Shorter one this time round, buuuuuuut I also managed to keep it on schedule, so I'm hoping that'll make up for it.

Hmmm... what sounds cool enough? Regalia? No, no. Too prim and proper, not my style. Ah well. It'll come to me eventually. The prospect of Neo naming her life-long companion, her parasol, was completely new to her. She had never once thought that she should name her weapon, despite it being the one thing that had never left her side, if only for the fact that it couldn't physically leave. The parasol was many things; a sword, a shield, a parachute, a friend when times were rough, but it was barely ever used as a parasol, and it just felt wrong to keep calling it that. In fact, Neo used it more as an umbrella than a parasol, because despite most parasols not being waterproof, the waterproof ability came with the incredibly strong material that allowed the parasol to block seemingly anything that could be thrown at it. She didn't know what it was made out of, or where its limit was, but so far the parasol had accumulated nothing more than a few scratches from even the strongest attacks that she had encountered through her escapades. As much as she now wanted to name it, she couldn't rush it. Even though no one else would know its name, it didn't feel right to keep changing it once she had chosen a fitting one. The suitcases opposite Neo fell over following a rumble from the ship's engines, and it brought her right out of her train of thought, despite that train going nowhere. She had woken up an hour or two ago, and sat up against the wall behind where she had slept. She had no way to check the time, so she just had to hope that she was close to Mistral and that she didn't have to wait for eight hours just pacing around the cargo hold waiting to hear any sign of landing. In truth, she didn't exactly know what she was going to do when the airliner touched down, but she was probably just going to pull another simple illusion and walk away. It might have been good functionally, but Neo's get-out-of-jail-free-card semblance was boring to use. For once she wanted a challenge, something that couldn't be solved by just disappearing and reappearing in a different place, but the sad truth was that Neo was kind of overpowered. In the relatively random chance pool of semblances, she must have come out on top, or close to it, with her ability to change her own looks to anything she wanted, someone else's looks to anything she wanted, something's looks to anything she wanted, and then the cherry on top was that she could effectively teleport by just shattering into glass and showing up somewhere else! It wasn't actually teleportation, Neo still had to physically move there, but to someone looking outside-in, they would be none the wiser.

"Its a load of shit this is, mate", Neo heard a voice behind the door leading into the cargo hold.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just open the damn door and get it done." There was two voices, the first was clearly the younger of the two, and it had a whiny undertone to it. The second might have been a full decade older by the sounds of it, and also sounded like he'd been on the job for a few years at least, judging by his attitude. Neo realised they were coming in not a second too early, and managed to hide herself behind some baggage just as the door swung open and knocked a suitcase over.

"I don't have to reimburse any of the 'accidental' damages right?"

"All he said we had to do was get in here, check for some stowaway, and get back to the cockpit ASAP. We don't have to do fuck all else, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't smash up our customer's belongings!"

"Jeez, aight boss, no need to get pissy."

Neo heard them start walking at this point, and she hoped to the gods that they would be like the typical employee, and never actually do their job properly. Unluckily for Neo, however, one of them didn't seem to fit the bill. The younger of the two walked right up to the corner Neo was nestled in, and rested his hand on the suitcases there. He opened his mouth to speak, and Neo could only hope the next words weren't 'got one'.

"We're right over Mistral anyway, if he wanted to check for stowaways, he should've done that before takeoff. What're we gonna do if we find someone? Give em' a slap on the arse and drag em' all the way to the cockpit, through all the satisfied customers?"

Following Neo's incredible recent luck, the engines rumbled again, and knocked the suitcases she was hiding behind right on to the floor. As soon as the guard's face was in view, she bashed him with the handle of her parasol, which sadly still didn't have a name. He fell straight to the floor and cried out to his friend, who had already raised his gun. Neo drew her sword and started to run towards him. He was holding a pistol, and would likely be an easy target if Neo could get close. As he fired his first shot, Neo did something that surprised even herself. She misjudged her opponent and dodged a moment too soon, right into the path of his bullet. In a last ditch effort to save herself, Neo raised her blade in front of her face. The edge of the bullet collided with the edge of the blade, sending it slightly off course, grazing Neo's hair, but missing her face. That would be where the slow motion kicked in. Her luck still hadn't got any better however, as the runaway bullet had struck the 'OPEN BAY DOOR' button on the other side of the hold. Both Neo and the guard lowered their weapons and stared at the slowly opening bay doors. The guard that was still on his feet grabbed the handle next to the door and held on, and the guard that Neo had knocked over grabbed onto the side of the wall and clung on for dear life. A suitcase slid towards Neo, pulled by the wind from the now open bay door. It knocked her clean off her feet, and her lifeline straight from her hand. She still had the blade, but the parachute part of the wonder-parasol was about to fall straight down to the ground below. Neo hadn't let the parasol go before, and she wasn't going to start now. She got to her feet and threw herself out of the plane just after the parasol, grabbing it by the handle just as she started free falling. She struggled to insert the handle back into the rest of the parasol, but after a second of fumbling she managed to get it in and flick the switch on the parasol's shaft, expanding the canopy and slowing Neo's descent. She had a lovely view of the sunrise, indicating that the twelve-ish hour long flight had come to a close and that she was right over Kuchinashi, well that's what she had hoped anyway, as she didn't want to rely on the wind to carry her to her destination. She wasn't out of the woods yet however, as there was still suitcases falling from the plane. Most fell out of the way of Neo, but she still had to try and air-swim out of the way of a couple bags.

Falling from the sky, parasol in hand, Neo got a major sense of deja vu. It seemed she couldn't get on a flying vehicle recently without having to make an emergency exit via the open air. At least she got her wish of wanting to see Remnant from the skies. The only differences this time around from last time were the fact that she was probably three times as high this time, and no one had died. Damn. Why'd I have to go and remember that? Roman's death still gnawed at Neo's conscious ever so slightly, giving the impression that she had moved on, but it had never actually left. He was the entire reason Neo was even in the sky again, the reason she was floating kilometres over Mistral, the reason she had gone through Sidwold, gotten her new threads, and even considered flying out from Vale for the first time in her life. She owed more than she realised to that man. He had done more for Neo in death than anyone else had in life. She wondered what those other two were up to. Ruby and Cinder. Neo had more of a vendetta against Ruby, but she had never liked Cinder from the start, the way she just showed up one day and started to boss everyone around, including Neo. She usually respected the chain of command, but Cinder never sat well with her, from the way she talked to the way she was way too cocky. There was no use welling up with anger whilst this high in the sky, however, and her time was probably better spent looking out for a place to land. So she did just that, and tried to find a good place to set down without causing too much of a commotion. Like I have a choice where I land anyway.

As usual, any reviews, bad or good, and thanks for reading.