EPISODE XXV

Stormbringer, Part 2

Rin and Emma were walking through a round corridor aboard the star aliens’ ship. Rin guessed it was probably some kind of crawlspace for the star aliens, but since they were rather large, two girls could walk through it leisurely.

Every now and then, they felt the ship shake.

“W-what do you think that is?” Emma asked.

“Dunno,” Rin said. “This is an alien spaceship, for all we know tremors are normal.”

“Oh… um… I guess…”

“What we need to do is find a way off this thing.”

“W-well, Amaris got out…”

“By repurposing a broken missile she thought was an escape pod. I don’t think that’ll work for us.”

“Then what do we do?”

Rin took in a sharp breath. “I. Have no idea. I don’t want to risk trying to go back through the door, the star aliens are all over that place, and there’s the monster they’re fighting.”

“Then… maybe we can find another door?”

“I don’t trust those doors.”

“I don’t either.” Emma wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “But the star aliens aren’t just gonna let us go…” Emma sniffed. “What are we going to do…?”

“Keep moving until we find something,” Rin said.

“Do… do you really think we will?”

Rin stopped walking. “...Yeah. Of course we will.” She looked back at Emma and gave her a smile.

Emma saw right through her lie and burst into tears.

“Emma! Emma, you need to calm down! Emma!” Rin grabbed Emma by the shoulders and shook her.

“W-we’re gonna die…”

“That wouldn’t be interesting!”

“We aren’t Amaris!”

Rin paled.

“We’re just two kids without any magic on an alien spaceship!” Emma shook her head back and forth rapidly and stuck her hands into her hair. “There’s nothing we can do, they’ll just disintegrate us, we’ll never see our families again—”

Rin slapped Emma. The girl fell back and stared up at Rin in shock.

“If you don’t get ahold of yourself we are going to die!” Rin shouted, a hiss coming from the back of her throat. Her tail twitched angrily.

Emma just stared back at her.

“Emma, get up. We can’t just stay here.”

Slowly, Emma nodded. With very shaky legs, she stood up. She lifted her eyes to Rin’s.

Rin couldn’t understand her expression. “...Emma?”

Emma smiled softly… and then took off in a run back the way they had come.

“What in the…? Emma!” Rin sprinted after her. Emma was nowhere near fast enough to outrun Rin—she was easily tackled to the ground. “What are you doing!?”

“L-let me go…” Emma whimpered, tears rolling down her face. “I… I’m putting you in danger… I need to get away…”

“How stupid are you!?”

“Stupid enough to get you killed!”

“No, not like that! Agh, Emma, I swear, you’re impossible!” Rin pulled Emma to her feet, forcing her to stand and look Rin in the eyes. “Amaris is a danger to us, but we don’t let her hide herself away. The same applies to you.”

Emma blinked. “Wh…”

“We are in this together, even if you are an absolute burden. Do you hear me?”

Emma nodded slowly.

“Now, can we keep moving and try to get out of this place?” Without shouting and letting everyone know where we are?

“O-okay…”

Rin made sure her hand was planted firmly on Emma’s wrist as she walked forward. She didn’t want to take any chances that Emma would have another freakout, not right now.

Unfortunately, she forgot to look where she was walking and stepped on a loose panel. It gave way under her weight and the two of them fell down to another level, crashing into what appeared to be boxes but gave way like soft plushies.

“What is with these aliens and the weird cuteness?” Rin muttered, pulling herself out of the plush pile.

“I have nightmares like this…” Emma shivered.

“Yeah, well—shh!” Rin grabbed Emma’s hand and pressed a finger to her mouth. I just heard one of them talking.

Rin slowly poked her head around a corner, looking at a large room filled with pipes, cables, and slowly rotating star-shaped constructs. There was a single star alien there, muttering in cute springy noises as it tapped one of its appendages to a hovering display. As it did so, the sounds of churning fluid in the pipes shifted.

Some kind of control system… Rin narrowed her eyes.

A jarringly red downward-facing triangle appeared in the middle of the display the star alien was looking at. It spoke in the same language as the star aliens, but the voice was clearly synthetic, with buzzes and pops. The star alien nodded at whatever the triangle had said and moved to another pipe, smacking it with an appendage.

Rin glanced back at Emma. Her eyes were open wide and she was absolutely terrified, but at least she wasn’t trying to run or scream.

Emma… Rin shook her head. Who was she kidding? She was terrified as well, she had no idea what they were going to do, and if she had to bet she would say there was no way they made it out of this alive. Even if Emma wasn’t here, Rin had no clue what to do. She just knew that if there was a chance… she couldn’t give in to it.

Not that she wasn’t in danger of doing so.

She may have had more experience, but she was still just a kid, and she knew it.

