow and Swift darted forward with flocks of smaller birds. They spread out in cones, one to the left, one to the right, dodging green beams and green bolts easily. Katrin could only imagine what those flocks would look like on a targeting scope. {An entire flood of red...}
Val shouted. "Raven! Sniper duty!"
Raven tapped his badge. "All wings, charge up combos! Darer, beta strike on the central tower!"
Darer, Raven's biggest black bird, let out a Sonic Shriek followed by a bolt of weird green-yellow goo and then immediately with a powerful Wing Gust. The Wing Gust propelled the goo forward, giving it extra speed and range. It hit the central tower a split second after the Sonic Shriek did. Katrin didn't know what the goo was - the central tower didn't stop shooting - but it stuck to the central tower and didn't drop.
Raven pointed at target after target and called. "First Wing, fire! Second Wing, fire! Third Wing, fire! Fourth Wing, stand by... on my mark... fire!"
{Grave Bolts...} Katrin saw their 'combo' attacks. Four birds to a wing combined their gravitic powers into spheres the size of her hand and launched them at different turrets. They were getting close now, and Katrin saw them hit. What resulted wasn't an explosion, but an {im}plosion. She saw sparks flying and things going boom {inside} the turrets as they approached.
But the Cult was responding now. Saucers were rising from the spaceport.
"Interceptors incoming!" Shinji warned. "Drones!"
{Drones? That's what they call those Saucers? Those are like the very first ones that came to Nakama World. These three look quite damaged. They must have landed for repairs. That's why they weren't chasing me earlier.}
"Heron, Hawk! Melee!" Val ordered.
Heron and Hawk lunged into the fray, beaks and claws glowing with myriad elemental infusions. They went from cruising behind Sparrow and Swift to tripling their speed as they charged. Two of Hawk's Comrades were on the nearest Saucer before it could so much as get a shot off.
Val rode up. "Sparrow, Swift, harrying maneuvers! Swan, Katrin, start charging up for your attack runs, now!"
"Glacial Spike, Grace." Katrin told her horse as she dug in her ankles. "Show me that same charged up attack you used earlier."
Grace whinnied, and brought about a mass of ice shards, gathering them into that bus-sized spike once more.
Sparrows and Swifts were swarming all over the Cultist defenses, darting in low so that those bigger guns couldn't shoot at them without the risk of frying their own. The Green Men were switching to shotgun-type firing, blasting the birds with spray-shots at short range.
"Central tower going down!" Raven crowed as the structure started to tilt. Katrin saw now what that goo was all about; it must have been some seriously powerful acid because it had eaten away half the tower and the thing was quite literally folding.
"Good work, Raven!" Val said. "Now..."
A lance of green speared Raven. He and all his birds disappeared. Katrin glanced to where it was from; it was the nearest Saucer, the one that Hawk's birds were tearing into. Burning, sparking and letting out a lot of smoke, it was going down, but it had one final shot before it went down, and it made sure that shot counted.
Even so, down was down. Val and Shinji cheered as it crashed into the tarmac, and a huge explosion resulted as if to reward them.
"Get down!" Shinji barked at Katrin as more green beams lanced out at them. With one down, the other two Saucers were getting furious, ignoring Heron and Hawk as they targeted Shinji and Katrin. {Well, it makes sense. They can see us charging up attacks. They have to know we're up to something.}
"Sparrow!" Val gasped as half the smallest birds in the sky vanished. Someone, somewhere had scored a strong hit on the Knight who commanded them and as he vanished, so did they.
"Heron's in trouble!" Shinji pointed. Someone had coordinated the turrets, it seemed. There must be about twenty of them still active and all of them were concentrating their firepower on Heron. He dodged, ducked, tried to hide behind another tower for cover, but they blew right through the tower and nailed him before he could get any farther.
"Everybody charge! Target that comms tower! Hit it with everything you've got!" Val yelled, and then she was dashing on ahead, thunder and lightning gathering in her wake.
"Come on!" Shinji shouted to Katrin. They dashed in after her. "Rain, Gust, Squall, fire and recharge! Breeze..."
