A thin black line appeared on the deck of the Ten Skies, spreading to the sides to form a black portal to the Plane of Darkness. Vaska flew through the portal, nearly falling face-first on the deck. Several Marines lunged forward and caught the Imperial Princess. The portal closed.

Vaska was completely soaked in blood.

Ingrid ran forward and fell to her knees, pulling Vaska from the arms of the Marines. "Vaska," she said. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Vaska muttered. "They knew. Somehow, they knew."

"Who else knew?" Ingrid asked. "Just the Feathers." She pulled Vaska up, using her own body as a giant pillow. Medics ran at them with a stretcher.

"No, the Feathers are loyal. They know about Titania," Vaska said. "The enemy must have contemplated my intentions. They may also know where my workshop is."

The medics set the stretcher down and began the process of lifting Vaska onto it. Ingrid had never seen such professionalism in her hometown. The two burly men lifted the stretcher effortlessly and began to sprint across the deck. Ingrid followed them as they deftly carried the Princess through the narrow hallways of the airship, and the child Ashe trotted behind her. The periodic bulkheads seemed to cause the child some trouble.

"The men on this airship," Vaska rasped, "are loyal. My workshop is in the Plane of Wind, you see. Places... places where the wind blows one direction... makes a great place to test. They must have surmised this... Glenice knows where the workshop is. Rescue... the engineers..." Vaska lost consciousness.

In the medical bay, the physicians began to cut away her clothes. Ingrid's eyes were fixed on her body as they did so, searching frantically for injuries. There were a few scratches, and some bruises, however nothing to justify her blood-soaked clothing. They flipped her on one side, with a similar conclusion.

"She looks unharmed," one physician said. Another physician, a woman, spread a sheet across Vaska's naked body.

"She may have overused her bond," Ingrid said. "Knocked herself out."

"Here," the woman said, handing Ingrid three crystals. "She had these hiding in her clothes."

Ingrid instantly recognized them as keystones to the Elemental Plane of Lightning. They were covered in sweat. The woman went to a basin to wash her hands.

"You have them," Ashe said. "She will not wake up for many days I'm afraid. The Firstborn agrees with me on that."

"We will prepare her for a long sleep then," the female physician said. The men left and more women shuffled into the room.

"Your enemy knows you have the crystals as well," Ashe said. "Which means they may be waiting for you inside."

Ingrid looked to the physician. "She is in good hands," the woman said.

Ingrid turned to leave. "Is it possible to bond one of the High Daughters without being awake?" she asked.

"You would have to ask the Queen," Ashe said.

"We will open a portal immediately, then."

When Ingrid arrived on the deck, she began issuing commands. "Prepare my fighter. Notify the Captain and the Admiral that the gate needs to be opened immediately. Where are the Marines?"

Soldiers began to scurry about to pass on her orders. Soon one of the Marines found her. "Yes, Lady Ghost, what do you need?" he asked.

"Find Glenice. She knows where Vaska's workshop is. Vaska is afraid that the enemy also knows where it is. Rescue the engineers, save as many of the designs as you can, and then destroy the workshop. I want all the Marines deployed for this task, with an escort of fighters large enough to protect you."

"I will go to Glenice then," the Marine said. He turned and left.

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One of the Ten Skies airmen found her and led her to the fighter jet. It was busy being taxied out closer to the runway. There were no Dark-Three missiles on the wings, instead there was a full allotment of Ice-Two missiles. When the pilot left the airplane, he handed her a sack of crystals. There were far, far more crystals than normal, but no dark crystals. "Why are there so many?" Ingrid asked.

"Vaska's orders. We need redundant crystals in case one of them stops working. We wouldn't want to lose the engine while coming in for a landing. Could end up in a flat spin that way."

As Ingrid climbed the ladder, Ashe said: "I need to stay close to you. Is there room for a child inside?"

Ingrid scanned the cramped cabin. "I'm afraid not."

"Very well," Ashe said with a shrug. She closed her eyes, and then became pure shadow. Her entire body became a void in space, an absolute darkness that spread out around her in a shifting mass of darkening clouds. She grew wings in the shape of a butterfly, and then she shrank to the size of a bird. The shadows dispersed, and color returned to the tiny child.

