Okay, yeah, didn't sort my shit out even slightly, started watching Doctor Who and signed up for resbang, both art and writing, found out I bear a slight similarity to tumblr user sagihairius, oh, also I am going to Bristol to meet Internet friends.
The son of Lord Death failed spectacularly, as Soul would have put it, at keeping his cool. He pushed back from the table and stood in a fluid move, the chair crashing to the floor behind him with the kind of noise that led Maka to believe it would be slightly less able for its purpose the next time it was upright. He didn't pause to stand it up as he exited the room.
His father was still watching Soul, who's being interviewed rather fruitlessly by Tsubaki. He was reclining on his chair, humming a strange tune that he occasionally doubled back on and altered the tune before carrying on, overall, it was quite eerie and unsettling. Poor Tsubaki, dealing with that scary looking individual couldn't be easy.
"Father, Maka has made some rather unusual demands, well, some rather standard demands on the basis of a deal negotiated if her rather unbelievable claim is true." Kidd cleared his throat. "She knows we are nowhere close to cracking the Ghost."
"What are the demands?"
"Amenity, none of their property, including their airship, is to be seized, and they wish to work for Shibusen, fully licensed."
"What's the offer?"
"Well, apart from working for Shibusen, she's promised us there won't be another ship like the aghast for a hundred years, at least. Father..." He didn't want to say it, to sound so naive and childish and gullible, but she'd seemed to be telling the truth. There was no getting around it. " She says that the Ghost is built using the principles of the Lost Technologies."
Kidd did not feel it nessecary to mention the fact that not only were the Lost Technologies the stuff of many, many legends they were also believed by most got be fables and also, they've been 'lost' for almost two millennia. Nobody knew anything about them, apart from, as she claimed; Maka Albarn.
This in turn meant of course that, apart from anything else, they had no possible way of confirming whether or not she was telling the truth. Despite everything, a part of Kidd-the part that held on to his childhood ambitions- rather hoped she was telling the truth.
"And do you think she's telling the truth, Kidd?"
"At least, Father, I think that she believes she's telling the truth. As well as that, our top engineers, including Stein and Black*Star(unorthodox prodigy he may be) are nowhere near cracking the mechainiks of the Ghost's engine or Maka's code," It was better to be on first name terms with the people you interviewed. "Oh, and that concert organist is eating into our budget and making absolutely no progress."
Their not particularily large budget. Who wastes money on chasing a fairytale?
"Given recent circumstances, I think we can afford to rethink the budget. The resources of the academy are at your disposal," His Father made to leave the observation room.
"Wait! How do you want me to proceed?"
"However you see fit." Lord Death paused. "But don't promise them anything just yet." the door swung shut behind him before Kidd could ask any more questions.
Before returning to interviewing Maka, Kidd looked apparisingly at Tsuabki and Soul through the two way mirror. She'd made no progress at all, but somehow she'd kept her calm- the only one of his crew members he suspected would be able to do so. All the same, it became glaringly clear that Soul had grown comfortable with Tsubaki and her gentle tone was easy to ignore. He needed someone louder, and a lot harder to ignore.
In an ideal world, he would choose Black*Star, but the engineer was so engrossed in the mystery of Maka and Soul's airship that he was completely silent for the first time in his life and Kidd was not going to be the one to mess that up. His second choice would have to be Patti, whose got the strange ability to be as irritating and endearing as a child, while simultanusly being able to scare the living daylights out of most rational full-grown men or, failing that, actually just killing them.
Elizabeth will not be pleased with that.
"Patti, switch out with Tsubaki," Patti grinned, but Liz glared at Kidd over her head.
" 'Kay!"
"I'm going to check their ship out."
It was ugly. Ugly and stunted and covered in solar cells- tidy little hexagons that tessellated neatly together. The engineers have informed him that, unlike the square or rectangular tiles used to tile roofs, six-sided solar tiles cannot be purchased- that each of the tiles have been indivually handcrafted. The entire ship is cover in solar cells that have swivelled lightly to follow the natural sunlight, apart from the pilot's window, which is made of three layers of ordinary glass sandwiched between a thin but sturdy cross hatching of bronze strips.
The whole ship made Kidd shudder, but he steeled himself against job is childish impulses to arrange and organise. One didn't come first in the Academy by succumbing to immature urges related to aesthetics, after all. Although, he thinks smugly to himself that the Beelzebub's lines of perfect symmetry are beautiful, especially in comparison to the Ghost.
It's double-masted, but the sails are made of a standard heavy canvas materiel, although they are covered in more hexagonal solar cells. The deck, and he suspected everything else under the solar cells is made up of a ugly patchwork of clearly repurposed steel welded together, instead of large and elegantly shaped steel timbers designed to slot together smoothly.
The hatch opened into the living space. The room is devoid of ornamentation, and there was none of the heavily layered lacquered hardwood he would've associated with airship interiors. The walls were bare metal and the floor...
he squatted to inspect the strange surface of the floor, carefully rubbing his fingers against it to determine the materiel. Every other airship he has been on the floor had been made of more smooth highly lacquered wood. It needed to be varnished at least a half dozen times in thick layers of specialised resin, or else it would rot because of the abundance of steam regularly found in airships. The air inside airships was often muggy and warm, it couldn't be helped.