Time to do some growing up… let’s hope I get to see what comes of this.

~~~

“...I think I’ve seen seven wrecked cars,” Taylor said. “...That’s a lot.”

“The storm is getting ridiculous,” Nina said, gripping the steering wheel extremely tightly. “People dumb enough to be out here are dumb enough to crash.”

“That includes us.”

Nina laughed nervously. “I’m well aware, but we have to get to ORHI somehow, don’t we?”

“Just… be careful.”

“I am. And hey, at least now there are no other cars on the road! Nothing to crash into!”

Taylor’s eyes widened. “Nina… none of the wrecked cars I saw were with another car. They crashed on their own.”

“Always one car…” Nina frowned. “That doesn’t sound right…”

Lightning struck a lamppost nearby, sending a thundering boom into their ears that deafened them temporarily. Nina’s course did not deviate; she kept her eyes glued to the lines on the road, the one thing she could rely on. They were highly visible with nothing more than headlights illuminating them, as proper highway paint should be.

“We’re almost there,” Nina said once she was sure Taylor’s ears had recovered.

Taylor nodded, still keeping her eyes peeled for anything and everything that might go wrong.

Unfortunately, even excellent eyes couldn’t do anything about a lightning strike.

The bolt hit the car’s top. As it was a convertible top it mostly wasn’t metal, which meant the majority of the material immediately burnt to a crisp and became ash in the storm. The rain and weather was now able to enter the car, but that was the least of their worries. Electricity was now arcing from the various dials and instruments on the dash, jumping to other parts of the car, including Taylor and Nina.

“Augh!” Taylor cried out in pain as she was zapped. She was about to say something else when she realized Nina had slumped back into her chair. Arcs of electricity were still arcing to her.

Taylor tore her seatbelt out of its lock with a strength she would not have been able to muster a few weeks ago, throwing her body over top of Nina’s. This forced the electricity to arc into her first, which burnt her skin in complex forking patterns.

Fortunately for her, she didn’t need a functional nervous system anymore. Technically didn’t even have one in the first palace.

However, now she needed to keep the car from crashing while awkwardly splayed on top of Nina and being continually zapped by rogue charge. She howled in agony as she fumbled for the brake, managing to slam her foot down on it.

The car didn’t slow down. In fact, it was speeding up.

Taylor started muttering to herself, but another arc made her cry out rather than complete her complaint. She gripped the steering wheel with one hand and twisted it to the side. Somehow, the steering still worked, and she was able to keep them from running off the road. Swerving side to side, her mind raced. How can I slow this car down!?

Thunder struck nearby, illuminating the distant scene just enough. She recognized the silhouette of ORHI Headquarters. She knew there was a very large parking lot next to it that had basically no cars in it. She could try something there. If she could get there, taking a turn at this speed was going to be… nightmarish.

But it was the only option she could think of. Taking the road was not an option, that was too sharp of a turn. She twisted the wheel to the right, slamming into the curb and leaving the ground for a moment. A powerful surge of lightning left the bottom of her car and entered the ground.

Pretty sure that violates physics…

The car landed with a sickening crunch that pried the front bumper completely off. Taylor had idly hoped the engine would just break, but no, it kept working just fine. The grassy terrain slowed the car down considerably, but nowhere near enough.

She left the grass and skidded into the parking lot.

Okay, here we go…

She started turning in a sharper and sharper arc. She knew how this worked from her many hours in racing games. Sure, this was far different, but a simple fact remained—turning slowed you down. The tighter the turn, the slower you got. Trying to turn too sharply was a recipe for flipping a car over at high speed, but if she could force a slow down by turning tighter and tighter…

Well, it certainly worked, but she eventually hit the minimum turn radius of the convertible, and it was still going pretty fast. Even now that she had a good grip on the wheel, Taylor didn’t trust her ability to jump out with Nina like this. She needed to come to a stop.

Lightning struck again. The ORHI building was right there.

Taylor got a terrible idea.

“Here go—AUGH!” She quickly hissed through the pain once again, allowing the car’s turn radius to widen slightly. She approached the ORHI building from the left. Gritting her teeth, she adjusted the car’s course to barely touch the edge of the building.

The side mirror flew clean off. Sparks flew as metal scraped against the wall. The sheer amount of friction slowed the car down immensely—Taylor almost flew out the front. But she kept her grip fast, making sure to keep the car’s path steady as it was slowly forced to a stop as it shredded away.

Eventually, something fundamental broke, and the car could no longer accelerate. It came to a stop.

Taylor wasted no time. She kicked the driver’s door open and dragged Nina out.

“What on earth are you doing!?” she heard Kirishima shout.

“Stay away from the car!” Taylor shouted. “It’s infected with lightning or something!”

Kirishima’s voice came back. “Get inside! This way!”

Taylor finally pinpointed the source of her voice, turning to see her in an open doorway on the building’s side.

“Holy mother of… Taylor, your eyes!”

“I don’t care about my eyes!” Taylor shouted, running at Kirishima. “Nina needs help!”

“Just get in!” Taylor ran into the door, finding herself in one of the building’s side hallways. Kirishima and Iwakiri were both there, holding flashlights. They slammed one of the doors open for Taylor, revealing an abandoned office of some kind that no one was using.

Taylor set Nina on the table.

Iwakiri checked her pulse. “Heart’s not beating.”

“What!?” Taylor shouted.

Kirishima took in a sharp breath. “Stand back, Taylor!” She jumped on top of the table and cracked her knuckles, placing them firmly on NIna’s chest. She pressed down hard. Taylor heard something snap. While she was doing this, Iwakiri leaned in and did mouth-to-mouth.

The two of them had clearly done this before.

Taylor could only hold her hands to her mouth and watch, wincing every time as Kirishima pressed down harder and harder.

Please, not this, not after all this! I… I’d never be able to look Amaris in the eyes again…

“Come on!” Kirishima shouted. “Nina, wake up! Wake—”

Nina suddenly took in a sharp breath of air, and then whimpered as her lungs pushed against her broken ribs.

“Just breathe, don’t do anything else, breathe,” Kirishima said, pulling back from Nina. “I know it hurts, it’s gonna hurt for a while, but breathe.”

Nina took extremely slow, shaky breaths—but take them she did, and reliably as well. “Th-thank you…” she managed.

Taylor finally forced herself to breathe calmly. She sat down on a nearby chair. “Good… that’s… good.”

“Now we need to look at you,” Kirishima said, turning to Taylor.

“Me?”

“Your eyes are glowing. It’s dissipating, but when I first saw you it looked like you had headlights.”

Taylor held her hand up to her eye, finding that she was somehow illuminating it. But she also found that there were crisscrossing patterns of burnt skin from all the lightning. She rolled up her sleeve, finding that the marks extended all the way up her arm.

“Your face is clean,” Iwakiri said.

“The electricity never struck there…” Taylor said, frowning. “None of this… is ever going to heal.” She lifted up her shirt to examine her midriff, finding that the marks of lightning extended through there as well, right across her central wound from the tree monster. “...Richard…” She wrapped her arms around herself and started shivering.

Iwakiri frowned. “I don’t think we need to worry about her injuries.”

Kirishima frowned. “Zombie or no, eventually her body will take enough of a beating that it can’t function, right?”

“It already shouldn’t function.”

Kirishima crossed her arms. “Now, I’ve got an important question. Taylor, what on earth were you two doing out in this storm!?”

“We needed to get here!” Taylor’s eyes widened as she remembered. “Alien creatures are invading! They look like five-pointed yellow stars with faces!”

Iwakiri’s eyes widened. “I saw those in Amaris’ notebooks. She’s encountered them before.”

“What do we know about them?”

That had been a new voice. The four of them slowly turned to see none other than General Mason standing in the doorway.

“...What are you doing here?” Kirishima asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Communication is being jammed and the government was acting mighty suspicious and paranoid before it did. They weren’t telling me something.” General Mason narrowed his eyes. “It sounds like you can. Being invaded, you say? Tell me everything you can.”

Iwakiri glanced at his sister.

Kirishima sighed. “Amaris considers him a friend, she’ll probably be mad if we don’t cooperate. Plus, we’re not in any situation to do much about an alien invasion, maybe he is.”

Iwakiri nodded. “In that case… Amaris doesn’t talk much about Star Buddy, but you can find the story in her notebooks… I’ll get them for you, she’s diagrammed as much as she could remember.”

~~~

As it turned out, the location of the StormFlyer was in the database, it just took forever for Scarlet to find it. It was housed at the nearby airport, in one of the hangars. They didn’t know which one, but presumably it was going to be one with a lot of security.

Then Jenny and Scarlet had to brave the storm walking to the airport. What should have taken maybe twenty minutes took well over an hour. The wind speeds were getting extreme and no umbrella stopped the nearly vertically moving rain anymore. Jenny eventually resorted to using wind punches to counteract the onslaught of air.

This was making her quite exhausted. By the time they actually reached the airport, she was breathing heavily and had to lean against one of the airport’s warehouses to catch her breath.

