Lyran & Angel: Surviving in the Wasteland

Those last moments while Neodeka broke apart Lyran Ichihara was consciously watching the ground come to her rapidly. The wind rushed all around her, whistling loudly as she cut through the air in her free fall.

She braced herself for the impact as best she could in that panicking moment when suddenly something caught her eye. There in the distance was a boy flying, he was flapping his wings.

Giant white feathered wings were attached to his back. It was an amazing sight for sure, but right now Lyran was preparing for death or a seriously gory injury if she's lucky. Suddenly wing boy made eye contact, Lyran was in such a panic that her desperation shown clearly.

He became determined and just then his wings folded up as he dove like a dart through the air. If Lyran were to look down at that moment she would probably have a heart attack seeing just how close the ground was. But at the last second the boy caught her in his arms princess style and spread his gigantic wings out. Their descent slowed to a graceful glide.

It would have been a perfect rescue, unfortunately they came in at just an angle that the boy landed with a body roll. Lyran's head hit the ground right then and she was knocked totally unconscious.

"Hey are you alri- eh- ? ….shit."

The boy had been practicing his landings that day but he wasn't skilled enough for a flawless rescue just yet it seems.

A few hours later Lyran slowly opened her eyes, she had a splitting headache. Probably due to getting her head slammed, still, a rescue is a rescue. She could have died from that fall. She instantly hoped that everyone she knew made it out okay.

The feeling of mourning hit her as she remembered that her best friend Blair had just died.

"I'm glad you're okay…"

A voice snapped her back to reality.

Suddenly, Lyran realized she was on the ground in some sort of desert. It was starting to turn into night and the crackling of a small campfire could be heard a few feet away.

The boy who saved her was sitting just on the other side of the fire looking in her direction. He had clean brown hair and looked to be on the younger side. Probably about 20 or so. He had no shirt on, most likely because of his huge wings, and Lyran could make out every muscle on his stomach.

This kid was ripped. Not exactly bulky, his figure was actually quite slim yet it was clear he was extraordinarily healthy.

"Thank you for your rescue, I don't think I'd be alive right now if you didn't catch me. I'm in your Debt."

"Eh- i-it's not a problem!"

The boy was embarrassed about his clumsy rescue, on top of that Lyran's serious gratitude caught him off guard so he blushed a little bit.

"My name is Lyran Ichihara, it's nice to meet you."

"I'm Luc…ah, it's probably better if you don't hear my name."

Lyran looked at him in confusion.

"Eh- what I mean is, I'd rather you call me something other than my name if that's okay."

"Hmm. Like a nickname?"

"If you don't mind?"

"Okay then, since you saved me and you have wings like that then how about I call you 'Angel'?"

"Angel huh. Sure then, I'm Angel, it's nice to meet you Lyran."

Angel smiled with genuine satisfaction. It seems he likes his new name.

Angel explained that Lyran was in another world. This world is called Jigoku, currently they were in the wasteland several miles away from the closest town.

It seems the wasteland gets extremely cold at night despite being blistering hot during the day. There are wild creatures roaming about in search of food, Angel was out this far practicing flying and landing. Like Lyran, Angel also just recently came to Jigoku.

It seems he ran into some trouble in the town called Illumious and was chased out into the desert. With no money for food or a place to sleep he was going to be forced to survive the crude life in the wasteland. He was happy to meet Lyran since he didn't know anyone else, but he immediately began to feel concern for her situation.

If it was just him, he could probably figure something out if a monster of some sort approached. If worst came to worst he could always just fly away, however, the same can't go for Lyran now.

"ill lead you back to Illumious, you seem pretty capable so you can probably find some work there somewhere to make enough money to eat and stuff…they don't like humans here though."

"Did you happen to see anyone else falling? I have friends that are probably lost out there now too."

"Friends huh? I did see a good number of people falling from the sky, some of them fell around the Castle but most of them fell out further in the wasteland that way…if they're your friends then you should know that's a dangerous place to be."

"I have to find those ones in the wasteland then…"

Angel looked off in the distance silently with a 'hmmm'. Lyran thought he was a bit stoic.

"Can you fight?"

"I can handle myself."

Lyran summoned her soul blade, an emerald scythe that chopped through the air in a beautiful fluent motion. This was Lyran's strength, her scythe is a weapon that she spent 50 years with.

She knew a thing or two about how to use it, Angel could see her confidence. His instincts told him she wouldn't be too much of a hindrance, though with that said he didn't want to let her go out in the wasteland all alone.

"Alright then, it's settled. We'll stay here for the night, it's going to get really really cold once it gets dark so it's better to be by the fire.

Of course this will attract some monsters, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem so long as we take turns being on lookout."

"Understood. Eh- um- won't you, ya know get cold? I mean without a shirt on that is…"

Lyran was fidgeting a bit awkwardly as she spoke. Was she nervous or something?

"Oh yeah, I can use my wings for warmth though. They're pretty cozy even in the cold, you'd be surprised."

"Oh really? They do seem quite interesting, can I touch?"

"Go ahead."

Angel said with a grin. He spread his right wing out so Lyran approached slowly. His feathers were laid neatly over top of each other in a complex pattern. She gently stroked her finger tips over the top of his wing.

