My Brother Is The Hero Of Earth

When all that I could see was the navy light, a sense of vertigo overcame me. I couldn"t tell which way was up, if I was standing or falling. My only anchor was the feeling of Gustavo"s presence throughout the unpleasant experience. The feeling of the ground under my feet was the first of my senses to return followed a unique, sugary smell Katye had developed after fully awakening her bloodline. I could hear the wind rustle leaves, leaving my sight to be the last to return.

The sky was a deep blue with white stars twinkling from horizon to horizon. We were in a large clearing on the side of a mountain, midway up. A tall pine forest loomed in the distance with only darkness past the first layer of trees, but before anyone could take more in, a set of hands pushed the group apart.

"Back, Katye is going to lose her dinner," Terri said.

Everyone jumped back, except for Melissa, whose hands began glowing as she helped Katye to her knees. The white light spread over her body as she fought the urge to vomit. Melissa soothed her as she ran her hand over her back until Katye stopped heaving.

"Looks like Katye has some s.p.a.ce affinity after all," Sophia commented when Katye was able to keep her meal down.

"Well, "s.p.a.ce" can be "chaotic", right?" Yue smirked.

"Yue! Pull out the zeppelin!" Lesedi exclaimed excitedly.

While they talked, I drifted over to Katye and Melissa. "Are you okay?" I asked as I offered my hand.

"Better, now," she said as she took my hand, but a spark of violet lightning sprang from her hand to mine. "Ah, I"m sorry. I thought I had it under control!"

"It"s fine. It doesn"t hurt, remember?" I replied, keeping my hand in place.

"Ye... yeah," she replied, taking my hand again.

I helped her to her feet, all while her mana continued seep into my hand. I resisted the urge to pull away from her touch as well as the urge to pull her into my arms, so I settled for casually helping her steady herself before letting my hand drop away. The ghostly feeling of hand remained even after we parted which caused me to rub my fingers together as the feeling faded. I caught Melissa"s amused look out of the corner of my eye and backed up a little as I scratched my head. Katye gasped as she stared up above my head, so I turned while looking up and found the zeppelin in the air.

It wasn"t as ma.s.sive the Hindenburg had been, but the silver envelope that held the air that made it float, from the spindle to the rudder, was three hundred feet long and floating fifty feet up in the air. With no one on board, the details of the ship were consumed by the darkness of the night. A rope ladder hung down from the gondola which Yue was already climbing, followed closely by Lesedi and then Gustavo.

"It isn"t going to land?!?" Katye asked, shocked.

Melissa and I both laughed while I answered, "It can"t actually. The formations used to control the alt.i.tude won"t let it within forty feet of the ground to prevent collisions. The only way that thing will ever land is by crash landing."

"The climb isn"t too bad. If you have a fear of heights, just keep looking up while you go up," Melissa added.

"It"s safe though, right?" Katye asked.

"Alice has only loaned it to us four time while I"ve been here, but it has never let us down even through some thick sc.r.a.ps," I rea.s.sured her.

Sophia and Terri both started climbing while we talked and Kiara and Ella waved us over as they held the ladder as still as they could.

"You should be the next one up Katye since you are the newest," Kiara said.

"Then by that logic, you should be the next. I"ll take your place," I said to Kiara.

I took her side of the rope ladder and watched as Katye begin her climb. Kiara followed right after and Melissa placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a knowing smile which caused me to sigh in exasperation before she started her way up.

Unlike the trio I had laughed the night away with, there was no hidden scheme behind Melissa"s actions which made me unable to correct her thoughts. Her empathic abilities made her understand my emotions probably better than myself since she had so much practice helping everyone with their problems, but even so, she couldn"t handle when my dragon side eared its ugly head. She nearly feel into a catatonic state when she tried to "soothe the beast" after a big fight with Gustavo, shortly after we arrived; ever since, she "closes" that part of her mind if she feels an episode coming on.

"Go on, I"m the least breakable when the ladder starts swinging," I said to Ella.

"I"m sure Yue will wait until you board... this time," Ella replied then laughed before she scampered up.

I laughed while I waited, holding the ladder as stable as I could. When Ella reached the top quarter of the ladder, I placed a foot on the ladder and scanned the dark clearing one last time before I started my climb. After a few minutes and a lot of swinging, I reached the main deck where Gustavo helped me over the railing which was full lit by now.