“Appreciate the storm cover,” Scarlet said.

“You… are… welcome…” Jenny gasped. “Good gravy, if it gets much stronger…”

“That’s why we have to find the StormFlyer.”

“Yeah… Yeah…” Jenny sucked in a breath. “So, how are we sneaking in?”

“The storm’s covering our approach, we just have to check every hangar.”

Lightning struck the warehouse they were next to, but at this point, the rain was so thick they didn’t see anything nearby except vague shadows.

“This is going to take a while,” Jenny sighed.

“Might as well get started.”

They ran through the rain to the closest hangar. The doors were locked, but a quick punch from Jenny opened them right up. The first one just had normal airplanes in it. Ones that definitely couldn’t fly in this weather.

The same result awaited them at the next two hangars.

The fourth hangar, however…

It was almost completely destroyed. One of the walls had caved in, and numerous holes were bored into the parts that were still standing. Wet ash piled up in the interior, and there were blobs of metal that indicated parts of the structure had melted.

Jenny stared for a moment. “What happened here?”

Scarlet crossed her arms. “If I had to bet… it was attacked. Deliberately.”

“Geez, maybe they knew about the StormFlyer?”

Scarlet jumped over the lower part of the collapsed wall, looking inside. “I think they were going after all the military planes.”

Sure enough, there were dozens of military planes in the hangar. Some of them appeared to have escaped the onslaught, but most of them were broken beyond usefulness. Holes bored in wings, engines vaporized, and some were even partially melted. Those that hadn’t been destroyed were now suffering from water damage and exposure to the elements. Not that any of them could be flown out with any reliability, as the hangar doors were buckled.

“Guess we don’t have to sneak in, then,” Jenny observed.

“It may not even be operational…”

They passed between rows and rows of damaged plane after plane, most of them identical. However, at the very back of the hangar, there was something else.

A plane-sized gray box with a massive electric lock on it.

“...Well, that’s probably it,” Jenny said. She held up a fist, charging it with electricity.

“Let’s be more careful,” Scarlet observed. “It could be trapped or attached to an alarm system.”

“There’s no way you know how to open it.”

“Well. No…”

“Then lock smashing time it is.” Jenny rammed her fist into the electric lock. It broke immediately, and red lights started flashing nearby while several extremely loud airhorns went off. Obviously, this was the alarm, but with power down and communications jammed, there was nowhere for the message to go beyond the hangar.

Jenny smashed all of the lights and horns. It took a few minutes, but the hangar returned to… well not silence, the storm outside was still banging the building like a metallic drum, but at least the noise was bearable.

Scarlet rubbed her ears. “The alarm probably isn’t off.”

“It’s not annoying me anymore.” With the lock removed, Jenny could pry open the massive box. Once she flipped one side open, the others followed suit.

The plane on the inside was a sight to behold. It was bright blue with white zig-zag patterns winding around it. It was unusually bulky for a plane, most of its mass coming from armor plating that covered the entire craft. Instead of an easily-visible cockpit, there were only slitted windows near the top of the craft’s nose. The wings and fins were thick, one might even say muscular. This was a craft designed to survive. Wind and lightning meant nothing to it.

Jenny laid her gloved hand on it. “Wow, aren’t you a beauty…”

Scarlet took in a deep breath. “So. Here’s the awkward part. I do in fact know how to fly a plane, but I’m not great. You?”

“I remember flying at some point, I’m sure I could figure it out.” Jenny grinned.

“Sure…” Scarlet shook her head. She reached her hand to the door and pulled.

It was, of course, locked.

“...We can’t just smash this door open, we need it to be structurally sound.” Scarlet tapped her foot on the ground. “You have sleep spells. Lockpick spells?”

Jenny shrugged. “Never needed them. I always punched through locks.”

“Uh huh…” Scarlet pulled a bobby pin out of her pocket. “A military-level plane lock will be difficult, but…” She leaned down to examine the lock. She put the bobby pin in… and it immediately snapped due to some kind of interior mechanism.

“I can’t do that,” Scarlet noted, crossing her arms.

“What now?” Jenny asked.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking…”

“Thinking about what, trespassers?”

Jenny and Scarlet whirled around to see General Mason standing there, an eyebrow raised.

Scarlet recovered immediately. “Why, General! Don’t scare us like that! We were simply thinking about what this craft could be. As for why we’re here, this warehouse clearly appears to be the result of an attack; worthy of investigation, wouldn’t you say?”

“I have zero patience with you and your wordsmithing,” General Mason grunted. “I’d just arrest you… if Jenny wasn’t also here.” He kneeled down. “What are you doing here?”

Jenny put her hands behind her back. “Well, uh, heheh, you see…”

“Legally you are a child in Yeshalo, it’d be hard for us to hold you to anything.”

“Oh. In that case…” Jenny pointed at the StormFlyer. “We’re trying to steal this so we can go fight some aliens.”

Scarlet laughed. “Oh my, what an imagination—”

“Nah, she’s tellin’ the truth,” the General said. “After all, that’s the same reason I’m here, minus the stealin’ part. Since I’m supposed to be here.” He pulled out a key and stuck it into the StormFlyer’s lock. The door opened in two segments, one moving upward, the other moving downward and becoming a staircase. “We don’t have much time, let’s get moving.”

“There are only two seats,” Jenny said.

“You’re small enough to sit on Scarlet’s lap. Neither of you are actually going to be helpful as copilots, might as well cram everything I can in here.” He walked up the stairs. “Only reason we’re not talking further is because I don’t know how much time we have. We can talk in the air.”

“But how are we going to fly out with all the debris in the way?” Scarlet asked.

“Already cleared it with my storm tank.”

“Storm tank!?” Jenny gasped. “So cool!”

