NOVPUBThe whole shipo began shaking like a leaf in the wind as the engige diminished it’s strength. Zeppelins didn’t possess an aerodynamic shape and without the forward momentum, it was completely exposed to the powerful air currents. Medusa did the best she could to keep in control, but there was little she could do against the forces of nature.
"Does anyone happen to be carrying a few flux orbs?" Medusa asked in hopes of avoiding disaster, but the answer was beyond obvious. Tey weren’t ready to set off and didn’t bring anything with them, other than what they were wearing. Even Uriel, whose trait allowed him to buy convenient things, was incapable of storing flux orbs unless it was for consumption.
"We’re losing height." Luna said in a volume louder than usual.
"I know, I’m about to perform an emergency landing." Medusa said, gripping on the wheel with all of her ascended might.
"Isn’t that the same as crashing?" Uriel asked, not really seeking for an answer.
"Good luck everyone!" Nika said as she slowly disappeared inside Uriel’s shadow.
"Nikaaaa!!!" He shouted in anger as, yet again, Nika disappeared once things became grim. He knew that getting angry at her for lookiing out for herself was unreasonable, but the easygoing attitude she carried whenever she ran away always irked him.
"Where should I land?" Medusa asked, her eyes set on the ground that drew closer each passing second.
"Hang on a second." Uriel activated his Dash skill in order to have more time to study their options. Now that he was a heavenly rank, time seemed to pass even slower than when he activated Dash as an ascended, which was really fortunate in their current situation.
To the east there was nothing but sea, they couldn’t head west because that was where they came from and heading north blindly was too risky, considering they didn’t know the location of any megacities in their continent.
It was no coincidence that regular citizens didn’t know their location, since the few people that traveled to one city to another kept their trade routes a secret from everyone and even the government wasn’t interested in teaching geography in school. In fact, they went through great lengths to keep their citizens from travelling to other megacities because of how dangerous it was.
Wealthier people, though, were able to come and go from cities as long as they had the money to buy the tickets. But very few among them even cared about the names of the cities they visited and usually referred to them by the code on their tickets.
Because of all that, when Uriel saw the lights of a city at a distance he didn’t know its name. All he knew was that it was most certainly in what used to be the state of Lousiana. He might have been able to throw an educated guess, but megacities didn’t always correlate to cities of the past.
In fact, he knew that part of his megacity used to be called Houston, but that was only because he happened to stumble upon the Houston Space Center.
"Try to get us as close as you can to those lights."
"Alright, but I’ll need a bit of help with this." Medusa said, having trouble to keep the wheel on place. Both Luna and Uriel grabbed the wheel with force without realizing that it wasn’t made of orichalcum but regular alloy. It didn’t break, but the force applied caused the metal to bend, rendering it useless.
"Oh crap." Was all Uriel managed to say before crashing. 𝓃𝓸𝓿𝓹𝓾𝓫.𝓬ℴ𝓶
The sound of the, not so elegant, emergency landing rippled across the wilderness, startling the forest and causing many winged creatures to fly away. Some of them were captured by sneaky predators who waited for prey from the tops of the trees, others managed to escape.
It wasn’t everyday that an object that large fell from the sky and it had the same effect destroying an anthill would, it was pure and utter chaos.
***
"Is it confirmed?" Sam asked in his pitch black office where even cryptids couldn’t see a thing, but thanks to his trait he was able to see clear as day.
"Yes, my lord. Shall we pursue them?" Mark, the hybrid representative of both eclipses and vampires asked.
"There’s no need for that, we’ll get them in due time. Now all we have to do is wait for the holy rank hunter to return."
"I don’t understand why did you let them call back the holy rank hunter. I think it will only make things more difficult for us." Mark’s words echoed in the dark, but no reply came his way. What happened instead, was a powerful fist to his gut that left him wheezing on the ground in spite of his hybrid nature.
Sam’s fist carried not only the force of a heavenly rank hunter, but also the might of the cosmic being that dwelled within him.
"I don’t like you, you’re only here because you’re an oddity, a freak of nature. You’re the first hybrid between three species, but if you don’t learn to keep your mouth shut you’ll also be the last." The room was lit up suddenly in a bright golden light that came from both Sam’s eyes and also his back.
The pale shadow cast on the wall behind him resembled the shape of a pair of wings, but Mark was too busy enduring the pain to even notice.
"I- I understand." Mark let out in a broken voice.
"Now, how are things with Tina?" Sam asked once the room became dark again and Mark hurried to reply without even daring to stand back up.
"She’s being stubborn, but if you give me some more time I’ll get her to cooperate with us."
"We don’t need her cooperation, we just need her father’s approval. Just how worthless are you? You’re losing to Uriel even when he’s nowhere near the city."
"Can’t we," Mark hesitated before asking his question, but decided to proceed anyway. "can’t we ask a hybrid to impersonate Uriel and seduce her?"
"You still don’t get it... It’s not just about gaining access to the Celes technology company. I want to break his memory, I want for everyone he knows to forget about him, I want him to lose everything and then some more!" Sam’s voice became louder as he spoke, but Mark wasn’t intimidated this time.
Sam’s objective was one he could adhere, even if he hated him, he hated Uriel even more.
