Part 5: Learning to fly (the right way)
When I woke up both my armors was gone. Forget that I woke up in the middle of the friggin' woods! Van and Hitomi were there and awake.
"'Bout time." Van said coolly.
"You ready?" Hitomi asked gently. I nodded.
"Spread your wings." Van instructed and demonstrated.
"Wait! Won't we get caught?" I asked nervously.
"No, I made sure of it." Van responded.
"Now spread your wings." Hitomi told me as she spread her own.
"Okay I'm going." I concentrated and opened my wings. We did some wing exercises to warm up our wings. I knew my wings could support my body this time. Next we did some gliding exercises by climbing up a tall tree, and gliding to the ground. I crashed many times, because I couldn't land worth crap, but adapted and mastered the exercise and the landings in 2 to 4 hours.
"Okay Sage. Now fly to that cave." Van instructed. He was pointing to a cave 10 miles away.
"We'll be right behind you." Hitomi said.
"Let's fly! Rroaarr!" I roared as I started to flap my wings downward, kicking up a circle of dust. I jumped into the air and took off. I flew underneath the canopy like an eagle with speeds of about a 100 mph and grace. Narrowly missing many trees. Some grace. I shot up through the canopy and hovered high above the trees. I saw Escaflowne in flight mode flying towards me. I smiled a devilish smile as I flipped backwards folding my wings, diving through the canopy. Opening my wings right before I hit the ground and that did not cancel my speed. I zoomed along the ground at incredible speeds, faster than I was going before, oh yeah, a lot faster, dodging trees that would shatter either of my wings or my skull causing me to wipe out like a mother, with split second timing. Roaring cause of the rush. When I saw the cave ahead I extended my claws and popped up kinda in an arc just to steady my feet below my body. Cutting most of my speed I landed on my feet digging in my claws as I spun around canceling the rest of my speed coming to a complete and total stop. Van and Hitomi arrived on Escaflowne about 1 minute later wings retracted and applauding.
"Van!" I heard a silent murderous voice. Dilandau!
"Shh!" They froze.
"What is it?" Hitomi whispered.
"Dilandau, he in the cave I think." I whispered back as I retracted my wings.
"Demonic beast!" Dilandau screamed as he sped out the cave in his guymelef in flight mode. Knocking all of us off our feet, and flew away out of sight.
"Something tells me that wasn't good." I said to Van.
"Nope." He replied as we got up and dusted ourselves off. We climbed on Escaflowne and flew back to the castle.
"Back so early?" Merle said to us as we burst through the doors into the dining room. "Allen! We saw Dilandau!" I roared to him. Everyone froze.
"Where?" Allen said running up to us.
"In a cave by the border of Fanelia." Van responded.
"He's going to Folken isn't he?" I asked Van and Hitomi. They nodded.
"Who's he?" a new voice. I spun around. It was Princess Millerna.
"I'll be right back." I said to her.
"I need to properly dressed." I whispered to Hitomi before I took off. She giggled. I sped to my quarters and unlocked the door. When I got to my bedroom I put on pants, vest, and bands. But my armors were gone.
"What!" I roared in frustration.
"What's the matter?" Hitomi asked when she, Van, Allen reached my quarters.
"My armors are gone!"
"Remember you can activate your armor at any time." Van said.
"But I need my sub-armor to activate my real armor." I roared back.
"Ok, you can summon your sub-armor by concentrating like with your wings." Hitomi said gently calming my fiery rage.
"Oh, thank you my lord and lady." I replied. Hitomi blushed.
"Ok I'm lost." Allen said.
"Oh, we are connected by Rhinestone of Life." Van explained to Allen.
"Oh." Allen said still confused.
"Allen, is Princess Millerna pregnant?" I asked Allen changing the subject. "Yep."
"Concentrate on summoning your sub-armor." Hitomi said to me. I did as she instructed focusing on my sub-armor. I saw virtue, life force, trust, wisdom, justice, loyalty, sincerity, obedience, and piety land on me in different places and explode into red, dark blue, light blue, green, orange, dark gray, black, pink, and brown lotus petals. When all the petals landed they erupted into a brilliant silver flame that created my sub armor. The flames blew away to a gentle breeze leaving my sub-armor behind.
"Wow." Allen said amazed.
"Sage, are you ready for the archery tournament?" Van asked me.
"What!" I gasped, "Yes, I guess so."
"This the last task for to complete to become a true knight." Van said. They all started to leave.
"Wait!" They stopped. "When do I get my guymelef?"
"When you are ready." Van replied.
"Armor of Strata! DAO INOCHI!" I roared as the sign of life force appeared in front of me and exploded into dark blue lotus petals that flew around me and created the Strata armor all put together beside me. I grabbed the footplate, I have no idea why, that's not how it works anyway, and it all collapsed to the ground with a large crash.
"Why did I do that?" I said still holding the foot part. I held the two foot plates over the feet of my sub-armor not sure what to do. VOOM! CHINK! They shot out of my hands and stuck to my feet like a magnet.
