Chapter 40: The Storm Above
Then the sky broke open.
Not one bolt.
Not ten.
Thousands.
Lightning crawled through the clouds like living rivers, turning the sky white. It was so bright, Arthur had to shield his eyes. For one full second, nobody moved.
Then the screaming started.
Students collapsed against railings and each other. Several contracted beasts disappeared back into their summoning spaces. Handlers threw their hands over their heads. The wyverns shrieked and beat their wings wildly.
Mithra pressed herself against the railing and stared upward, Arthur had never seen Mithra look so frightened. Melo was on the platform floor, her small body shaking so hard she could barely hold herself up. Tears were running down her face. Vedas was trembling. The Goblin Commander’s spear shook in both hands, while he knelt on the floor.
"What is happening to them?" he asked.
Mithra’s voice trembled. "This only happens when something vastly beyond them appears. Every beast has a response to something far above its level. It shuts them down." She looked up at the clouds.
"W-What? But Vedas or Melo never acted like this against the Crystal Deer, Mephistopheles, the Ancient Hobgoblin Chief, or the Ancient Goblin King."
"That just means this thing is... At least Gold Rank." Mithra shivers. "...Maybe higher."
Then Arthur felt it through the Synchronization.
Fear.
Terror.
Horror.
An overwhelming instinct to run, to hide, and to never look up again. The sensation hit him like a hammer and for the first time in a long while, he felt afraid too. It wasn’t the lightning but whatever was above the clouds.
His hands trembled.
His heart pounded.
Part of him wanted to do exactly what everyone else was doing. He slowly crouched and covered his head.
But then he froze.
A memory appeared with his mother’s voice echoing out.
"You’re terrified," she said. "That’s different from not fine." She finished with his collar and looked at him. "Terrified just means you want something. That’s good."
He was terrified, he looked down at his shaking hands with a bitter smile.
"Hey,"
"Whatever happens... You come home, and you tell me all of it. Good or bad."
His eyes widened before he recalled what he told her.
"And if it’s bad?"
"Then I’ll make the eggs you like, and we’ll figure out what comes next... You were born to see things I never got to see. I’ve known it since you were small... Go make a story worth telling me tonight."
Arthur closed his eyes as before, letting out a small chuckle. "... Right, she is waiting for me. I’m not dying before I tell her this story."
Then he remembered everyone in Greenleaf.
He had promised to come back with stories. So, How can he die before he even reaches the Pathfinder academy?
Then another memory appeared.
Maria standing outside their home and smiling.
"When you take the first step, Arthur..."
He remembered blinking. "What?"
Maria laughed. "When you take the first step, the others will follow." She tapped his forehead. "Never forget that."
Arthur’s eyes widened as understanding hit him. Nobody was moving because, just like him, everyone was waiting for someone to save them. He inhaled deeply and began looking out the window at what he could do.
He looked for the creature.
Nothing.
He looked for somewhere to hide.
Nothing.
And then something caught his attention. The lightning wasn’t striking them but instead it was hitting the outside of the convoy.
He turned immediately.
Arthur quickly glanced at Vedas. "Vedas, I need you to use your Command Authority skill to help take command of the Wyverns! Just tell them to fly a bit closer to the center area."
He then turns to Mithra. "Help me tell the students and handlers to come out of the carriage and go to the center ones. And Melo turned into your true beast form before going onto the roof. I need you to run your illusion over the wyverns. If they can’t hear or sense whatever is above us, they’ll respond to direction again."
Mithra immediately understood and said. "Come stand on the top of the carriage, Melo-"
She stopped talking while Arthur froze; both of them saw their partner’s state. The Goblin Commander was still shaking, and Melo’s tears were still falling.
"They’re still affected." He gritted his teeth.
"It won’t go away until they break out of it."
"... But how?"
Mithra nodded. "Let me try."
Without hesitation, she knelt beside Melo and Vedas. Then pulled both of them into her arms. The fox trembled, and the Goblin Commander looked away, but Mithra gently rubbed their backs.
