NOTE: This is derived from the "Swept Away" RP continuity which started in 2007 and has continued in various forms and spinoffs ever since, first on the old Hillbilly Hell forum and presently in Wingnut City. I'm sure it's not the first or only "Humans in the Carsverse" thing that ever came up, but boy, has it had staying power. By the in-RP timeline, the events of Planes: Fire and Rescue would be taking place perhaps 6 years after the humans' arrival.
Disclaimer: Don't own no canon characters. They belong to Disney. Weesa be makin' no money offa dis!
NOTE: Okay, might as well officially call this a crossover now, with all the Chronicles of Amber elements in it. Sorry for this chapter being so delayed, life stuff just got in the way.
Directly after repeating her message to the Piston Peak tower, and giving them one of her more obscure aliases, Shayla called back to Elena, "I have a trace! I repeat, I have a trace! Check the area over and back of Whitewall Falls, the fire hasn't reached there."
"We copy." Elena's voice crackled back, "Now girl, get your ass back somewhere safe before you add to everyone else's misery and yours by falling out of the sky!"
"Yes, mom." The Harrier's voice was already taking on a ragged edge. Her talents could hold her up a while beyond the last dregs in her tanks, but why push it? By inches, Shayla tore herself away from the conflagration, then rose another thousand feet and banked steeply out of the danger zone. She would find the nearest "bingo" and then call again when she was safely grounded. As for the couple trapped on the bridge, prayers to the gods of mercy were all she could offer them, and the memory of them was going to hound her all the way back to whatever place she set down for the night.
But, at least the firefighters knew.
"Over and out." The Amberite and her companion kicked their horses into a fast canter, trusting the superior night vision of their animals to find their way up the trail. The shamaness breathed in sharply as they ascended to the headwaters. There were spirits here. More pieces of the puzzle, falling into place. Sure enough, puffs of air kicked up dust and pine needles before the riders, informing them that their presence had been detected.
Mii's grandmother reined in her mount, her face an unrelentingly essential projection of NOT IMPRESSED. She took a handful of consecrated earth from a pouch around her neck, and cast it back with a muttered incantation. The reaction she got was one of recoil... and surprise. "Show us to my granddaughter." she intoned sternly, "Or by the Jewel-Eyed One I'll stuff your essence into a chamberpot!"
What followed was a "D'OH!" and a frenzied rustling of branches and random puffs of wind, followed by a stream of apologies. There was another voice, half-chortling, "Now you see where she got it from." The old woman's countenance compressed into a flinty-eyed glare. "Shut up, both of you!" Elena was silent, staying slightly behind whilst trying to keep a smirk off her own face.
That woman could freeze a stampeding herd of elephants in their tracks with one word.
Mii'auww felt a sensation of weightlessness, then one of ascending, and her vision was filled with bright light of no one source she could locate, but which seemed to come from everywhere. Disembodied, she had a sensation of rising, higher and higher, as the light subsided and she could see below her, a hundred feet below. Her still form was laying on its bed of forest floor scrapings, and her grandmother was there, with Elena. Grandmother was laying out her ancient sacred scrolls that had been passed down through ten generations, at the cardinal points around Mii's body, chanting all the while. Elena, her fair features cast into flickering chiaroscuro by the light of a camp lantern, was checking the girl's vital signs, test-pinching some fleshy parts, then peeling back one sleeve and swabbing it down. A first-aid kit and other medical supplies were scattered beside the Amberite; she took about an IV bag containing a clear fluid, and its line. Then, Elena hunted up a vein on Mii's forearm, deftly inserted the tiny needle, and taped it down.
Nick and Wally drifted around the periphery, spectral faces drawn, looking more like the ghosts they were than at any time since she'd met either. They watched wordlessly as saline solution flowed into the girl, and the old shamaness lifted her eyes upward, and muttered something before turning back to Elena. "She's entered the lightlands. Do not try to wake her until she speaks again."
Elena's eyes widened slightly, then went to Mii's face. The girl's eyes were open now, but fully dilated. The shamaness undid Mii's sash, and opened her tunic to expose the unbleached linen shift beneath. There was a faint glow through that thin homespun fabric, a light from within her chest that was growing in intensity until it projected a faint beam into the darkness above.
"Is that where... the goddess pulled me in?" Nick spoke up finally.
"Beyond that." the old woman raised a bony finger. "It is the gateway to the High Pastures. She will just be able to see in, but that's farther than any of us have been in a few years." She took up Mii's right hand, flexing back the fingers to view the palm. There was a faint trio of swirls there, also glowing, along with the cut in her other hand. "There's some hair missing as well. I know what she did, and it's a wonder she's still alive at all. I hope that he who she revived was worthy of that risk."