“Just get in the plane already!”

~~~

Rin and Emma had no idea what they were doing among the pipes in the ship besides moving and trying not to be spotted. It was fortunate that everything was designed for creatures far larger than themselves. Every single pipe was a prime hiding spot, and the star aliens never seemed to check behind them as was evidenced not only by their continued success but also by the copious amounts of dust and trash wherever they snuck in.

Rin knelt down behind one of the pipes, picking up a rectangular container about the size of her head. It had a hole in the top for what was presumably a straw, and the interior had a sparkling pink liquid.

“...They drink juice boxes?” Emma asked.

“Apparently. Just another thing that makes them ‘cute’ little murderers.”

“Like you!” Emma slammed her hands over her mouth. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean it like…”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t take it that way.” Rin chuckled. “Regardless… if we end up not being able to get out, at least we won’t starve.” Rin paused. “Assuming we can actually eat what they eat.”

“I could try it.”

“Emma, it could be poison, we need to be more desperate.”

“I could try it for you… y’know, like a taster.”

Rin stared blankly at her.

“All right, forget it.”

They suddenly quieted down as they heard the voices of a few star aliens coming their way. They pressed their bodies into the pipe, waiting. Four star aliens entered the maze of pipes, one of them with some kind of tool pressed between two of its limbs. It began tapping the pipes with them, making them vibrate and pulse with a purplish color. The other star aliens made some comments and moved to another pipe, hitting it with the tool as well.

They’re coming this way, Rin realized. They didn’t seem to be walking behind the pipes, so they weren’t going to be seen. But their pipe was probably on the list of ones that needed testing… and who knew what that would do?

Rin carefully took a half step away from the pipe and gestured for Emma to do the same.

The star aliens continued on their rounds through the pipes, tapping most of the ones they passed. One of them didn’t flash purple, however, it became a bright red color. This prompted one of the star aliens to completely vaporize it with the rainbow beam, turning it to ash.

Rin tensed. What am I going to do if it flashes red? She glanced at Emma. I can time my jump correctly to use the laser as a smokescreen, but her…?

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Rin had plenty of time to consider all the plans she couldn’t implement because Emma was there. There were lots.

Rin felt the resentment building inside of her. The annoyance. The rage. She tried to stuff it into a mental box but couldn’t; too much was at stake. Which just made her guilt rise. This was Emma’s fault, but this wasn’t Emma’s fault. Emma didn’t choose to be here. There was no reason to be angry. She shouldn’t be angry. She should be…

…afraid.

Rin realized she was trembling. She looked to Emma with wide eyes. Emma put her hand in Rin’s and gripped it tightly.

The star aliens tested the pipe.

Being so close to it temporarily deafened the two girls, but they could still see—see the purple flash.

The star aliens moved on to test other pipes.

Rin didn’t let out the sigh of relief until she couldn’t even hear the star aliens anymore. “Okay, that was…”

“I’m so sorry, I’m so stupid, I couldn’t do anything…” Emma whimpered.

“Emma, stop it.”

“I… right, right, not helping us survive.” Emma took in a sharp breath and slapped herself on the face a few times. “Okay. We…” She shook her head. “What are we even doing, Rin? Moving through a ship, defying death at every turn…” She hugged herself tightly. “We don’t even have any idea how to leave…”

Rin bit her lip. “I… I know. But…” Rin closed her eyes and crossed her arms. “I think this is just Amaris’ curse acting on us. She… thinks everything happens for a reason. You do too, don’t you?”

Emma put her hand to her chest and nodded.

“Then… I don’t know, have faith that we’re here for some reason?”

“Right… here for… some reason.” Emma frowned. “But why me, then? If we need to do something, you should be able to do it.”

“I don’t know. Emotional support?”

Emma laughed bitterly. “I’m making this far more stressful on you… I can tell.”

Rin didn’t deny it. Instead, she turned away. “Let’s just keep moving. Maybe we’ll find something.” What am I even saying? Just platitudes…

Emma wordlessly followed. They wormed their way through more and more dense pipes, finding areas so cramped and small most star aliens wouldn’t be able to fit. Eventually, they came across a wider room with multiple hatches coming into it from five directions.

There were a handful of star aliens here. There was a central pillar that projected various symbols and images in the air, many of the images displaying things happening outside. Most of the images focused on the storm and… the crop circles, where lightning was regularly striking.

Rin frowned. “They’ve got something to do with the storm…”

One of the images showed a building collapse from wind strain. The star aliens started talking excitedly.

Emma’s eyes widened. “They’re… destroying Nuk…”

“So even if we get out we’re not safe.” Rin hissed at nothing. “Great…”

The red triangle suddenly appeared in place of the collapsed building. It said something to the star aliens with its synthetic voice. Suddenly the star aliens stopped talking as much and seemed to start scrambling faster.

“Something’s going wrong,” Rin observed.

“Maybe we can take advantage of it,” Emma said.

“How?”

“This… is some kind of control place. Center. Or something, I dunno, but we haven’t seen many other places with a projecting pillar like this. I bet if we messed it up, we’d do some real damage.”

Rin stared at her. “We. Are in. A spaceship. Even if we could mess it up, it’d just crash with us in it.”

“...Maybe that’s what we’re here to do.”

Rin stared blankly at her.

“We’re here, unknown, in a place with a lot of important-looking pipes, on an alien ship trying to attack our home.” Emma locked her hands behind her back. “I bet we could do some real damage.”

“You’re insane. Do you have a death wish?”

“Not really… but at least this would be something useful.”

“Well, I don’t want to die in a ship crash!”

“Shhh!”

Rin lowered her voice despite really not wanting to. “You… Emma, this is a terrible idea.”

Emma gained a faraway look in her eyes. “I don’t think it is. We can do something.”

“At the cost of our own lives?”

Emma looked at Rin with terror and wet eyes, but also a fire Rin hadn’t seen in her before. “Yes. At the cost of our lives.”

Rin stared at her dumbly. Where is this coming from…?

~~~

Flying in the StormFlyer was a lot less awesome than Jenny had been expecting. Primarily because the windows were tiny. General Mason had the only real good view of the outside world on a screen in front of him, which Jenny couldn’t use as his seat was blocking it. So there was nothing to see, save for the occasional flash of light outside from lightning. Somewhat regularly, the lightning would strike the StormFlyer. The plane did not care about this was literally what it was designed to fly through, but the noise was always temporarily deafening, even with it being somewhat muffled.

Meanwhile, Scarlet was finding another aspect of the journey far more annoying. Holding Jenny on her lap in a seat not designed for it while flying through a storm was decidedly uncomfortable. The air was pushed out of her lungs multiple times, and her entire torso was sore. Had Jenny not been essentially immune to pain she’d probably have a similar level of annoyance with the ride, but it was not to be.

“So…” General Mason said. “We’ve stabilized. So I’ll start with my explanation of what’s going on.” His grip on the flight controls tightened. “The storm alert came in this morning. But I was told to stand by. Which should never happen for a simple storm. Then every communications line I had was cut, scrambled by something my men couldn’t figure out. I ordered some to drive out and figure out what was going on, but the storm plays haywire with technology. I had access to a specialty armored tank, so I took it out—since the government wasn’t telling me much and I was extremely suspicious, I dropped by ORHI. Found out that there’s an alien invasion underway, got a bunch of information about the star aliens.”

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “I’ve been in one of their derelict craft. My plan is to use what I know to rip out the power source.”

“Good, ‘cuz I don’t trust my memory of Amaris’ drawing that I only glanced at.” He paused. “After I talked with your colleagues, I drove the tank all the way to the StormFlyer, and found you.”

“Good thing too, I don’t think we had a way to open it,” Scarlet said.

“What I want to know is what you two are doing working together.”

“Alliance of opportunity,” Scarlet said. “Just happened to be in the same place at the same time when we realized the storm was causing cars to crash in unnatural ways.”

“Hmm…” General Mason said nothing further.