"I know," she said, quietly and without rush. "I know it’s frightening. I know what you’re both feeling right now, and I need you to understand that it isn’t a failure. Terror. Horror. All of it is normal."
Neither Vedas nor Melo answered, but neither pulled away.
"I know it feels like you’re surrounded by something endless and dark, and it knows you’re there. I know that feeling." A pause. "Follow my voice out of it. It isn’t real. The darkness isn’t real. Follow my voice and take one step."
She kept talking. Her voice was the only consistent thing on the platform. Slowly, Melo and Vedas looked up, but they were still shaking. Mithra had a worried look, and Arthur knew this wouldn’t improve much.
He crouched and brought his hand down twice, a light tap on each of their heads in quick succession.
They both stared at him.
Arthur grinned. "Don’t tell me you’re scared."
Both of them glared at him.
"The Hobgoblin put up more of a fight than this," Arthur said. "The Ancient Goblin at least moved. Even Mephistopheles was more threatening on the ground."
Vedas’s jaw tightened. Melo’s tails rose.
"When you followed me into the exam, Vedas," Arthur said, his voice shifting from provocation to something more direct, "you accomplished the impossible. You evolved twice in one day. You defeated a Golden Dragon through sheer unwillingness to let go." He turned to Melo. "We survived the Hobgoblin, found a Goblin Kingdom, and survived the Crystal Deer. Every single time I told you to follow me and trust me, you did, and every single time we came through the other side."
He picked up Vedas’s spear and stood.
"If we got through all of that together, we will get through this. You are not allowed to break." He looked at both of them.
"You are my partner, Vedas." The Goblin Commander froze.
"You are my friend, Melo." The fox stared.
"And I trust both of you." Both of their eyes widened.
"So stop crying." Arthur turned around. "I’ll go first." His voice carried through the storm. "You follow."
He turned and ran toward the carriage door.
...
Mithra watched him go.
Then she looked back at Vedas and Melo.
The Goblin Commander was on his feet. His legs still shook, but he stood, and Melo’s eyes had narrowed as she rose.
Mithra smiled.
Melo rushed out the window.
Then Vedas body lit with the golden resonance of Command Authority activating. The light rolled outward from him across the platform and over the railing and into the sky, moving through the wyverns one after another.
The nearest wyvern turned its head toward the carriage.
Then the next.
"Listen to my words!" Vedas’s voice carried through the wind like multiple people were shouting. "Those in the outer positions! Fly closer to the middle carriages!"
The outer wyverns began to move, pulling their carriages inward by degrees. But they were still glancing upward and hesitating, still feeling the presence above them even if the Command Authority was competing with it.
Mithra rushed up onto the roof to see Melo in her full form. Her three eyes blazing as her tails spread outward, and then the illusion descended across every wyvern in the convoy simultaneously.
Every sound vanished.
Every bolt disappeared.
The terrifying presence was gone.
The wyverns straightened before the wild panicked wingbeats steadied. They began flying toward the center.
Mithra laughed before she saw Arthur on an outer carriage three positions away, visible between the lightning that was still falling beyond the convoy’s edge. She rushed over to the outer carriage before drawing her blade.
And slashing.
The top of the outer carriage gave way under a single cut along the seam, and the students looked up in confusion.
"Out," Mithra said. "Go to the middle carriages, now!"
They moved.
One by one up through the opening and across the carriage roofs toward the center, a handler behind them, a student helping the handler. Arthur was doing the same two carriages over. She could see him pulling someone upward, pointing, sending them across.
They cleared one carriage after another.
Two bolts came down simultaneously on outer carriages that had already been emptied. The carriage exploded before it became debris falling through the sky.
The wyverns that had been pulling them screamed and then went quiet.
Arthur’s voice cut across the wind. "Vedas! Tell the outer wyverns who have no passengers to release the carriages and fly to the middle!"
Vedas’s Command Authority fired again, golden light sweeping outward. "Wyverns on the outer edge! Release your carriages and fly to the center!"
