The blades the big man was holding started to glow with a red light. When I tried to stand up he kicked me in the chest, making me fall to the ground again.

 He took a step forward, when a figure dived at high speed from the sky and struck the big man, making him fly towards the wall which was 30 meters to my right. Suddenly, Leslie was right before me, a teasing smile on her face.

"That was close little wolf. But you worked very well." She said reaching her hand out to me.

 "Leslie, who the hell is this guy?" I asked taking her hand.

 «His name's David Hyde but he's better known under the name of Black Manta...I knew something was wrong in this mess.

 The asshole finally got up and a long blade came out of each of his arms.

 "Leslie Heartstone...It's you again. Always in my way." He growled.

 I could feel hatred and disgust in his voice. But Leslie did not seem to be affected at all. On the contrary she seemed rather amused.

 "So you got fed up with me and you wanted to end your existence in a spectacular way? Or maybe it's your consciousness which finally woke up  and made you come to your own doom.

 "Yours will be enough for me. Tell me where you're hiding the metahumans and I will make it painless for you.

 "Oh please stop acting as you were in a strong position. You better surrender and tell me how you got these manhunters bodies.

 As only answer, the ovni-head shot two huge laser beams from his "eyes". Leslie nonchalantly dodged and retaliated by projecting red fire blasts from her hands.

  A moment before being hit by the flames, Black Manta flew in the air and avoided the crimson fire rays that hit the wall in front of Leslie. The reinforced wall resisted the resulting explosion but a huge heat wave stroked my face.

 Looking up to see the big guy, I could see the nozzles of a jetpack coming out of his back. Leslie took off to join him in the sky and they began to exchange blows. Actually it was looking more like one-sided abuse than a real fight.

 Even if her opponent was clearly not an amateur fighter, Leslie was dodging his every move, as if it was just game for her. After our countless combat lessons I could say when she was serious and when she was not. She was outright playing with him.

"You're all coming with me. Dead or alive." Black Manta yelled.

 Missile launcher-shaped devices came out of his shoulders and released a volley fire of rockets  towards the sky. The missiles went up to a certain altitude in the sky before starting to fall back to the ground, where I was.

 "Jesse!!" Leslie yelled.

 She tried to fly to me but the scumbag held her by catching her by a leg. While she kept fighting against him, the missiles were coming toward me. As you can imagine, I didn't been stupid enough to stay in place and wait for them.

 Instinctively, I started to rush toward my sword that was still where I dropped it while the rockets were coming. My heart was furiously beating in my chest, the sound of missiles getting closer and closer.

 I was running as fast as I could in my state to grab my weapon but it still seemed out of reach. In a ultimate effort, I held out my hand and jumped to reach it. But at this moment, a missile hit the floor right between the sword and me. The explosion hit me in the face, making me do a second glide across the courtyard.

 I violently bumped the wall 4 or 5 meters above the floor before falling like a rag doll. I tried to get up when a body crashed brutally in front of m

 "Leslie!!!" I yelled.

 Leslie was in bad shape. Her whole body was covered with burns and cuts. But the worst injury was the stab wound to her stomach. A huge blood stain spread from her clothes. I hurried to her bedside and tore a piece of my t-shirt to try to compress the wound.

"Sorry little wolf...I really fucked up this time..." Leslie said trying to smile.

 "Don't try to talk! I'll...

 I didn't have the chance to finish my word because the scumbag landed before us, grabbed me by the neck, and pinned me against the wall. He removed his helmet to reveal his face. A dark skin and black eyes. Nothing unusual or extraordinary, but the look he was giving me clearly told me that for him I was not even a human being.

 "Let him go David!! Or I swear I will hunt you down!" Leslie screamed.

 "You are not in a position to swear anything. But it doesn't matter. First, you will watch me kill this boy. Next, it will be your turn. After that, I will find where you hid the other brats and kill them all."

 Anger, frustration and hatred were storming in me. I wanted to kill this guy, crush him, make him regret what he had done to Leslie. He arched his arm, a blade coming out of his forearm. But when he was about to perforate me, his blade stopped a few inches from my face.

 He didn't seem to have stopped on purpose, as I noticed his whole body was shaking, as if he wanted to free himself from some invisible force. Suddenly, a shock wave hit my face and made the big bastard fly across the courtyard. He crashed into the wall but quickly got up and got into a fighting stance.

 "What happened? It's him who did that?" He said putting his helmet back on.

 «Said» was not the exact term because even though I heard her voice correctly, her lips didn't move at all. But I didn't have time to think about that. His thruster packs began to purr and I looked for my sword with my eyes to finally find it. About fifty meters from me, between him and me. More or less equidistant between the two of us. I stepped over Leslie's body and got ready for the sprint of my life. I felt a hand grabbing my ankle.

 "Don't do it Jesse...Get out of here..." Leslie said.

"It's okay Leslie, I can do it." I replied with a smile before start running.

 Black Manta seemed understand what I was trying to do and decided to follow me in this deadly game. Thanks to his jetpack, David Hyde was quickly less than a meter from the sword while I was still around twenty meters from it. I held out my hand to catch it, even though I knew it seemed lost in advance. This is exactly at this moment that it happened.

 Just one second before Black Manta grab it, the sword left the ground and flew turning upon itself towards me. Instinctively, I grabed the handle while the big man was headind for me. Everything after this ended in fews seconds. I held the sword with my both hands and with all my strengh I swung my sword, aiming for my enemy's life.

 I felt the blade cut through his helmet and armor like a heated knife through butter, with the speed of the attack, I found myself behind him, and then I turned to see what I had done, David Hyde was lying on the floor, his body having made a trench in the ground.

