negate life."
Aurora rolled her eyes. "To stop our ships from plundering its resources. Blah blah. Don't recite the Academy warnings to me. But call it quits and end the thrills anytime you wish, scaredy."
The parched ground cracked and the dry grass snapped under Hank's feet. He suspected he heard footsteps in the swaying golden waves all around. He pulled himself together. Best to get it over with as fast as possible, because staying out was deadly.
Sword tips pinged against each other.
Hank stabbed and lunged a dozen times and Aurora parried every time. All either had to do was use their sword to tap or poke the other anywhere. Hank rushed to get a successful hit in while Aurora played with him. He knew she was cocky and would toy with him before she showed her true skill. But even against her going easy, she was impossible to hit.
Aurora's first offensive strike was a powerful slash aimed at Hank's neck. He pulled his weapon up in time to block, but Aurora's gladius strike had enough force to push through. Hank's sword spiraled loose and landed in grass taller than either duelist. Hank jerked sideways to ensure the blade missed his neck. Aurora took advantage of her opponent and swatted him in the rump with the flat of her blade. The touch meant she won the duel.
"Make this best two out of three. I feel like being kind." Aurora grinned and pointed to the tall grass with her gladius. "Go get your sword before I spank you again and take the match."
Hank rushed into the grasses and dreaded how long they'd been on the surface of the Void. It had to be full minutes, especially with the amount of time he spent searching for his lost weapon. The grasses swayed and whispered in every direction. He stooped over his sword when the sound of extra footsteps patted against dry dirt nearby.
"Voidforms!" Hank snatched his sword from the ground and slashed all around as he rushed out of the tall grass. "They're manifesting like I said they would."
"A convenient excuse. Frightened of losing? Or getting cut?" Aurora surveyed the sky. "Don't see any dragons." She spun around. "Or lions."
"Let's finish this quick, you beautiful lunatic." Hank raised his sword.
"Hope you don't plan to say that during the dance." Aurora tapped sword tips with Hank.
The next duel was an explosion of strikes from both fighters. Hank's swings went wild through the air and threatened to injure his arm from overextension. Aurora's swings were on target and needed to be blocked to keep Hank in the game.
A clump of tall grass bent against the windy waves. Both duelists spotted the anomaly, but Hank knew it was his only chance. He used the moment of distraction to hop forward and poked Aurora in the chest. The tip of his sword clinked against the body armor under her uniform.
"Let you have that one." Aurora clutched Hank by the neck and pulled him close enough to breathe on his face. "Now for the deciding match, you handsome idiot."
The duelists tapped blade tips and both went into defensive stances.
A yellow body flickered through gaps in the grasses.
"That looked like a lion." Hank held his sword horizontally in front of his chest, an Academy gesture to pause the duel.
"Forfeiting so soon?" Aurora pursued her opponent as if the duel was still on.
"No!" Hank deflected hard swings. "We've got voidforms. Time to get back in the Talon."
"There's no--" Aurora sliced the head off a lion that pounced at her. The head landed at her feet and the body landed on all four legs several yards behind her. Thick, black smoke poured out of each side instead of blood. She decapitated a second voidform lion as it lunged for her legs. More smoke spilled from the wounded nightmare creatures.
"Come on." Hank sprinted for the Talon.
"Took care of them." Aurora kicked one of the heads, which snarled at her. The headless bodies circled around and burst forth in a frenzy of slashes. She stopped their advance by dismembering the corporeal nightmares, creating more smokey wounds. "All done. Now let's get back to our third and final duel."
Hank made contact with the skid. The secure metal of a military aircraft filled him with relief. "Lions hunt in swarms. Like, thousands. They could wipe out whole cities on Earth, I think."
"Thought these two were it." Aurora drew her pistol in her off hand and shot a lion as it approached. She scored two hits between the eyes, which did nothing to the unliving apparition. She put her pistol away and readied her sword, but dozens of tails lashed out from the top of the grassland around her.
"Just run to me!" Hank unlocked one of the cabin's mounted autocannons and fired. Massive rounds with fragmentation tips, large enough to shred a whole person, sped through the air with their accompanying thunder pops. Hank feared he would go deaf from the noise, but delighted in Aurora's sinister smile when he destroyed every voidform that came within ten yards of her.
