The Last Dainv

Chapter 286

32A, window seat, economy class. The worst possible seat Gale could possibly take in a death trap that is an airplane. The plane hadn't even taken off yet, and he was already sweating and hyperventilating.

Outside the tiny oval window, airport workers moved about on the tarmac, putting in the luggage of other passengers in their respective planes. He only took a couple of clothes in a backpack into his space storage, while Erin had none.

The biggest question was: how did these flying death metal contraptions fly? It definitely wasn't magic. Rachel said that magic artifacts were more reliable than normal technology. It could only mean that this thing has a possibility of falling and killing all of them.

He and Erin would probably survive, but it would still hurt. And the experience of hurling down towards the ground with hundreds of people screaming was not something he signed up for.

Beside him, Erin sat as serene as ever. She had opened her peanut package and threw them to her mouth one by one. For some reason, they had given her 5 snack packs of peanuts compared to only 1 per person.

She was completely unbothered, unlike everyone else.

Passengers twisted around in their seats, looking at her. Their phones were out, cameras flashing as if she was a celebrity.

It must've been the blue hair. Definitely the blue hair and the porcelain like face that had no emotion at all, which also made her stupidly annoying to deal with if he hadn't gotten a hint from Vianne.

Erin, though, didn't care or notice their attention on her. In her mind, she was probably thinking, 'their attention is irrelevant to my safety', or something.

On the other hand, he was having a full blown crisis.

"Enough of your panicking, young lamb. This contraption cannot hurt you."

"That's not the point!"

The point was being stuck, not being able to move freely!.

His phone buzzed. He looked down at the screen.

[Rachel: Are you on the plane yet?]

[Gale: YES I AM. AND I'M ABOUT TO DIE.]

[Rachel: Calm down. It's just a plane.]

[Gale: ITS NOT JUST A PLANE, RACHEL. ITS A GIANT METAL COFFIN. ITS SUFFOCATING.]

[Gale: WHY ARENT YOU IN THIS CONTRAPTION WITH ME]

[Rachel: Sorry Gale, I have classes. Lily asked me for help too.]

[Rachel: Think about it like this. Planes are safer than cars. Statistically, cars crash more than planes by a significant margin.]

[Gale: THERES NO WAY THATS TRUE]

[Gale: What if it hurts me in a place I don't like?!]

[Rachel: =_=]

[Gale: I'm serious!]

[Rachel: ...]

[Rachel: Gale.]

[Rachel: The plane can't hurt you. You're durable. Dropping a couple thousand feet from the air would just be a broken leg and a 1 day coma for you.]

[Gale: A 1 day coma is enough time for a bear to eat me! out there in the woods!]

[Rachel: Take deep breaths. Floating bluey is with you. She can probably make you float]

[Gale: CAN SHE ACTUALLY DO THAT]

[Rachel: I don't know. Ask her.]

Gale turned to Erin. "Can you float us if we crash?"

"A meaningless question." Erin ate another peanut. "Stop this fear of inanimate objects."

"Erin! I'm serious!"

"This topic is irrelevant. The contraption poses no harm to either of us. As the loud one would say, you are in requirement of 'needing to chill.'"

"It's already cold in this plane! The thing I need the least is chill!"

"For once, you are correct. Use the ring the woman of fire gave you and warm yourself."

[Aurumn's warmth activated.]

It activated on its own, and the air around Gale warmed right up, but that didn't help at all. In fact, it just meant Rachel knows how fast his heart is beating due to the sheer amount of fear he's having. Worst yet, she's not helping.

Erin then handed him a plastic pack.

"Pretzels?"

"Correct."

Opening them up quickly, Gale shoved them in his mouth. The food helped a little bit to calm him down.

[Gale: Didn't you say we'd go to a leisure rift together? And maybe with Lily and Ollie and the twins and Erin?]

[Rachel: I'm pretty sure i didnt count Erin.]

[Gale: It doesn't matter!]

[Gale: The light of the city once again abandons me in my hour of need.]

[Rachel: =_= I'm just busy.]

[Gale: The dark hunter must walk alone once again.]

[Rachel: Erin is literally right there.]

[Gale: Erin doesn't count.]

"Your conversation with the woman of fire is irrelevant to our mission," Erin said.

"She abandoned me."

"The woman of fire need not accompany us on this journey." Erin returned her gaze to the seat in front of her, staring at the black box that was the touch screen. "This expedition requires a maximum personnel of teacher and student. Additional personnel would be inefficient."

Gale grumbled. Arguing with Erin was meaningless, learned exactly from the bird incident.

How did the woman behind the desk even decide to put him in the window seat? It didn't make sense. Was it because he looked young that she thought he might've wanted the window seat? The possibilities were endless.

"Attention passengers," a voice crackled over the intercom. "This is your captain speaking. We've been cleared for takeoff. Flight attendants, please prepare for departure."

Gale gripped the armrests. The seatbelt dug into his lap. It was the moment of truth. The leap of faith to trust this giant death metal trap.

