Into Skelengel Territory

You don't know the worth of the people you love until they are gone. I'm so sorry, Chirus. I need to take back so many things I shouldn't have said.

In her sleep, Valiesha kept rehearsing possible lines to tell her lost boyfriend. There were too many ways to say sorry, and she didn't know which was better.

"Commander, we're about to enter the outskirts of Eduul," The chopper's pilot announced, flying the aircraft through the dark fog.

Valiesha opened her purple eyes as Shyrin elbowed her awake.

"Got it," Valiesha adjusted her gray and purple military crop outfit and quickly brushed the mess of her long azure hair. "Lock and load, girls! This is the day we've all been waiting for!"

Along with the other female Enaga rebels, Valiesha loaded her two pistols, spinning them with her fingers. The Enaga Rebellion had been looking for Eduul for many years until today, thanks to Valiesha's skilled spy, Sunder. Sunder confirmed that the lost men are being held captive there in Dessix Academy. Chirus is there, and Valiesha knows it. She and the rebels plan to stop the Skelengels and get the boys home.

Valiesha checked on Shyrin. She was deaf, but Shyrin was the rebellion's top sniper. The blonde lady examined her rifle's condition with her orange eyes as she chewed on a berry twig. Although Shyrin was silent and wore her modest blue and green Kyudo uniform, Valiesha knew Shyrin had a fire in her.

The Skelengels punished her family for refusing to send her brothers to the Academy when they turned 20. Her two little brothers are in Eduul, and she'll blast every Skelengel's head off until she finds them.

We'll find them together. Valiesha told Shyrin in sign language.

Shyrin quietly nodded, exchanging fist bumps with her. Valiesha then turned to her pyromaniac friend, Firaga. She had bright orange hair and yellow eyes and wore a dark crop jacket. Firaga was loading a new flame charge onto her incendiary shotgun. She was the one who first brought together the rebellion, saved Valiesha's life, and taught her to be a great commander.

"Can't wait to see those bad girls squirm!" Firaga grinned until her flame charge popped off her weapon. "Whoops!"

"Firaga! No!" Everyone gasped.

Firaga caught the volatile shell just in time before it could explode. "Haha, there's a thrill in explosions, you know? Ouch!"

"You idiot!" Valiesha yanked her ear. "You almost blew us up!"

"Nah, chill, girl. You all are safe with me. Nothing goes kaboom unless I say so!"

The helicopter shook when green flak exploded in the skies with a sharp ring.

You jinxed it. Shyrin signed, rolling her eyes.

"Did not!" Firaga pouted.

"What's the status?" Valiesha asked the pilot.

"We just took a light hit," The pilot huffed, swerving the chopper away from the anti-aircraft fire. "We've entered Skelengel territory! The walls of Eduul are heavily armed!"

"Fighters!" The Commander yelled into her transceiver. "Provide us cover!"

While the attack helicopters and skycranes carrying spider tanks avoided the flak, the rebellion's scissor-tailed flycatcher fighters fired missiles at Eduul's tall fortress walls. Quadruple flak cannons and SAMs perched on top, shredding Enaga aircraft down.

Skelengel moonbow fighters shaped as crescent moons spun into the air to battle the flycatchers. The attack choppers fired missiles back at the moonbows, but there were too many.

"Commander! I'm not sure if we can safely pass the walls to land inside the Capital," Valiesha's pilot sweated.

"Then we land now and scale the walls the hard way," Valiesha ordered. "Land the tanks! Fly low to avoid SAM detection. Get the Shima Enagas ready!"

The flycatchers fought the moonbows in the air while the attack choppers soared low above the rocky trenches and hills. While the skycranes landed the spider tanks, the girls jumped onto their Shima Enaga drones and activated them. The round birds opened their blue eyes and shook their snowy white nylon feathers awake.