Black smoke poured out from dozens of shredded nightmare lions. More smoke was added when the autocannon's tracer rounds ignited a grass fire. The entire site was choked in heavy smoke within seconds.
Aurora leaped into the cabin and patted Hank on the back of his head. "Fly us out. I'll take over the autocannon."
"Strap in. I'm not making this gentle." Hank dashed through the crawlspace to his seat and lifted off as planned.
"Promise you'll say that at the dance." Aurora fired at lions that leaped at the Talon's skids even when the aircraft was twenty feet above ground. The shakes and jolts of the hasty takeoff forced her to rush to a cabin seat and strap herself in. "Damn!"
"You okay back there?" Hank spared a glance at his passenger.
"All good." Aurora huffed and tested her safety straps. "Just snagged my uniform in the clips."
The ride straight up to the storm clouds grew rougher by the second. The Talon bobbed around in the turbulence of the storm, but passed through the glowing clouds with minimal rolling. The minutes-long ascent passed in terrified slow time for Hank, and he assumed his passenger felt the same. When it was over, the safety of the Empyrean Fleet loomed overhead. Hundreds of ships reflected the amber glow of the Void's cloud system.
"Home." Aurora relaxed, but fiddled with the buckles snagged on her uniform.
Hank directed the Talon higher on a return trip to the fleet. The turbulence of the storm went away the further they went from the glowing clouds. Everything was smooth.
"Still have one fight to go." Aurora smirked.
Hank spotted movement in the tail turret. A yellow body crawled up from the armored dome in the aft section of the Talon. A familiar yellow tail lashed about and slammed into the metal walls of the crawlspace. Then the big cat paced into the cabin.
Aurora drew her sword and went on the defense, unable to get a good swing in from her seat. She struggled against her safety straps but had no time to cut them with the lion slashing and biting at her.
Hank put the Talon in a stable hover and rushed through the cockpit's crawlspace. He emerged with his gladius at the ready, but failed to slice the paws that slashed at him. His inept sword skills hurt his ability to cleave the nightmarish monster that could only be taken apart, not killed.
"Thanks for providing the distraction." Aurora hacked away her safety straps and freed herself before the lion turned its attention back at her.
The pilot, the fighter, and the lion all squeezed around the cabin's tight quarters.
"Any strategy?" Hank deflected a forceful slash from the lion.
"Wants to kill us." Aurora stabbed into the lion's skull. The smoke that seeped out of the wound was the only effect. "Just can't decide which of us to start with."
"Go in with your record-holder kill moves." Hank deflected slashes when he attempted to lunge in for the beast's neck.
Aurora stabbed the lion in critical joints with no effect. "Can't believe the instructors were right about voidforms. No organs or skeleton. Just a nightmare that takes full dismemberment to stop."
Hank sunk his blade into one of the lion's paws. "You're the decapitator!"
Aurora growled when the lion kicked her into t
he aft crawlspace. "Room's too tight."
"Then I'll draw its attention." Hank darted past the lion's paws and impaled the beast's mandible before it bit him. The blade wedged the creature's mouth open, but the voidform had no regard for its safety and slid its jaws against the blade. "Hurry!"
Aurora chopped one of the lion's hind legs off. Smoke poured out of the wound before she kicked the stump out of the cabin to orange sky. She dove in to cut off the other hind leg, but the beast kicked her.
The lion fell on the cabin floor and thrashed to reposition itself. It crunched its jaws shut against the sword, which snapped in half from the force. Metal fragments exploded around the beasts head and shimmered in the brilliant amber cloudlight.
"Aurora?!" Hank scanned the cabin in the precious seconds before the lion slashed at him. His date was nowhere in sight. His heart sank.
"Here." Aurora's voice came from below the Talon. Only her strained knuckles around a skid revealed where she was. "Buy me time!"
Hank was terrified for the young woman dangling from the Talon. His pistol was useless, his sword destroyed, and his own combat skills were too poor to combat the beast. His piloting was the only thing he could put his faith in. He dove for the cockpit crawlspace.
The lion maneuvered on three legs to lunge and caught him with a massive, smoke-bleeding paw. The claws dug into the young man's boot and kept him in place.
Hank kicked against the terrifying strength of the grip. He lost a boot in the process and suffered cuts to his
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