Rattle!
“Woah, how long was I out?” Solomon asked.
Celeste rubbed her eyes after an eruptive disturbance to their nap. She didn’t know how long time had passed, but Julius was nowhere to be found in the truck. “Where’s he?” she muttered.
“What?” Sally moaned from the subsiding fatigue. “What do you mean he should be…oh crap.”
Sally unplugged her seatbelt, jumping up from the rear causing Celeste to nudge her head away as she reached the front.
“Good Yinhai! That was close,” Celeste exclaimed, surprised by Sally’s sudden movement. “Be careful!”
“I can’t help it. We need to find him…wait. Look out at the window,” Sally said with her face pressed on the window as she kneeled over the driver's seat.
Hovering to her window, Celeste saw it was pitch black below. Empty as a hollow space in the depths. Following the darkness appears a flash of bright blue, flickering like a candle. A trace flew right up like a projectile into her face, sending it back in and spitting air from her mouth violently. My mouth burns! Her lips and tongue vibrated in pain similar to numbness adding with a throbbing grip as if someone grabbed it. Exerting his qi within the tight interior space was a risk that she was mindfully aware of. Hence, she thrust her arm out the window, summoning her healing mechanism.
Water-like liquid soaked her entire arm like it was being downpoured from above. With a slight lift, the water flowed like a river coming from the waterfall, heading directly towards her shoulders. Celeste jolted her elbows to bend her arm right back at her, bringing the liquid to spew right to her face.
Letting it drip along her facial cheeks and nasal bone while mentally gripping against her throbbing mouth.
Crack!
The sounds of popping and cracking bones can be heard through the edges of her lips that were felt all the way to her inner mouth. The pain soothed away as she regained her lip movement and talked again.
She tapped Sally and pointed down at the truck, indicating Julius was right below. “His aura tasted like hell! And well.”
Sally grimaced, appearing to be tampered by the thought qi could be tasted. “I thought scent or smell was one thing. But taste?! Ugh. So, he is down there?” She leaned her back right at the side of the seat, facing her body right at Celeste.
Celeste nodded, noting his blue aura. How long were we out?
--
Ongoing Missions (1):
Leave Kriegshan and enter the world of Raal
Pinpoint (8 Miles Remaining)
ETA ~1 Minute.
--
Saves me the trouble. Celeste blinked, bringing the virtual screen menu away. Now fully aware of the dangers of getting her face close, she summoned a barrier below, big enough to cover her face as her head slowly hovered out of the window.
Julius’s blue aura spewed again, clashing with her barrier. Celeste then viewed the area the truck was flying over, witnessing the dark shades of the empty plains with sparse trees, standing tall across the vicinity.
The gusts from behind swirled her hair. She turned around, finding Sally peeking out at the driver's window.
“Underground…you think they could have other plans, don't they?” Sally questioned.
Hearing as she was talking to her, “If Kriegshan was really destroyed, would we have known the matter amid the sides we take?”
“That's up to each perspective. Many like us don't know the true purpose. Like the blind puppets in a large cluster following the lead, the puppeteer directs us.”
Celeste, having enough of the air, slithered back inside and rolled up the window. “Would you think it wouldn't be for Julius, we might be lost in this place?”
Sally eventually rolled in too and nodded. “I think so.”
Solomon yawned unintentionally while opening the storage drawer, revealing a stash of water bottles.
Celeste sighed. “Are you fully up yet?”
He nodded while taking a gulp of water. “You guys want a bottle of water?”
“If you insist,” Sally said. “What about you?”
“I'm not thirsty right now but fine,” Celeste said, taking one off of Sally's hand.
Victoria, unfazed by the earlier jolt, woke up from her seat, lifting her head from the side of the headrest as she was slightly leaning towards the window. “How far are we?” She asked.
“Alrosa told me we have around a minute left till we arrive,” Celeste muttered while putting back her seatbelt.
“You have a name already, lucky you,” Victoria commented.
Celeste turned back to the front, leaning back to her seat. “We are almost there, sit back for the remainder and also,” she said, turning to Sally. “…you better get back to your seat. He might come out of nowhere up to the door.”
Sally didn’t flinch and rolled herself like a ball back to her seat in the rear.
Coincidentally, Julius popped his head up to the door with a quick swirl, and the door heaved open. He jumped in and focused on the wheel in a blink with both of his hands parallel to each other, proceeding to the nine to three o’clock position. She saw his eyes flash gold, immediately followed by a thrust back hard as a head pounding.
