Okay, this is one of my first stories on this profile (not fanfic), and if the first initial chapter is confusing, the summary on my profile may help. Enjoy and please rate/review. Hope this is an appropriate category...
Chapter One
Impossible. This wasn't possible.
I was falling through the air, like a a rock, like a ragdoll a child had dropped. My shoulder blades burned with electricity as I forced my wings to move, but that only ached my shoulders and back as I plummeted, tumbling over air and zooming through currents of jet streams, my wings jerking and pulling on my back.
What was it? Ivan told me how to fix this! I screamed as I fell into the cloud bank, so afraid that the earth would smash into me as soon as I emerged on the other side, but only finding that it was a couple hundred feet closer, and approaching fast. I wondered shakily what people would assume when they found me body pressed flat against the ground, smashed into pieces, seeming to have fallen from the sky. Perhaps a fallen angel with metal wings?
Wait...flat against the ground...that was it!I tucked my wings in, feeling more vulnerable as they pressed against my back, my speed increasing, my hair blown back more. Lifting a hand, I tried to get another gulp of breath against the torrent of wind pressing against my face, then made my hand find the lever right between my shoulder blades, and pulled it up, away from the metal sheeting over my skin.
Almost immediately, my eyes blacked out for a second and I felt like my brain stopped working as the metochanics on my back drew so much electricity from my nervous system, I thought I was really going to die from it this time. My shoulder blades burned where the circuits were wired into my nerves, the normally benign electrical charges from my body suddenly becoming the type that could fry you in an instant, the heat from it making my back tingle and sting. But when I unfurled my wings, wincing as I was suddenly jerked up, I could finally breathe, and my watery, stinging eyes began to cool and adjust to the utter calm.
I'm alive...I thought quietly as moved up, my metochanic wings working tirelessly, back towards the cloud bank. Silencing my other thoughts, I focused only on the occasional sound of turning gears and pulleys that adjusted the position of metal feathers that were laid out on the edge of metal wings, which were mounted to my back.
I told myself to push up higher and finally submerged myself in the safety of the clouds, feeling a fine layer of mist settling on the hairs of my head and arms from the abundant water vapor. I pushed up more, remembering what Ivan had said about the metochanics working better in dry air, not clouds or places with lots of water vapor. My limbs were still trembling, and the cold sweat on my back was even colder this high up in the atmosphere, where less heat was trapped. But nothing calmed me as much as drifting along silently, just me and my wings, no matter how many times I came close to dying because of them.
Though, it had been stupid of me to think I could keep up with that airplane for more than a few minutes without any preparation from Ivan. As he would say, 'You can't go over clocking the metochanics, or else the bio mechanics that transfer the electricity won't be able to create sufficient power.' Total gear-head talk.
But the nervo-boost had worked, hadn't it? Sure, I'd almost died from it, but I didn't. That was the whole point of the boost. Just suck up a jolt of electricity to balance the metochanics out, and you're totally fine. Still, I frowned as I barrel-rolled, knowing I'd never truly hear the end of it from Ivan. I could try hiding the fact that anything had happened, but he would find something that told him what had happened, and I guessed it would probably be something with the bio mechanics, since they'd been charged with so much electricity. I sighed, rolling my eyes to myself, then pumped up a little, before going into a steep dive, plunging through the cloud cover, my wings pulled close to my back, falling in the safest way I knew how to fall.
Direction came to me without me understanding how, but knowing that Ivan had something to do with it, that he'd probably put some magnetic plate in my head so I'd know where I was, wherever I was. I probably had a scar somewhere on my head that could prove it, if I ever shaved it all off again, which was probably never gonna be necessary.
I was close to the house now, falling from the sky like a rocket, trying to be as fast as possible because I knew it was the only way to avoid being seen, while still being able to land without finding a bunch of trees or waiting until night.
At about fifty feet above the roof, I edge my wings out a bit, slowing down, and then some more, until I unfurled them completely in one quick, clean motion, thrusting my weight forward at the same time so I didn't belly-flop onto the hard house. My wings batted at the air noisily, great squalls of wind clearing the roof of crispy autumn leaves that had coated it while I was away. I hovered a foot or so above the shingled roofing, readying myself for the transfer back to land, and then pulled my wings in, a soft, metallic, sliding noise resonating around me as they resigned against my back and I landed lightly on the roof, my boots a bit of an annoyance for me, as they gave me something to trip over. I managed, though, and, with my wings pressed tightly against my back, almost like a second skin, I darted quickly to the edge of the roof and let myself down by gripping gutter with one hand and dropping, hanging in mid air for a moment before I let go.
I landed on the porch shakily, my nerves tired and buzzing with discontent at having to share their energy with the metochanics. It was hardly ever this bad, except after a long mission, but I guess that nervo-boost really did take a heavy toll on me. At least, heavier than I had expected (which honestly, was nothing).
I rubbed a hand across my eyes wearily and then approached the door, pulling the screen door open and yelling, "Ruxel's here!" through the heavier white front door. There was a crash somewhere in the big, sprawling house, and someone spitting curses as the fussed over it. Ivan.
Sighing, I lifted a hand to the top threshold of the front door and clawed the small edge of it until my fingers stumbled upon the key. He didn't like it when I let myself in just because I found out where the key was, but it sounded as though he was a bit busy to be worrying about that trivial little opinion at the moment.
Unlocking the door, I swung it aside and stepped inside, the sounds of Ivan half-shouting and cursing clearer than ever as the door swung back into place, followed closely by the noisy clang of the screen door.
Ivan's house wasn't exactly what, well, anyone in their right mind would call...neat. I stumbled over one of the many blueprints that were scattered on the floor or rolled up and set against the wall in rows. Small wads and sheets of metal were tossed about, at least, that's what it seemed like. Being trained and all, I could see where he was keeping each of his individual projects at the moment, tell where you were crossing the border from one insane idea into another. And one must also always wear shoes, or have very keen feet, unless you wanted to have screws and nails and bolts stabbing your feet.
I followed the sound of sliding glass and metal off to the side of the entry hall and into a short hallway, to the open door of his drawing room (a.k.a., his lab).
"Good, god..." I murmured, watching as Ivan struggled with a fire extinguisher, while a flame on his desk began to eat away at his notebooks and crap pieces of paper. He cursed as he flicked his eyes from his desk, filled with terror at the sight of his findings being burned away, then back down to the instructions on the side of the extinguisher, his eyes filling with fury.
"Give it to me!" I yelled shortly, and he jumped, but handed it over when I stalked towards him. I pulled the pin near the handle and then pointed the nozzle at the base of the flames, and pulled. White stuff exploded out the end, and a hissing sound filled the room as it attacked the flames, and I kept it there until the room was flame free, and let go of the handle. The room was silent except for our labored, startled breathing, and I knew Ivan was probably pressed up against the opposite wall of the fire, and I let the extinguisher thud to the floor before I turned around towards him and said, "You can make people fly and develop a system that makes you three square meals a day automatically, but you can't use a fire extinguisher?"