"Everyone ready?" Sab looked over his shoulder, "Make sure you tied yourselves up tight. I'll have to warn you that I'm not the best aviator just yet."
"Yeah well, you're the best we got." Gale twisted the knot, tightly securing all of us in place, "Alright, ready when you are."
And with a deep breath, Sab flexed his back muscles before flying off into the air. The lengthy coil of rope in front of us served as the perfect countdown timer until we would follow suit in leaving the ground. One second passed, two seconds passed...
"Woop!" I squeaked the moment I felt the powerful tug raise us into the sky.
"Epic!" Sheep smiled.
"Haha, yep!" Gale nodded, inspecting the makeshift rope once more, "It'll hold up just fine, I'd say! What do you think, Vastoria?"
"Uuuugh~" She covered her mouth, nauseously gagging with each meter of height surpassed, "This feels way worse than using your own wings... Hmph!?"
"O-Oi, if you're gonna throw up, turn away from us!" I inched away as much as I could, though with the rope clumping us all together it didn't really mean much, "Vastoria, you've motion sickness?"
"Can Heavenly Beings even get sick?" Sheep pondered, "We don't need to eat, so there shouldn't be anything to hurl out."
"P-Please stop mentioning vomit... Blegh." She shivered, "Eugh, to think all that tea and biscuits could catch up to me one day..."
...Eh? Come again, tea and biscuits? When'd she get ahold of such luxuries? Actually, I don't even remember finding a single piece of food ever since I got sent to Heaven 2.0! And judging from the other two's glaring, it seems they also share the sentiment.
"Where'd you get tea and biscuits from?" Sheep asked with a suspicious Eyebrow raise.
"And why didn't you bring any for the rest of us!" Gale reprimanded her.
"Please stop talking, you're making my sickness worse..." She uttered, her face looking a little Green even, "Once we finish this up, we can..."
"Holy crap-!" Sab's shriek could be heard from above, quickly followed by a loud crash.
"Gah!" We got swung back after him.
Something collided with Sab in the air! How is that possible?! Another seraphim, maybe? No, but they both had the entire sky to work with, so this can hardly be called a coincidental accident... Crap, once he got pushed back by whatever had struck him, we got strung along thanks to the rope too. Inspecting the damages, we noticed that the sheer tension the collision caused had caused a dozen smaller tears to form in the braiding. Scarily, had we only gone for the medium ropes, we would've been toast...
"Sheep, status report!" Gale shouted, "I can't see jack from my angle! What hit Sab!?"
"I-I can't see that well either! They're too far up!" He squinted, "Definitely another seraphim though—Those wings are unmistakable!"
"I can hear the ropes starting to snap one by one!" I yelled.
"We need to help him!" Vastoria squeezed herself free of the rope, "Without Sab's wings, we'll never make it to the Shrine! Hup!"
"W-Wait, what are you doing!?" I grabbed her wrist, but she was all too quick to shake me off, "Vastoria!"
"Don't worry, I can handle it!" She smiled back confidently before climbing up the shaky rope, "Oough, I might still throw up, though..."
She's crazy! A plan like this is usually Gale's field of expertise, not hers! Climbing up the rope gradually until she reaches Sab and the assailant, what can she even hope to accomplish after that? She doesn't have wings, and if she falls, she's as good as gone!
"I'm going with her-!" Gale tried squirming out as well, but Sheep pulled him back.
"Hold it, if you move now, the lasso keeping us all secure will become too loose." He explained, "If any one of us leaves, the other two will fall without question."
"Well we can't just let her go alone!" Gale shot back.
"Gale!" I yelled, "...I trust her to do this."
His surprised expression struck me to my very core. Hastily, it morphed into a disappointed scowl before I knew it. Gale wasn't at all happy about just sitting back and hoping for the best, and in truth—neither am I—but we don't have another option. It's either we put our faith in Vastoria to fix this by herself or we all fall flat on the ground like pancakes. Besides, she isn't doing this alone.
"She has Sab." Sheep reassured him, "Even if she did fall during the scuffle, so long as he's nearby, he'll be able to pick her back up."
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"I..." Gale suddenly used Sheep as a platform to push himself up the rope faster, "Sorry, I can't just stand back and do nothing while my teammates are fighting for their lives!"
"Ack, hey! Gale!" I struggled to hold onto the rope after almost slipping cleanly off it, "Get back here, Gale!"
"Sorry! Hold on tight!" He looked back as he made short work of the rope climb.
"Tch! S-Sheep!" I felt my grip start to loosen, and just when my hand let go of the rope...!
"Gotcha!" He was there to grab it before I fell, "That damned moron really likes doing the opposite of what you tell him."
"Phew... Thanks." I repositioned myself close to him so we could both hold onto the rope together, "What now?"
"What? Don't tell me you wanna join them up there as well?" He chuckled, "By all means, be my guest if you think you can handle it—But I'm not gonna follow you."
"Nah, I never said that." I shook my head, "I'll wait here with you. It's the smarter thing to do, after all."