“Ouch,” Celeste mumbled, gripping her abdomen. I better not puke.
--
ETA 15 Seconds.
--
“We’re about to drop…now!”
The lingering quiet sound amped up to a loud growling noise as Celeste observed the moment when the entire truck began to direct downwards. The headlights flickered into a high beam, and she saw much farther from where they were, about to ram to the floor. “Pull up!”
“Way ahead of you, dear,” Julius replied, throttling the gear stick and the dull thump sounded like he slammed the hard carpet floor.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
It was a much more sudden movement compared to her flight platform that she called Vesper. The seatbelt did the job for everyone in the truck. Sudden realization about Ritter and Lu Yi in the back only to be met with a forceful jump upwards as the thud sound reacts aggressively to the flat ground coming from the tires.
“About Ritter and Lu Yi—”
“They’re fine, I shared my spare qi with them for protection,” Julius said. He glared at the rear-view mirror. “In fact, they are doing business fending off these beasts as we speak.”
What?! Celeste’s jaw dropped at the news of wild animals trailing behind the truck. Alrosa too, popped a purplish virtual menu screen with a new mission.
--
New mission Added (1):
Assist fellow Ritter and Lu Yi against the Nocturnal Tigers
Rewards:
?? Class Meter ↑ -> Choose a class as soon as possible.
Stamina ↑
Endurance ↑
--
“Did you receive this?” Celeste asked.
Julius immediately shook his head, having nothing from Skoltor. Tilting her head to the back followed nothing either, giving her no other choice but to pull down the window. She braced both of her hands on the roof with one look at Julius. “See you in a moment,” she said before swiftly leaping into the air.
Clashing with the feisty gusts generated by the speed coming from the truck, Celeste landed on the roof, facing what turned out to be a stampede of raven-like tigers marching through the dust. Their mouths drooled during the sprint with the lights coming from the backend of the truck flashed at them revealing the mugged faces like the mindless bugs’ furious eyes that also wanted to sleep.
Celeste saw Ritter and Lu Yi trying to fend off in defense from the truck bed as they partially stood while bracing the edges. “Hey!” She waved. “Need some help?” She jumped onto the truck bed, bouncing it up slightly nudging the two up in the air briefly.
Lu Yi glared at her while biting her teeth where Celeste could hear it grinding. “They were slow as turtles only to pace up where one almost reached the door,” she said, pointing to the tailgate where there’s a minuscule dent that anyone with sharp eyes could see vividly.
“I’m here to kill. If you’re willing to help and I assist, this should be a little easier experience for you all,” Celeste said. Come out, Vesper! Her mind voiced it out, flashing the platform from mid-air and self-enlarged to a size large enough to cover the truck bed from above. A dark color almost matching with the chasing tigers enlightened upon her finger movement as she observed the stampede. “What can you do?”
“I’m sorry?” Ritter was confused.
“I mean do you two have any fighting experience?”
A little reluctance to answer wasted time as one of the nocturnal tigers leaped into the air right above her, Ritter, and Lu Yi. Almost snatching Celeste off guard from the beast when Vesper speedily dashed into the air, striking it on the abdomen and causing flashing light to emit from the skin of contact.
Boom!
Ah! Celeste summoned a shield over the truck bed while covering her eyes from a sun-like flash of light dilated in the night sky, momentarily brightening the area.
Hovering her arm down, the nocturnal tigers within the stampede were unfazed by the blast and continued sprinting right in the direction of the truck.
Darn, those foul beasts! Celeste turned her attention to Lu Yi, asking a very important question. “Have you or Ritter not used what Julius gave you?”
Lu Yi shook her head, visibly showing the shakiness of her fingers as it was anywhere near close to what was right in her pocket.
Ritter, on the other hand, took it out after hearing Celeste asking her. He passed the first step by withdrawing the handgun but went dead after holding it within his palm.
“Did you two really forget how to hold a damn handgun?!” Celeste said in a high voice almost like a whistle right into someone’s ear.
“I don’t know how!” Lu Yi yelled.
Celeste looked at the distance, pacing the time before grabbing the handgun from Lu Yi’s pocket. “I’ve never tried it and already know how to use it,” she muttered, unloading the magazine. Should be enough. Afterward, she showed the magazine to Lu Yi and urged Ritter to watch as well. “Always make sure you’re loaded in situations like this.”