 His helmet was split in half, revealing a deep gash across his face. His right arm was few meters away from his body and his eyes locked on me were full of hate of incomprehension. After some attempts, Black Manta finally got up and walked towards me, the broken blade of his left arm pointed at me.

 "...This isn't over...I will...

 PLONK!!

 Black Manta fell to the ground, Leslie standing behind him, a green flame emanating from her fist.

 "Leslie! Are you okay? I asked running towards her.

 She didn't say anything. She simply stepped over Black Manta body and when I was within reach of her arms, she grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me towards her to hug me.

"That was reckless, little wolf." She whispered.

 "Yes...I'm sorry." I replied

 "...I told you were special, didn't I ?" She chuckled.

 I knew she was talking about what happened with the sword. And I couldn't help to agree on the idea that it was really my doing. Leslie and I heard a weak sneer coming from behind her. The douchebag was still alive, laughing as if he had lost his mind.

 "What's so funny Hyde? Don't you understand? We beat you!" Leslie said.

 "Do you really think I came to you without any back-up plan ?"

 Leslie and I shared a look but it was too late.

BOOOOM

 We heard multiple explosions while the floor started to shake. Black Manta  pulled out a rectangular device covered with strange symbols and pressed on one of it's buttons. The symbols on the devise started to shine with a red light and a huge tunnel-like portal appeared behind him. His body seemed pulled in this portal and at the moment he entered inside, the portal disappeared as if he has never been.

 I was reflecting on what just happened when Leslie grabbed me by the shoulders.

 "Jesse! It's not time to have the head in the clouds."

 "We've always the head in the clouds here!" I Instinctively replied.

 Understanding what i meant, Leslie bit her lip not to laugh.

 "...It's really not the moment for jokes, it's a serious problem. I just checked the state of the castle defense system." She said as she was shaking the remote in her hand. "I don't know how he done it but the generator of the force field that allowing the castle to fly is turning into a bomb. Literally."

 "What do you mean ?"

"As we speak, the generator core is reaching energy levels way above his usual production capacity. It will soon melt and at this moment, Skywise will become the biggest flying firecracker of all time."

 "How can we stop that ?"

 "We can't little wolf. I predict the start of the fireworks in less than 10 minutes."

 

"We have to do something. Or everyone...

 "Myers contacted me earlier. He evacuated everyone while we were playing with the buckets of bolts. The only ones still here are you and me."

"So what do we do?"

 Leslie closed her eyes, seeming to think about something. When she opened her eyes she grabbed my hands with hers.

 "Do you trust me, little wolf

 "Ever." I immediately replie

 She took me in her arms and in one wing beat, we were before the castle door, at the edge of the floating orphanage. The void separating us from the world below was just a few steps behind us. A faint glow made me turn around to see the very first light of dawn.

 "Now give me your sword and close your eyes Jesse." Leslie said.

 I hesitated at first, but I obeyed. I felt Leslie taking my right arm and put a spherical object in my hand.

 "You can open your eyes now."

 When I opened my eyes, the sword had disappeared from Leslie's hands and a knife-looking mark was on my forearm and a silver sphere with a diameter of 2 inches was in my hand.

 "What thi-

 "Happy birthday little wolf!" Leslie said happily.

 "...Excuse me?

 "Yes! It's morning now. Today we celebrate your 14th birthday! With Myers we'ed planned a big party for fou but we can give up about it.

"What is this?" I asked, examining the sphere in my hand. Many complex geometric figures were engraved on it's surface.

 "It's a gift I made just for you. I think you will really like it.

 She leaned down towards me, tucked her hair behind her ear and placed a kiss on my forehead.

 "Thank you Jesse Reslow. Thank you to have illuminated my life as much during these 14 years".

 I could see in her eyes all the love and affection she had for me. She took me in her arms and we stayed like that at least one or two minutes.

 "Live well little wolf, go further than anybody." She whispered in my ear.

 "...You're talking as if you were saying goodbye to m

 "It's exactly that."

 Suddenly, Leslie grabbed me like a potato sack and threw me to the void. The last thing I saw was Leslie's smile. Before starting crash.

 My brain was trying to understand what just happened, so I wasn't screaming like someone falling into the void would despite the terrible feeling of falling as I was looking the flying castle become quickly a black dot in the sky.

 Suddenly, the sky shone with a blinding light. I felt a shock wave hit me and I found myselfI facing the ground. While I was watching the floor coming up quickly, I couldn't help but examine the surrounding area. A mountain range dotted with old-air buildings.

 Finally my body hit a white tilled floor in a world's ending sound. My whole body was hurting me, it was a hundred times worst than my recent experience with the manhunters. I didn't have the time to ask myself how I survived this fall as I heard voices and footsteps getting closer.

 I just blinked for one second and when i opened my eyes a beautiful brown haired girl looking one or two years older was standing in front of me. She was so beautiful that if I had been told she was a queen or a princess I would have believed it without hesitation.

 The only stain on the picture was the saber she was pointing at my face. Her green eyes were looking me as if I was strange creature she had never seen before.

"Who are you? How did you-

 "Mistress!!" Another female voice yelled.

 Many footsteps resonated and the girl was quickly joined by many women dressed like ninjas. I painfully tried to get up but the sabers pointed at me quickly dissuaded me to do it.

 "Who are you?" I growled at the girl standing before me, her saber still pointed at me. 

 "Watch your words, insolent. I am Talia, daughter of the demon !"

Hello, sorry for the late, My other story took all my attention. Tell me in the commentary if you want long chapters in the futur or shorters chapters for a better cadence. I am still improving my english so any advice is welcome.