Each chopper opened a rear ramp, letting the girls glide the Shima Enagas into the outskirts of Eduul. Valiesha, Shyrin, and Firaga rode on their birds that sparrow-hopped on the rough terrain.

Green explosions brightened the dark as Valiesha and the girls spotted their enemies. The Skelengel women wore steel bird skull masks, gray metallic uniforms, and skirts. The Skelengel stormtroopers gnashed their teeth, firing assault rifles and RPGs.

"Let's sic 'em!" The Enaga Rebellion shouted in unison with the chirping of their birds.

The bouncy Enaga walkers breathed fireballs from their beaks as Valiesha gunned the Skelengel soldiers down. Firaga sent Skelengels flying with her incendiary shotgun while the stormtroopers blasted RPGs at the birds. While Valiesha and Firaga led the front, Shyrin took the rear with the spider tanks to provide support. Shyrin headshot the RPG troopers down with powerful bullets that knocked their bird skull masks off.

The Skelengels deployed their hovertanks shaped like killer whales. The orcas had tank cannons on their eye patches and breathed green fireballs from their jaws. The Enaga spider tanks crawled on the uneven trenches, firing long-range cannons to bomb the killer whales back.

"Take that!" Firaga grinned as her Enaga walker stomped on a Skelengel. "Welcome to Loserville, you naughty girls!"

Firaga's shotgun wielded immense power, juggling Skelengel stormtroopers into the air. Valiesha signaled squads of birds to circle each orca. The birds breathed fireballs at the killer whales from all directions until they exploded. While the attack helicopters provided cover for the rebels, Valiesha and the girls approached the fortress walls of Eduul.

"Alright, let's scale this thing!" Valiesha gathered the girls and birds toward the metallic walls.

"Time to send these Skelengel twerps to the stratosphere!" Firaga huffed as the rebel flycatchers and attack choppers fought the moonbow fighters in the air.

The Shima Enagas ascended the fortress walls like nuthatches as the spider tanks climbed with their six feet. The Skelengel patrols on top fired from above as Valiesha and the rebels fired back from below. The spider tanks blasted Skelengel troops off the wall's bridge and damaged the anti-air defenses.

The birds whined as the Skelengel women blasted them with RPGs from atop. The Enaga rebels who had lost their birds quickly fired ascension cables to prevent themselves from falling. A spider tank took an RPG in the face and fell off the metallic cliff.

Shyrin! Target those launchers! Valiesha signed.

The sniper nodded, making her headshots at the RPG wielders. The Skelengels on top activated small pills, which blinked two green eyes and grew blue legs with two electrified tails. With armored exoskeletons, the pills jumped into live trilobite droids.

The stormtroopers dropped the droids onto the cliff, which scuttled toward the Enaga rebels. The Shima Enagas hissed in pain when the trilobites electrocuted them with potent tails. The girls fired at the crawling trilobites, but the droid exoskeletons were immune to firepower.

"Don't panic! Flip them over!" Valiesha told the Enaga rebels. "We need to get to the top fast to win!"

The Shima Enagas pecked the bugs back as they raced to the top. The birds flipped the trilobites upside down, letting them plummet to the ground. Valiesha, Shyrin, and Firaga landed on the top first, getting their hands dirty with the Skelengel stormtroopers.

Valiesha drew her two pistols, shooting the soldiers down and knocking them out by bashing their heads with her pistol grips. Shyrin drew knives underneath her Kyudo skirt, slicing throats and throwing knives into heads. Firaga knocked Skelengels out cold with her rifle stock as the Shima pecked the anti-air defenses into pieces.

"Aircraft! You're clear to advance!" Valiesha ordered as she shot the last Skelengel in the chest.

The attack helicopters and flycatcher fighters stormed past the walls as the rebels scouted the post-apocalyptic capital of Eduul.

"Let's move and find our boys!" Valiesha yelled. Wait for me, Chirus. I'm coming for you. Please forgive me. I'll never leave you ever again.