Chapter 62: Ripples

Khalif and Rob were lost. They were supposed to meet Jasmine and Lane for lunch, as Xani was busy helping Auto and Autumn with something she kept close to the chest. Which nobody found odd, due to her personality traits.

“Are we getting looked at strangely?” asked Rob. The two, of course, were being looked at strangely due to their actions while they walked.

One aided by propeller palm drones to craft potions. The flying hands held up pots, a small flat work surface for cutting and mixing ingredients; as well as maintained correct cooking temperatures through the use of fingertip burners and heat gauges designed to simulate a flat top grill or oven.

While the other played a game with the use of other people's shadows. Khalif had originally dropped a knife into his own shadow with the intention of testing his capabilities in regards to how far away he could make the knife emerge from himself. Somehow the activity quickly changed into a game and before people knew it they had unwittingly been subjected to assassination training.

Rob looked up from his work at Khalif’s words with every intention of refuting the idea of gathering attention of any kind, neither good, nor bad.

Then witnessed Khalif’s knife drop from the underbelly of a overhanging rafter, fall through the air, disappear through the shadow of a running delivery boy, but not before it sliced through the strap of the youngster’s bag.

Between the chaos of Khalif’s knife tricks, and people being distracted by Rob’s work to the point of running blindly into walls or random landmarks, Rob realized many, many eyes were on them. Some in interest, and some annoyed or enraged.

“Yeah…. How long you been messing with your knife like that, dude?”

“Knives.”

“What, knives, what are you—“ Then Rob realized multiple knives were in motion, some even Ricocheted to change angles before entering shadows once more.

“You said knife, I corrected you. What does that have to do with strange looks, bra, are you that into your work?”

Rob’s brow scrunched, before he retorted, “Wait, are you serious? Everything, dude. Everything.”

“Says the guy with the water fountain on his face, you sure they aren’t just freaked out by your face,” said Khalif with a laugh.

“Oh ha ha, you dress in more black than an emo vampire. I’m going to need you to settle down, kiddo. I bet I got a potion that can enter one of your portals for sure, lets see who’s laughing when you pee green for a while,” threatened rob with a fake laugh of his own.

Khalif had been laughing, until the words struck true fear into the young man, who vividly remembered how cultivators reacted to being under Rob’s potion effects. He wanted to remark with a witty comeback, but all he managed to say in the end was, “Wait, what?”

Rob pat his friend on the arm and shrugged. A gesture to show he wouldn’t ever harm the younger man, but the smile he showed distorted by air bubbles only filled Khalif with absolute anxiety.

“No, for real, you make all my food, bra, quit playing with me,” said Khalif to Rob’s back as he stepped away from Khalif still chuckling to himself.

“Jade hasn’t taught me poisons yet, my guy, your—“ Rob stopped at the sound of tearing metal. A sound made even more violent by the accompanying rip that stretched across the sky above them. Above everyone.

“What the sparks…” The words came from both the young men’s mouths. They glanced at each other before rays of multicolored lights pierced the sky, reaching from the rift like living tendrils of power.

What emerged from the rift took everyone's breath away, if they weren’t inside, or carried enough mana internally to not be affected by mana distortion waves.

The massive ship was half the size of a stadium and in motion, and even though it didn’t move fast, all who watched it became aware of its potential collision with one of Raid Corp’s Coliseum’s skylines. There were many skylines formed from clustered skyscrapers, but the ship’s path was directly toward many of the centralized clusters.

The collective breath was held by all observers of the ship's entry, until a large mana based shield appeared as it formed a massive dome above the entirety of all of colosseum.

The collective relief felt as many saw the rippling purple light enclose around them all, allowed for them to breathe. Temporarily…

“We gotta move, right? I think this is where we run and get Arson and the portal to get the sparks out of here,” said Rob. His custom propeller palm drones had already started to store his items in his spacial bag by the time he looked toward Khalif, who was no longer there.

“Khalif, where did you...” started Rob before Khalif’s voice came from a distance behind him through the rest of the screams that had begun. Rob glanced up and saw his friend running on a nearby rooftop, directly toward the ship.

“Come on, that’s the boss's hotel it's headed toward!”

Rob started to run, for the first time in his life, toward danger. The feeling was intoxicating and Rob tried to ignore the cracks that lined the purple mana shield, when the ship collided into it. Its slow pace unhindered to the point that the mana dome immediately began to buckle.

“You have got to be sparking kidding me!” Rob picked up his pace. His movements smooth and loose under the water breathing potions added effects. His body went from cool to warmed up and limber after only a dozen strides.

Khalif teleported so quickly and often that Rob had lost sight of him, and it wasn’t until the dome shattered like glass that Rob even managed to see him again.

Khalif dangled from one arm from a roof's gutter, staring as the sky fell around him. He was captivated and in that moment wished more than ever before, that he could fly. His friend worried for his life, charging toward the image of Khalif framed by a sky that cried lilac flames.

“Move, you idiot!”

The entire landscape caught flame and the ship collided with the first skyscraper of many to come. Rob had to force himself to keep running toward the building even as the palatial tower’s top tipped, what felt to be, directly toward him. While Khalif dangled frozen from a nearby rooftop.

…

Micro felt the pressure of the mana inside the room explode the moment it came in contact with the open air. She’d known it was going to happen the moment she saw the ship. It’d happened before once when Arson had passed out within a room while practicing some weird breathing technique.

She’d opened the door and given Arson’s body access to far more mana than was available in the small sealed room, and the vacuum caused by the strength of his body’s natural absorption crushed walls and pulled down nearby ceilings for a mile.

Now that his body had access to the richer environment offered within their own realm, a far grander explosion occurred. Micro and Troy had been flung aside. Micro had been caught by an interior wall before it too crumbled, while Troy had been sent end over end out the window and toward the ship.

