Chapter 31 - Fly Away

We walked back to the city. It took a bit of time, especially because my legs were in an agony only comparable to when I got my arm chopped off. The extra time it took didn’t come from me walking slowly, though. It was because Ame had to carry me.

We made it back to the palace and I immediately plopped down onto the couch with Ame. Dominic accidentally stabbed his sword into the floor after Kaya jumped and hugged him from behind. Inda and Sy were both racing to the fridge to get food.

But, all of us stopped as something hit the floor.

It was Aqlli. He got down on one knee in front of Ame and lowered his head, placing his sword next to him.

The king was bowing to Ame.

“Ame Nishimura. This is my final favor to ask of you. Inda has just discovered her wings, and she needs to fly. So, please, let her join Eternal Flame!”

Ame looked away and thought.

“Hm… I don’t know, you did call me a lab rat…”

Aqlli lowered his head until it cracked the floor.

“I beg of you! I swear on the name Forskare Aqlli, that I will treat you with the utmost respect! I will be indebted to you for the rest of my life!”

Inda looked a bit nervous.

“D-Dad, it’s okay…”

Ame burst out laughing.

“Bahahaha! It’s okay, I wanted her to join us anyway. I just needed to see you beg.”

Aqlli shot up off the ground faster than I had ever seen him move and held his sword up to Ame’s neck from behind.

I had to intervene.

“Y-you said you’d be indebted to him!”

Aqlli looked at me and lowered his sword.

“You’re right. I did say that. My apologies.”

Ame raised Inda’s hand, just as he did to me.

“Please welcome the sixth member of Eternal Flame, Inda Devas!”

She giggled.

“You remember my last name?~”

“Of course I do!”

Everybody was smiling, including me. I was glad Inda was joining. Really glad.

Ame turned to Aqlli.

“So, do we get to live here? You said you’re indebted to us~.”

Aqlli cleared his throat a bit.

“Well, yes, but I have a meeting with my sister, the queen of Basila. They also have no magic, but their close ties to Zibernetika caused them to get a gift. A man-made strength ‘element’. It’s idiotic to call it an element, so I simply call it an ability. While I’m gone, I expect you all to defend the castle. The only reason you will be allowed to leave for an extended period of time is in case of an emergency.”

Ame nodded and leaned back on the couch I was on.

Aqlli walked towards the door.

“I will be leaving now, please stay safe.”

Kaya, Sy, Inda and Ame all spoke unanimously.

“See ya!”

He closed the door and we were left alone.

Dominic was the first person to speak.

“I’m going to take a bath. I’ll be back in an hour.”

An… hour?

Kaya immediately followed.

“Me first!”

She rushed off to the bathroom.

“Wait! You’ll use up all the hot wat-”

She was already gone.

Sy dragged Ame by his wrist after Ame asked him to train again. This left only Inda and I.

Inda turned to me.

“What are you gonna do, Nell?”

There wasn’t really much to do. I could train, but training alone was incredibly boring. I could sleep, but I wasn’t entirely tired anymore. My final option was to write. I liked that one the best.

“I’ll write in my notebook.”

She smirked.

“Eh? You like the notebook I gave you? Lemme see it~”

She grabbed the notebook out of my pocket faster than I could react to.

She opened it to the first page and her eyes widened.

“N-Nell…”

I snatched it out of her hands and put it in my pocket, before she continued speaking as if she was trying to change the topic as quickly as possible.

“I’m gonna see what Ame’s doing. See ya!~”

After she left, I was alone. I opened up my notebook and took the pen out of my pocket along with it, and began to write. I wrote one page.

And then the next.

My hand began to get wobbly until the pen escaped my grasp and I fell asleep.

The use of RME on my legs took much more of a toll on me than I had thought it would.

…

I woke up to Ame shaking me. Judging by the light coming through the window, it had been about 5 hours.

“Nell! Look what I made!”

He held out an object in front of me. It was made of solid water, like most of his other creations.

It had a trigger just like his water pistol and shotgun, but it had a scope and a much longer barrel.

“It’s a water sniper! I use my water magic to form it and create the bullet, but I use the little wind magic I know to make it go farther with more accuracy.”

“...Cool?”

“I know, right?”

I genuinely thought it was impressive, but I had just been woken up, and had no way to express that. I just ended up sounding uninterested.