At that, he could only crack a smile. Sab's under attack from a mysterious opponent, and Gale and Vastoria are hiking up the rope to play the hero. I have no doubt about Gale, but Vastoria looked queasy just from being tied up, so I can only imagine how she feels now that she's in the middle of the action. Why would they put themselves at risk? A-Ah, the rope's still barely holding on...!
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"Vastoria, keep moving!" Gale had already caught up to her, "Come on, I can't get up there until you do!"
"I...! I-I can't!" She shook her head, panicking with both Eyes firmly shut, "Sorry, I wanted to help, but...!"
"You made the conscious decision, so follow through with it!" He went off on her, "If you don't muster up the courage now, then your only purpose was to make the situation worse!"
"I-I know!"
"No, you don't know!" He paused before delivering a humbling question, "Vastoria, are you gonna be a hindrance, or are you gonna climb?"
His arguments were sound and just, his agility and strength, as well as his eagerness to act in times of crisis made Gale the ideal leader. Nay, he's just a capable person in general. Even without the rest of these guys, he would probably find a way to accomplish all their tasks and then some all by himself. Vastoria was a kind and gentle girl, she was just mistaken into thinking the Shrine's trials had changed her. This is why Gale's question resonated with her so much—She didn't want to be a hindrance to the team.
"I'll climb!" She yelled, opening her Eyes before steadfastly shimmying up the rope.
"Attagirl! Can you see who's fighting Sab?!" Gale shouted with a newly returned vigor.
"Still can't make him out!" She tried not to look down too much, "Bwah!?"
A sudden nosedive from the winged fighters above sent everyone into a nervous panic. Because of the sheer speed of the descent, the rope—as well as everyone on it—was now the one above Sab and the enemy. Just like that, ascent had turned into descent, and gravity was making their grip on the rope ever more difficult to hold onto. Nonetheless, Vastoria knew what had to be done.
"Ngh, this better work...!" She stiffened up before ultimately letting go of the rope, "Uwahhhh~! Saaaab, don't let me fall!!!"
"Vastoria!" Gale didn't expect her rash actions, hence he couldn't catch her in time, "Crap...!"
Her blood-curdling scream as she made her way down the rope at mach speeds could be heard from miles away. She was so loud, in fact, that even the attacker had to turn around and see what was happening, allowing Sab just enough time to free himself of the guy.
"Oh no!" Sab tried desperately to move into position and catch her, only to hit the ground before that could happen.
They were too late. The nosedive was too strong, and it led to Sab crashing out before he could catch her. She would soon follow, of course, and since the others are tethered to Sab, they would be next in line. They would survive, mind you, as they could not feel pain nor die in Heaven 2.0—barring their golden parts, of course. However, a saving grace came by before this could happen. Before Sheep, Gale and even Vastoria for that matter could hit the ground, a pair of wings swooped in to safely bring them down to where Sab was. It was the same seraphim who was the cause of all this in the first place.
"...Throne, what are you doing?" Vastoria disappointedly inquired.
"Vastoria, is that really you?" He looked her up and down in disbelief, "Y-Your chest..."
"I got it while I was in the Shrine." She uninterestedly replied.
"Grrr, you bitch!" He instantly lunged at her, but was quickly stopped by a punch from Gale.
"None of that, moron!" Gale stood in between them, "Calm down and explain everything from the top. You were on our side just a minute ago, so what's with the switch-up!?"
Behind Throne laid Sab, firmly planted into the cloud floor, with Sheep inspecting his wounds. Thankfully, it was with a sigh of relief that he interjected to inform us that he's fine, and is only dazed. Though we were glad to hear it, the situation was still far from settled. Tensions were high, and as Gale and Throne stared each other down for an unbearably long time, Vastoria was the one to finally break the ice.
"This has to be some sort of mistake, a stupid misunderstanding!" She shook her head, "Throne, please, I know you're a good person, so tell us why you're doing this!"
"...You betray me, explore the Shrine I guided you to on your own, make me have to go down a highly convoluted back up with this winged idiot...!" Throne pointed at Sab with an unbridled rage, "And you have the audacity to call my anger misguided?"
Betrayal, what is he on about? Vastoria entered the Shrine because that's all she could do. She passed through the barrier, whereas he could not, so obviously she was gonna go on without him. Does he seriously think she did that just to selfishly take all the Shrine's rewards for herself? Vastoria isn't the type of person to do that! To say that his anger is misguided is such an understatement that it's not even funny!
"You asshole..." Sab painfully got up to address him, "Stop playing the fool, we all know you're too smart to rage over a stupid thing like that!"
"Sab?" Sheep raised an Eyebrow at him.
"What are you on about?" Throne began to slowly approach him threateningly.
"Despite what you may believe, I'm not as dumb as you think I am." Sab flapped his wings to leave, "Attack a guy twice and he gets the gist of what your aim is. Just know that I'm not gonna let you accomplish that."
"Sab-!" I shouted, but he had already flown off.
"Have fun finding another pair of replacement parts, jackass!" Sab turned around just long enough to flip Throne off one last time, "See ya' never!"
What the hell is going on... Sab left? Is he coming back? And what does he mean by all this? Throne has a lot of explaining to do...