“Well then, we’ll see you either in a few hours, or roughly a month,” Nathym mentioned one final time as a reminder and farewell before their departure.
Drim grabbed the hand that was raised for a shake, ignoring the original gesture to instead pull his friend in for a hug. “And you will make it back!” The king essentially ordered as he patted the man on the back.
“Yes we will,” The Engineer assured him as he broke away, joining the rest of the crew. Applause erupted from all the members that had come to watch the launch as the four Fiends boarded the elevator up to the space shuttle. It really added to the reality of it all, that the mission was actually happening, along with the deep importance of it. Everything the Fiends For Hire had been working for hinged on their success. No matter what it took, they needed to return with Nathyum.
“Y’know, I’m not feeling as nervous as I thought I’d be,” Senli mused as she took her seat in the shuttle and began strapping herself in. “I guess it’s because of all of the training we did.” Suddenly the past few days felt very validating.
“Well, I imagine that’s a part of it,” Xard agreed as he strapped himself in on the other side. His and Ahvra’s seats were actually back-to-back with Senli and Nathym’s as opposed to the standard row of seats because of the special propulsion they needed to perform with the drive-core. Unfortunately for them, it meant they wouldn’t be able to witness the majesty of ascending into space, so Nathym had installed mirrors for them to get an alternative perspective.
Once the redhead finished with his fasteners and adjusted the mirror to his liking, he added, “But Nathym also had Wental apply a calming effect to our suits. It should help us keep our heads during the worst of this.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” Senli nodded along. “Wait, couldn’t he have done that during our training too?!” She knew why he didn’t, so they’d experience the torment in all its raw agony, and grow used to it properly, but it was still annoying in hindsight.
Nathym ignored the criticism, helping strap Ahvra into her seat. The small woman was required to be in her child-like form for the warp jump so she wouldn’t need to split focus in using her Curse. But as a result, it meant that she couldn’t secure all of her bindings herself and needed someone else to ensure they were snug on her body. Really, it was a ride that someone of her size shouldn’t have been allowed on in the first place, but they had to make concessions.
The Widdle Witch also had to cut her big ball of hair or the space helmet wouldn’t fit over her head. It’d grow back with just one age adjustment, but having it so short now made her look all the more child-like. Senli had hers trimmed a bit as well, but she was due anyways, and just had to tie it back into a bun to make it fit comfortably.
With Ahvra out of the way, Nathym went over to the two others and did a quick spotcheck of their straps. Satisfied, the man finally sat in his seat, clicking every belt and restraint in place. When he was finished, Senli reached over to give them a tug, returning the favor.
Every physical safety check had been completed, but The Engineer still had to confirm all the readings. He began flipping switches one at a time, going over every gauge. Unlike other rocket launches where the crew was entirely off-site and managing things from a command center, their flight would be triggered in person. This was because everyone qualified to do such a thing was already sitting in the cockpit. Though Rusa did have a kill switch on the outside if they observed something erroneous.
As the massive machine started to whir around them, the mission and their impending voyage started feeling very real. Senli felt a bit of anxiety well up in her, staring at the ignition, waiting for it to light up and indicate the point of no return. But her nerves dispersed a second later, her mood regulated by her suit.
It seemed the rocket itself caught onto the girl’s worries, and it did its best to alleviate any fears. 🚀Hey now, what’s with that look on your face? I’ll get you there, straight up into space!🚀 Hearing that right from the source definitely did help a bit, but the girl still couldn’t help from clenching herself to her seat.
“I’m going to start the countdown,” Nathym informed him once every system was engaged. A timer began ticking in their helmets and floated in front of the main window. With every decreased number, wave after wave of new emotion surged into everyone onboard. There was no turning back.
