One last stand

Angoor, a tiny creature that looked like a grape with two roughly drawn eyes and tiny bulbous hands climbed out of the ground, he lived with his mother and two brothers and an old relative that he was never particularly fond of.

Due to odd hibernation cycles, Uvas, the clan of creatures that angoor belonged to, had completely missed the revolution of shargh and had been sleeping for two years straight,

"What is going on" The old perky relative who was still hidden in the ground hole, slapped angoor's butt from behind, he looked like a dried up raisin with an arm missing, indicating a veteran in battle.

Angoor scowled and looked behind angrily, he did not like this relative at all.

"I dont know yet, let. me. see" He said bitterly, emphasizing thoroughly on each word so the senile old relative would get it.

Outside the world looked completely alien, for Angoor, everything, even the normal sized structures were like megalithic castles, because of his size, but where angoor lacked in height and physical battle prowess, his keen observational skills of the surroundings made it up for it.

Angoor squinted his eyes, knelt down on his bulbous floppy legs and picked up a few balls of dirt, they were mixed with water and excrements, he brought the dirtball closer to his mouth next and licked it thoroughly as his eyes widened.

'Blood of ratilion, what the hell happened here' he quickly scrambled around looking for more clues, due to his extremely small size, the uvas were not blessed with a very sharp eye sight either. Only two things kept them in the food chain, the first was their extremely keen observational skills, and angoor was the best of the best.

and the second was..

Angoor stopped behind a pebble, so far his discoveries had led him to horrible and confusing theories, but one thing was certain, a large massacre had took place on the land, somewhere very close to his home.

Thunder crackled in the background, illuminating his lonely sillouhette, but there was a faint aftersound which any other creature would miss out completely but not angoor.

He looked up, confused, something was going on with the clouds he just could not see what.

"Its thunderbirds lass" The old , senile, raisin relative spoke meakly from behind, as he slapped angoor on the back of his head again.

"How many are there?" Angoor asked, pushing aside the anger from slap for investigative clarity.

The other thing that kept uvas in the foodchain was their ability to summon a scream straight out of hell, and that was exactly what the old senile uva did as soon as he realized how many were there, he screamt so loud that it danced upon the air, traveling a distance of almost a kilometre from the battle ground,

reaching over the soldiers and easily overpowering their combined noise as they all stopped and looked up, then a guttural scream from the outermost edge broke and like an avalanche, panic and chaos ensued in the ranks.

Ardawan, a veteran of countless battles, had lived a life marked by hardships and pain. Few things could scare him, but this was a phenomenan of legends, he had heard such large scale migrations only through the wetnurse stories.

Thousands of meters below, the Empress stood uncharacteristically numbed. The subtle blue light from the gateway danced upon the edges of her ethereal golden feathers, while hundreds of glow-rifters drifted around her, indifferent to the mortal realms.

For the first time ever, Golden looked truly disturbed, her eyes were stuck at the sky above, although it was thousands of meters above but her ability granted her an almost see through vision through anything.

She cleared her throat, as a sinister, deep hissing sound resounded in the entire underground chamber, for others, it felt like mumbles of language they could not comprehend or understand but the Empress paid it utter attention, with each word her pupils dilated even further,

At some point the air around the entire underground structure had started weighing heavier than mountains, instilling unbearable pressure on everyone around Golden, who was too preoccupied with her thoughts, until the ground finally cracked,

tearing her attention away to the soldiers, as the air lightened.

She looked back at Amawas, who was splattered across cracked floor, this was something like that exact moment that had happened in the hive all those years ago, in the hive, on earth.

The Empress disappeared,

Appearing before the thousands of thunderbirds in an instant, she reigned over them like a titanic monarch as they all halted, their beaks and eyes were lit with pure thunder, and despite being one of the most proudful creatures, their extra long necks all bowed down in reverence,

"Where are you going? Explain yourself," the Empress demanded.

The leader of the thunderbirds, slightly larger than the others, flew forward.

"It is not odd that you have not yet felt it, my Queen. You are from Shomaal, after all. A storm is coming, one that will destroy every single thing, us or them alike" he looked at the creatures below with seething hatred.

The Empress disappeared yet again, hovering above the entire sky as an ethereal spectre,

thousands of metres below the bedrock a voice was heard from the wind,

whispers, directed towards the Queen Lara,

"Take the core and Rohaan away along with everyone else, tell the armies to halt"

Queen Lara did not waste a second and quickly ordered everyone to leave, #212 was reluctant than most but he could not dare disobey, soon the gateway shimmered and everyone departed.