"He is!" Nick rose up, with unusual vehemence. Even Wally shied aside. "But I didn't put her up to that and wouldn't THINK of asking such a thing even if I did know it could be done. It was her own decision."
Elena looked to Nick, to the shamaness, and then to Mii's silent form. "Then... she's committed..."
"To the spirit-path. From this time forward." Mii's grandmother sat back on her heels. "I hope she realized the permanence of it. Kemy won't be happy, but she's just going to have to deal with it." Her eyes drifted back down to her granddaughter's slack face. "We've done all we can, for now. The scrolls anchor her place, and we can only wait."
Wally approached gingerly. "How is she otherwise?"
"Mii is a bit dehydrated, and that rite ripped quite a few calories out of her, she's even lost some fat." Elena pointed out the hollows in Mii's cheeks. "That's why she's getting fluids now. We'll have to keep her on them for however long this takes."
"It could be hours, or days." the shamaness shrugged. "Wait it out, all we can do."
Nick looked up, following the faint pillar of light, then his brow knit. "I can see her!" Before anyone else could get a word in, he became a blur, rocketing into the night sky.
"Nick!" Wally started to follow him. "Where is she? NICK!"
"Stay here, Wally." Elena jerked her palm groundward. "If you can't see her, you aren't meant to follow."
"She's right." Mii's grandmother nodded. The Orion-ghost roiled about like a panicked horse, then halted abruptly, sighed and settled, but not before yelling, "Damn, I hate this. I HATE THIS! You hear me, Mr. Hollywood?"
The shamaness cocked a steely glance that backed Wally into the shadows beyond the lamplight. "Settle down!"
He did...
Above, Nick soared as he did in life, until he reached the diaphanous form that was still rising over the falls. "Mii!" The form he saw was her, but sculpted out of the luminance of a bright, full winter moon, wavelengths apart from the hellscape of the gorge. She turned, the locks of her hair flowing like many long, massed, streaming pennants. One lock, just by her left ear, glowed brighter than them all. "Is this what it's like to fly, Nick?"
"Oh... it's greater than just flying." Nick couldn't help a smile as he saw her hover over the falls. "You see the fields ahead? That's where your Lady called me." There was long plains grass ahead of them, also glowing, but gold-flecked. It spilled in fringes and fingers into the night air; Mii'auww and Nick closed in on its feathery edges. They were there now, in the wheaten pasture. In the distance, there was another bright figure, a gowned woman on a silver mare. Her hair was also free, and rippled like a river, and her eyes had a tourmaline glow. She wheeled her mount about and waved. Follow me.
Mii and Nick fell into her wake, skimming over the gilded steppe that broke up in places to reveal the landscape of the mortal earth hundreds of feet below. There were the flames, muffled and desaturated as if underwater, but still giving heat. Engines droned in the distance, becoming louder, and the running lights of aircraft were like pinpricks in formation when they weren't obscured by smoke. They passed over the lodge, and its roof was gushing with foaming plumes of water. The master of the lodge was hell-bent on saving the building, but when it came to the evacuation efforts, that shiny white Escalade was conspicuous by his absence.
The air tankers and the crew hauler made a beeline towards the stream of vehicles now blocked by the collapsing park gate. The locomotive that also ran the line to the lodge was also trapped. Parachutes bloomed in the darkness as the smokejumpers' carrier managed to place them precisely on the narrow strip ahead of the waiting evacuees.
"How did they do that in such a small space?" Mii reeled in astonishment.
"That Cabbie, he's an artist." Nick grinned in admiration as he passed. "Go guys, show'em how it's done!"
The Lady called them back with the waving of her arm, just as the SEAT trainee was on approach to drop his load of retardant. "We gotta follow her now, don't worry about the team, they've got this."
"I hope so." Mii glanced back before tailing after Nick and the Lady, who galloped flat-out across the patches of glowing pasture that seemed to grow smaller as they crossed over the stone ridge into the other valley, which so far seemed to have escaped the flames. Finally, the grass – and the Lady – seemed to drop out altogether, and the spirit forms who had followed her slowly descended to the tarmac of a runway, with a cluster of hangars on the side and an old fire watch tower nearby.
"This is the Air Attack base!" Nick glanced about. "Oh, Maru's swearing up a storm!" The oddly-accessorized pitty was venting his spleen as he moved about, with loudness and profanity vying against each other for first place. All of the hangars gaped open but one, that of the air boss. The double doors were firmly shut, with only silence beyond them.
"Is that... Blade's?" Mii drifted towards it.
