Chapter 4: Darkness and Swords

(June POV)

The next morning we all got up and ready. "Zira, Carter, are you ready?" I say as they both nod. "We'll leave in a few hours alright. That way we'll have just enough daylight to get halfway there.". They both set of to continue packing until Carter picked up the sword handle that I found a few days ago. "Hey June!" He said as I walked over. "Yeah?". He smiled brightly at me and said "This sword reminds me of a story I heard when I was young.".

Zira came over as he spoke. "Apparently, when the world was first formed there was this powerful creator that banished all the darkness from it. When they did, they created the 5 lands we know today. Each one was given a weapon that was lost to time.

The Wings: A sword

The Scales: A scythe

The Neutral: A bo staff

The Fins: A pair of combat boots

and The Insects: A pair of gauntlets

When all the peace settled in the weapons disappeared.".

We both took it in as Zira said "Well we've had it for 3 days now and I haven't seen any special powers come out of this guy so yeah. I think we would have noticed by now if something was up.". While they were chatting away I picked up the sword and noticed that the handle was now black with a white stripe. "Ugh.... Hey guys....". The must not have heard me because they were still talking.

The sword handle then sprouted up a blade to quick it almost took off my nose with a loud screech. The both turned to me and looked at it. "June, what did you do?!" she yelled to me. "I- I don't know! I was just holding the sword and then it shot out a blade!!!! Why couldn't it just be a dagger?!". At those words the sword glowed and shrunk into a dagger. ".... Give it!" Shouted Carter as he told it "Giant sword!!!!".

... I thought there would be more. "Ha!" I said when Zira also tried to use it. "So it only works for you?" Zira said looking at me. "I guess! Alright sword! I'm gonna need you to stay quiet until we get to where we are going alright!". I then put the sword on my belt and get ready to fly until we hear an explosion. We all rush outside to see that there are a few figures in the sky dropping bombs on the village.

I look over to see Carter shaking from the fire. "Carter," I start saying as he looks to me. "Start saving who you can find and evacuating civilians! Zira, your with me! We need to get those guys out the air!". We all split up and it's just then that I realize just how fast he is. I still couldn't place where I've seen the spots. I do know that he's not a Cheetah.

We fly above the smoke and see what we wouldn't expect. It was Darren.... And it looked like his gang had 5 or so new members. "Keep dropping! Once their all dead we can have whatever's left!" He commands to 5 of his members. He then looks at me and says "Look at this boys! Zira, daughter of Mary Kite!". Zira's eye twitched and she said "Darren, son of.... A bitch your still alive?!" she said looking at him from the charred shoes to the white hair.

"Oh yeah about that. I've got a job to do so, I'll have to kill you now.". He then smiled and sent his guys after- *bang*. "THEY'VE GOT GUNS NOW?!?!?!?!" I yelled flying away. They kept shooting at us and when we got cornered we saw one of his guy with an AK-47. Before we got shot something jumped up and pulled down the vulture. ".... Wait Carter?!" I hear Zira say as he bites into the vultures neck, and straight to the bone killing him.

"C- Carter-" I struggle to say as he looks up with slit pupils and blood dripping from his mouth. He then smiles with a lot of regret mixed into it and says "Sorry 'bout that! It's hard to control myself when the leopard takes over! Natural predator and all that!".

Info- Vultures like the bearded variety aren't known to have many natural predators. However one of the few they do have are big cats. This would be like lions, jaguars, and leopards.

We both watch him wipe his mouth and growl at some of the other vultures, causing them to fly off. "So.... have you tried using the sword yet cause right now we got 3 vultures coming up on our six.". We both snapped out of it and Zira used her eyesight to confirm. "Alright, Carter you handle the one on the left since he's the smallest. Zira, your job is the guy on the right. I'll take the guy in the middle.".

We all split up to our respectful spots and continued to fight. While I was fighting I brought out the sword and without me realizing I turned it into a really large one and may have.... 'sliced' the issue in half. "Oops, that was not supposed to happen!". I said turning it back into a dagger. "Zira, Carter! Finish that up and lets go!" I say looking for Darren. As I flew up to find him I felt a terrible pain in my right wing. I look to see Darren with a gun smoking. I start losing altitude fast due to my wing and started to black out.

All I thought of before I passed out was '.... How many days have we been gone now.'.

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(Carter POV)

"OWWWWWWW...." I hear June say as he starts waking up. "Rise and shine, magpie!" I say to him. "Wait.... where are we now?!". I smiled and looked at him. "Well since you got shot, you can't fly. Me and Zira had to drag you around until we came up with a much better idea! Since we can't fly, and you were unconscious, we decided to go to the land of Fins!". I said while steering. "Wait...." June said as he shot up and looked over the side of the boat.

"WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!".