The floor of the Ghost appeared to be made of rubber. Moreover, it appeared to be made of car tyres. The tyres had been cut, only the threaded parts used, laid side by side like planks of rubber wood. His father's engineer, not Sid, Dr. Franken Stein- insane but brilliant- would appreciate this. The strips are stuck fast with, if Kidd was to hazard a guess, melted rubber obtained from the unused parts of the tyres.
Given the complicated manoeuvres while fighting both the Niddhogg and themselves, probably served to give extra grip to any passengers. Clever. Even if they couldn't solve the mystery of the Ghost, there was a hell of a lot of brilliant innovation just lying around this airship.
Two bunks folded neatly up agains the wall. The table, directly under the hatch and clearly used as a step up, was bolted to the floor, and so are two chests doubling as chairs and storage space. He cracked them open, you could learn a long about a person by what they could not leave behind.
Clothes, his more respectable and hers the same kind of rags he'd seen her in already. Books, heavy hardback tomes in European languages. Handwritten sheet music, pages and pages of it clipped together with a dainty metal clasp. Food, but not more than enough for a week aboard. A little gas stove.
The bathroom was a tiny cubicle, a toilet and a sink which readily volunteered instant hot water courtesy of the solar cells, and a shower head which when turned on no doubt turned the entire tiny room into a shower stall.
He checked his watch, and decided he'd left he to her thoughts long enough.
It began as a whisper a sobbing father told his favourite form of company in the next town over, and grew to a flurry of cheerful gossip in a dressing room wallpapered with photos from newspapers and posters that advertised the girls themselves, and where the air was heavy with perfume.
It grew to a ROAR, when one of the girls one of the girls contacted a valued customer to pass on the valuable information in exchange for a pretty handful of jewels and coins.
It's real.
It's real.
The Ghost. It's real.
Real as anything.
Real as everything.
It's in Shibusen.
And the ROAR became the sound of twenty-three airship engines, moving across the sky from all corners of the earth. It was at the Academy, which was defended by a meagre eight airships.
They had been humilated and robbed. They had lost money and crew members had been frightened onto the straight and narrow.
The Ghost had made a mockery of them for too long and, to add insult to injury and significant financial losses, it was a pair of kids!
Kids like those needed to be taught a valuable life lesson, irregardless of the fact they were under the protection of the Academy. It was about time, Asura-the black market equivalent of Lord Death- decided, that some one knocked Death and all his friends off their pedestal or their high horse or their high horse on a higher pedestal or whatever the fuck kind of equestrian pillar they had because enough was enough.
Revenge. Their blood sang for it.
Kidd was just reaching the door to Maka's room when Tsubaki stopped him, her normally sweet and Black*Star weary face worried. She was like a mother hen, and that expression could mean anything from Patti having a paper cut to Liz finding out Patti had a paper cut.
"Your father's looking for you Kidd," she nodded in the direction of his office and Kidd moved past her, smiling reassuringly in her direction.
Kidd strode into the office, he was trusting the message to be urgent enough to excuse his lack of propriety.
"Father?"
"Cut the deal, Kidd," his father didn't look up from the map he was studying. "We're under attack. There are seventeen airship engines closing in, every single one of them after the Ghost, and they don't seem to give a damn who gets in the way,"
"How-?"
"I don't know, and right now is not the time to mount an investigation. We need to set up a defensive line and evacuate the students."
"How many airships do we have?"
"Eight, including the Ghost," Less than half... "The Beelzebub, the Shinigami, and the Capulet, but the rest are just training ships. And, apart from that, the Capulet's only in for repairs. They are not going to waste this opportunity."
"We need Maka and Soul."
"Yes."
Kidd pushed open the door and tossed Maka a small key.
"We agree to your terms, but we need you. Now."
It occurred to Kidd a minute too late that this could be an extremely elaborate trap, but they had no options beyond falling for it, getting slaughtered, or beating the seemingly insurmountable odds.
"Why?"
"Shibusen is under attack."
"Why? What happened? What's the plan?"
"You did. It got out that the Ghost is here, and they want you."
"And you aren't going to turn us over?'
"No," Kidd sighed, "we aren't like that here."
"Okay, let's go get my pilot."
Maka opened the door to Soul's interview room to see Soul being taught origami by Patti Thompson, the girl who'd threatened him with a gun. She seemed much happier, and infinitely less manic than earlier.
"Time to go Soul, we're busting out of the joint," Maka grinned. "We've got an Academy to save."
"Patti, you'd better come too." Kidd added over her shoulder.
"Maka, trust you to make a even jailbreak boring." Soul grinned, stretching.
Kidd collected his crew from the room behind the mirror. one of the Thompson sisters, the one who'd shot Maka sidled up to Soul.
"Are you two, like, together?"
They looked at each other, then down at their hands which had wound together of their own accord.
"Yeah."
Um, yes. This would've been longer, except that is a really good line to end a chapter- actually, fuck it, I shall carry on anyway. Points for guessing original cut-off point.
okay, actually I've changed my mind, you can have this as it is as editing and correcting is a much slower process and iOS 7 or whatever looks crap.
wait, no you can have a bit more. There is some fluff. Please, there are probably so many mistakes in this it would be great if you pointed them out please.