Ame pointed it towards the smoke detector on the ceiling and shot it.

Beep

Beep

Beep

“Why did you do that?” Dominic asked.

Ame simply smiled and ignored his question.

Inda went up to take it off and replace it, but a louder beeping came from the other side of the palace.

Dominic was the first to say something.

“I looked away for three seconds, and you shot another one?”

No. He was wrong. This wasn’t a smoke detector.

It was the security alarm.

Ame looked annoyed.

“Again?!”

Our eyes widened as Inda rushed us over to Aqlli’s office.

She desperately typed the password to his computer and called the royal office of L’eau.

Within seconds, somebody picked up the call. He seemed to be in a position of power, but I couldn’t tell what his job was.

Inda shouted into the computer.

“Bring Marē! It’s important!”

The man responded.

“I apologize, he is not here at this moment. I can answer any questions you may have.”

Inda was getting nervous.

“Tch. Give Cittaglia access to the planetary cameras. It’s an order from Aqlli.”

Planetary cameras?

“Yes ma’am. I’ll unlock it at once for you.”

He hung up the call. Inda impatiently tapped her finger on the mouse until something popped up on her screen. There was a video showing the entire planet.

She immediately started to zoom in onto the borders of Cittaglia. There were red dots where people were detected.

Directly outside the Cittaglian border, there were hundreds of red dots. All organized. The only thing it could be was a military.

Inda bit her thumb nail.

“Damnit. Why would the alarm go off if they aren’t even close to us? Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

She powered off the computer and turned to us.

“Dad said we could leave in case of emergencies. This counts as an emergency. Get your items ready. It’ll take less than a day to intercept them if we’re quick. Got it?!”

We all yelled.

“Got it!”

She smirked.

“Well then, it's time for my first mission with Eternal Flame!~”

We rushed out of the door only after grabbing all of our stuff. Inda grabbed a couple of warm coats from the closet before leaving.

Sprinting wouldn’t be smart, because we needed to conserve our energy for the fight after we intercepted them.

We all began walking forward.

We walked for an hour or so. The Cittaglian countryside was rather similar to Jeti’s, but it looked much, much more dry. While Jeti had forests, all I could see were rocky plains and a very small amount of grass. There were much less wild animals as well. The air still had that same crispness, where every time I blinked my eyes felt like they got rid of a layer of ice.

Moments after surveying my surroundings again, something cold hit my head.

It was solid, unlike rain.

It was snowing.

Kaya looked up at the sky with stars in her eyes.

“Snow!”

Inda rubbed her head.

“This’ll slow us down a bit. I brought coats just in case.”

She threw us the coats. Kaya immediately threw it over to Sy, because she could just use her magic to warm herself up. She looked at me for a moment, expecting me to do the same. But I couldn’t.

Ame held the coat up.

“This is a bit ugly.”

Inda glared at him.

“Eh?! It’s warm, so you’re gonna wear it!”

“Yes ma’am!”

He put on the coat as we kept walking. My shoes were getting wet enough to the point where it was hard to walk. I could only imagine what was going on with the Laptaan army.

They all had fire magic. It must’ve been nice.

We walked for another two hours as the snow stopped falling. And eventually, right before the sun began to go down, we ran into an enemy. But it wasn’t an army.

There was one hooded man standing in front of us. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I knew he was strong. I was scared.

He slowly walked forward as all of us froze. My arm unconsciously began shaking.

He walked in front of me and took his hood off. Everybody’s eyes widened, except for mine. They were all frozen.

I looked at him. I looked at his hair. I looked at his eyes. He had royal blue hair, and eyes darker blue than Ame’s.

It matched a description I had heard before from Ame, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

I stared into his eyes.

And I remembered who it was.

“Marē.”

The value behind each word he spoke stung my brain like darts hitting a dartboard.

“It’s about time for the first trial, Nell! Let the preliminary round…

…

Begin!”

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Nell's Notebook: Page 53

Inda is an interesting person. She's incredibly kind, but says a lot of weird things. Emotions I had never felt before were discovered for the first time while talking to her. Her strength is impressive. She barely sleeps too! I couldn’t do that if I tried. I’m tired even while writing this. I need to sleep soon, but I want to keep writing. Just in case I fall asleep, I’ll write my page number here. 53. Why would I write it here? So I could umm………………mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm–`--’[][‘`

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