"So softttt I just wanna wrap myself up in this ahhh- uh-"

Lyran suddenly came to her senses and realized what she said could be taken the wrong way.

"uh- I mean, what I mean is…"

With a stiff face she trailed off though she was still petting his wings. Angel was grinning from ear to ear with a wicked gleam in his eye.

"You know you can wrap yourself up with me any time."

Lyran blushed, his teasing was shameless. She wasn't used to a hot guy saying things like that. It caught her off guard.

"No way, you're crazy!"

Lyran rebooted, she cut her eyes away and looked off in the other direction for a moment. She started to wonder if her reply was too cold. She didn't hurt his feelings or something did she?

As she turned her slightly worried face back to Angel she saw that he was still grinning like some kind of sleaze bag. Ugh, this guy is really something she thought.

That night was freezing cold, Lyran huddled up next to the fire trying to rest. She had a nice turtle neck sweater on which was a big help, though her legs weren't dressed for this kind of weather. She had on a pair of Vans, some thin black leggings and red shorts.

Neodeka never got this cold, she was shivering and her breaths were clearly visible in the air.

Around Dawn is when it started to heat up outside. At some point during the night Lyran ended up getting wrapped up with Angel's wings. It was embarrassing to her at first, what with all kinds of muscles and bulges brushing up against her.

The softness and warmth from those pure white wings gave her a sense of comfort however. It became apparent that Lyran wasn't exactly fit for the cold, in all honesty she was basically was saved a second time because of that.

There was a long journey ahead, that much was clear. Once they came into contact with the first monster in their path Angel flew at it and punched it's neck. It was a huge lion with a snake for a tail.

It was bearing it's fangs the second it saw them, but Angel's attack took the lion out in a second. The snake was still whipping around and snapped at him like a whip. Angel caught the snake's neck tightly in his fist and ripped it's head off. That monster didn't even stand a chance.

Lyran wondered how long they had been walking, her feet sank slightly into the sand with each step. The top of her head was on fire, she felt the sun was going to dye her blue hair into another color or something.

Every so often they would spot a cactus off in the distance, Lyran would chop it down with her scythe. Using the liquid inside is how they stayed hydrated, at night they would eat the bitter unseasoned meat from the monsters they came across.

Within a few days they had covered several miles, every so often Angel would fly up into the sky and see if he could find Lyran's friends in the distance. Unfortunately, the wasteland was so vast that it would just look like sand as far as the eye can see, a monster here and there but that was about it.

"is there any other towns out this way?"

"I think I heard a passerby in Illumious talking about another town out further this way called Selina or something.

I'm not sure if it's real or not though, they said it was built far away in order to avoid the rule of the demon king."

"is that so? Hmm, well if it is real I wonder if that's where my friends ended up…"

"It's possible, but we should still search the wasteland thoroughly. A second too many out here can be bad news, in fact I think we will be in danger our selves soon if we don't find a decent place to cover."

"Why do you say that?"

"Every so often a storm comes through, it sweeps the sand into the air and it's so dangerous that every living thing caught out in the open will die.

Not to cause a panic or anything but the clouds over that way are starting to look suspiciously like a storm forming."

"Well, that doesn't sound good…"

"Not at all, to add insult to injury I also can't fly in those storms so we'll be sitting ducks if it happens to hit at any time."

Lyran's eyes went wide, if they didn't figure something out then it wouldn't be just her friends in trouble. Angel was well informed on the dangers here at least. If it was just Lyran she would've just kept marching on without stopping to think about these kinds of things.

"What do you think we should do then?"

"Well…I don't know."

"There has to be something!?"

"hmm…well, I was caught in one of those storms not too long ago."

"Really? How'd you make it out?"

"Eh- it's not something I'm ever trying to do again if I'm being completely honest."

Lyran's was curious what Angel could've done to survive a situation like that, she looked around her surroundings and couldn't think of any sort of shelter to use for cover.

"Wa-was it really something so bad? Do you have any other ideas then?"

"um, well…not really."

"well then if the storm hits then we should go with whatever you did at that time I think."

"Yeah…you won't like it though, trust me."

Their steps continued on, the wind began to get stronger after a while. Sand would whip into Lyran's eyes every so often and Angel began to sigh with dread. He was certain that a storm was indeed about to hit and he wasn't looking forward to it one bit.

That night tornadoes of sand ravaged everything, it was like the gods were angry like a hurricane of destruction blew through. It was just as Angel had said, nothing could have survived that without shelter. All along the desert was displaced sand and corpses of monsters.

The stomach of a huge furry mammoth type creature moved around. Eventually out from a flap came Angel and Lyran complete covered in blood and guts.

"Ewooughhh! It's so gross and it stinks! Damnit!"

Lyran complained.

"I told you that it was going to suck."

"Yeah, but I didn't think it was something like this! There had to be something else."

"Oh? Like what exactly?"

"Eh- uhhh, I dunno, but something I mean come onnn…"

Angel started to laugh at Lyran's complaints, it was hilarious to him for some reason. Probably because he had already been through camping out inside a monsters stomach before this.

It was a gruesome experience for sure, he hoped he'd never have to do it again. Though, whether it being because Lyran was there or because he'd already done it he felt this time wasn't really so bad.

After traveling a few more days on foot they spotted buildings in the distance, a town. Sure enough, Selina was a real place.