The sound of splintering wood and tearing metal ripped through Rosie as the ship grated itself on the ground. It slid for almost a kilometre before slowly shuddering to a stop. The nose of the airship had been completely ruined by its landing, but the shields has reduced the brunt of the damage. On the left side of the ship’s tail there was a huge dent that spanned the entire upper end. It was as wide as ten men and very deep, even through the shields.

The ship sat there, shields desperately flickering as they tried to keep the vessel protected, but it was of no use. Rosie was dying. As the crew began their mad exodus from danger the ship cried and squealed in its death throes. Even the engine, Rosie’s heart, was in a state of disrepair. Dozens of the arrays had shattered trying to keep up with the demand for power, and dozens more had broken because of the excess power in the area thanks to the other broken arrays.

Laurence looked on at the mess made by the snake, and by extension Zoo, with muted emotions. He could feel something bubbling up inside him by could not name it. I liked Rosie he thought as he watched array after array snap and burst into motes of light. I really liked this ship. The feeling was simmering away as the boy began moving out of the vessel with a very disorientated engineer over his shoulders.

“I liked everyone on this ship. I learned a lot from all the crew and from Jonas and Sleepy. I learned a lot from Rosie.” He said to himself. His voice was quiet, barely audible to Sleepy who was regaining her senses. It made her shudder. This was not the normal inquisitive child she had come to be firm friends with over the time they had been travelling. This was something else and it scared her.

He got outside and put Sleepy down next to where her brother and Louisa were standing. The crew was coming out in dribs and drabs, but it was hard to watch. They were stranded without the ship and the snake was ominously flying towards them. If the snake got to them it was a death sentence, but they knew that there was nowhere to run. The island had a forest in the distance, but the pain stretched for miles in all directions.

“I liked Rosie.” Laurence said again, the feeling reaching a fever pitch. It was close to bursting and there was no sign of the void that usually descended, no blissful nothing that hid him from the rush of adrenaline and the madly rippling emotions he would have had to deal with.

Suddenly there was a voice echoing in Laurence’s ear. Well why don't you just kill the snake then? You could learn a lot from its corpse. The voice came from very close by to Laurence but sounded completely different to anyone he had met recently. He looked around for a moment and could not place it, but the voice had a point. Kill it. The voice repeated. There was a strange resonance to the voice that made it seem slightly ethereal, almost unreal.

He would have questioned the voice more, but he was being overwhelmed by emotion. It fizzed and frothed just below the surface, building up pressure and begging to pop. “I liked...” He breathed in. Kill it he heard again. “Rosie!” Anger, rage, wrath and hatred burst from within him. There were such potent energies bursting from within him as he screamed the name of the ship that the people around him had to take a step back. The Saintly mana within him burst out and undulated around him rapidly, flicking about dirt and crushing the grass beneath him.

Laurence snarled as blood vessels in his eyes burst and dyed his vision scarlet. He was so angry. He could not hold back any more. Kill it he heard again. Whatever was telling him to kill was something he could no longer resist. He let the rage consume him and summoned Jormugand. The hammer lit up the sky with the torrents of fire as Laurence charged towards the maelstrom snake. He would not think, could not think. Instead all he could do was kill the beast.

He sprinted towards the wyrm, mana pumping through his leg muscles. Each step forced up clouds of soil and grass, coating everyone and thing behind him in a fine mist of dirt and pebbles. A light blue mist exited his mouth and nose as he ran. There was so much mana flowing through his blood and muscles that even his breath was laced with it.

Within moments he had reached the halfway point between the crew and the snake. The sky crackled and tore as the snake swooped down to snatch the young boy up in its jaws, but even bathed in rage as Laurence was he knew how to defend himself. He swung his hammer back and retreated as the wyrm’s head neared, letting the beast’s nose slide past his face by inches. As the snake’s nose touched the ground Laurence flicked his bladed hammer forwards and felt a pull of mana from his weapon. As mana reinforced his hammer, the size of the weapon increased until the flat of the hammer itself was over a meter in diameter.

The hammerhead collided with the snake and the scales of the beast simply shattered, charred and turned to ash. The boy was flung back by the ricochet force, but he twisted in midair and slammed the hammer into the side of the snake’s head again. Once more the hammerhead bounced off the snake and Laurence used the force to make another strike. He bounced and struck again and again with the oversized hammer he wielded, each strike cracking and charring the snake’s skin. Within the three seconds that the snake had attacked and pulled its head back Laurence had struck it six times, and he still had power to continue.

The maelstrom snake moved its head up like a cobra, ready to strike once more as laurence stood below it, like an ant. This ant, however, had caused it immeasurable pain, and had left six large black welts on its soft underflesh. The snake cried out, putting all its power from the scream of pain, fear and anger into it. With this scream the air visibly warped and bulged away from the wyrm. This attack held all its immaterial strength and even the feral Laurence shied away from it. The cone of pure sonic force ripped through the ground and sky, tearing apart everything it touched like a hurricane made of razorblades. It churned the earth and sky, cut through the tough rock below the surface of the island like butter, and left a crater around Laurence akin to that of a meteorite. The ground was torn up for thirty meters in every direction around the boy, but he still stood, right in the middle of the hole.

His leather clothing was covered in lacerations and blood was steadily seeping from each wound, but still he stood, fuming at the beast. He pulled up the hood that he barely used on his tunic and that awful grin appeared on his face. Grin, red eyes and horned hood combined the boy looked less like a child soldier and more like a demon incarnate. Even the great wyrm that owned the skies of the fifth floor was intimidated, so in response electricity began collecting around and inside its mouth, the buildup much slower than before. It stood tall and proud, even in battle it was the regent of this region, normally the undisputed god of the world it was in and it held itself so. However tonight it was fighting the devil incarnate.

KILL! Laurence heard once more. It was all he could hear at this point. KILL! KILL! KILL! He was still so angry with the beast, but his body was reaching its tipping point. He was pushing it as far as he could go, and within all of the eight seconds he had fought the beast he had pushed himself to the utmost limit. He screamed out, it was a primal scream in response to the snake’s cry, but one that held as much emotional impact, even if it was lacking in the power that the former had possessed.

He began running towards the snake once more and let out another guttural roar, from deep within his body and heart. Pushing off from the ground he flew into the air, quickly reaching eye level with the snake. The lightning crackling around the beast had reached the point of terrifying, but still Laurence faced the danger with reckless abandon and swing his hammer. As he swung he heard snapping sounds like a thousand rubber bands being stretched and broken all at once. It made him feel hundreds of times stronger for that single moment of striking before making him feel as weak as a baby. The hammer fell and caved in the beast’s jaw, trapping the lightning that it was preparing to spit at him shuddered through its sensitive innards. The electricity was so powerful that the beast could not even scream. It simply jerked around as the charge ran through its body, and a scent of cooked meat slowly began to suffuse the area.

Laurence fell from his leap and hit the ground. His body indented into the earth. Since he took that final swing his emotions had eased up and the blood lust had dissipated from him. The voice had stopped talking to him and he felt relaxed with the situation. He closed his eyes and began laughing, wincing every so often as he realised he was covered from head to toe in wounds and his own blood.