“We went to a weather station where I knew there were advanced weather systems. And…” Scarlet sighed. “I don’t think there’s a way not to admit this—I knew there was a government installation there as well, one that would have not only the weather data, but also potentially classified information. We found a star-shaped figure in the data, and found mention of the StormFlyer. Which, for some reason, was told not to fly. So we tracked it down.”

“Hmm…” General Mason tapped his fingers against the flight controls. “You aren’t trustworthy, but that last detail there… I believe that. What I don’t understand is why we’re all being told to stand down like nothing’s wrong.”

“Maybe they want to use the big bomb?” Jenny asked.

“There’s no need to keep that a secret from us, in fact, we’d need to be the ones to deploy the stupid thing. Something else is going on. The invasion may have infiltrators, the government might have been compromised already.”

“Then it’s a good thing you have us!” Jenny said with a grin.

“Good thing I have you, I only took Scarlet along because I didn’t want to waste time.”

“Eh, sensible.” Jenny shrugged. “Anyway…”

“Breaching the upper cloud layer,” General Mason said.

Light streamed in through the tiny windows. The sun was out there, shining down upon them. The turbulent jostling of the plane ended abruptly, and they were completely free.

Jenny tried to crane her neck to look at General Mason’s screen. “Can you see it?”

“There’s one big one and dozens of smaller ones,” General Mason reported. “All star-shaped and… hang on, that doesn’t make much sense… that one just exploded. But… nothing attacked it.” General Mason narrowed his eyes. “They appear to be ignoring us, though we aren’t very close.” He paused. “They’re shooting at something… nothing?”

“So they’re fighting something,” Scarlet said. “Something you can’t see…”

“Or can’t remember,” Jenny said, eyes widening. “General, did Amaris tell you about the memory angel?”

“The what?”

“A creature that you can only remember while you’re looking at it.”

“That… describe it for me.”

“Oh geez, I can’t even remember the thing right now, uh… white, not fully there, geometry? Spherical center?”

“I see one.”

“You see one?”

“See one what?”

Jenny facepalmed. “You just saw a memory angel on your feed.”

General Mason took in a sharp breath. “That is going to be hard to deal with.”

“Let me guess,” Scarlet said. “You saw an explosion just when Jenny said you saw one?”

“Yes…?”

“So the star aliens are fighting the memory angels.”

Jenny tapped her finger on her knee. “Memory angels try to destroy all witnesses if the one we encountered is anything to go off of. They’ll go after us if they win.”

“I don’t think they’re winning,” General Mason said. “The main ship has almost no damage except… one very big hole in the center top.”

Jenny leaned forward suddenly, pushing the air out of Scarlet again. “There. Go there. If I could get in there… rip open a panel…” Jenny rubbed her hands together. “Might take the whole thing down.”

“This craft is not designed to land like this. We’d have to eject. There are only two seats, and you two aren’t strapped in correctly.”

“I don’t need to be strapped in correctly,” Jenny said, starting to chuckle. “Wind punch will serve me just fine as I pancake into the ground there.”

“Madness…” General Mason said.

“I note you didn’t ask me about how I felt about this plan,” Scarlet observed.

“Don’t care what you think.”

“...Fair.”

“You might want to make sure you’re secured.”

“Right. Jenny, move a bit would y—” Jenny accidentally elbowed her in the stomach. “Not… like… that…”

With much rearranging and awkward elbow placements, Scarlet did manage to tighten herself into the chair, leaving Jenny completely free, all but latched to the back of General Mason’s seat. “We’re ready.”

“I’ve already been moving into position,” General Mason said. “You had less than twenty seconds.”

“Oh. How much warning do we get before you push the button?”

“None, I’m adapting to changing circumstances. Just hold on.”

“Okay…”

A beep came from the front of the StormFlyer. “What was that?” Jenny asked.

“Autopilot. This thing will try to land itself while we’re gone. Get ready… Ready… NOW!”

Jenny was flying through the air. The ejection sequence had been so fast she didn’t even register that it had happened. Her grip on General Mason’s seat was woefully inadequate.

Nevertheless, she was where she wanted to be. In the sky, directly above the largest ship. Now that she could actually see it, it finally dawned on her that it was much larger than the one she and Amaris had explored. The small star-shaped ships were that size. This monstrous mothership… was easily larger than several city blocks. It was, of course, bright yellow and had an aura about it that made it appear slightly fuzzy, though of course there was no real hair on it.

Its weapons seemed to fire from midair around the craft, striking… well, things Jenny couldn’t remember after they blew up. Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about them. Judging from the locations of the explosions, they were being destroyed long before they arrived at the main ship. The small ships weren’t as lucky—occasionally one of them suffered an explosion, promptly followed by the entire craft being consumed in a ball of rainbow light that left nothing but dust.

Jenny glanced upward. She could see two black specks, probably General Mason and Scarlet in their seats. They hadn’t released any parachutes. Were they going to try to follow her?

They probably should. Trying to drift down through the storm below was simply a bad idea, even she knew that.

Speaking of the storm… Jenny looked down at it. From this high up it mostly appeared as a flat, endless sea of gray fluff. But there was one exception to this—near the main ship, it was swirling and rising up from the level of the rest of the clouds. Lightning struck far more often in the swirling tunnel of clouds.

The big ship’s making it, no doubt about that.

With this, Jenny decided she was done waiting to fall. She angled her head downward and pressed her arms to her side, increasing her speed markedly. She empowered her fists with wind, flicking her wrists to “punch” the air and release bursts of wind at specific angles. This allowed her to aim almost exactly for the edge of the ship’s hole—she didn’t want to go in just yet. She fell to the main ship’s hull like a bullet, smacking it with enough force to dent it.

It took her only a few seconds to regrow from the pulverized bits of flesh and bones. She stood up and walked to the edge of the massive hole.

Six yellow eyes met her gaze the moment she looked down.

“Ah… one of you.”

Jenny didn’t hesitate. The moment she saw the gargantuan creature of darkness in his chair, she lept into action. Her left fist became surrounded by an aura of light and she let out an intense shout.

The High Lord backhanded her, slamming her into the ground with even more force than she’d gained by falling into the ship’s hull.

“J-jenny!?” Irene stammered. “How did…?”

“Hey Irene…” Jenny muttered, reforming herself until she could stand and stare the High Lord in the face. She briefly registered the presence of Coleus, though the dryad appeared too scared to move. Jenny realized with some shock that her heart was racing a mile a minute. Why was she afraid? She had nothing to worry about.

Jenny noted the presence of broken memory angel parts littered around, ranging from glass-like shards to impossibly shaped gears. It was impossible to look anywhere in the massive room without seeing them, so at least she didn’t have to worry about her memory being continually scrubbed.

The High Lord leaned in. Jenny was quickly coming to terms with the fact that even if she got a good hit off, she probably wouldn’t even take out an eye on something this large.

“You could be problematic if you get in the way,” he said.

