I hit the floor, rolling to come up against the wall, but there was no cover in the hall.
A gold figure stepped up behind the Unity soldiers, brandishing a blue bladed sword that cut two of the Unity soldiers in half before the other’s realized they were in danger. They didn’t even get a shot off before the golden armored, sword wielding maniac cut them to pieces.
When their bodies lay at his feet, he retracted his helmet. His arrogant, scaled face and his toothy grin were the most welcome sight I’d ever seen in my life.
I pushed off the wall to run to him, willing my helmet away as I was jumping over body parts to launch myself into the crocodile's arms. “Aga!”
His deep laughter rattled my bones as he spun me around before setting me on my feet again to grin over my head at Rema.
“You didn’t think I would miss your wedding, now did you?”
Rema’s helmet melted away as he pulled the male into him in a crushing hug, the male back slapping commencing.
“You’ve crashed my wedding, as I expected,” Rema said, laughing as he stepped away from his friend.
“Ha! I saved your wedding. You two were dead meat, admit it.”
I rolled my eyes, punching Aga’s arm and grateful I had my armor on or it would have hurt a lot more than it did. “We were fine. You just happened to show up before we could take them out,” I accused, shaking my hand out.
Aga patted me on my head none too gently. “Keep telling yourself that, Bug. Keep telling yourself that.”
I slapped his hand away with both of mine. “Oh, shut up. Come on, let’s go find Callie. Oh, before I forget, who rescued who?”
Aga glowered at me, his helmet snicking up to hide his face from me.
“I’m not talking about it,” he said, his voice sullen.
Ha! She totally saved herself. Rema and I looked at each other, and snickered, our helmets coming up at the same time.
“Laugh it up, you two. Just you wait and see. Callie has a surprise for you,” Aga said, leading the way down a body strewn hallway. They were all Unity soldiers in various stages of sliced and diced.“A fucking annoying one,”he muttered under his breath as he disappeared around the corner.
“What do you think that means?” Rema asked, stepping in front of me as we followed behind.
I had no idea.
Aga jumped the last level down, landing on his feet roughly fifty feet below us, and looked up at us.
“Come on, it's this way.”
The Grand Hall was just as it sounded. A massive entry hall, the official entryway into the palace. The huge stone doors that led outside were blown wide open, half of one in pieces on the wall, the massive chunks of pale rock strewn across the cracked and charred floor of the hall.
Rema flew me down, landing much more lightly than Aga had, and set me back on my feet.
There were bodies freaking everywhere. Some were Unity, but others had to be the pirates. The rusted, patched quality of their armor a dead giveaway.
“Uh, Callie? We are in the Grand Hall? Where the hell are you?”
I waited for an answer and was met with only silence. Her link was still active though. I shrugged. Maybe she was busy.
Aga was leading us away from the towering, ruined doors and back into the depths of the palace, when a crash sounded from the entryway. The three of us turned to the sound, and stopped cold when we saw the tall figure being silhouetted inside the doorway. A four winged silhouette that I recognized with a groan, my shoulders dropping. “Comeon, couldn’t this have waited until after our reunion?”
Sythia, Imma’s shitty younger sister, started towards us, her armor a bulky gray monstrosity that screamed small peen energy.
Her hair was sheared from her time in the cave prison, and her face had grown more gaunt.
“You!” she screeched, pointing a gauntleted finger at me.
I looked at Rema and Aga, pointing to my chest.Me?I mouthed. Rema’s silver eyes met mine, his dark eyebrow arcing. “What did you do to her?”