The engines roared as it slowly moved across the tarmac down the runway. Once it stopped and straightened to the long strip of straight, the engines began roaring in a high pitch.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The acceleration pressed Gale back into his seat as the nose of the plane lifted.

And suddenly, they were airborne.

Having Presence Between's tendrils force feed him the plane taking off and lifting off the ground made the experience even worse.

Gale's hand shot out and grabbed Erin's arm.

His fingers dug into her sleeve, burying his cheek onto her sleeve.

Erin looked down at his hand. Then up at his face.

"Unhand me," she said flatly. "Cease this childish behaviour, young lamb."

"I can't."

"Release your grip."

"I can see everything!"

Erin stared at him. Her blank expression didn't change.

"Didn't you say I'm still a child in our culture? I'm basically a baby!"

A sigh escaped Erin's mouth, a rare phenomenon from the cold ice-jaded floating bluey.

"That is... technically accurate," she said. "By Dainv standards, you are not even 2 Se old. At the age of 2 and 3 Se, that is the transition to adulthood."

"There's a transition?" Gale asked.

"Between those ages, bodily changes happen, such as hair and eye colour, prominent protrusion of Origin within the body, and the blessing of Aurumn initializes in its passive state until bonding occurs."

"Will my hair colour change too?"

"No. The Children of Cev's hair is black. Yours is already black. Change is not needed."

None of that made sense, but she just confirmed one thing to Gale. "So I'm a child."

"You are a child."

"Then I get to hold your arm!"

"You may continue to hold on," Erin said. "For the safety purposes of children."

Gale did not let go. If this plane crashes, floating bluey can float both of them to safety. Most definitely.

[Cold Calm effect applied.]

A cold calming sensation washed over his whole body that somehow melded with the warmth that came from the ring. The adrenaline in his system began to fade. Heart rate slowed down, which decreased his rate of breathing.

But that wasn't going to stop him from holding onto her arm.

"Thanks," he mumbled.

Erin nodded once.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We look to have a sunny day today. Turbulence is expected at some parts of the flight. Please keep your seatbelts on as much as possible. We will arrive at Yellowknife in about 2 hours and 10 minutes. Thank you for flying with us at Glory Air."

It was only a two hour flight, but that was two more hours of chances of being sent straight to the ground and getting hurt.

The plane continued to climb as the clouds swallowed them whole, and for a moment, there was nothing but white outside the window. Tendrils fed him the clouds covering the whole plane for a couple of hundred metres.

Then they broke through.

Above the clouds, the sky was a brilliant blue. The sun blazed overhead, unobstructed by the gray layer below. It was beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way.

Gale's eyes grew heavy.

"Rest," Erin said.

"What about the pretzels?"

"I will acquire pretzels for you should the attendant come over."

"Thanks."

"Your gratitude is noted."

Gale closed his eyes. The ambient noise of the engine and wind made his eyes feel heavier and heavier. Within minutes, he fell asleep with a stranglehold on Erin's arm.

*

The plane touched down with a slight bump that jolted Gale awake. His hand was still gripping Erin's arm, though the stranglehold had loosened during the flight, but immediately tightened back up.

"We have arrived," Erin said flatly. "Release me."

Gale let go to look out the window, not because she told him to. From the looks of it, they landed safely on the ground as the plane continued its deceleration.

The other passengers had already unbuckled their seatbelts and reached for the overhead compartments. The aisle filled with bodies of people impatiently wanting out of this place.

If he didn't care about social rules or anything like that, Gale would've phased out of this plane the moment they touched down. However, they remained seated in place.

No luggaes to retrieve meant that they didn't need to get up. His clothes were already in his space storage and the 2 bueno bars that Rachel had given him for beating up the Elisworth man.

Once the crowd thinned, they stood and made their way to the exit. The flight attendant smiled at them as they passed.

"Thank you for flying Glory Air," she said cheerfully. "Have a wonderful stay in Yellowknife."

Gale nodded while smiling, while Erin didn't even acknowledge her existence.

They walked through the jet bridge and into the terminal. Yellowknife Airport was small compared to Pearson. It was just one terminal and a handful of gates, with gift shops selling dreamcatchers and t-shirts with moose on them.

Moose were on the same level of danger as bears. If he fell from the plane, the moose would trample him instead of eating him. That would've been more survivable than the sheer sharpness of a bear's teeth or claws.

Since they had no checked luggage, they bypassed the baggage claim entirely and headed straight for the arrivals exit. The automatic doors slid open, and January's cold northern air rushed in to greet them.

Aurumn's warmth activated once again, producing a warm encasing wrapping over him. Erin seemed completely unaffected by the temperature, which made sense. She did come out of the pod completely freezing cold.

"Now what?" Gale asked, looking around.

"We must travel north," Erin said.

"How do we get there, though? You got a car prepared?"

"I do not," Erin said. "The transportation methods of this world are primitive and inefficient. We will fly there ourselves."