The wyverns’ bodies lit with internal fire for a moment, burning through the harness locks, and then they were free and driving inward as the lightning continued to move through the space they had just vacated.
Mithra was running along the top of the last outer carriage when she looked across and saw Arthur at the far end of the convoy doing the same thing from the opposite direction. Both of them ran toward the center carriage with lightning falling in sheets behind them.
She leapt.
Arthur leapt from his side at the same moment.
Both of them hit the roof of the center carriage as the sky behind them turned solid white. Every remaining bolt arrived at once in a cascade that covered the outer positions of the convoy completely.
The world outside the center convoy vanished into white.
...
Then the shockwave arrived.
It hit the remaining carriages like a flat hand and sent every one of them tilting, falling, beginning the long controlled descent toward the plateau below.
And then there was silence.
Not true silence, but there wasn’t any boom sound. Arthur looked up to see there was no lightning or the presence. The sky above was exactly what the sky was: clouds, wind, the distant light of the sun somewhere behind the overcast.
"What..." He couldn’t even finish the sentence as he noticed something.
The wind was getting stronger, so much that Arthur had to look down. And his green eyes widened when he saw the academy coming into view. It was getting bigger and bigger and then he realized they were falling fast; the wyverns were all knocked out.
Students began screaming all over again.
The entire convoy was plummeting.
Arthur looked down. "...Huh."
Mithra slowly turned. "...What?"
Arthur pointed. "We’re falling."
Silence.
Mithra looked down before her eyes widened. "...Arthur."
"Yeah?"
"...We’re falling."
Arthur nodded. "...This might hurt."
Mithra stared at him. "YOU THINK?!"
The carriage suddenly flipped, and everyone shrieked.
Arthur grabbed Mithra around the waist before she could be thrown off. Mithra immediately grabbed him back.
Vedas gripped the roof of their carriage while screaming. "GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"
Melo had attached herself directly to his head with her tails around the goblin’s face, and she refused to let go.
"Giiiii!"
"Gii!"
Neither of them was helping.
Mithra gritted her teeth while Arthur stared, and then he continued staring with a blank look. If the trio weren’t busy, they would be shocked at this. But then Arthur began to tremble before a laugh escaped.
Then another, and soon he began laughing openly.
Mithra stared at him. "What is wrong with you?!"
Arthur grinned. "We made it to the Academy!"
"We are FALLING!"
"We solved the first problem."
"Arthur!"
"We have a second one now."
The Academy rushed toward them.
Buildings.
Training grounds.
Students.
Professors.
Everything is growing larger every second. Arthur suddenly noticed something directly in their path.
A very large tower.
Arthur pointed. "That could be a problem."
Mithra followed his finger and her soul nearly left her body as she saw the rapidly approaching tower.
Arthur tightened his grip around her. "Hold on."
"TO WHAT?!"
The answer arrived.
CRAAAAAAASH!
The carriage smashed directly through the side of the tower.
Stones exploded.
Windows shattered.
Wooden debris erupted in every direction.
Students bounced across the carriage floor. Vedas screamed louder. Melo screamed with him. Multiple carriages burst out the opposite side and kept on falling. Arthur looked behind them to see half the tower was missing.
"...Oops."
Mithra looked ready to throw him out personally.
The ground rushed closer.
Then another building appeared.
Arthur sighed. "Another one."
"ANOTHER ONE?!"
CRAAAAASH!
The carriage punched through a roof before destroying three floors and exploding through a wall.
Yet it continued falling.
By this point, every person onboard had accepted their fate. Arthur wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t. The Academy grounds filled his vision, and he saw it was a massive field filled with hundreds of people. All staring upward at the carriage descending like a meteor.
Someone below pointed.
Someone else started running.
Several professors were shouting.
Arthur waved.
Nobody waved back.
"They’re probably busy."
And then the ground reached up to meet them. The Academy disappeared beneath a mountain of dust.
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