The most important thing, the temple, was nowhere in sight and the lack of light wasn’t helping them make it any easier to find.
“Maybe you should try your wave mapping thing again?” Taylor asked.
Q closed his eyes and focused on the image.
Blurry.
“It’s no use,” he shook his head. “The magnetic ore is still pretty effective. All I can see are blurs.”
“So we’re stranded out here for now,” Kai said.
“We could try exploring on our own,” Taylor suggested.
“We’ve got to sweep a huge area, and we shouldn’t split up right now. It could take us quite a while to find the temple.”
“I have an idea,” Elizabeth said. “I could fly Q outside the magnetic ore’s boundary and he could try his Q-maps thing again. We might not find the temple exactly but we could pinpoint it much better.”
“That’s a great idea,” Chris said.
“What about you?” Kai asked Q. “You okay with this?”
“I guess. It’s our best option isn’t it?”
“Let’s do it then,” Elizabeth said. “You guys stay right here. We’ll be back soon.”
She walked up to Q, “Lift your hands.”
He stretched out his hands. She put her arms under his shoulders and held on tight.
Her wings stretched out, and she shot into the air.
“And we have take off!” she squealed.
Q would love to say he enjoyed the first Angel 747 but honestly he was trying as hard as he could to not slip out of her grip. He didn’t really know any spells from the Elementa of Wind, so if he fell off there was nothing but his suit to help him out. And that fact didn’t give him any confidence.
She slowed down once they’d reached optimum height.
“This is fun isn’t it?” she laughed.
He had to admit she was right. There was a certain exhilaration from feeling the wind rush past his body.
“Whoa! How did you do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Look at your suit!”
He looked down and saw that his suit was no longer a plain old grey. It was now a dark black with a neon-red outline of a circle on his chest. The exact same design as the Demon Riser.
“What in the world?”
“This is amazing,” she said. “First time I’ve ever seen it happen.”
“Seen what?” Q gripped her hands, afraid her lack of concentration might let him slip.
“Suits are supposed to be affected by the user. This happens bit by bit. So a suit borrows energy from the user and adapts to their fighting style. In a warrior’s case the energy is pretty small so you don’t see anything. Even if it’s a mage you don’t see too much of it, but in your case, you overloaded it with so much energy that not only did you change its abilities, but its entire look as well.”
He didn’t know what to say. It made perfect scientific sense, yet it sounded purely absurd. So now his suit was becoming a part of him? Or wait, parts of him were becoming one with the suit?
It all sounded really vexing.
“You’ll probably get a better view from there.” she said gesturing toward a nearby cliff,
It was part of the mountain range that abruptly started where the forest ended.
He found it unusual that the terrain was that segmented. It was almost as though some guy had drawn a perfect boundary between mountain and forest.
“There we go,” she slowed down, allowing herself to come to soft stop on the cliffs.
“This place looks really amazing,” he said. The rocks were a dark shade of blue, and were really smooth.
“We’d better finish up soon,” she said, “It’d be bad to keep the others waiting.”
He nodded and closed his eyes.
The Q-map images were still blurred, but he knew he could make them a little clearer. He focused deeper, imagining himself absorbing any sort of wave that passed through him.
Still nothing. C’mon, he thought. Harder.
The image got a little clearer for a fraction of a second, and that was enough for him to bring down the susceptible region to a small upper section in the circle that he’d predicted before.
“Got it,” he smiled.
“Oh good, just in time,” she said.
What? he thought.
“C’mon,” she walked towards the edge of the cliff.
Skydiving? he thought.
She plopped herself down on the edge and gestured him to come.
He, on the other hand, didn’t really see the point to all this, but he figured a little craziness was fine.
She smiled at him when he sat down next to her.
“We’ve got a few more minutes,” she said.
“Few minutes for what?”
“It’s a surprise,” she put a finger on her lips.
He honestly felt a little nervous around her. He had never interacted with girls in general. Taylor was the only exception and she was the most tomboyish person he’d ever seen.
Elizabeth on the other hand was girly, and really pretty. It wasn’t like he had a crush on her or anything. He just found it a little hard to talk to her when she looked at him with those eyes of hers. He’d somehow gotten past the brown ones, but these red eyes mesmerized him completely, making him feel like he was being sucked into their flames.
He felt her arm shake him.
“Hey?” she shook him a bit more. “You look dazed. You okay?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, and averted his gaze.
She let go of him and looked far into the horizon, “So what’s your story?”
“Excuse me?”
“Most of the people who end up in this life usually have some sort of dark life story that put them there.”
“Well, I don’t have anything like that. I just stumbled on this by mistake.”
“Maybe you just don’t know your story yet.”
Okay? he thought. Angelic AND dark minded. What a combo.
