A/N: The key to flying is throwing yourself at the ground and learning to miss.
Rara Animis
Chapter 3
Taking Flight
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"Greetings Lady Pandora! To what do we owe the pleasure?" Frostbite asked upon entering the icy hall the four-armed woman had been waiting in.
"Lord Frostbite," she greeted with a curt nod. "I bring news of great importance, and ask for your assistance in a grave matter."
Frostbite tensed up as he took in her clipped tone. "What has happened, my friend?" he asked, as a growl rumbled in the back of his throat in worry.
Pandora eyed the guards at the halls entrance, turning her silent question back to the yeti. With his nod, she continued. "My warriors have found a new halfa, a babe," she said simply.
Frostbite blinked eyes going wide before nodding. "I see..." he murmured out darkly, "and you think this may be the one?" Pandora nodded knowing what the other was alluding to instantly. "Then I see this is signs of dark times ahead, but also cause for celebration. What is it you need of me?"
"You have technologies and studies into cores that I can never hope to understand. We need to hide the boy," She crossed one set of her arms over her chest as she let out a grave sigh. "You have, no doubt, felt the ripples of unrest with those of the King's followers. Many now know of the prophecy depicting the Dark Pariah's return, and I worry that if the boy's status were to get out while he's still vulnerable..." She let her words hang, not much else needed to be said.
Frostbite hummed in response while giving a sombre nod. "It would bring a dark time indeed. What did you have in mind?"
"The only reason I noticed the boy's status was due to the fact I was with him when he fell into slumber, and thus lost his ghostly aura, making him human. I fear this may not be a controllable thing."
"You wish for me to build a technology to keep the boy in spectral form?" Frostbite guessed, eyes sparkling with mirth. At the woman's nod, the yeti ghost laughed. "Of course! I have been looking into halfa physiology for a while now. We know much from observing Plasmius, and I may already have something that may help. If it does not work, bring the boy here and I can figure something else out, my friend."
Pandora gave a rare smile to The Far Frozen's leader hearing his good news.
Frostbite turned to his guard before giving a quick command, which the warrior quickly moved to follow, exiting the hall. He returned a moment later with a thin gold and green armband, though for the boy it would be more of a necklace. The warrior presented the gift to Pandora with a usual wolfish smile.
It was a simple design, a gold band with a green stripe in the centre running the length of the band with a looping S shape at the front which held a green gem embedded in the gold. The thickness wasn't too bad, perhaps that of an average human's smallest finger. Pandora smiled as she looked back to her long-time friend. If she and her people were going to protect the boy it's style will blend in perfectly with the jewellery that they wore.
"It is simple in design and execution. Absorbing ambient energies, and storing it within the stone. So long as the boy radiates his own aura, with his own energy, it will be dormant. Once his energy runs dry it will supply a base amount to keep his aura, kick-starting his energy recovery," Frostbite explained.
"Thank you, Lord Frostbite," Pandora said as she took the band.
"Although I do have a request of my own." Frostbite's voice snapped the tall warrior out of her gramercy.* "If this is a sign that the revival is indeed going to come to pass, I wish to help train the boy to be battle-ready." He says simply.
Pandora sighed before nodding. "You and yours are most formidable warriors."
"Matched only by your own." Frostbite agreed. "Together we can shape the boy, make sure he is ready for the upcoming trial that will fall onto him."
"You are wise as always, Lord Frostbite. I shall bring the boy here for training as soon as he is beyond the basics, so long as this gadget works as you intend it."
"Then it is agreed."
"Thank you lord Frostbite, I shall send word of his progress as things develop," Pandora says placing her right arms across her chest saluting the other leader.
"May you have safe travels, Lady Pandora."
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"Welcome back, M'Lady," Jupiter greeted upon seeing Pandora return. "The child has barely stirred in the time you've left."
"That is good to hear. Thank you, Jupiter." She nodded giving the guard her dismissal. "I'll take it from here."
Jupiter saluted before disappearing through the wall and Pandora entered the room where the young boy still slumbered. Though she had only been away a few hours, she needed to give this to him as soon as possible. She sat on the bed beside the boy who was now sleeping on his side, and she gently moved to brush back his black hair.
"Phantom, I apologize for having to wake you, but I have a gift." Pandora cooed gently to the child.
Phantom flinched as her cold skin made contact, and slowly opened his bright blue eyes blinking them blearily. "A gift?" he asks rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand and pushing himself to a sitting position.
"Yes. If you'll allow me to. I'll put it on for you." Pandora said gently.
"M'kay" He mumbled out, with half-lidded eyes barely seeming to register the band Pandora held out to him.
Without waiting for him to finish looking at it she squeezed the band allowing it to fully open before clasping it around his tiny neck. She hit the small button under the gem and the band resized to fit like a choker perfectly, The green gem hanging just below where his Adam's apple would be, but above his collar bone. It glowed softly for a second, as it seemed to take whatever readings it needed from its host before suddenly a bright blue-white ring sprung forth from the child's waist.
Phantom let out a small squeak of surprise as the light raced over his head. His now bright green glowing eyes, stared up confused at Pandora. "What was that?" he asked, suddenly a bit more awake as he looked himself over. Seeing nothing out of place he stared up at the woman with a renewed sleepy pout.