The Empress turned her gaze at the creatures below, they looked like cluttered dots of black from this height.

She did not need to assess the situation, the wind had done it for herself,

'a few hours and half of the shargh to cover' she whispered

She only knew of one being capable of harnessing such a calamity, and he was dead.

Without wasting even a second the Empress launched herself as high as she could, crossing the atmosphere of the shargh until she could see the gigantic chain that connected the planets together as clear as day,

Below, the topology of shargh looked magnificent, dunes covered a major part of it and a distant sea could be seen.

She stayed hovering above the planetoid, her gaze, distant and evermoving with the wind itself, covering as far as the horizons and took a deep breath as the edges of her magnificent wings ignited with veins of pure brilliance,

At the same time, thousands of metres below, Aatish hovered clenching her long sword in her right hand,

something had been pestering her for some hours now, she had already come a long way from the camp but there was a deep urge of leaving everything behind and migrate to further south,

uncertain and cautious, she carefully approached the dark ocean of birds above and stopped one of them in the outermost layer, it towered before her and crackled with wild electricity, It looked like an amalgam of a vulture and a bat,

turning its long neck downwards, its horrified gaze pierced Aatish,

she shied back, thunderbirds were not the kind of foes you could easily take down in battle and represented often more dangers than the demons of the underworld,

Aatish spoke, but before the words could form she caught a glimpse of a golden burning orb way beyond the stampede from between the gaps.

Something clawed inside her chest.

Aatish looked at the bird and nodded in negative as it flew away, and without a second thought infiltrated the birds, her heart was beating out of her chest, technically they could kill her at any moment,

At first she flew alongside them, and moving upwards layer by layer when she got the chance, her eyes never losing the sight of the orb,

But the pace was extremely slow, after some twenty minutes, she had only managed to cross two layers and the bad premonition she was getting from the orb was growing larger and larger every second.

Looking to her left she saw herself in the reflection of a gigantic black, merciless eye, swifting as a lonely flame and something broke deep within, her flames turned black again,

"Aatish dont" The figment of Qatan she had made herself spoke from her left, as in the next moment a pillar of condensed fire, much like she had made before fighting the sovereign, rose high upwards in the sky, completely burning through scores of birds, such reckless move guaranteed imminent death but Aatish did not care at this point, she focused on a small opening that had been by the pillar of fire,

And flew upwards as fast as she could, quickly turning around for any retaliation but to her surprise none came, the birds simply moved on, whatever threat they were running away from was definitely way bigger than what she represented.

The orb dimmed and pulsated, and a second later, thousands of tendrils of brilliance and colors emanated from it, covering the whole sky until every creature upon shargh felt a deep serene enveloping them,

Aatish did not waste another moment as she turned around and shot further upwards, by now she had an idea of what the golden orb represented,

she had grown up hearing stories of such magnificent display of strength, how individuals from history rose up and fought against the beings before the sovereigns, beings that had lost all the mention in the texts and history, her parents had taught them fables from the forgotten past,

How these individuals often times displayed unbelievable strength in the darkest of times,

getting closer and closer to the ethereal orb, a tear rolled down her cheeks,

only the noblest of individuals were said to weild the power she was told, another tear rolled down as her fire turned deep blue, she was about to reach her limit, just a few more metres above and she would be frozen, losing almost all of her strength in an instant.

"I cant lose you my Qu-"

Before she could finish the sentece, a deep and sinister whisper resounded in her ears from her left,

"Stay back, Aatish!" the wind spoke

Aatish halted, her eyes were opened wide in extreme shock.

"My Queen no" Aatish defied the direct command and shot upwards with even more speed than before, her flames stuttered and dimmed,

"I can save y-"

"You already did" the wind whispered back and after a short pause

it spoke again

"Thankyou for everything"

"No.. I REFUSE TO LET YOU GO" Frost settled upon Aatish's otherwise molten paws, the flames had almost completely dimmed, revealing a beautiful orange fur beneath, as frosty air brushed against her cheeks, but before she could climb further

a frosty hand grabbed her shoulder from the back, she stopped and looked back with eyes filled with tears,

Shahrukh hovered above

"Shahrukh bhai... save" Aatish spoke, her voice cracking with each word.