The entire gondola was made of light gray ironbark and had the look of an old pirate ship held up by a large number of ropes spanned around the whole envelope. The railing was lined with twenty mage cannons that looked closer to a machine gun turret with a seat than any cannon I had ever seen. In the center of the deck, there was a small platform where Yue was standing as she took control of the various formations that ran the ship. Outside of the platform, there were some ornate, Victorian era couches that made a ring around the raised floor with several openings, where most of the people were already sitting. At both the bow and stern of the ship, there were a set of doors that opened to the stairs down to the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen.

"So, front or back?" I asked Gustavo as we walked over to the group.

"Front, that way, I"m always first," he laughed.

"Whatever, dork," I said, laughing along with him. "I"m taking the back room to those bunking with me," I told the group.

"Five and five, right? We have an even split this time," Lesedi laughed as she leaned against Sophia in her normal position.

Yue raised her hands and the entire airship jerked before it slowly began to move forward. Gustavo ran his hand up Lesedi"s arm as he pa.s.sed by to sit with Ella and Kiara. Once again, I noticed how the other girls" eyes followed him and I could feel the "inner rage" that had been plaguing me for days start to stir again. I sighed and looked away, noticing Katye standing on top of the small cabin at the bow of the ship.

"Go, Becca," Melissa"s voice chimed through my head without actually reaching my ears.

"Et tu, Brutus?" I thought.

"I"m not part of Alice"s plan, but the non-empath side of me can tell you that she asks about you a lot. Hint, hint!"

"Why is no one worried about my "dragon" half?"

"Because you are too hard on yourself. You only truly lost control once at the manor and that was after Gustavo punched you. Are you really going to fight this until you are miserable?"

"If you weren"t an empath, I would have hid it well enough," I thought with a sigh before I headed towards the front of the ship.

"About as well as I can ignore the suffering of others," she replied with a mental chuckle that made my mind buzz for a moment.

I shook my head dispelling the feeling as I heard Melissa gentle laugh. Resisting the urge to shoot her a look, I climbed the stairs to the top of the cabin where Katye was, nearing causing me to jump forward and grab her. She was standing on the railing on her tiptoes while leaning over the edge of the ship, only holding on to a rope to keep from falling.

"Katye!" I nearly screamed.

And then it had. Startled, she let go of the rope as she spun around to face me and started to fall backwards. Before I could react through, there were a flash of violet light and her wings appeared, letting her hover in the air as they flapped.

Katye giggled as she spun around in the air, showing off her wings. "Alice was right, flying came very easily to me."

I chuckled as my face grew warm, no doubt a rosy color. "You were able to hide your wings after a few days, I kinda forgot about them. Sorry for scaring you," I apologized.

She landed in front of me and playful spun away from me as another flash of violet covered her for a moment, her wings now gone. Through her backless shirt, I could see an intricate pattern of runes similar to the ones I had on my arms and legs, but there were far more. Some were violet, but the majority of them were black and they formed together to take the shape of her dragonfly wings as they wrapped around her body, disappearing under her shirt.

"So, have you guys been here before?" Katye asked without looking back at me, returning to her earlier position overlooking the forest below.

"The Shaconage Mountains? No, but we have been to Heneecei which is about a thousand miles to the southwest," I replied as I joined her on the railing, although my feet were firmly planted on the floor with only my hands on the waist-high bar.

"I don"t see any monsters," she pouted.

I chuckled as I retrieved a pair of gold rim, bug-eyed goggles and handed them to Katye. "Try these on."

"Ooo!" she said excitedly after she slid them on. "I have a spell for night-vision, but this is a lot more impressive. I can see so much further and everything being in black and white makes any movement stand out more."

"These are some of Sophia"s best work. She should have given you a pair as well."

"Yeah, I think there are something like these in my ring," she said as she started to look through her storage ring.

"Don"t worry about it, you can use mine for now," I said, touching her hand with her ring.

She giggled softly, "Thanks then."

For the night, Yue slowly steered the ship around the edge of the mountain range, slowly gaining alt.i.tude. Although I didn"t have a compa.s.s, I was pretty sure we were heading north since, on the left side of the ship, I could see the smoky clouds that covered the main body of the mountain chain. To the right, should be the ocean on the edge of the horizon, but I couldn"t see it in the darkness. Thankfully, our entrance into the "Rift" was rather peaceful.