Gale's feet left the ground as a blue outline wrapped around him. His body rose into the air, pulled upward by an invisible force. Beside him, Erin floated as serenely as ever, her blue hair drifting slightly in the wind.

"Wait!" Gale shouted. "Rachel said not in public!"

"Curses. The woman of fire's influence reaches this far." Erin dropped both of them to the floor.

A family of four was taking their luggage into a taxi. One of their children had curiously stared at both of them.

"You see!"

"The child's stare is meaningless. It poses no harm. The woman of fire's logic serves no purpose in this faraway land."

"This is still Earth. People freak out when they see magic or something they don't understand."

"Their fear is irrational."

"I don't know! Don't ask me. I also think it's stupid. Kind of. They didn't even believe me when I told them I saw stuff with my own eyes in the orphanage."

"Foolish humans of Earth. The perception of the children of Cev is one of peering into the truths of reality. Dismissing your eyes is the same as dismissing the truth of the universe."

"Y-yeah. I know, right? Hahaha." Gale forcefully smiled.

"You possess a skill capable of disguising our presence. Use it."

"Distort?" Gale mumbled. "I can only use it on myself."

"Then learn to apply it to others," Erin said sternly. "Imagine an orb around both of us. Bend the light away from its surface. Make haste."

Learning new applications of his skills in the middle of an airport parking lot wasn't exactly ideal conditions. Then again, he learned a lot of the stuff he's so used to now in life and death situations. This isn't one, though.

But Erin was staring at him with those cold, expectant eyes. The look that said, 'I am waiting, and my patience is not infinite.'

That's probably what she said with her eyes. Most definitely.

Fine.

Instead of pushing the light refractions directly onto his skin like he normally did, Gale tried something different. He imagined the first iteration of Distort. He used the square-like refractions early on in the birth of the skill. Then he tried to form those refractions into an orb shape around both of them.

Surprisingly, the orb formed easily. His essence control had improved significantly since the Tomb. Then, he activated Distort on the orb.

But before it could shimmer into existence, it sputtered out pathetically.

"Make haste, child." Erin's voice was sharp. "Do not overcomplicate the activation process. Access the resource, space. Shape it. Form an orb. Apply the skill. Activate Distort. Five simple steps."

"Five simple steps," Gale muttered sarcastically. "Sure. Simple."

But he tried again, this time out of pure spite.

Access, he reached for the essence. Whatever space was, he just assumed that his type of essence was already space since he could use Distort easily.

Shape. He inserted the action onto the formed essence.

Orb, he willed the essence to form shape.

Apply Distort onto the orb.

And then finally, activate.

The orb solidified. Light bent smoothly around its circumference, rendering everything inside invisible to outside observers. The shimmer was gone, replaced by a seamless refraction that made them appear as nothing more than empty air.

"Woooah, it worked." Gale's mouth gaped.

"An inevitability. Follow the rules, and you will succeed," Erin said. "Now we may proceed."

Before Gale could celebrate or even process what he'd just accomplished, his body lifted off the ground again.

Erin floated beside him, her telekinesis carrying them both upward. They rose above the parking lot, above the terminal, above the airport entirely. The city of Yellowknife spread out below them, getting smaller and smaller.

Then Erin accelerated. Wind roared against them, but did not reach their bodies. A transparent sheet of ice had formed from inside the orb that encased the orb of Distort he made.

They were moving so fast that it felt like Presence Between's tendrils were being dragged along behind him. It was kind of funny looking at them from behind.

Settling onto a cross legged position, floating comfortably upwards inside the ice sphere, it somehow felt comfortable.

"How long will this take?" he asked.

"Approximately one hour at current velocity."

"Erin."

"Young lamb."

"Why are we really going there?"

"If my readings are correct," she said finally, "the rift leads to a region I am familiar with. A former warzone."

"A warzone?"

"The Dainv fought many conflicts during the early stars of the Collapse era. One such conflict was against the Mohrusy, the current invaders of this era." Erin's voice remained flat, but there was something beneath it. "A large rift split open in the location, and a war that lasted a star was fought in that very realm."

"So we're going there to visit a graveyard?"

"Exactly."

"Why do you want to go there?" Gale asked.

"To confirm certain hypotheses. And to retrieve an energy source for the final version of the Rift Aperture system."

Gale's curiosity was satiated, and silence fell between them once again. Pulling out his phone, now that he wasn't on a plane, he could use it without worrying about airplane mode, which probably did nothing.

[Jacob: GALE, DON'T FORGET TO PUT ON THE GOPRO]

[Mia: shut up, idiot. hes probably in an important mission]

[Andrew: I agree with jacob. gale, bring us back some souvenirs from the rift]

Gale smiled. He didn't know what was in store in that rift. However, he'd bring them at least a piece of delicious rock if he could find one.

Materializing his gopro harness, he put it on. After meticulous practice of putting it on at home multiple times, he'd gotten the hang of it. The camera was next. Materializing that also, he put it snugly in the camera slot on his chest.

The body cam was ready after pressing the record button, illuminating a small red dot light at the front.