“You bet!” Jenny grinned. “So how about w—”

Several tiny flashes of darkness flew through Jenny, carving holes in her fingers and the back of her neck.

They didn’t heal. She slumped to the ground, motionless.

Irene could only stare at the body as the blood pooled around it. Coleus didn’t even respond. She hadn’t blinked the entire time.

The High Lord held up his hand, and eleven pieces of black material floated between his fingers. A cage of darkness was sealed around them in the shape of a sphere of darkness. He promptly dropped the sphere onto the ground in front of Irene. “There will be no savior for you.”

Irene grimaced. “W-what did you do to her?”

“The closest thing to death one of her kind can experience. Even if you somehow survive, good luck getting her out of that. Now… we have other visitors.” He held out a hand, prompting a shout from Scarlet as she was dragged through the air into the central chamber. General Mason came next, gun at the ready; though he notably didn’t even attempt to fire it.

He knew when he was outclassed.

“What a pathetic little strike force,” the High Lord chuckled. “The memory angels and the door entities are legitimate threats, but you? Two ordinary humans? Not even a hint of magic with you? What, were you placing all of your trust in the girl?”

General Mason could only stare at the monstrosity in front of him, refusing to lower his gun.

Scarlet, however, narrowed her eyes. Her legs shook, but she managed to speak. “W-we were hoping to do this quickly. We did not anticipate…”

“Me?” the High Lord let out a deep laugh. “Ah, I am having so much fun today! This ability of your friend’s is quite delightful! And, in addition, I’m finding an inordinate amount of people who can resist my presence!” He leaned in toward Scarlet. “What is it about you that allows you to do anything other than cower?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Lies!” He held out a finger, pointing it at her head. “Ooooh, but lies kept for a good reason! What evil, what darkness! You could have a place among us.”

“...If you can read my mind, you know why that won’t work.”

“Oh, in time I can remove that pesky ‘I have to be the only one’ mentality from you. Then you will be most suitable. Unlike happiness lady over there. She only resists me because she spends so much of her life at maximum fear already.”

Scarlet turned to Irene and frowned. Scarlet sighed. “Right, well, do you have a name, dark one?”

“Yes! Usually, I don’t tell it to mortals, but I’m feeling charitable. For obvious reasons. Ah, I’ve not felt this good on a conquest in thousands of years, I really must thank you, Irene.”

“Y-you’re welcome…?” Irene managed.

“Yes! Regardless, my name? My name is Orvind. And before you ask, I am here to completely wipe Yeshalo off the map, fulfilling the purpose I have as a High Lord of Eyda.”

Scarlet adjusted her suit nervously. “Well, Orvind… is there any room for negotiation here? Perhaps we can offer…”

“Your entire mind was open to me, slayer. You know nothing of any real value. I already have the knowledge of the memory angels from the dryad as well as her techniques for slaying the Strider. You know no more about the doors than she does.”

“You want to know about the doors?”

“Yes. They are appearing on my ships and depositing many creatures that are proving quite difficult to dispatch.”

“So they can appear actively…”

“Oho! Gathering information from me while you’re here? Excuse me, do you expect to be able to use this information? Even if you’re not dead at the end of this, everything down there will be. What use will information give you?”

“Absolute destruction wouldn’t be very interesting, now would it?”

“Placing your trust in one of our curses? Fascinating!”

Scarlet shrugged. “You seem to be confident, you shouldn’t be worried. And you seem to be in a talking mood… so why don’t you gloat a bit? Tell me about your plans, try to sway me to your side naturally.” Scarlet smirked. “You know you want to.”

“It’s amusing how you think you’re pulling me into a trap.”

“If your invasion fails, I am.”

“The more you talk, the more I like you.” He chuckled.

“Thought so. In that case, I have a question.” Scarlet put her hands behind her back. “How exactly are you making the storm?”

“Something your happiness friend there will be very familiar with.” Orvind reached into a compartment on his throne and took out a perfectly smooth black cube that glinted unnaturally in the light.

Scarlet had only seen this sort of thing in Amaris’ sketchbook. “...I take it not all of them grant you the power of happiness?”

“No. The cubes of ancestry can do anything variable. The first spirited to touch them initializes them with a wish. This very ship houses a spirited within it, and it wished for dominion over storms. This is now the Storm Cube, and its power is being channeled through our fleet. In time, the land beneath us will be glassed to a crisp from all the lightning.”

“Interesting…” Scarlet scratched her chin. “Second question. Why did you bother sealing Jenny?”

“...Good question. I won’t be answering this one.”

Scarlet grinned. “She’s special in some way. Something that could actually mess this up.”

“No point in hiding that, I suppose. But in the state she is in now, there is nothing she can do.”