"Well see you at the courtyard. Bye!" Hitomi said as they left my quarters. I grabbed the knee/shin guards and put them on my knees. They attached the same way. I then grabbed the 4 waist plates, which were connected to a belt. I whipped it around and snapped it together around my waist. It attached to me like the other parts had. I grabbed the chest and back plates they were in 2 pieces. I stuck the chest plate on my chest and the back plate zoomed around and stuck to my back connecting to my chest plate and my belt. The 2 shoulders plates rose up and connected to my shoulders. The forearm plates connected the top of my forearms. I snatched the hovering helmet out of the air and put it on. I ran to the courtyard, but I think I went the wrong way because I hit a dead end. No problem. I quickly scaled the wall and landed on the other side.
"There he is Sage!" The announcer roared. There was a huge applause from the crowd.
"Sage get to your position." Van yelled to me.
"And where is that exactly?" I roared back.
"On the other side of field!" The announcer roared.
"Oh." I snorted and sprinted across the vast courtyard doing all sorts of somersaults. To mostly impress the crowd and to test my agility. Man, before I couldn't even do a cartwheel. Now I was doing cartwheels, round-offs, and flips with cat-like grace, precision, and perfection. When I got near my position I jumped using my momentum flip many times in the air. I landed 5 ft. from where I was in position. I got standing ovation. There were archers from all over Gaia.
"Let the tournament begin." The announcer roared. The trumpets played the start of the tournament.
"Wait!" I roared.
"What is it?"
"I think I need to warm-up first. I haven't used a bow and arrow in a long time. A really long time."
"All right, Sage. You can have a practice round. Hit the bulls-eye 3 times then the tournament will start." I looked at the announcer's box and saw Reeko (the announcer), Merle, Van, Hitomi, Celena, Allen, and Millerna. I pressed the button on the right side of my chest plate. A compartment popped out from my back. A quiver. The top of it slid open and multiple arrows popped up, tail first. A small 5 in tube popped out from my left button that had spiraled open on my chest. It fell into my left hand; confused I pressed the button on it.
"What does this do? " It extended into a 4.5 ft long hankyu (war bow), with a spike on the top and the bottom of the guard that was above the grip. The string strang from the top of the bow to the bottom of it.
"Oh that." I said. I grabbed one arrow. It was a foot and a half long with well-constructed inch and a half arrowhead. I put the notch of my arrow on the string and pulled it back. It didn't budge. I pulled as hard as I could until I got to the arrowhead. I was straining every muscle in my right arm and my bow was shaking, going up and down, left, and right. My arm was pounding I couldn't hold it any longer I took aim and let go of the arrow. The bow sprang out of my hand and fell to the ground. The arrow shot towards the target, missed it by a mile, ricocheted off the wall behind it, and came hurling back towards me.
"Hit the deck!" I yelled as I dived out of the way. The arrow blew past me nearly taking out my tail and implanted itself in the wall behind me. I stood up, dusted myself off, picked up my bow, and tried again with the same result. I kept repeating this pattern until my right arm, no my whole body seemed to have adapted to the hi-powered bow. Because I drew with less stress, there was no shakage in my bow when I was aiming, and when I released my arrow; it cut through the air at high speeds. POOMPF! It hit the outside of the bulls-eye. Hard, kicking up dust from the material the target was made of. Finally.
"Whoo-oh!" The crowd cheered. I grabbed another arrow drew it aimed and fired. POOMPF! It hit the middle of the bulls-eye. The crowd cheered. I grabbed another arrow and threw it high in the air. I jumped into the air after it did a back flip caught the arrow in mid-flip drew it, aimed, and fired. Wham! I landed flat on my back.
"Ouch!" I said I looked up and saw the arrow flying at an abnormal angle, one that might miss the target. I sprung up like a ninja. I saw the arrow hit dead center of the bulls-eye going at a very slow speed. The crowd roared. I raised my arms.
"Show-off!" I heard Reeko say.
"Are you okay?" Celena and Hitomi asked.
"Yeah. I'm okay." I responded. I lined up with all of the other archers and prepared to fire.
"The one who scores the most points wins! Let the tournament begin!" Reeko roared. A wave of arrows soared towards the targets. I fired arrow after arrow, some of them hitting the bulls-eye, some of them hitting the outside rings, and some missing completely. This went on for about 1 hour.
"Stop!" Reeko yelled, "Let's us count the points." He said as servants went to each target and tallied the points for each archer.
"Okay, here are the results." He said as I went to the target, removed my arrows, and put them in my quiver; the rest of the archers did the same. I remembered to get the ones behind me too. I waited in anticipation for my score.
"Sage: 5 in the outside ring, 9 in the middle ring, and 13 in the bulls-eye ring. Coming to a total of 172 points!" The crowd gasped.
"Sage is 1 point ahead of last years champion Gaddes! He is the winner!" I nearly passed out on the spot. The crowd roared and got on their feet. I pressed the button on the right side of the chest plate, my arrows sunk into my quiver the top of it slid shut, and the quiver sunk back into my back. My left button spiraled open. I pressed the button on my hankyu; the string unstrung and was sucked into my bow like spaghetti. The hankyu retracted back into a 5 in tube. I slipped the tube halfway into the button and let it go. It sunk in the rest of the way and the button spiraled shut. I proceeded to the main hall for lunch taking off my helmet, shaking out my long black hair, and wiping the sweat off my forehead. But when I got there…