The magazine loaded into the handgun came with a ticking sound. Celeste cocked the gun before pointing at one of the nocturnal tigers. She pulled the trigger and could see the tiny projectile leave a trail of smoke that came from the blast. It spewed away and a loud splatter followed a tumble like a pile of dominoes fell.
Slam!
“Damn! That’s some nice bath…well that’s how you do it. Just like an archer, you use the bow to shoot an arrow.” Celeste, with one of her hands, gripped Lu Yi’s wrist which forced it open flat. Then, she returned the gun, placing it on her palm. “While this shoots metal projectiles with similar principles but stronger and faster.”
“My ears hurt,” Lu Yi said.
Celeste did not take any of her excuses and assisted Lu Yi’s arm up. “You’ll be fine. Eventually, you have to deal with things louder than this, and the blast from earlier in the long run…now fire them.” She walked forward in between the two, and Vesper swirled in the air quickly hovering right behind the truck bed at the tailgate. With no hesitation, one foot on the edge of the tailgate and Celeste leaped into the air, landing on Vesper. She sat herself down, strangely feeling more comfortable than any prior times riding on it.
“Where are you going?” Ritter asked.
“To fight them, obviously. Attempting to shoot at them as much as you can is a start. Be good for a bit,” Celeste said before flying up high away.
Vesper flew her way high to see the entire area like a map. Gazing along the pathway the truck took, the stampede was maliciously wide and moved like ants escaping their colony, spurting out of the hill and running in as many directions as possible. Viewing behind the front row, the nocturnal tigers are disordered. Many were following while the others were going off the trails. They gave the vibe due to the way some stood still after moving away from the main line. Celeste directed Vesper to move far enough to face directly at the front rather than being on the side.
What am I gonna do with all these behemoths? Celeste seemed to be more conflicted on how to deal with them as an abundant amount of ideas flowed around her head, and she couldn’t seem to get a hook on one of them. Fuck it. She grabbed part of the platform and went for a dive. This was the fastest experience ever in her life, dropping and moving at such a rate that breezed her hair back like a massage. She never took her eyes away as Celeste remained focused on the stampede.
The purple aura enveloped the entire platform as she reached closer to the ground right in the direction of the front row coming at her. The aura raised high and shaped above her, giving the curvature in front of the platform like the windshield in Julius’s truck.
Splatter!
Celeste could hear the bones breaking while flinching at first as Vesper crashed through a line of nocturnal tigers in the way.
A bunch of red bars flickered and spammed at the bottom right of her visuals. It kept on going while Vesper ain’t slowing down going through the charging stampede. The aura would disintegrate any blood staining the barrier.
--
Ongoing Missions (2):
Leave Kriegshan and enter the world of Raal
Assist fellow Ritter and Lu Yi against the Nocturnal Tigers → 58/???
--
Good gracious. That’s a hell of a pile. It was very fast, definitely not a minute had passed upon the first crash. Celeste glanced at the trail of blood she left behind her. She hovered up high enough to be unreachable by the nocturnal tigers. The entire thing was ironic as she did a minor carnage and didn’t deter the entire crowd from the truck. In a way, it grew concerning as their speed amped up.
Celeste not taking the chances, zooming past the remaining clusters within the stampede. She reached right parallel to Julius who was patiently driving. He took notice of her subsequently rolling down the window.
“How many are the hell are there?!”
Bang!
Celeste half-turned to find Ritter’s side leaning at the edge with his upper body poking out, shooting the nocturnal tigers.
“Uhh, many by a wide difference. At least in the hundreds.”
Julius grimaced. “Always trying to ruin the moment. Go back to them, I’ll come out in a minute…Solomon, guys, prepare to defend!”
“I’m on it!” Solomon replied, hopping out of the door. “Sally open the door, will you please?”
Celeste detoured back to the stampede and switched tactics, going defense. She leaped off the platform, took a few steps forward, and kneeled on the patchy grass floor. One deep breath and hard slammed right on the dirt through the grass.
A loud rumble was enough to vibrate around her feet. She felt the pressure blow away from her the more contact her hands had with the ground. Then it started to shake in front of her and a purplish transparent barrier shot up from below, reaching high in the sky. It would spread out horizontally to contain the stampede as Celeste stares dead in the eye to one of nocturnal tigers spewing smoke from their nostrils.