Brilliant green blasted Shinji off his swan and back to his respawn point. All the Storm Swans disappeared at the same time. Rain, Gust and Squall had barely gotten their shots off.
"Shoot!" Katrin urged Grace. "Shoot at it right now! Before we get hit!"
Grace launched the Glacial Spike and started gathering more ice as they flew over the wall of Midway Metro, the spaceport right in front of them. Meanwhile, Hawk's efforts paid off; a second Saucer was going down in flames, still trying to shoot off a few green bolts before it flattened a firetruck and went BOOM.
"Hawk, leave that wreck and go for the main target!" Val urged him.
"Already on it!" Hawk suddenly swooped up from almost underneath Katrin. "I just left a couple of birds on that Drone to finish it off."
"Well..." Val began before six streams of green bolts converged on her from all sides. "Oh, scrap...!"
"Val...!" Katrin began, but then green bolts started coming at her also. "Grace! Get lower! Get..."
Green light filled her vision, and then white.
***
Geoffrey watched the Wind Knights and Katrin weave into the formations of the Cultists' defenses, warping in Comrades and raising all sorts of havoc as they charged. The Raven vanished in ten seconds. The Sparrow made it as far as the city walls. The Heron went poof and then the Swan just as they started hitting their actual target.
Katrin herself was blasted out of the sky a few moments after. The Swift led his Comrades in a scything attack on the anti-air defenses, wiping out a third of their formation before he, too, vanished.
Geoffrey watched, half scratching his head, half shaking it as the Hawk and the Valkyrie went straight for the Tower, relying on speed to get them there before the enemy guns should take them out.
They actually made it. Both of them struck at the Tower, but by then each was down to his or her last Comrade and couldn't do much damage. Cultist guns took them out moments later, but enough stray shots hit the Tower that it caught fire.
"How did we do, Frey?" Val asked, panting as she respawned right next to him.
"You didn't manage to take out the Tower." Geoffrey told her. "But it's going down anyway."
"It is?" She grinned as she saw it burn and then tilt over. "Who did it?"
"The Cult did it to themselves." Geoffrey snorted. "Overkill."
Val burst out laughing as the tower fell in a nice big explosion.
**
"Go!" Silver moved first, commanding his Electric Eels to the attack.
Colin paused. {Phillip's Comrades use lightning attacks. But a bunny and a horse wouldn't normally handle being hit by lightning very well, would they? So why…?}
{Why does he still look so confident?}
Phillip stood there, saying nothing as the Electric Eels closed in. He gave no instructions to his Comrades, and they did not act without him.
{What's going on? What is he thinking?} Colin had to wonder.
And then just as the Electric Eels were about to reach, Phillip did something Colin would never forget.
He touched his badge and said, "Kyria."
M-1 Kyria, the first and oldest of Michi's special breedings, appeared in a flash of light. There she stood in her stern and dignified splendor; the white lioness that Shiro and Raiki had run to help the very first night Colin had joined Dreamworlds.
Colin's brain scrambled. {But… but… Kyria Abandoned her Traveler… she wouldn't accept anyone else… Jijin said the only one who stood a chance of Bonding her was me, because M-5 Shiro was with me…}
Yet here she was, answering a call from Phillip, and looking fierce and protective as though he were one of her cubs. Radiant light shone out from her and spears of it lanced through the incoming Eels. Those spears of light pierced them and held them writhing for mere moments before they vanished.
"Wha-?" Little John Silver yelped as Kyria charged.
Colin could barely see her move; she flashed from right to left, closing the distance between Phillip and Silver in flickers of movement that seemed to defy the fact that they were under water. Rainbow light splayed through the waters as she swept past the largest Eels Silver had, and wings of prismatic beams sliced through them as she passed. All of them vanished in short order.
"But…!" Little John Silver had half fallen over, trying to run away underwater when Kyria slammed into him claws first. He vanished, and the few remaining Eels he had left vanished with him.
For a moment, there was silence in the underwater arena. Then, Iylara announced.
"Winner: Phillip. We have a new Ocean Prince."