vatheon | Experiments in flight

Entry tags:

Experiments in flight

Who: Jet Link and anyone who happens to be around
Where: The island
When: During the day of the 15th
Style: Whatever works for you
Status: Open

Working was suffering when you hadn't worked a day in your life, but it was worth it to be able to get some more fuel for his jets. It figured that the only place he could get the stuff was from the one place in the entire city where you had to pay for stuff. It just meant that, unless he wanted to get a steady job (god forbid), he'd have to be more conscious of how often he flew around.

More limitations. He hated limitations.

This, he'd decided, was not wasting the fuel, however. It was really no different than what he'd be doing if he wasn't the only one of the team around. Jet had heard there was a barrier around the island, the only place that one could conceivably leave this place from, but he couldn't seem to find any information where the boundaries were or how high it went. That was why he was on the island now.

The New Yorker took off from the beach and flew (slowly) until his hand touched the invisible barrier a fair distance out into the ocean. He went from there. Sure enough, all the way around the circumference of the island was this invisible wall and not a crack or flaw on it. Back to where he'd started, Jet flew up, keeping his hand lightly to the barrier in hopes that he'd find the edge.

After about an hour and a half of going up and no change, he gave up. There really didn't seem to be a way out and, if he flew any longer, he'd face the dilemma of being too high and not enough fuel to get him down again.

He'd had enough crashing for one lifetime.

In his frustration, he unholstered his blaster and shot at the thing with the plasma setting, hoping the fire power would leave a mark....but there was nothing. It just hit the barrier and fizzled out.

He sighed and drifted back down to the beach till he could safely cut his rockets and sat in the sand. "Rats."

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Sola spends a lot more time on the island lately. It's still not a lot, but it's more than it was. Staying up there for a time when the bubble was cracked made him realize how much he enjoyed it, as ironic as that is for someone who was born of shadow.

He's walking along the beach when he hears the quiet roar of small jet engines, though never having encountered a jet he doesn't realize that's what it's from. He looks up and watches Jet's descent to the beach and the subsequent slump. He wonder's what's wrong but there's something else that pops out of his mouth first as he approaches.

"You can fly!?"

Jet wasn't really expecting an audience, but he doesn't really mind either. It was better than sitting around being frustrated. He shrugs at the question.

"Yeah, it's my party trick. Seems like half the people around here or more have something up their sleeve, I didn't think someone would be all that surprised."

"I'm surprised because you don't have wings. I thought you need wings to fly." Sola plops right down next to Jet, invited or not. It seems like the thing to do. "You're right that different people have different powers though. I can turn into shadows."

Jet didn't really mind the kid sitting with him, it was a free beach. "Nope, no wings, just metal and a whole bunch of science crap." The mention of shadows got a bit of a wry smile from the teen and he looked over at Sola. "Is that magic too?" He still didn't know how he felt about the whole magic thing. Most of that stuff seemed to have technology behind it, but not here. He still couldn't decide if it creeped him out or if he kind of liked the thought, but he was leaning towards the second one the more he ran into it.

"Yeah, I was made of magic originally. I'm all flesh and blood now though, 'scept when I get really angry." He says it simply but with an air of pride. He's very glad for the change, in all honesty. He would have faded away without it.

"I didn't know science could make people fly too! There's magic boots that can make you do that. Or at least hover for a little while. My brother had them and they were really cool."

From the moment Jet had taken off to the moment he landed, he was being watched. Cielo had simply just been there, being a frequent visitor to the beach and a person blasting off into the air without the aid of neither wings nor aircraft was tended to grab one's attention. So he watched with great curiosity as Jet ascended, descended, and fired his blaster.

"Ja, I tried that too."

If Jet were to turn around, he'd find a man sitting cross legged in the sand.

"The flying, the shooting, all of it. Nothing works."

Jet twitched a bit as the voice cut through his thoughts, but he turned his attention to the man behind him easily enough. What else was he doing but sitting there thinking of other ways he wouldn't be able to bust through?

"Yeah, figured some people have been here long enough to try that sort of thing themselves, but I'd hoped a different kind of gun might help. Not so much."

He sighed and gave a half smile. "So is that your magical-or-otherwise ability? Flying? I only ask cause I don't think I've met someone in this place who can't do something"

"I turn into a demon," Cielo says with a completely straight face. "Like that, I can fly, use magic, and shoot a laser from my mouth."

Yep, completely normal. And now that the man mentions it, there are a lot of people who can do a variety of things in Vatheon. After living in Vatheon for a year and a half, it all looks very normal to Cielo.

"I'm Cielo, by the way."

A demon? ....yeah, he was going to file that under 'don't think about it too hard.'

If there were magic bubbles under the sea with full cities in them and regular folks using super powers, why the hell couldn't there be demons? Hell, the concept was at least more familiar to him than some of the other things he'd ran into.

"Heh..okay. Nice to meet ya. I'm Jet."

Cielo tilts his head to one side. "Like a fighter jet?"

It seems like he's meeting quite a lot of people with names he can recognize as instruments of war. First Saber, now Jet. Fighter jets in particular...well, Cielo has a very strong memory associated with them.

The teen laughed. He hadn't really thought of it that way since he was human and had his 'jet' jacket that was embellished with his name and the very aircraft mentioned. Of course nowadays, he resembled those planes more than he ever did before.

"Yeah, like that. Jet Link's the full name." Something Cielo had said came back to him and he got a touch more serious. "Hey, you said you could fly too, right? This barrier thing, does it have a roof or does it just keep going? I flew for a while, but I never found anything."

"If it does, I've never found it," Cielo answers. And it's not for a lack of trying, either. Curiosity has driven him to try multiple times, going higher and higher with each attempt. He's gone as high as he possibly can and there was still no roof.