She fluttered up into the cabin and landed on Ingrid's shoulder. Ingrid could feel the tiny weight of the miniature child. With the exception of the wings on her back, which appeared to be patterned purple and red like stained glass, she otherwise looked identical to how she had looked before. Frilly black dress, black hair, pouting face...

"What are you?" Ingrid asked.

"I am half of a goddess, you stupid bag of organs."

"Why do you look like a child?"

"How should I know!? Your kind did this to me!"

"You can grow wings and shrink yourself... but you are stuck looking like a child?"

"Why is that so confusing?"

The edge of the portal, when it finally opened, was pale yellow. Ingrid waited in a circle outside and peered through while the scouts flew inside. Beyond the portal was a dim sky of mostly storm clouds and rain, and the ground appeared to be smooth stone formations, canyons, deserts, rivers and lakes. There did not appear to be any life inside, no green at all. A single, distant yellow moon moved slowly through the sky.

"That moon looks like it is moving very, very fast," Ashe said.

"It looks slow to me," Ingrid said.

"But it is huge and far away, you idiot."

The scouts gave their report: "No signs of life inside. There is also no lightning at all. Just rain and storm clouds, and it is easy to fly above those clouds. The ground appears to be a desert of some sort. There are many canyons and rivers."

Ingrid frowned. "No lightning? That doesn't make any sense. Are we sure this is the correct Elemental Plane?"

Elizabeth's voice interjected next: "We have a visual report from our high-magnification telescope. The moon inside the portal is traveling through the sky at millions of miles an hour. Our navigators agree. The moon will impact the planet in less than twenty minutes, or at least come very, very close."

"Oh, I think I understand what the Queen was thinking," Ashe said. "You should tell the scouts to come back outside. Leave the portal open, and enjoy the show from out here."

Ashe proved to be correct. Ingrid deployed full flaps and flew around just above stall speed to get a better view inside the portal as the moon was about to "impact" the world inside. As Ashe had said, the moon was moving extremely fast, and began to dominate the horizon. It grew and grew, and then skimmed the sky, vanishing out of sight beyond the rim of the portal.

As it did so, there was lightning. Millions and millions of planet sized bolts of lightning connected the two worlds, striking down from the moon as it passed. The lightning was so bright and so intense that Ingrid needed to look away to protect her eyes. The light escaping from the portal was enough to create opposing shadows of the fighter jets still parked on the decks of the fleet's airships. The sky dimmed, and the lightning went away a few seconds after the moon had vanished from view.

Minutes passed, and there was no more lightning. The scouts flew back into the portal. Ingrid followed them.

There were no clouds, no rivers, and no lakes. The desert ground below was clearly visible, and the clouds seemed to have moved far, far up into the sky, accumulating in a dark, inverted ocean. Ingrid flew close to the ground, and could more clearly see that it was steaming slightly. The moon, which had just passed overhead, was now shrinking off into the starry night sky. In spite of the darkness of the sky, the ground was like a desert at midday, lit by some unseen sun.

The Ten Skies slowly and cautiously entered the portal. More observations were made of the moon, and the navigators determined that the moon would orbit the "planet" component of this Elemental Plane once every eighty minutes or so. The storm clouds began to descend and the rain threatened to become so heavy that even the fighter jets needed to escape to the outside world. One of the fighters, without access to ocular demons, ended up getting lost in the rain and impacting a canyon wall. He screamed just before his communicator cut off.

The airship had just enough time to loop around and leave, and Ingrid used this opportunity to line up for a landing. As her wheels touched the runway, she could see the moon in the mirrors over her head. It was moving slowly through the sky.

"You are going to need to time this perfectly," Ashe said.

"Maybe not?" Ingrid said. "This Elemental Plane seems somewhat hostile. Do you think the enemy will even bother to send anything in here to try and stop us?" What if we just waited for Vaska to wake up.

"Do not underestimate my sister," Ashe said. "What if she sends in those eight dead people to fly around in the lightning storm looking for us?"

Ingrid taxied back to a parking spot and shut down the fighter. The airship cleared the portal not too long after, and the scouts began to line up for their landings. Ingrid sighed. "Maybe you are right. We should come up with a timing that works."