In the last few seconds, the various engines started to rev, building power. Zero flashed in front of them, and then there was blastoff. It was surprisingly slow at first, but quickly built speed. Compared to what they’d experienced in the training pod, though, it barely felt like anything at all. Hell, Senli had been on kiddy rides in front of grocery stores with more motion, on one of the rare occasions at the orphanage where they’d had spare change.
But that orphan’s life had completely changed, and now she was an astronaut. It basically brought tears to her eyes, or that could have been the forces. But she did hear an audible sniff over the radio, knowing it came from the seat next to her. Nathym was experiencing one of his lifelong dreams, and it warmed everyone’s hearts to see, not that they could easily look away from the spectacle.
The sky quickly faded away, rolling into blackness, but then reilluminated by the dotting stars in the distance. It was certainly odd seeing them out so early in the day, but they were breathtakingly beautiful, no longer distorted by the interference of Rathe’s atmosphere.
And the effects of the zero gravity were surprisingly immediate. Even though they were strapped well into their seats, the band of space explorers noticed the shift and feeling of weightlessness. Sadly, both the view and the feeling were short lived experiences, because even though they’d already done what most humans could only dream of, it was just the start of their journey.
Nathym got to work right away, starting the program to aim the rocket towards the appropriate coordinates. When they were locked into place, he pressed a button that unveiled the cover to the drive core, and an energy input slid out towards the two Fiends sitting in the back, prompting them to begin the procedure.
Ahvra started first, focusing her power on Xard’s hand. There were no mirrors in the front for Senli to see what was happening behind her, but the reflection in the window proved useful. As if the awe of infinite space in front of her wasn’t enough, she got to witness something else incredible.
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The time around Xard’s hand began visibly distorting—phantoms of the appendage’s past and future began writhing around it, sizes and structure from all ages—his hand as a baby, and what it would be as an elder, stretching and flexing into different poses throughout his life.
There was a reason why she was specifically targeting his hand instead of just aging him up like normal, even though the process was magnitudes more difficult for The Witch. First, it was to remove the age restriction. Ahvra normally couldn’t age someone past 105 years for whatever reason, but if she just targeted his hand, her Curse merely counted it as flesh rather than a living entity, and she could age it as much as she needed.
While the amount of time that needed to pass was just barely within that 105 range, it would mean deaging Xard in the first place to that of a young child. And no matter how much of a compliant child the young Artillery may be, they couldn’t trust such an important task to an undeveloped mind.
And the inverse was also true, if Ahvra aged his entire being, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t lose focus during the energy transfer. Even though it was a split second, mentally, it would be that entire span of time, though the man wouldn’t remember it. His hand, however, was unwavering and strong, and it’d see the job done no matter how long it took.
Xard placed his palm against the energy receiver. He didn’t take off his glove since his suit had been specially modified to allow energy to flow out of it, similar to his combat uniform. Another countdown then displayed in their helmets. They couldn’t risk someone counting themselves. It had to be perfectly in sync, or they’d either go nowhere, or miss their target entirely.
The countdown hit zero, and so did the numbers etched into Xard’s left arm. All that stored energy, every single Kinet, gone at once. And then it felt like a bomb went off behind them, but they didn’t lurch forward. Rather it felt like they were sitting completely still and that it was space itself warping around them.
Stars turned to streaks of indecipherable light, morphed and replaced with new dots in the distance. The same soul-splitting feeling ravaged the girl’s body. It wasn’t as intense as during training, she guessed because of the stabilizers. However, it also went on for much longer.
Senli’s mind started going blank, and she couldn’t move a muscle. Nothing was responding, and it felt like her very existence was going to dissolve—absorbed into the void of space. But then just as fast as the warp had begun, it came slamming to a halt. The loose essences of her soul slammed back into her, completing her once more.
“Are you alright?” Nathym asked as soon as his mouth could physically form the words, checking up on her.
“Yeah, I think so,” Senli couldn’t quite make out her own face in the windshield’s reflection, but it didn’t look like she was bleeding out of anywhere, and she didn’t feel the wet trickles on her face. “How are they?” she craned her neck back, trying to look at those behind her, but both were slumped over in their seats. “Nathym, they’re…!”