"Do not worry about it. Alright?" she soothed brushing his now snowy white hair back from his forehead. "We will speak more in the morning."
"I guess..." he said around a new yawn, seemingly once again too tired to put up more of an argument. So instead of asking more questions, he moved his hand up to poke at his new accessory fumbling with it a bit, as though trying to figure it out.
"No, no. You need to keep that on," Pandora soothed, wrapping one of her hands around his and gently guiding them away from the necklace, while another hand moves to brush back his hair. "I'll tell you whatever it is you wish to know later, but for now, just try to relax alright?"
"But what's it do?" he muttered out leaning into the cool soothing touch of the tall woman.
"It's to protect you." She stated simply, as she gently guided the boy back to lay down once again. He muttered something unintelligible as he fell back asleep almost instantly. Pandora waited a few minutes, waiting for the light rings to appear. When they remained dormant she sighed. "I just hope you will be ready once fate takes hold of you young one..."
With mixed feelings, she stood up to leave the room, checking back over her shoulder once more before exiting. She still needed to call a meeting with the elder's council on the matter of the newest halfa in their realms.
Phantom awoke the next morning with a yawn and a stretch. Immediately he felt off when he looked about the green and gold room, feeling it should be blue instead. He rolled over to bury his face into the pillow not really wanting to get up yet, only to hear a crinkling noise as he did, like a candy wrapper. At least that is what his still sleep fuzzed brain decided upon.
His interest peaked, he pushed himself back to look at the mattress pouting upon his discovery that there was not a sweet treat he was laying on. He scrunched up his nose as he looked about for the source of the noise poking he mattress hoping to get it to make the crinkling sound again. With a huff, he pushed himself over and jumped off the bed onto the ground. It was then he noticed something poking out of his jumpsuit's pocket.
He carefully pulled it out and looked at the crinkled piece of glowing black paper with great interest. He opened it up and grinned brightly upon seeing the drawing. He even had a vague memory of drawing this! The red rocket and the girl with the blue hair and even his own scribbled white hair! He knew this was his!
"Danny!" he chirped excitedly. That sounded right! Perfectly so! He hugged the drawing to his chest as the name clicked into place, cementing it into his mind.
He was so elated with his discovery that he didn't notice when he left the ground and began floating up towards the ceiling. It was only when he smacked his head that he realized how high up he was. He let out a scared yelp, dropped his drawing and watched in dismay as it fluttered to the ground with a grace that served to mock him a moment later when he plummeted back to the floor.
He whimpered softly in fear scooting away from the paper, afraid that if he were to touch it again, something else would happen to him. It wasn't as though the fall had hurt really, but it was still scary.
"Are you alright child?" A guard asked after a moment. "I heard the commotion..." he blinked down at Phantom in confusion.
"I flied... and then I fell..." Phantom sniffed out, his confusion and fear causing tears to form in the corners of his eyes.
"You flew?" the guard asked. "And so soon after forming! That is quite a feat. Perhaps we should move to train you sooner then we had thought," he grinned proudly.
"Training?" Phantom asked, blinking back his tears in light of the man's proud smile.
"Yes, Lady Pandora assigned me to watch you in her stead while she is away. My name is Jupiter," he introduced himself. "Lady Pandora had said you expressed interest in intangibility, but perhaps we should start with flight, hm? Well, that is, after breakfast of course," he said before moving to pick the child up in his upper arms, his lower set moving his spear out of the way.
Phantom simply blinked, staring at Jupiter's face, not fully understanding what he was going on about. He was, however, able to hone into one thing in particular.
"Food! Yes please!" he chirps.
Jupiter laughed at the child's exuberance. "Alright, come on then. We shall get you to the dining hall."
Once they had eaten, Jupiter brought Phantom to the training grounds to show him around and go over some of the basics with him. Phantom found it hard to keep his attention on the lesson, zoning out after about five minutes. Phantom kept up his daydreaming for the better portion of the explanation on how his energy worked, that is until the man gave a demonstration.
Phantom's eyes went wide as Jupiter flicked into invisibility. The elder ghost took a few steps to his left and reappeared with a bright grin, amused with how amazed the child was over such a simple display.
"With the extension of your core's energy over your form, you can change your being to be able to push through otherwise solid items," he explained, before moving to walk through a crate, his form taking on a semi-transparent look. "And of course if you push your energy into the air around yourself, you can become airborne!" he smiled as he floated upwards and slowly circled the child.
Phantom's eyes went wide as he watched the ghost circle around him. It was like the glowing man was in orbit! Suddenly he wanted to fly again and his core hummed in response to his wishes, as he wobbled up off the ground. Phantom fell forwards as if he had tripped but didn't hit the dirt. Instead, he began somersaulting end over end in the air.
Jupiter laughed. "Good effort, young one!" he congratulated with a bright grin, pushing Phantom back upright before stabilizing him in the air. "To move forward you have to imagine yourself as an arrow. Fan your energy in that shape in the direction you wish to move," he explained, moving to grab a broken spear tip for emphasis. As he moved about he pointed the tip to the direction he was going to head to.
