An old end.

The team had been disbanded and obliterated; they had never seen it coming. The only way to hijack the gateway of a society was to attain its relic in the first place, and still, it would've been impossible unless someone from within the hive had helped the attackers.

Which raised a million questions in Qatan's mind. Someone had betrayed them, but the question was: who?

He brushed it off his mind and focused on the current objective, which was to get Isra to safety. So he flew towards the only place he knew he could contact Golden from, Twilight Groves.

Isra was cozily sleeping on his back. Despite being nothing but a cloud, he could radiate immense heat at will. Which made him a flying, fluffy portable heater. As it seemed, the worst was over for them. After reaching the groves, Qatan was going to withdraw and wish the bees his best regards.

***********

Khadija plucked out a thin, wet bark that was hanging low from a tree and wrapped it around #212's leg. They had traveled quite far despite being injured. Their team truly had the will of iron. Both didn't stutter and understood that getting to safety was the first task; they could lament later.

#212 had lost yet another chunk of himself tonight, so what if the snake was dead? What did vengeance get him? He felt nothing but emptiness. He felt hollow again; no matter how many miles they walked, the hollowness chased him at the same pace.

Khadija had tried talking to him, but he had kept quiet, not willing to even shed a tear yet. First, they had to get to safety and take some moments to themselves. Everything else came after that.

But safety meant being away from the damned stone structure, as far away as they could be, so they kept on walking. By now, #212 knew who they were up against, and he also knew that he stood no chance.

Suddenly, Khadija fell down and screamed in pain as her whole right arm became blackened with corruption in an instant. It pulsed with a dim red light. Then it happened. The ground they were standing on, the mud and the grass—everything was devoured by an impenetrable darkness.

It streched a long mile away from them and englufed everything in its path like some vicious dark black flames. #212 battered his wings against the wind in a desperate attempt to fly away, but somehow deep down he knew he was not going to survive tonight. They had come.

******

Isra woke up to find herself floating among the clouds. All around her, a million stars shone and dipped into fluffy white clouds. She felt free and revigorated upon seeing such a beautiful scene.

She looked down at Qatan, who was mumbling something to himself, completely lost in his ever-moving thoughts. He had saved her twice now. And she felt warm in her heart about it.

"Thankyou Qatan"

"Don't worry about it, Isra. I was thinking this seemed like the perfect time to tell you about an amazing adventure of the past. So, you see, a few centuries ago, I had to face off against a huge, 300-meter snake, and all I had was a toothpick. People called me crazy because a toothpick would never kill such a titanic monstrosity, but so as it happened-"

Isra dozed off somewhere in the middle of the story and decided to sleep instead, but she did hug Qatan before she closed her eyes.

Qatan purred and corrected himself. No, this was too embarrassing for him. He was not going to ever do it again.

Suddenly, in front of them, a giant figure shot through the veil of fluffy clouds, leaving a trail of blood in the air. It spiraled and screeched, and a second later, a streak of pure darkness followed it from the clouds and struck it on its neck.

It was a huge bird of prey carrying a small girl on its back.

"HELP US!" A pleading, desperate voice came from the direction.

"Brace yourself, Isra!" Qatan shouted as lightning thundered somewhere deep within him, spreading to Isra as well, making her arms glow up. The darkness shifted its focus completely from Khadija and #212 to Qatan. And in the next moment, the whole dark world became even darker, and in Qatan's hand, a sword made of pure electricity crackled. Dripping pure power onto the clouds below.

"I am here, Amawas," Qatan shouted to the darkness. Challenging it.

"And so am I." The darkness moved at an astonishing speed, covering the distance between the two of them in an instant. Upon looking at it, Isra paled. The darkness had a familiar shape to it, but with an ominous touch. It looked like a cat with a ominous long tail and vicious red, glowing claws.

"Who will save you now, little brother?" It said.