And he knows what it's like to run into a barrier, he's done it a few times here in Vatheon.

"Yeah, that figures." It would probably be too easy to just be able to fly over the thing and get out. He could feel his frustration growing, he'd never liked the feeling of being trapped and, considering what had been going on at home, he would give just about anything to be able to fly back there. Of course, for all he knew, this was an entirely different planet and being free from the barrier wouldn't necessarily mean he could go back to his friends.

"Hey, Cielo, how long've you been stuck here?" Part of him didn't want to know, but curiosity was cruel.

Now that was a question Cielo could provide a definite answer for and he doesn't even need to think about how long he's been in Vatheon.

"One year and five months."

Not that he was keeping count, of course.

He winced noticeably at the answer and didn't bother hiding his surprise. "That long? Damn." Not that he really had anything to go back to if he was sucked back out of this place, but that was why he wanted to escape then, maybe, he could go back to his friends in one piece and not face his fiery demise.

"You still want to get back home, though, right? I mean, this place isn't the worst, but we don't belong here."

Does he want to go back home?

"I don't know," he admitted. "There's nothing back there for me."

Only death. And even if he were alive, he doesn't believe he could exist in such a world.

"But it also doesn't feel right to leave it as it is."

Everyone there is on the brink of death. Even if it's not a world for him, it's a world for them. Was it selfish of him to think this way? To want to stay in Vatheon, a place where he could and had find peaceful happiness?

Hobbling along the beach is Zack, still trapped in a cast. He's forgone the crutches, since them plus sand is not a good combination, and he's sick of them.

It's a beautiful day, and the beach always has the possibility of running into an old face, or a new one. Being the social butterfly he is, Zack can't resist the opportunity to meet new people.

Especially one with... was that a jet pack on the bottom of his shoes?

Zack watched in fascination as Jet descended from the sky. He's seen a lot of things in his time, but a jet pack thing on your shoes? That was pretty new.

After Jet had taken a moment to brood on his lack of any real progress beyond 'yep, definitely stuck,' he pushed it aside and leaned back on his hands to just relax a moment. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a guy standing nearby looking at him.

Yeah, maybe using his jets like that wasn't the smoothest move, one Gilmore would probably have a thing or two to say about, but it really didn't matter now. He smirked and looked over his shoulder, vaguely recognizing the guy as someone he'd talked to once over the starfish thing. "Hey. You come for a show? Wasn't all that entertaining, I'll bet."

"Nah, just for a walk. Trying to stretch out my legs." He gestures to his cast as he slowly makes his way over to Jet. "Saw you coming down. Didn't know anyone around here could fly."

He uses fly in the loosest sense. Clearly Jet doesn't have wings, and his flight is only possible due to the technology on hand.

Jet smiled a bit to himself. "Apparently, there's at least one other guy. Wouldn't surprise me if there were others too."

He glanced at Zack's leg before turning his eyes back to the ocean. "With all the special things around here and...magic, I'd think there'd be something a little more efficient than time to fix you up."

"Not with what the nurses had at the clinic. Sure some people here have healing.capabilities, but I don't know any of them." He supposed he could have asked over the network, but... "Besides, it's a reminder right now of my limits in this place. Better keep it on and learn than make the same mistake, right?"

Dirk didn't often come up to the island, but with the coming of warmer, sunnier weather, it was beginning to remind him more of the conditions around his apartment. Today, he'd come up basically on a whim, to take a break from some of his projects that required a lot of staying still and delicate work.

He hadn't meant to stay up on the island for very long, but when he'd arrived, he'd caught sight of someone up in the air over the ocean, and had stuck around to watch what they were doing. It was only once Jet started descending that Dirk recognized him. As soon as Jet landed, Dirk gave a brief wave of greeting.

Jet took the distraction Dirk's presence provided, it was more appealing than sitting around thinking how definitely stuck he was. Jet waved back and gave a bit of a smirk. "Did you come up to enjoy the sun? You didn't strike me as the outdoorsy type."

Dirk kicked at one of the shells in the sand as he shrugged. "I ain't much, but I don't shrivel up in the touch of light, either. Went swimming all the time back in my world." But rather than head toward the ocean, he just stayed where he was, hands in his pockets. "This is just a break from staring at the same damn mechanism and making no progress for an hour."

Jet stood and brushed the sand off, tired of sitting around already. "Yeah? I thought you were the whiz kid for that sort of stuff." He shrugged and glanced at where he knew the barrier was off the coast. "Seems that whole 'no progress' thing is contagious today."

"Whiz kid ain't synonymous with bow down all machines and take it from your lord and master as he lovingly fucks you over. Doesn't mean I can't improve, either," Dirk said. He followed Jet's gaze out toward the ocean, then caught on to what he meant. "The barrier? Fuck, no one's made progress in cracking that since I got here. 'Course, we fucked up the city's dome, so we could probably fuck up that too, but the problem is, we don't know what causes that one."

He got distracted from whatever he was going to say and shot Dirk a somewhat doubtful, albeit curious, look. "You fucked up the city's dome. Call me obvious, but that sounds like a really bad idea. What happened to it? Better yet, how'd you fix it? Not duct tape, I'm guessing."

"Y'know the glow around the coral? That started going really dim. Long story short, some dumbass tried to fix it, and it almost worked, but then it fried the thing instead. Cracked it, water started pouring in, all that shit." Dirk jerked his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the village. "We were staying over there for a while. Long story short, the marks we've got helped the coral get power, through curses, but 'cause coral's a living thing, it got out of sync with the marks and wasn't processing. We changed the marks, curses happened and got the coral back up to power, and now we're right fucking back where we started."

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Experiments in flight

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