The Raiders of the Glass Isles

The sea was harsh and strong this night, icy waves were smashing into the beaches of the small fishing village, Topps Cove. Emerging from the mist above the water were ships, ships with black sales and no flag; pirates! Raiders from the Glass Isles coming to pillage the coastal villages, as they closed in on the village alarm bells started to ring out and the signal fire was lit.

Dallyar Rograr, leader of the clan Silver Talon and his eldest son, Talyar were awakened by the alarm bells of the citadel. As Talyar looked out across the city towards the coast signal fires were lit, Talyar marched into the logistics room of the great hall to be greeted by his father,

            “Talyar, good. Pirate raiders have been spotted off of Topps Cove. We will be taking one hundred riders to meet them, they’ve been getting too cocky recently so we must send them a message. You will take thirty of our best riders and ride to the south and round, cutting their ships off once they have landed whilst I, with your brother take the main force and ride head on. I will signal to you, my son.”

Before Talyar made his way to the stables he made his way over to a decorated oak case where his champion armour was placed, made from Romairer; a rare metal, finely craft and forged in the Tempest Vault. The perfect armour for a perfect warrior, painted silver and scarlet and black. Clan Silver Talon’s battle armour lightly resembled that of a Falcon within the design, the gauntlets and shoulder plates look feathered, the gloves have talons over the fingers with retractable claws and the helmets mirrored a falcon’s head and neck. Talyar equipped the armour with pride and made his way down to the stables where soldiers were equipping armour of their own and applying war paint, he strode through them and the ones he passed closest to touched his shoulders or knelt as he walked, he entered the stable and mounted his horse he then smeared two fingers over red paint and then across his face before placing his helmet on his head. He walked the horse out to join his soldiers who were now mounting up and was handed a spear as he yelled out to his company,

            “Some pirates are coming here to our coast, they must be they’re hungry! They’ve been here before, they’re becoming greedy so let us go give the bastards something!”

The riders cheered as the gates of Grynic slowly opened and they slowly walked out into the harsh wind which rattled their armour and cut at their cheeks, Talyar and the riders started to canter and then to gallop as they rode out towards Topps Cove, as they grew closer to the village they turned to the south and circled the village stopping behind the dunes on the beach. Dallyar’s forces were closing in on the village but the pirates had landed and were hastily making their way towards the village centre, cutting down men, women and children who got in their way. Talyar looked to the sky to see the signal and there it was; a blue-fire arrow, Talyar and his riders started to canter forward towards the ships to be behind the raiders just as Dallyar’s forces entered the village on the northern side. The raiders were caught in-between the two forces and forced to group which made killing them that much easier, Talyar threw his spear as he jumped off his horse which impaled a raider to a building then as he landed he drew his short blades from his back and started cutting down the pirates, none were a match for his superior fighting as he stormed through their lines even taking on more than four at once, his armour was light but tough and his swords were forged from moon-light steel; perfectly balanced, light and deadly. Before long barely twenty raiders of the nearly two hundred that had landed were left and were scarpering for their ships, Talyar’s mounted archers fired upon them and knocked their numbers down to the mere few but just before they loaded again Dallyar spoke out,

            “Let them go, if none return how will they tell of their almighty defeat?”

The one ship pushed off from the shore and sailed back towards the mist, when Dallyar and Talyar returned to the city, Dallyar sent off three falcons with a message, urging that the families of three clans come at once to Grynic so that they discuss a more permanent solution to the pirates.

Survival

The ground beneath them started to shake and fall through, the building started leaning as the foundations collapsed  and everything became distorted; furniture started sliding towards them and various walls slanted, Jacob looked around frantically for somewhere to go and he glanced a stairwell through the debris and shaking room, he shouted out to the group while signalling with his hand outstretched,
  "Come on! Let's go!!"
As they ran forward towards the door the ceiling above them collapsed and blocked their access to the door, the windows shattered as the desks impacted them revealing a nearly fifteen storey drop into the wreckage below. The building was tilting now as it fell apart, leaning at nearly forty-five degrees.
  "We have to go up!! We have to climb and jump across to the next building!"
Alice bellowed over the roar of the concrete crashing down around her.
  "That's five storeys! We'll never make it!"
Oscar yelled back at her and she replied in kind;
  "Well it's that or we die, we die here in this tower! We've survived this far, I'm not dying in a fucking collapsing tower, not after everything we've already been through!"
  "Lets go then!"
Ethan shouted, and he took the lead by jumping up to a ledge of the next storey and reached out his arms to help the others, all six of them made their way up to the eighteenth storey and as they reached this a shadow was cast over them and they looked on with horror as the tower they were in was about to collide with the air control tower next to it, and as it did it took the floor out from beneath them completely but the group managed to jump out of the window panels and start to climb up the side of the leaning building, clambering over girders, pillars of concrete and maneuver around holes, As they neared the twentieth story Oscar slipped and fell into the building once more, taking Alice and Edward with him and as they fell a wall collapsed creating a blockade of unmovable debris between the group; separating them. The tower started to slip and fall again, tensions were running high,
  "Oscar, Edward, Alice! Are you okay?"
Jacob called out, terrified.
  "We're okay, but Oscar; his arm! He's stuck!"
Victoria spoke out, who had been quiet up to this point,
  "We've got to go! We may only have minutes to get across to the air-control tower, the tower is starting to fall!"
Behind the collapsed wall Alice and Edward were trying to lift and remove concrete from around Oscar's arm but Alice turned to Edward,
  "There's no time! You've still got the axe we took from the fire office on the first floor."
Oscar looked up, panic stricken and Edward turned away from him to face Alice,
  "Alice, this is his arm."
  "No, this is his and our lives! Do it!"
Edward took the axe from off his back and keeled down next to his friend, he told Alice to find something for Oscar to bite on and to hold his head. 
 "I'm Sorry!"
And he swung the axe down onto Oscar's wrist, the crunch of the bone was sickening but the hand wasn't off yet so he swung it again, Oscar cried out in pain and passed out. Alice and Edward lifted him over their shoulders just as Jacob kicked down a door behind them and shouted,
  "WE HAVE TO GO! NOW!"
The building started gaining speed as it crashed through the air-control tower, Edward pointed towards the air-control tower outside the window,
  "Come on! We have to jump, there is no time to think!"
The group ran and jumped from the falling building into the control tower, smashing through a window and slamming into a wall on the other side. As they stood up they witnessed the tower they were just in falling onto it's side with a deafening crash! As it collapsed in on it's self in the split seconds it landed it created a shock wave which smashed all the windows in their new tower and caused a dust cloud sending bits of concrete, glass, steel and iron flying in all directions.
  "Go, over there, get a first aid kit! We need to tend to Oscar!"


