Francis's eyes stay locked onto the person sitting astride the massive firebird glowing with recognition but also confusion. "Is that you up there Alix? You seem to be dressed differently than the last time I saw you?"
The girl doesn't respond. She simply jumps off of the monster's back and gracefully lands directly in front of Francis. Now that the girl was closer Francis felt all the more certain that this person was the girl that she had trapped. "What's this? Have you lost you tongue girl? No snarky remarks or insolent insults?" Francis chuckled as she continued trying to prod at Alix.
Alix ignored the woman's remarks. Instead she looked at something over the woman's shoulder. Francis frowned. "What? Is there something interesting back there?" Francis questioned but didn't turn herself. Alix slowly moved her cold gaze onto Francis.
"Why do you not turn around?" She asked with a monotonous tone that, funnily enough, sounded as though several voices spoke simultaneously.
"What?" Alix gently gestured to the area behind Francis.
"Behind you stands the faces of those you've tormented. The physical manifestation of the their flaming rage. Yet you stand here throwing your weak words in my face, completely ignoring them? Why is that?" Alix slowly tilted her head to the side, staring at Francis with unblinking eyes. Francis became visibly shaken as sweat began to leak out of every gland in her body and her heartrate drastically increase as she met Alix's eyes.
"Wh-what do you know about torment? Huh, kid? Do you think you some sort of expert because I threw you in a bit of water?" Her eyes shook as she finished yelling at the girl. Alix sighed.
"It seems that I have wasted my questions on you? Though, I do believe I can understand your reasoning. Just by looking around one can tell that we are standing within a hellscape." Alix slowly swept her hands before her body to gesture to the area around them.
"Of course you wouldn't look behind you. You must be terrified of those faces. You are a woman that has lived her life running from the past and hiding away from the world around her. You've formed a barrier around your mind to protect yourself and seeing the ghosts from you past with your own eyes..."
Alix lifted her hand with her palm facing upward. With a snap of her fingers she summoned the green flames to her hand and held it. The flames sparked and Francis witnessed the same two figures of her parents appear out of the fire in Alix's palm.
"...That alone is enough to make those fragile walls of yours turn to ash and reveal the weak, talentless, and most of all, scared child within you." Francis's stood petrified, staring into Alix's palm. She hadn't even noticed that the flames behind her had drawn closer and were now burning her.
"You've made a grave mistake Devil known as Francis. You let the forgotten embers of your torment grow behind you, even feeding the flames by your own will! And now, all of that pain and suffering that you caused to those behind you. All of the pain that you caused us!" The fires on the dock sudden grew stronger as Alix was starting to show anger.
"That pain, has evolved into the flames that we will use to burn you in this hell of your own creation." Alix closed her hand, snuffing out the flame within it and signaling to Nuka that the time for conversation was over.
"SCRAAAWWWW!!" Nuka screeched as she spread her wings and shot forward at Francis. The screech pulled Francis out of her trance but not in time to defend herself from getting grabbed by Nuka. The bird scooped Francis up in her beak then shot into the sky leaving a trail of verdant flames as she flew.
Alisa, who was still in shock. witnessed that entire event as her eyes had never left Francis. Tear were still pouring out though the girl didn't make a sound. She just sat there with a blank stare. She was staring at the exact spot that Francis had just been taken from but now all that stood there was this strange burning princess knight.
The knight stood surrounded by flames on all sides as she looked into the sky. She casually turned her head to face Alisa , almost like she could sense that the girl was staring at her.
She made no sound nor gesture as she met the stared at the girl for what was only a moment. She turned her eyes back to the sky as she bent down until her she was in a kneeling position. The cape on the princess's back shifted and quickly spread out into a pair of wings similar to the firebird's. The opening of the wings sent a massive wind blowing across the dock.
Green flames slowly spread across the wings covering the feathers. The embers in the air started to circle around the princess knight as the wings slowly moved up with the fire still spreading through them like a viral infection. The moment that the flames covered the final part of the feathers, they flapped down hard and sending the princess knight shooting into the sky after Francis and the bird.
Alisa's gaze slowly drifted up. She couldn't see any of the people in the sky as think green smoke clouds were blocking out the night sky but Alisa's eyes hung still. She felt like the Princess Knight had somehow told her to watch with that casual glance. So watch she would.
...
"AAAAAAaaHhHH!!" Francis screamed so loudly that she could feel her vocal chords ripping to shreds. But that wouldn't stop her from screaming as she was currently being dragged high into the sky by a monster bigger than any she'd seen before.
Francis tried her best to look ahead to see where she was being taken but all she could see were the birds flames and green smoke. So nothing really.
"YOU OVERGROWN FREAK!! I KNOW ITS YOU NUKA!! RELEASE ME THIS INSTANT!!!" Francis yelled at her captor, a silly thing to do when she's so high in the sky that she could possibly calculate! Nuka reeled her head back before swinging it as hard as she could sending Francis flying ahead of her.
"WWWAAAAAHHHH!!" Francis screamed some more as she spun in the air out of control. Every once in a while during her spin she would catch a quick look at Nuka and she couldn't keep her head steady so she couldn't be sure but she could swear that the bird was smirking.