“I’m guessing that means you have a story?” he asked her.
“Oh look, it’s here,” she pointed to the mountain range on the opposite side.
A large green sun rose in the valley between the mountains on the opposite end of the range.
The green light bathed the valley below him, making everything look like a ghastly shade of blue.
Oh. My. God, he thought.
He’d never seen anything like this, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine how amazing this was.
Elizabeth took off his helmet, and Q noticed she’d done the same to hers.
He panicked as his face was exposed and tried to grab his helmet back from her.
“Relax,” she laughed. “This planet has the same atmospheric conditions as ours. You won’t die or anything.”
“Oh,” he took a breath. “I still don’t get why you had to take my helmet off.”
“Because now, I can do this.”
She kissed him.
***
“I don’t get why they had to go together,” Taylor muttered for the umpteenth time.
And as usual Kai pretended to listen intently.
They’d been waiting outside the ship for almost an hour now, and all the while she’d paced back and forth, complaining about those two taking a private trip together.
Kai knew it wasn't nice to take advantage of the situation, but he was having fun riling her up. She was usually the cool, calm person, and seeing her this flustered about something so trivial was really hilarious.
“You wanted to go instead of Q?” he asked.
“I think she wanted to go instead of Elizabeth,” Chris said nonchalantly.
Taylor glared at both of them.
“Maybe she just wanted to go alone?” he asked.
“Just admit it,” Chris looked at her.
“Admit what?” she asked.
“You like him don’t you?”
Whoa, emotionless girl has a hell lot of guts, he thought.
Taylor gaped as soon as she heard the question, “Look, I took care of him from when he was ten and I don’t want him being involved with someone who none of us know too well.”
“Well, you can’t do anything.”
“I’m going to go after them.”
Well, technically, she still could do that, Kai thought.
“You don’t even know where they are” Chris said.
“The only stable open area outside the magnetic region is close by a mountain range. I saw it on the view screen when we were landing.”
“You’re doing this on a whim?”
“Yes,” she said and ran off.
“Ah, youthful emotions,” Kai said and rested on a log. “Things are going to get pretty interesting I reckon.”
***
“Stupid Q,” Taylor mumbled as she walked through the tall grass. “Couldn’t he listen to me for once?”
And then she realized she hadn’t really told him anything for him to listen to.
She didn’t know how long she’d been mumbling but she stopped when she heard the bushes next to her rustle.
“Who’s there?” she asked, freezing in her path.
They hadn't seen any giant insects yet and she hoped she wasn’t going to be the first one to discover them.
She walked through the vegetation toward the sound. Something ran out, and she jumped back. Her instinct told her to smash her foot straight into whatever that thing was.
And then she saw it.
It wasn’t an insect, it was a griffin.
An eagle head, lion body, paws, wings. Check. She’d found a one hundred percent genuine griffin.
Although this one was really tiny. A griffin baby maybe.
It screeched at Taylor.
”What’s wrong, boy? Lost?” she asked.
It came closer to her and nudged her arm.
“You’re such a sweet little thing.”
“You’re an idiot,” a voice said.
Taylor’s jumped around.
“Who’s there?” she scanned her surroundings.
“It’s me silly,” the voice said again. This time she could make out that the voice was feminine.
She looked around but only she and the griffin were there.
“I’m here.”
“Where?”
The griffin walked up to her, “Here.”
Taylor looked stunned for a few seconds, and then she backed away.
Griffins can talk? she thought, and how do they even know the same language?
The griffin kept following her, “Griffins can’t talk, but we can communicate through waves - telepathic communication. And since we use waves and not speech, we can communicate with any language.”
That was when she noticed that the voice had always been inside her head. The griffin never opened its mouth, or beak, when it had talked.
“Do you have a name?”
“Ruby.”
“Just to make sure, you’re a girl right?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Ruby, but I’m going to have to go now.”
“So where are you going?”
“A nearby mountain range.”
“I know the place. I can fly you there if you want.”
“But you’re too small.”
“Griffins are way stronger than they look,” she said. “You don’t know much about Griffins.”
“Apparently not,” Taylor said sheepishly.
“Get on.”
Taylor jumped onto Ruby’s back. Her soft fur felt warm and homely. The griffin spread her wings and in seconds they were up in the air, and heading toward the mountain range.
“So griffins can only grow up to be this big?”
“We get much larger, but I’m still pretty young.”
“How old are you?”
“A hundred years, give or take.”
“That long?!”
“Yeah we live for pretty long. We’re basically immortal.”
“So you grew up all on your own?”
Ruby just remained silent.
“Hello?” Taylor asked.
“I’m trying to concentrate here.”
Mysterious, Taylor thought.
