The previous Sassy Saturday post can be read here: Liberating the Body, Mind and Soul
The context for this post: Eric is traveling to Mt.Fiol as part of his plan to save himself from Gruffle's vengeance. On the way, he runs into some trouble. Fortunately for him, the airship he's traveling in is piloted by Kallen and her copilot Emily.
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Mt. Fiol was a
stratovolcano in southern Ataidar. It grew out of the eastern side of the
Sussano River and so it faced Mithra instead of Latrot. Fiol’s Faithful,
Ataidar’s state religion, maintained that it was the only thing that prevented
Ataidar from being absorbed into the Mithran Weeping Willow Empire. Although
the historical account was more complicated, the volcano remained essential. As
Albatross IX approached it, smoke
spewed from its peak.
Big and dark, it formed a
cloud that shrouded the area. Emily scanned it with the ship’s sensors and
determined that it was not volcanic ash. Nor was it small enough to be even the
largest of burnt offerings.
“Shields up,” she
muttered out of reflex.
Her hands moved across
the co-pilot’s controls with practiced ease. Small changes rippled across the
hull to make it flame retardant and its weapon systems heated up. From within
the smoke cloud came a salamander spirit.
It was as big as the ship
itself. The orange and red coloring in its ectoplasm streaked backwards and
bled into each other as it raced towards Albatross
IX. Its mouth opened impossibly wide.
Kallen made a sharp dive
to avoid it. The spirit followed. Fire plumes shot from its mouth. Kallen
swerved around the first four and performed an aileron roll to deflect a fifth one, the maneuver generating an
electrostatic barrier that canceled the
flame on contact. Everyone but Emily lurched in their seats with each maneuver.
The redhead was too busy relaying data to Kallen to notice the turbulence.
“See?!” Eric shouted. “GIANT
MONSTER ATTACK!”
“SHUT UP AND GET UP HERE!”
Kallen ordered.
“But I can’t—”
“NOW!”
Eric shifted to his true
form and then undid his seat belt. At that moment, Kallen did another aileron
roll and tossed Eric across the cabin. His head clanged on the inner hull. He
crawled to the cockpit only to find that he couldn’t fit. Grabbing the door
with both hands, he waited through a third and fourth aileron roll before
dismissing his bulky metal hide.
“Stick your Soiléir into the power converter console.”
Eric clapped his hands together and plunged the
crystal into the gap in the dashboard near the ignition key. The sea blue light
shimmered within its depths.
“Hang on to something!”
Kallen pulled back heavily on the control stick and
performed a loop. A blast of divine wind magic from Eric’s
crystal overcame the inherent vulnerability of the maneuver and put Albatross IX behind the giant salamander
in an instant.
“Campione Cannon, fire!”
The ship opened its
griffin mouth and fired a specialized beam of divine water energy at the fire
spirit’s tail. It both punctured and washed over the target via twin currents.
The salamander withered and hissed as it went out in a puff of smoke.
Emily hummed a little victory
tune as the cannon retracted and cooled down.
“Have you done this
before?” Eric asked while retracting his Soiléir.
“Flesh and spirit both,”
Emily replied. “It’s how I pass the time while Kallen is on a mission.”
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Transcending Limitations, and the rest of the Journey to Chaos series, is available for purchase at Amazon as an ebook. The series is also available in Kindle Unlimited. The paperback format is available at Amazon and also at Createspace.________________________________________________________________
To learn more about the heroines of Journey to Chaos, visit the Tvtropes character sheet.
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