“Hmmm…”

~~~

“Look, there,” Emma said, pointing over the top of a horizontal pipe with some difficulty. “That pipe is making a lot more noise than the others, and I’ve seen it on a lot of the diagrams. It must be important.”

Geez, when did you become that observant? “I’ve seen it too.”

“So. We need to destroy it. You have your knives, right?”

“Yes…” I’ve even got some magic crystals, not that I can use them for anything beyond sharpness.

“I’m thinking… you throw them to disable it.” Emma frowned. “Am I overestimating what you can do?”

Rin froze.

“Rin?”

“Y-yeah, I’m not sure I could do that…”

“Oh…” Emma frowned. “Then we’ll just have to figure out another way.”

“Or… and hear me out… we could try to escape.”

“Any idea how to do that?”

“Maybe we can find out how they get to the ground.”

Emma frowned. “I’m not sure…”

“Emma, we can escape.”

“Wouldn’t that be running away though?” Emma clenched her fists. “Amaris would try to stop them if she thought she had a way.”

“Amaris’ curse keeps her alive.”

“She didn’t always know that.”

Rin took in a sharp breath. “Do you even think you have a way?”

“If we can’t destroy that pipe, we can destroy a console or something, there’s lots of things here that look important. Maybe we can use one of these tools… I’ve seen some of them release a laser, maybe we could take one…”

Rin stared at her.

“Come on Rin, I’m not the best at figuring out how to do these things. You’re the one with the tactical brain. You know how to take things down.”

“You… really are set on this.”

Emma tilted her head in confusion. “Yes…? I thought…”

“Emma.” Rin said, unusually softly.

Emma gave Rin her full attention.

“I don’t want to die,” Rin whispered.

Emma’s face remained level for a second. Then she looked to the ground, hanging her head low. “I… I’m so sorry, Rin. I didn’t realize…” Without warning, she suddenly hugged Rin tight, tears streaming down her face. “I sh-shouldn’t have ever asked you t-to do this… L-let’s try to find a way out.”

Rin’s grip on her tightened. “You… you sure?”

Emma nodded. “Lead the way.”

Rin flicked her tail, refusing to let her go. “Right… I…” Rin closed her eyes and clenched her fists. “Emma, I… I’ve been lying. I… don’t think we have a way off. I was… just trying to talk you out of it.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I can’t help us.”

“Then… then I guess… we live like rats in this ship until something comes up.” Emma shuddered.

“I… I can’t ask you to abandon hope.”

“You can ask,” Emma said. “I… I may want to go home. But if I can’t… I can’t.”

“Why are you… like this?” Rin took a step back from the embrace. “Why are you so… so good?”

Emma shook her head. “I’m not… I want so, so badly to be useful. It’s… it’s selfish. I feel so weak. This…” She gestured at the pipe she was talking about destroying. “I thought it was something I could do. But it’s not. And I also thought it was something you could do.” She wiped her eyes. “But it’s not.”

“...You’re not weak,” Rin said. “...Okay, you are in some ways. But… you could stare death in the face.”

“I’m more scared than you are.”

“...I don’t think you are.”

Silence fell over the two of them.

“...What now?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know,” Rin said. “I don’t…”

The two of them heard the sound of a wooden door creaking open somewhere nearby.

They locked eyes with each other.

A door.

The door might take them out.

They heard a horrific, feminine scream followed quickly by sounds of the star aliens firing off rainbow lasers. Something exploded, detaching a pipe from the ceiling and crushing the star alien that was at the nearby console. Red smoke started wafting out of the pipe’s opening in the ceiling.

Rin and Emma both remained hidden. Emma kept her hand tightly gripping Rin’s sleeve, while Rin’s eyes and ears were flicking and darting all over the place, trying to get the best picture of what was going on. The star aliens were fighting some streaming entity down the hall to the left. The door was that way as well, but the sounds of the fight were getting closer.

The entire left wall exploded, sending shrapnel flying all over. The pipe Emma and Rin were hiding behind started blowing steam out of the newly acquired holes. Multiple star alien lasers fired, boring holes into the walls.

They paled in comparison to the monstrosity they were fighting. It was a woman’s head, except it was larger than both Emma and Rin combined. The eyes were sewn shut, and what should have been hair were long snakes made not out of scales, but skinless raw meat, almost like hamburger. The head’s skin was green and covered in a liquid that shifted to form the shapes of screaming, agonized mouths. If these mouths were making noise, it was impossible to tell, for the head itself was screaming. With every shriek, Rin and Emma felt needles drive into their skulls.

It was nothing compared to what the star aliens were experiencing. When the face pointed at them and screamed, they exploded like a balloon. The head dodged all beams that were aimed at it, and it retaliated in turn. While it was fighting directly, its snake hair was lashing out not at star aliens, but at the structure of the ship around it, tearing pipes apart, ruining consoles, and exposing alien wiring underneath. Red lights started flashing everywhere as it wreaked havoc.

Rin watched as it dodged another laser and let it bore into the wall. Her eyes widened. It’s using their own attacks to damage the ship!

Then the digital red triangle manifested in the air. It flashed, and a lightning bolt ran through the area, electrocuting star aliens and the floating head, burning everything to an absolute crisp. The battle was over in an instant.

The red triangle vanished.

Slowly, Rin stood up, taking stock of the surroundings. There was no fight anymore. All star aliens present had either exploded or been disintegrated by lightning. The floating head was a skull in a pile of ash. The red lights were still flashing everywhere.

“Why are we alive…?” Emma asked. “That… disintegrated everything…”

“It didn’t want to damage the infrastructure here,” Rin said. “...Worth more than the lives of the star aliens…” She frowned, turning to look at the largest hole in the wall the screaming head had cut through.

It wasn’t a pipe in there. It was some kind of glowing circular ball, connected by some very thick wires to the rest of the ship.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“I can see the door!” Emma said, pointing through the destroyed wall. “It’s a little far away, but I think we can make it.”

Emma was right. There was a wooden door, hanging open. The other side showed some kind of white expanse with trees growing upside-down.

There might have been a way back to Nuk in there.

“Emma…” Rin said, holding up one of her knives, the one augmented with Magenta crystals. Anti-magic.

“What?”

Rin pointed the knife at the exposed core in the wall. “That’s… very important.”

“I figured, but…” Emma looked her in the eyes. “You sure? The door is… right there.”

“But so’s this.” Rin realized her hand was trembling. “I… I think you were right, Emma. You were here for a reason.”

“Huh?”

“To convince me to do this.” She threw her knife at the orb.

She made an attempt to run away. To get to the door. But she knew it was a long shot.

She was right.

Everything exploded.

~~~

Orvind held the black cube in front of Scarlet’s face. “You’re thinking about how you can try to touch this and use the power against me.”

“You can read minds,” Scarlet said. “The guessing game isn’t exactly fair.”

“No, no it’s not!” Orvind guffawed. “However, I do have to try to read your mind. I’m not right now. Just guessing. It’s quite fun.”

“Question. How livid do you think you will be if Irene stops using her ability?”

“S-scarlet!” Irene stammered.

“Probably a lot, but not because she’s messing with my mind, but because she would dare stop.” Orvind leaned in to Irene. “Don’t you dare release this unless I tell you to. Understood?’

“C-crystal clear!” Irene stammered with a nervous laugh.

Scarlet jumped at the cube. Orvind quickly moved it out of her grasp. “Oooh, feisty! What did you think you were going to do with that power? Fight me? Don’t make me laugh.”

“It was worth a shot.”

“I can simply make myself immune to lightning and wind. Nothing in this cube could harm me. Even the intelligence in this ship could do nothing to me! It is simply useful for this siege!” He laughed. “I can sit back and enjoy things. Even though the doors are quite annoying, it is able to catch every last one of them. Nothing will get past us! No—”

There was a distant explosion somewhere beneath them. Red lights started flashing around the room. A few moments later there were much larger explosions that rocked the entire ship.

“Report!” Orvind shouted.

The report he received was another, even larger explosion that tilted the room at a steep angle. He lost his grip on the cube. All the lights went out at once, leaving only the sunlight streaming in through the hole in what was once the ceiling.

Orvind vanished in a puff of darkness.

The ship was suddenly in freefall. Scarlet, Irene, Coleus, and General Mason started floating into the air.

Scarlet’s eyes had never left the cube. There it was. Floating. Only a few meters away.

She opened her arms and spread out the flaps of her coat, using it as makeshift paddles to swim through the air. It was slow, but at least it was better than trying to push against the air with just her hands. The cube, making no motions of its own, grew ever steadily closer.

Almost got it… images of what she could do with such a power flashed through her mind. There was the immediate benefit of not dying, to be sure, but there were so many others. Using the cover of storms for plausible deniability. Electrocuting people until their nervous system fried. Perhaps she could even expand her activities to include monstrous, powerful creatures if she got good enough…

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black sphere drift past.

She froze.

Jenny.

The black sphere was moving toward the hole in the hull. It would drift out… and end up who knew where. They would probably never be able to find it, and Jenny would be trapped in there.

Scarlet glanced back at the black cube.