"SCRAW!" Nuka cried as she flapped her wings harder than before. She swiftly flew at Francis and rammed into her with her own body. Francis was sent spinning faster as she was hit. Pain flooded her systems so it was bad for her that Nuka wasn't even close to being done.
The bird turned in midair and charged at Francis again burning the woman and bludgeoning her at the same time. Nuka continued this pattern constantly knocking into Francis again and again. It got to the point that the woman wasn't sure what was up or down anymore.
She was so dizzy and in so much pain that for all she knew she was on the ground. Her body and mind were spinning in two different directions so, when she felt her body stop spinning it took a few seconds for to realize that it had. Francis woozily looked ahead of her but all she saw was an upside pair of legs and armored stomach.
"what?~"
"Look at you." Alix's voice started as she held onto Francis's beaten body. "A mess of a person. You enjoyed watching Nuka and I struggle for dear life and you even laughed at us as we drowned in front of you. And now look at you..." Alix lifted Francis to meet her face level. Francis's eyes were barely able to see but she could still make out the ferocity within Alix's as that glared into her soul.
"...You're nothing but a grand disappointment. I'm finished with the likes of you." Alix flipped Francis upright and palmed her face. Her grip was so strong that Francis could hear her skull cracking. Alix then stopped flapping her wings and started hurtling back to the ground.
She started slowly but as she fell her speed naturally picked up but that wasn't enough for her. She started using her wings to increase her speed. She flapped a total of three times before letting her wings rest on her back like a cape once again. Nuka trailed behind them with her wings pressed to her body falling down just as fast.
Francis couldn't see but she could feel the wind pushing against her back meaning she must be falling. She tried to scream but her mouth was covered by Alix's hand. She tried to pry her face free from the girl but she was too weak to do so. Tears began to pour out of Francis's eyes as she started grunting and kicking more desperately that before.
'No wait! PLEASE! IF YOU DO THIS I'LL DIE!! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!! NOT LIKE THIS!!' These were the words that she was trying to say but all Alix heard was the wind and the woman's restless grunts.
At that moment, at the rubble of the Pirate's Worst Nightmare arrived Vance, Bizen, Dandelion. They slide to a stop as they had been running as fast as they could to get here but the firebird had already left.
"Damn!" Vance exclaimed with scrunched brows. "We missed the bastard!"
"Do I need to continue to remind you that our mission isn't to fight the monster. It's to save our students!" Rasque shouted at her boss. Vance reluctantly nodded in agreement.
"Yeah yeah. I get it. Let's just find those four and get out of here."
"I already found them...and more." Dandelion pointed ahead at the remnants of the battlefield. Bodies were laying on the docks unconscious. Several bruised and charred as they lay unmoving. Vance looked around and recognized the bodies of the students that they were sent after but there were a few others also here that he had never seen before.
The only one still technically standing was Alisa who didn't even seem to notice that they had arrived.
"You think the bird did all of this damage?" He asked.
"That'd be my best guess. Come on, let's get our three and get out of-"
"KENT!!" Dandelion suddenly shouted in surprise and worry. She rushed to the side of one of the people that they had not come looking for. She examined the young man's body looking for any signs of life. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found that the boy was still breathing, albeit shallowly.
"I'm assuming you know him?" Instructor Bizen interrogated. Dandelion didn't look up at the woman as she solemnly nodded.
"Yeah...He's-"
"Woah! Captain, this place looks like a graveyard!" An energetic young voice announce from across the dock. Everyone's eyes moved to the owner of the voice where they saw a pair of fully armored knights. They one was visibly shorter than the other and also the taller one had a seafoam green cowl over his left shoulder but that was the only discerning difference between the two.
"Looks like the kingdom's protectors have arrived at the scene! Royally late might I add!" Vance spoke loudly and chuckled heartily at the pair of the gaining their attention. The taller knight perked up when he saw the man.
"Sir Warren? What brings you-"
"Watch out!!" Alisa suddenly called out while pointing at the sky. Everyone looked up and witness what seemed to be a green ball of fire tearing through the air at the ground with the giant firebird behind it.
Everyone dove for cover as quickly as possible with Vance rushing over to Alisa and covering her as he was the most likely to reach her in time. Just as he covered the girl the proverbial meteor slammed into the docks shaking up the entire thing.
Parts of the dock that were already unsteady came crashing down sending dust flying into the air. The water beneath the dock churned from the force of the crash. Powerful wind swooshed out from the impact. After a minute everything stopped shaking.
To everyone's surprise the dock was still mostly standing. Their eyes went to the area of the crash where they saw the massive monster flying just above the docks staring at the spot just below it. The flaps of it's wings cleared out the dust revealing to the others what it was staring at and it was quite the sight to behold.
A massive hole was now in the dock at the spot that the crash originated so there was nowhere to stand. Which is why it was shocking to see someone flying just below the bird with the husk of a person in their powerful grip. The person was bleeding from every orifice and hang loosely in the armored figure's grasp.
Everyone saw how the strange armored figure was dressed. How it wore armor that held a slight green color. How it had a flaming green mask covering the mouth area of where a face would be. How the armor was decorated in the bird's feathers. And of course...
How they had wings just like the bird. All of these connecting factor's made the people on the docks come to a single conclusion.
"Yep, that has to be the bad guy!"