"Yes, that's his quarters." Nick caught up to her. "He's there." The helicopter-spirit drifted through the doors. Mii trailed behind him, after an instant's hesitation. In the semi-darkness of the closed building, at once dwelling and office and definitely showing its age, the great form of the helitanker rested on a foam pallet, sleeping off what must have been a whopping dose of anesthetic. The fire-scarred surface on Blade's left flank and the crumpling where he'd took the brunt of the crash impact were still visible. But, he was breathing.
The lock by Mii's ear, the one that she had cut for the revival rite, flared like white fire, and a faint aura rose from Blade's frame, expanding to join with that of Mii'auww.
Nick blinked. "Whoah. Wasn't expecting THAT development."
Mii turned to him. "Grandmother told me this could happen. This is why we bind our hair, besides the wind turning it to knots on the steppe. For us, hair is powerful. Strength and life flow through it. He, and I... we're "lock-bound" now." She paused, wincing and blinking. "Nick... I don't know if I should be saying this, but I saw you... die."
"Sweet maker." Nick became even paler than he usually was these days. "How much do you see?"
Mii'auww was holding her head. "So much. TOO much. Family trouble, his last talk with his father ended ugly. He went to the west coast after, they never spoke again. Then he started film work, he was good at stunts. He started working with you, and you became like brothers, and the people on the set were more like his real family than the one he was born in. Then you two went from just stunts to real acting and got your own show, which went on for years. The show was your life, everyone involved with it were your world. You all worked long, hard hours, but ate and drank together and had good times. The city... Hollywood... could be a sordid place, but you had each others' backs and people who showed you how to avoid trouble, if only to protect their own investment in you, but others really cared and many. many more adored you both..."
Mii then grimaced. "...Even if the "fan fiction" they were writing about you was kind of... cringey when you both checked it out and read it out loud for everyone on the set when you were on your breaks and everyone thought it was... "a scream". So many new things tumbling into my head, suddenly knowing so much. I didn't even know what a "fan" or "fan fiction" was, and the situations they wrote you and Blade into were... just ... awwkwaaarrrd." Her spirit-voice became a high squeak, like that of the Mountain people's girls of her age when they found themselves embarrassed.
"OK Mii, back to earth... I think you're getting an overload." Nick nudged her away from Blade. "You sound almost drunk."
"Everything he knows and has learned. Everything he felt. Your passing ripped the heart out of him. Yet, he went from Hollywood to a place where he would see others die, again and again... but for, he figured, a far better reason than entertainment for people sitting in front of... "the idiot box".
"That's what he always called TV's." Nick smiled wistfully.
"Another thing Grandmother told me..." Mii'auww began to sober up, "was that as well as learning things, the lock-bound can... leave things behind, like messages. Was there anything, that maybe, you wanted to say to Blade?"
Nick swallowed hard; his eyes bounced to his old, sleeping friend, who was now just beginning to murmur, and rebounded back to Mii'auww. "He's coming around, didn't expect that so soon, we'll have to make it fast." He inhaled and let it out, for a beat. "Please... let him know that I've always been around for him, always will be, and I'll be waiting to see him on the other side, when that day comes. What more can I say?"
"That's enough." Mii nodded soberly. She was still struggling to cope with the info-dump, the minutiae of procedures, protocols, regulations and experience, all competing with every person who had ever made an impression on Blade. The imprint of Cad Spinner, for example, was etched in the sort of cold fury that Mii'auww's late father would have reserved for thieves and traitors; an honest adversary would be better company. As for his current team, generally favorable, though Dipper was edging closer to a come-to-diety talk about love-stalking a certain newcomer. As for that person... there had been initial annoyance, coming to a head at the mine... but then, the realization that in Dusty, he was looking into something of a mirror, and the mirror was looking back into him.
Finally, Mii composed her message, addressing the recipient as her elders had taught her to greet a man who was a leader of other men.
Great Chieftan, who faces the flame's devastation as a warrior, and has earned the look of eagles that you possess, know that your friend and oath-brother, Nicolas Lopez, is safe and well on the other side, and has never forsaken you. He has guided me to this place, fulfilling a task that the Lady of our people has asked of him. His spirit will always ride with you, and waits for you beyond the veil of the sky along with all others that you have known and lost. He is still proud to know you. I quote him word-for-word now - "Blade, I'll wait up for you, and I'll save you the last "Ho-Ho", and Giselle sure was sweet, wasn't she?"
She reviewed that, and added more.
Your group was forced to go out after dark, against the usual rules, due to the irresponsibility of... a certain person. The park staff are handling the evacuation. Dusty is rising up to his task. You have made a definite impression on him. Your old instructor will be proud to see how you have paid it forward. Finally, when you have a moment to do so, call your chief ranger, he has the lodge's sweepers with him. Please check their dust trays. You may find something interesting. Now, I must conclude. Be well, and may the skies always be clear for you.