Micro tried to put eyes on Arson before she even rose to her feet only to be drawn toward a voice.

“Father did always say I do know how to make an entrance.”

The ship… or tree? Began to unravel before Micro’s eyes, even while it crushed the building and partially ate some of the energy that Arson’s body drew in. The synthesized mana changed the silver leaves of the tree to a golden white that Micro knew all too well.

That can’t be good…

Through the partition a small city could be seen from a vantage point below a captain's deck. A young woman floated free of the face of the large vessel, with a large smile and said,

“Hello, Godling Realm. Welcome your newest princess, Amorra Glory!”

…

Troy had never moved so quickly in her life. The floor they were on was being caved in by the massive silver and black ship, and the top of the building had been separated to the point that it now spiraled slightly toward its own base. She knew that if something wasn’t done thousands would be crushed, and even more could be fatally injured.

She managed to move toward Arson before the initial explosion but had been lifted out of the room after Arson’s body imploded with power before it emitted a powerful wave of energy that almost erased the floor they were on even before the ship could.

After she’d slammed into the ship and gotten to her feet time had frozen for her. She was able to take in how Arson’s body floated higher into the air; how Micro had landed inside, and where the top of the building would land.

She found herself running down the building before she truly acknowledged what she wanted to do.

“Push, Troy, push!” Her own tears cut the sides of her face when she pushed more power into her speed technique than she ever had before.

The sounds of the alarms blaring and cultivators screaming was stretched into a slow motion rewind to Troy’s ears. After images of her stretched through the street behind her while she rushed to position herself directly underneath the building she felt was going to crush her to death no matter what she did.

She slid to come to a complete stop, and channeled all of the energy she used on her speed technique forcibly into her hard-light clone skill.

“Well buddy, I hope you know I truly do care for you,” said Troy to herself. She raised her arms and hard-light clones began to pop up all around her.

They filled the streets, rooftops, alleyways, spaced by a yard at most between each multi-colored body.

“Aaah!” Troy roared and the building slammed down like a improperly placed building block in the middle of an architectural model. The boom that echoed out was not the sound of the incredible structure making contact with the ground below, but instead it was the sound of the stone being broken underneath the feet of a growing army of hard-light clones, and Troy’s yell as she pushed with everything she had.

“I refuse!”

…

Khalif, had frozen, when the shield broke. He remained frozen when the ship smashed into the building. He even stayed unmoved and hanging from a rooftop as the building experienced a secondary explosion and begun to rain purple and golden white fire throughout the resort.

The mixture of mana shield remnants and the golden energy caused explosions that obliterated nearby structures instantly, melted through load baring walls, and set fire to almost everything it touched. The exception being very strong cultivators.

Most fled, and others did their best to help but the damage caused was catastrophic in scope.

Yet, the moment Khalif saw his friend appear directly in the path of danger he wondered many things in that moment.

Could he live with himself if he didn’t do everything he could to help her survive. Would he be able to face his friends if he knew he didn’t try? Would Arson forgive him if he could never speak to his girlfriend again? Khalif let go of the rooftop.

The young man reached terminal velocity and fell into his own shadow on the street below. He emerged from the side of a staircase; the angle of the shade allowing him to emerge in a horizontal slide rather than upright and still falling with the weight of gravity. He turned his momentum, into propulsion , and pushed off the ground, a smooth transition into a run performed perfectly under stress.

He could see underneath the building, and had to raise an arm at the intense light that came from the army of manifested projections around Troy.

“Troy!”

Khalif heard foot steps behind him, and took in the sight of many people jumping from destroyed sections of the building Troy held up barely in front of him after he took a moment to breathe.

Khalif heard a woman scream and moved on instinct to catch the woman. He teleported with use of his own shadow, emerged from the woman’s back, wrapped his arms around her and fell into the shadow both their bodies made.

Khalif was proud of himself, until the sound of more bodies hitting the pavement around him and the threat of death was made real once more.

I have to get to Troy now!

“Khalif, what’s going on?” He heard Rob’s voice and glanced to see him charging down the street with red potions in hand. The nearby bodies that had fallen broken to the ground, were pelted with propeller palm drone throws. The potions powerful enough to return many to their feet, and others in a state of sleep induced recovery.

“Where is Troy!” Rob gestured at the clones. Their bodies cracking underneath the weight of the load they bore. Khalif gestured toward the center of the mass of light bodies and started toward where he’d signaled even as the clones started to bend their knees.

He and Rob ran through the mix of colors that attempted to blind them, the light being expelled intensified by the incredible amounts of mana being used by Troy.

The closer they got the more a breeze could be felt. It wasn’t until Khalif saw Troy that he noticed just how much mana was being drawn toward their friend. The two made it a couple yards away from Troy and could approach no further.

The pressure caused by how much light was being drawn through the air had a physical force to it that rebuffed any further movement. The young men shared a look at the sight of Troy.

Her veins glowed a dazzling array of colors. Her hair rippled with power, moving as if she was under water, but it was both her silence and the intensity found in her eyes that shook Rob and Khalif to their cores.

“Troy, we have to get out of here,” yelled Rob. Khalif couldn’t help but look at him, knowing that he understood something Rob didn’t. Their friend wore the eyes of a warrior. The woman before them had the eyes of someone determined to die for the greater good.

“We have to get her out of here Rob,” said Khalif while he grabbed Rob close enough to try and teleport away if they needed; only to quickly realize he was being drenched enough light to make that impossible.

Rob looked around and back at Khalif, “You can’t teleport us out of here can you?”

“No.”

“Figures,” said Rob as he smiled and handed Khalif a handful of potion bottles.

“When I say go, throw all of these straight up!”