“I’m not mysterious. You’re just too nosy.”
Taylor’s eyes widened.
“You can read minds?”
“I communicate through waves. Your thoughts are brain waves, they’re what I use to communicate with you. Seriously, how stupid are you?”
She felt like such an idiot, and being told that by another species didn’t feel any better.
“Anyway, we’re here.”
She looked down at the mountain range.
“If you’re searching for your friends then I see two of them on that cliff,” she glided down lower.
Taylor leaned over and looked at the two people, and one of them had a long pair of wings.
The boy turned to girl just as the girl put her arms around his neck.
“I love him,” Ruby said.
“What?”
“That’s what that girl is thinking right now,”
She remained silent.
“And the guy’s thinking-”
“That’s enough,” she said.
“Don’t you wanna know?”
“We have to get back.”
Ruby unwillingly turned and flew away from the cliff.
The griffin never said a word, and neither did Taylor. They flew in silence, illuminated by the green sun.
***
4-4
Q’s mind was going crazy.
Did he mention he’d never talked to a girl before?
And now he’d gone and kissed one. Well technically she’s the one who kissed him, but that didn’t make the situation much different.
What the hell am I supposed to say? he thought.
She came closer to him, and he put his hands in the air in an instant reflex.
“Listen you’re a nice person, and honestly, I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, but I really don’t see you that way.”
“Really?” she came closer, her eyes threatening to mesmerize him once more.
He nodded, “Positive.”
“Fine then,” she said and jumped back, all calm and collected.
“What?”
“I knew you didn’t feel that way,”
“Oh.”
Girls are scary, he thought.
They sat in silence for the next few minutes, watching the green sun rise higher into the sky. Elizabeth stood up, “We’d better get going then,” she put on her helmet, and tossed him his.
“Yeah,” he put his on as well.
She gave him a hard kick and he dropped off the cliff.
He flailed about, his screams inaudible through the air that rushed past him.
And then he saw her drop down right next to him, “This is punishment for what you did,” she laughed.
She put her arms under his shoulder and lifted him up.
Q felt a little relieved that it was just a prank. He’d thought she’d tried to kill him. Falling to his death just because of not falling for her just didn’t seem fair.
They were flying as before, but this time he felt self-conscious. She on the other hand seemed perfectly calm about this whole thing and after the most awkward ten minutes of his life, they finally landed next to the Orion.
One look at the landing site and he could tell something was wrong.
No Taylor, No Christina, No Kai.
Everyone was gone.
***
Q felt a little annoyed that they had all left them and gone off. Then he realized they might be in trouble, and that didn’t make him feel any better.
“Where do you think they’ve all gone?” he asked.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, “The Temple.”
“Would they really try to go there alone?”
“They might have found some lead to the location.”
“I gu
ess. But how do we find them? All we know is that they’re trying to head for the temple. And they don’t even know where it is.”
“I’ll fly you up and you can use your Q maps to scout for them. If they’re not anywhere nearby then we’ll just have to fly to the temple.”
He turned a little fidgety. He really wasn’t comfortable flying with her now and besides, his arms hurt.
“What can I say?” she winked. “Until you master the Elementa of Wind you’re going to have to put up with me.”
He grinned sheepishly and let her lift him up.
She surged into the air, and in seconds everything on the ground looked like miniature Legos. He closed his eyes and scanned the area. He found plants, trees, rocks. But no human beings. He tried focusing a little harder.
Still nothing.
Wherever those three had gone, it wasn’t anywhere nearby. “Nothing,” he shook his head.
“You’re sure?” she asked. “Maybe the magnetic field is messing with you wave mapping.”
“The field distorts the weaker waves much more, which means as long as I’m close enough to my target I should get stronger waves, and in turn a precise image. I’m positive those three are not here.”
“I guess that makes our solution easier,” she said. “Time to head for the temple.”
“Wait you’re going to just fly me there?”
“Well, yeah. Unless you wanted to walk?”
Something pricked his mind, “Wait, why couldn’t you have just flown around and searched for the temple? We didn’t have to go through the whole process of going to the mountains and wave mapping did we?”
“If I were used to flying then yes, we could have. But these wings are only a few hours old, and even though I’m a pretty strong Seraphian, I’ve got to practice more to get used to them. If I tried to scan out the whole area I’d have risked cramping my wings up and probably falling to my death.”
He kept quiet. He had NOT expected that answer.
“But now we’ve got a shorter region to scan for,” she added. “So it’s way easier.”
After a few minutes of flying around they were still completely clueless. They could neither find the temple nor find the others. Elizabeth finally gave in and landed in an open patch of ground.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “It was supposed to be somewhere around here, and with the energy levels it radiated you’d think it’d be massive wouldn’t you?”
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 19