 

From the Future.

A portal opened blinding everyone in the room and two figures stepped out, as the portal closed one of the men spoke out,
  "There should be more of you, where are the rest? I count only eight."
After a few seconds of silence, Fortress spoke from the back of the room,
  "Sorry to let your expectations down, who are you? I am Charlie Mills but you can call me Fortress."
One of the men stepped forward, the light shone over him revealing shock blue hair, eyes and tattoos all over his face and right shoulder he spoke out to the group facing him that were still in the shadows,
  "My name is Arec Logg, but you all may call me Mask and this is my friend, Cross"
He pointed back towards the other man who had stepped out of the portal,
  "We are from the future sixty years exactly, 2091, where the war is still raging on, and we are still losing. We've come back to change things so hopefully less of you will die. First, who exactly are in here?"
Another man spoke out,
  "I am Silvar, a geneti. Here with me is Frostflare, Volt, Howl, Weaver, Ordnance, Dragon and you've already met Fortress, you're looking at the remaining leaders of geneti in A.S.H's southern hemisphere."
He raise his hands to display the men and women behind him, sitting and standing,
  "And what can you two do? Are you geneti? Meta?"
  "I am a geneti, one of the last and Cross is a hybrid, I don't believe you will have witnessed the first wave of them. The hybrids are geneti who were taken in and brainwashed, given cybernetic implants and new abilities with the intention of hunting us out, we captured Cross and returned him to our side, many others though, many of my friends we did not."
The room shook and the lights flickered, stones fell from the ceiling and then a piercing siren sounded. Silvar turned to the group, speaking out to them,
  "They're here! They must have sensed the portal! Dragon, Fortress you two head down to the tombs, take the people through the mine doors we have to leave!" Volt, Weaver, Frostflare and Ordnance, you're with me, we have to give them time, frankly I'm sick of hiding here, time to show these aliens what happens when you mess with the leaders of A.S.H!"
  "Me and Cross are with you two, Silvar, we can help."
Arec stepped forward with his and out and Silvar shook it.

When Dragon and Fortress had left the room the group proceeded to the battlements, when they got there they lined up looking out over the mountain, Weaver drew her daggers, Volt primed, Ordnance created a psionic suit, Frostflare coated half and half fire and ice, Mask turned invisible and Cross put up a force-field as well as pulling a futuristic cannon off his back. Lightening spread across the skies and thunder roared, rain started to fall and droplets rolled off their hair and skin before splashing into the ground. Cross yelled out,
  "They're coming! ETA thirty seconds."
Still nothing ahead,
  "Look to the skies!"
Pods dropped from the skies and into the ground, out of them poured Alyrix beings, hundreds of them, some nearly 20 foot tall and others like spiders.
  "Now!"
Silvar shouted as he projected a sphere of magnetic energy into the middle of their pods which pulled the walls together and collapsed inside them selves. Volt shot off a bolt of electricity and entered a spark dash, Weaver was close behind him with her daggers, dodging plasma blasts and swords, diving through the jaws of the creatures and climbing up them, Ordnance coated himself completely in his armour and created a gigantic psionic axe and jumped into the midst of the aliens causing a shock wave, slicing and smashing the creatures down, Frostflare froze the creatures at their feet and encased them totally in ice while throwing blasts of fire out towards the enemies, Cross was high on a tower, blasting aliens with his cannon and pushing them back with his force-field and Mask phased through them ripping them apart as he ran. Bolts of brilliant pink electricity were flying across the courtyard and battlements as Volt shot them out into enemy clusters and Weaver stood on the rampart slicing through the smaller creatures while evading every attack, and running up walls. Statues of ice littered the battleground which Ordnance punched shattered with his axe. Whatever metal Silvar could find he would shred and charge and project into the Alyrix like a wall of a thousand splinters, blasts of energy showered the ground from above and parts of Alyrix littered the floor. After a few minutes a deafening roar made the ground shake and the courtyard started to collapse, the group dodged and dived and jumped to avoid the concrete falling beneath them. All was silent for a few seconds and then gigantic and armoured claws reached out of the abyss, a monster emerged, nearly 60 foot tall with a slanted, pointed face with 5 eyes, it's body was coated in salvaged material, bolts and plasma, it stood, over the chasm beneath it all four feet on the ground and it's massive teeth dripping, bearing down on them. Lightening striked around the group and the rain increased, the wind billowing.
  "War-Naught! Take cover!!"
Volt shouted, and the group dived into whatever cover they could find as hundreds of lasers tore through the walls and an energy blast destroyed the outer gate completely.