Mii pulled back then. Blade was stirring more now.
"Let's go." Nick nosed towards the doors. "He'll be awake soon. I dunno what he'd see of us if anything, but we shouldn't stay another minute. Aaannnd... you have some company waiting for you back at the falls."
"I know, I know. " Mii turned to follow. "Grandmother's more than enough on her own, I'm glad she left Mother at home."
"And Elena?"
"Elena's just... Elena."
The patches of gold grass were still visible to them, but they didn't need the Lady now. They knew the way back.
Blade stirred, then jerked. His eyelids flickered and he gave out a groan. His eyes finally opened, slowly, to the semi-darkness of his own hangar, with orange emergency lights still on. The helicopter`s last memory was one of impact, but not that much pain. He`d been knocked out too quickly for that. It had been a mercy, but still he was surprised to find himself with body and soul still together.
Then, the years of conditioning and routine took over as the fog left him. He took inventory of himself, flicked and rotated rotors that had been freshly repaired or replaced, felt inside that the engine and rotor shaft had been worked on as well, and the parts were beginning the molecular integration process that allowed all creatures of this world to make new components their own. There was still the bit of crumpling and the scorched paint – those things weren`t critical to life, and they would take more time to fix. Well, looks were the last thing on Blade`s mind right now. With a grunt, he extended his gear and heaved himself off the pallet, then let out a snort. His vision, he noted, seemed a little unusual, restricted to a certain portion of the spectrum without the layers of infrared and ultraviolet that tinged the normal limits of aircraft`s vision. He blinked and shook his head. Okay, it was back to normal now, but that was just... bizarre.
He rolled off the pallet, then nosed the hangar doors open. The scent of smoke from the larger valley hit him then. He took it in, and was relieved to find only the smell of "burning trees" and not "burning people". At least, so far. Blade knew what death by burning smelled like by now. He knew what it was to have his nose and intakes stinging with the acrid stench of the death of someone he knew. Nick had only been his first. It didn't drive him mad, as it had that first time, but his brain had taken count of every one, especially in these later years. How many lives, so the superintendent could divert money that should have gone into the firefighters' budget for... champagne flutes? Ice sculptures? Parties? Celebrities who would then post pretty pictures on social media? Oh, how Blade would have liked to smash one of those damned glasses. It would be satisfying.
Once outside, he stopped as he heard Maru's continuing tirade, an eloquent, almost poetic stream of maledicta that would inspire tears of admiration in a drill sergeant. But there was no time to savor high profanity. The helicopter stalked across the tarmac, in the direction of the fuel pump. The air tug halted abruptly and silenced as the yellow-green reflections of Blade's retinas registered on him, then bolted on a course of interception.
"Blade, what the #$ are you doing?" Maru stood squarely in front of him. "It's only been a few hours since we got you back from damn-near-dead!"
"Well, I'm alive, aren't I?" the chopper shot back. "The hell I'm sitting down here while everyone else is throwing out the rulebook to keep everyone in the park from getting crisped. Am i good to go or not?"
Maru's eyes went over Blade, once more. "Well, technically, yeah..."
"Look Maru, I KNOW I look like I'm re-playing that bit part I did in a zombie flick, right before ChoPs, but you did your usual good work inside." Blade did a rotor spin and a flex. "I woulda though you'd had more confidence in your own skill than that!"
"Awright, awright!" Maru conceded, turning towards the pumps. "I'll sign you off and fuel you up. But.. how are you feeling?"
"Honestly?" Blade grinned, a wide, fierce, glad grin that went beyond his superincisors and exposed the wicked, inward-curved triple canines that all rotorcraft of this world possessed, but seldom displayed except to their dentists. That show of teeth was just rude, after all. Combined with the darkness and his glowing retinas, it was a startling sight, even to Maru. "Honestly, Maru... I NEVER FELT BETTER!"
Maru looked back, got an eyeful of that grin and almost shuddered. Just give him that fuel and stand the hell back...
It took the usual few minutes, but felt more like a blink. Blade spooled up and lifted into the dark like a phoenix reborn. Maru, now alone on the tarmac, watched the helicopter's running lights recede into the night, and then looked to the tower. Patch was visible, moving quickly to see what she could of Blade's general direction as she relayed the latest information. Maru could guess what it was... someone. bless them, had called in, earlier, about two vehicles trapped on the bridge. Well, at least THEY weren't dead yet.
Beyond the falls, a scanner squawked. "Go, and be safe!"