A Grand Fight, Fought at Great Height

In the universe are an uncountable amount of planets, billions of which are habitable. In a far away galaxy, one could find such a habitable planet named Thanthwe. It was a rather odd planet where the complete surface was an enormous ocean and giant platforms floated high above in the sky.

Thantwe was inhabited by many species, enormous sea creatures roamed the ocean, great beasts ruled most of the floating platforms and birds the size of planes soared through the sky. But of all the species inhabiting Thanthwe there is one special species. One species that managed to evolve into a perfect species for this world, a species called the Phiko.

The Phiko were winged humanoids and one of the most intelligent beings on this planet. The males had a red skin colour, ranging from bright red all the way to nearly black, with big leathery black wings attached to their back. While the females had a variety of blue and green colours with gorgeous, white feathered wings. If they were to appear on Earth the males would be seen as demons while the females would be seen as angels.

These winged humanoids had taken control of nearly a quarter of the floating platforms of the planet, however, they were not unified. Many different families managed to take control of a platform, but only few managed to take control of more than one. The biggest country on all of Thanthwe only consisted of 7 platforms.

Except for a few of them they all wanted to get more platforms under their control, however, the ones with only other Phiko ruled platforms nearby could only attack those to try and take over the platform. This spread further and further and eventually the Phiko ruled areas stopped expanding.

Nearly all Phiko ruled platforms got tangled up in this unending war, the only ones lucky enough to escape being some isolated platforms, completely surrounded by the platforms of the great beasts.

One of the platforms near the border of the Phiko territory was called Nustris, ruled by the country of Nustria. This country was lucky enough to only have 1 other Phiko ruled platform nearby named Ebux, named after the Ebux family ruling the platform.

The war on Nustris was close to absent, the last attack of the Ebuxians had been close to 5 years ago. after so much time without any attacks, some of these soldiers had started slacking off at their job, giving the Ebuxian army a chance to sneak attack.

The Nustris army outer scouts were quickly and quietly taken down and the Ebuxian army continued to move to the capital of Nustris. By the time the main military force was alerted and arrived in front of the enemy forces, they had already passed close to ⅔ of the platform.

The instant they met they started a huge battle high up in the sky, not even bothering using words other than "scum", "filthy Ebuxians" and the like. The battle was brutal, the Ebuxian army had been in constant war with other platforms so they were trained in battle and used to the blood and gore of the battlefield. But the Nustrian army had been sitting on their asses for close to 5 years and were outnumbered 2 to 1.

After many rounds the commander of the Nustrian army fell, his entire body covered in wounds. One of the enemy soldiers had even managed to cut off half of the commander's wing.

Once the commander, the strongest one of the entire military, fell, most of the soldiers chose to surrender. They didn't want to lose their lives for something they knew was a lost cause. Those refusing to surrender were quickly dealt with while those that did surrender were chained together to follow the army away from the battlefield and further towards the capital, the Ebuxian army rushing there to complete their mission ASAP.

To destroy the Nustrian rulers and take control of nustris once and for all.

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A young boy, judging by the looks around the age of 6, was playing with some wooden dolls his father had made for him in the front of their house. The dolls were quite well made, they were slightly rough but one could see the amount of care the father had when making these dolls, shaping them like soldiers of their army.

The boy, even though his father had told him numerous times he couldn't, dreamt of one day joining the military, helping them destroy the Ebux platform that was eyeing Nustria. Unfortunately for him, it would always stay a dream, farmers couldn't join the military as they had to take care of the food of the entire platform.

So he played with his soldier dolls whenever he could, pretending to be a soldier in the army of the lord. He ran around in their fields with the dolls, holding a random stick he found in his other hand and slashing the air in front of him as if he were in battle.

Suddenly he noticed the shadows acting oddly. Looking up at the sky, he was many slightly darker spots in the clouds moving, every so often he could even see something moving incredibly fast through a hole in the clouds, something red with wings.

"The army is here to defend us!" The boy thought, excitement filling him to the brim. However, that excitement soon died when he saw body after body falling from the sky, a trail of blood and sometimes even innards gushing out of the falling bodies until they landed with a hard THUD.

He looked on in horror, his idea of the army completely shaken by the cruelty of reality, looking at every single body that fell through the layer of clouds.

After what seemed to the boy to be an incredible amount of time, he saw a body fall with one of its wings cut in half, however, this body was clearly still clutching his sword with every ounce of energy he had. landing with a soft thud not too far from him

The boy ran through the field to as fast as his little legs could muster, kneeling by the side of the fallen man. He could recognise the clothing of their military with a couple golden lines embroidered in it signifying he was a commander.

"Young lad, you shouldn't be here, go home, where it's safe" He whispered, The boy didn't know how he know he was still a kid considering the man's eyes had stayed shut the entire time. He didn't listen, however, he just stayed right there, kneeling beside the man and sobbing. He knew the fall of a commander signified the fall of the battle. They had lost.

"I will avenge you sir", he managed to whisper through his sobbing, making the commander surprised enough to open his eyes and look at the boy with an odd look. Not many people could see a battlefield at such a young age and want to run away and forget it all, but this kid actually wanted to avenge them.

"Don't avenge me kid, if you really want to avenge anything, avenge the lord. Here" - cough - "you'll need this. But promise me, train hard first, don't even " - cough - "think about going to battle before you have the strength to win." The commander's voice was no more than a whisper, his strength waning as he neared his end. He even had trouble moving his sword closer to the boy for him to take it, however, when the boy touched the sword, his other hand moved, quickly snapping around the wrist of the boy.

"Accepting this sword means accepting its responsibility, being ready to kill when you need. Show me you can do it, kid, show me you're not afraid, show me i can trust you, and give me a quick death."

The moment these words left the commander's mouth, the boy's eyes widened, however, he couldn't back down now. He would avenge this commander whose name he didn't even know, avenge his lord who never even knew he existed, and avenge Nustria.

Resolve shone from his face as he grabbed the sword from the commander, having trouble even lifting it. He did not give up, however, and after a couple tries he managed to stabilise the tip of the blade above the commander's heart. Once the commander saw this he nodded, closing his eyes, and smiling. Waiting for his death.

Tears streaming down the boy's eyes as he pulled the sword down with all of his strength, slicing it through the clothing of the commander and into his flesh. He could see the area around the blade quickly turning red as the blood stained the clothes of the commander. And yet he didn't stop, he kept pulling the sword down, slowly going deeper and deeper into the commander's body. Only stopping once the commander's body became limp and his breathing stopped.