It was so close…

Scarlet let out a nasty swear and diverted her course toward Jenny’s prison. This was going to be harder, the sphere had far more motion to it. Scarlet was also no skydiver, all she could do was pretend like the air was water and that her coat was enough. The best she could do was the butterfly, and even that barely gave her enough forward motion.

She grabbed onto the sphere with both hands as she drifted out of the ship’s interior.

It was utter chaos outside. Small ships were vanishing left and right, retreating into the sky with flashes of rainbow light. The storm clouds below were parting, revealing patches of city beneath. Then there were the sparks of darkness coming from elsewhere in the giant mothership…

What is Orvind doing…?

“G-got it!” Irene shouted as she placed her gloved hands on the black cube. She touched her forehead to one of the faces. Nothing happened. “I-I’m not getting any storm powers!”

“It’s probably because you already have one!” Scarlet shouted back. At this point, she was drifting away from them and there was nothing she could do about that.

Irene glanced at Scarlet and, for a moment, clearly considered throwing the cube at her. She quickly reevaluated this idea and turned her gaze back to Coleus and General Mason.

As expected, Scarlet thought. She’d never give it to me. That’s why I didn’t ask.

“C-coleus!” Irene shouted. “Heads up! This hurt a lot when I did it!”

Coleus was still unable to give much of a response, but at least she was able to turn her head toward Irene, which was more than General Mason was doing.

Irene threw the cube. Since she was in freefall, she went flying backward toward Scarlet while the cube sailed toward Coleus.

It smacked Coleus right in the face. The cube reacted immediately. White lines appeared on the faces, dividing its squares into smaller and smaller squares, until the cube appeared completely white. It remained floating in the air, pulsing the fabric of space around it.

Coleus’ eyes finally focused on the cube.

Then she screamed.

~~~

Rin opened her eyes.

She was falling.

One of her arms was also badly burnt and there was a strange soreness in her chest.

Not that any of that really mattered. She was falling. No parachute, no nothing. She’d hit the ground and splatter.

Lazily, she looked up. The ship was above her. An entire fifth of it was simply gone, and numerous holes were leaking vast quantities of smoke. Occasionally, a black spike would erupt from the ship, dealing more damage.

Rin understood very little about what she was looking at, but it nonetheless brought a smile to her face.

I did that.

The ship continued to explode and disintegrate.

I wonder if Emma’s around… I don’t see her. Rin sighed. Why am I even looking? Not like I can do anything. She was more on board with this than I was…

Why did I do it?

What changed…?

She pulled out one of her throwing knives with her functional hand and examined how it glinted in the sunlight.

Opportunity…? Or… or did I just know…?

She looked up at the sky, past the ship and all the smoke clouds.

I suppose I should probably get things squared away… She bit her lip. I… I still don’t want to die. I want there to be… something after this. I know I’ve been kind of rotten and terrible and… I don’t deserve any of this. But, please… can I… have something for it all?

A feeling of warmth began to fill her body, steadying her spirit.

Thank you…

Then the sky was blotted out by darkness with six angled eyes.

“So… you are the cause of all this.”

Rin couldn’t move. Had she not been calm previously, she might have passed out simply from being overloaded with fear.

“A little opportunistic neko girl… it wasn’t the memory angels, it wasn’t the doors monster, it wasn’t even a traitor, or stupidity. It was you. In the right place at the right time…” He laughed. “That usually means The Enemy is at work, but I see no hint of her involvement here.” He reached out a finger and pointed it at her head. “One of our own curses. Absolutely beautiful. I wonder, how far can it grow?”

Rin could only stare in disbelief.

The monster pointed a finger in midair and created a black sheet of paper with yellow words written on it. “This is a message for little Amaris. I’m sure that, with her curse, she’ll find it in the midst of your splattered remains. Quite interesting, wouldn’t you say? Of course, you can’t say anything right now. It’s a miracle that you can even stay conscious.” He suddenly narrowed his eyes. “Miracle… hmm.” He drifted back from Rin, crossing his massive arms behind his back. “Rest easy, little one. The message you will deliver will take a weight off your friend’s back. We won’t be back. At least, not until her curse grows far, far larger. One with potential as large as this… must be allowed to ripen. Let us see to what heights it will grow.”

Then he was gone.

No more black spikes emerged from the ship.

Rin couldn’t stop staring at the place he had been.

She fell, her mind blank, breathing as hard as she could manage.

“Rin!”

Something came to her ears. Something distant…

“RIN!”

Emma barreled into Rin from the side, grabbing her and holding her tight.

“Rin! What did that thing do to you!?”

Rin blinked a few times, her mind suddenly coming back to her. “E-emma?”

“Oh, Rin! You’re all right!”

“I… Emma, we’re falling to our deaths.”

“I…” Emma blinked. “Oh. That… I… forgot about that when I saw the monster. But he let me find you!”

“Gee, now we can die together,” Rin deadpanned.

“...Wouldn’t it be better, that way?” Emma asked.

Rin looked away. “...Yeah.”

Emma tightened her grip on her.

“...Thank you,” Rin said.

“What for?”

“For talking me into saving everyone. …We really were here for a reason.”

After that, the two of them fell silent and just held onto each other as they approached the ground.

They had done what they needed to do.

However, there were still others… who needed to do what they were here for.

They heard thunder above them.

They looked up.

Coleus was diving right at them, with sparks of green lightning flowing out of her eyes. A massive cyclone of dark clouds appeared in her wake, though there was no lightning within.

Coleus held out her hands and grabbed Emma and Rin. The impact threw the three of them inside of Coleus’ cyclone. While the exterior was a raging swirl of high-speed winds… the interior was calm and tranquil. Irene, General Mason, and Scarlet were there, floating in the wind.

“Gotcha!” Coleus said. “Boy, it’s a good thing Orvind went to you, we’d have never known you were here otherwise. How fortu-nut!”

Rin and Emma stared blankly at her for a few seconds. Then they burst into tears and threw their arms around her, bawling their eyes out on her shoulder.

“Um… it’s… it’s gonna be okay, you two. I’ve got you.” Coleus gripped both of them tightly. “I’ve got you.”

~~~

Amaris glanced out the window. The sky was clear.

“Huh. That storm certainly ended quickly…” Amaris tilted her head. “Odd.”

Faith walked up to the window. “Such a storm does not vanish that quickly…”

A deep rumble ran through through the ground, making Amaris’ parents lose their footing. A few dishes fell out of the cabinet and shattered on the ground.

“Earthquake?” Amaris wondered aloud. “No… that didn’t feel right. Something… something hit. Or exploded or…” She looked up at the clear sky. “Did… did something interesting happen without me?”

“You can’t be there for all of them,” Vayvaresi said.

“I… true. Still.” She turned to her Dad. “Dad, can we drive to ORHI since the phone lines are down?”

“Let me just make sure the car’s okay…” he said.