Senli was ready to spring into action, like they were one of the children she cared for, but her suit calmed her down, and brought her back to a level head.
“Take a breath,” The Engineer instructed her. “Look, you can see their vitals in your visor. They’re just unconscious. This much was expected. Let’s land, and then we’ll take care of them.”
“R-right,” The Eavesdropper refocused, looking out the window, taken aback by the splendor in front of her. In her panic, she hadn’t even fully realized that they’d accomplished their goal, and an entirely new planet was floating right in front of them.
Unlike Rathe, which was mostly water with one single continent, this planet, P2, looked almost like solid rock. Yet, it was positively green. Nathym had mentioned coral, but nothing else about any other plant life. Maybe it was covered in some kind of moss? Well, there was no point in speculating when she’d have her answers soon.
The Engineer began the landing procedure, and going down was a lot smoother than coming up. They had never actually practiced this part in their training, perhaps because of its decreased discomfort, but that still didn’t mean it was exactly pleasant. It was like they were on an elevator and the cable snapped.
The window was pointed away from the planet as they descended. So instead of watching the stars getting closer, now Senli got to watch them drift away. The actual landing was surprisingly stable, basically the same feeling as parking a car, and it was a bit weird seeing Nathym unbuckle his belts and jump right to his feet as soon as they were on solid ground.
It felt a bit anticlimactic, as if it was a stop along the road trip, and now it was time to stretch their legs. But the girl did the same, undoing all of her straps and pulling herself upright. Unlike the man who was inspecting various gauges, she rushed behind her to check on their two fellow passengers.
Ahvra looked like she was conked out for a good long nap, as did Xard, but there was one major difference. “Ah, his hand is bleeding!” she picked it up to inspect it, pulling off his glove drenched with liquid soaking into the fabric. But then she flinched when she saw his flesh.
The hand was so old and decrepit, like it would shatter to dust if the girl applied too much force. But it was to be expected, she supposed, since it had been aged almost a century. Just as the girl was about to grab a medkit to treat the injury, there were grumbles in the seat, and the man started to wake up.
“Senli, can you pull that handle please,” Nathym cut into the girls worrying, pointing towards something on her side.
“Err, right!” she grabbed one of the levers and pulled it, releasing a lock that was preventing the rocket from transforming. The girl then stood back, watching the area shift around her. Everything whirred and compressed and then stretched out again. The cockpit turned into a living quarters, and their seats converted to bunks.
“I’ll be in here running some scans,” Nathym called from the other room that had spawned, a sort of mobile laboratory. “If you’d help them get comfortable.”
“Yes, I can do that!” The Eavesdropper assured him and began her tasks. She noticed that Xard’s hand had started to heal already, though slower than normal Fiend regeneration, likely due to its age, so she let him be for now and moved over to Ahvra. The young-looking girl was out cold, looking like she wouldn’t wake for days, but from what Senli understood, that was fairly normal. This meant all she could do though was unhook Ahvra from her straps and get her situated in her bunk.
The girl then returned to Xard with a medkit and began treating his wounds. His entire palm had been shredded, so there was barely any skin left, but she did her best. The redhead continued his grunts back to consciousness, failing a few times and starting again. Just as he seemed to finally be coming to, a new voice whispered into her ears: the planet itself.
🟢You there human, lend me your ear. From one quick look, you’re not from here. One of Rathe’s children, we welcome our guest. But why have you come? What is your quest?🟢
🟢Though your intentions, we do not know, you may call us fools, but we see no foe. It is nice to be heard, it is nice to speak, and lucky for, us you don’t seem weak.🟢
🟢We’ll warn you now, this is a dangerous place, so do not doddle, no you should race. Our voice will guide you, we will not lie. Heed our words, or you will die.🟢