Jupiter moved over to Phantom, who had fallen out of his airborne state, and handed the child the green-tinted metallic spear tip. The child took it with a slight pout starting to form on his face. Phantom stared at it blankly a moment before moving it about and thrusting his arm out as though he could control his flight with the spear tip like a remote. When it didn't work he stared up at the guard with the most lost look the ancient ghost had ever seen.
"It's not working," he complained, his bottom lip coming out further, as he thrust the spear tip away from himself, holding it out to the guard.
"The arrow shape was an example, not the method to make it work," Jupiter explained with a small chuckle. "Remember how you got off the ground before? Do that again, but imagine yourself like that tip."
"No."
"No? You do not wish to fly?" Jupiter mused at the child's outburst.
"No..." Came back the awkward response as Phantom brought the spear tip back towards himself.
"Do not be discouraged. You have no time limit to get this perfected. You will not get it your first try, and the only reason I can make it look effortless is because I have had lots of practice." Jupiter had not had too much experience with children so young before, but he had trained many ghosts in his time, and many guards in life. He was nothing if not a patient man.
It took most of the day, but Phantom was finally starting to get a feel for flying. Well, it was more like slowly hovering and chugging forward with random bursts of speed, but it was more progress then Jupiter had expected the child to make, given how short a time he had been a ghost. Things seemed to be going well, so of course, something had to go wrong.
Phantom was focusing on moving over to the training dummy like he had been instructed, so he pushed all his energy out and within a few seconds, he had smacked into the dummy like he was trying to tackle it. Phantom grunted and fell to the ground, and within a second he was wailing at the top of his lungs on the ground.
Smacking into the dummy was not what had started it, no, that hadn't hurt too badly... However, when he saw his legs had suddenly fused together into a snake-like tail... Well, that was the cause of his alarm. Jupiter watched in mild amusement as the child flailed about on the ground kicking his tail in the air and squawking indignantly as it waved of its own accord and turning to mist near the tail tip.
"Relax, young one!" Jupiter called after realizing Phantom actually was in distress, and not simply being dramatic. "Focus your energy to reform your legs."
Phantom let out a whimper but tried to force himself to remember what his legs usually looked like. After a few tries, he was able to get his legs to reform and he let out a sigh of relief upon seeing his usual appendages. "Don't like that," Phantom stated after he calmed down.
"Why did you not? It is a good talent to have. Body manipulation will make you a formidable opponent once you are grown." Jupiter said bending down to pick up the child. "You did well on this bout. Perhaps you need to form a spectral tail to allow yourself stability?"
"That was good?" Phantom blinked. "You like it?"
"Yes, it was a good flight. Your persistence has paid off greatly," Jupiter offered with a proud smile. "We should probably take another break. We do not want to wear out your core."
"I wanna go again!" Phantom insisted trying to squirm out of the guard's hold.
Jupiter chuckled. "It will do no good to keep going until you pass out. You need to pace yourself, little one. Battles are often won by not how hard you hit but by how long you can go."
"Battle?" Phantom tilted his head as he looked up to the guard, eyes shining bright as he tried to process what the older ghost was saying.
"Indeed. I am a warrior, Lady Pandora is a warrior, and, on occasion, warriors go into battle," he explained simply. "It makes her proud when we can stand beside her, and we take pride in our abilities."
Phantom smiled at the thought. Could he make them proud? His core hummed excitedly at the thought of making these people smile happily. Jupiter seemed to smile when he did well at flying practice, so all he had to do was be the best flyer ever! If proud meant happy, he would make everyone so proud of him!
With a determined nod, Phantom managed to wiggle free of the guard's hold, and wobbly floated down to the ground. He stood there a moment as his babysitter sighed. "Fine. One last go, but then we will be taking a break. You need dinner still, and you hardly ate lunch."
"Okay," Phantom relented. The child forced himself to focus, his little tongue poking out of his lips as he pushed himself. A second later he wobbled upwards, and he tried to force his legs to fuse. He glared down at them crossing them together marvelling as they spun about one another like they were entangled ropes, before snapping together as one elongated wispy tail.
"I did it!" Phantom chirped. "Like this?"
"Excellent job!" Jupiter congratulated happily, making Phantom's core flutter happily at the praise and elated tone.
"I agree, wonderfully done!" Pandora called as she floated out onto the training grounds.
"Lady Panda!" Phantom chirped excitedly, his tail twitching as though he were trying to slither through the air to the large woman.
Jupiter let out a rather undignified snort at the new nickname the child had given his leader. Pandora raised a brow and sent a look to silence the man's withering chuckles. It did nothing to wipe the teasing smirk from his face, however, he did have the decency to try to avoid her eyes.
"See!? Look! Are you looking? See what I can do?" Phantom urged. He tried to point at his tail, only to flip over and float there upside-down.
"Yes, I see. Very good, young one," she coos, a bright smile shone towards him, causing the child's own grin to almost outshine his ghostly aura. "You have been busy," she said, after a moment to allow Jupiter to regain his composure.
"Yes, the child learns fast," he agreed. "He seems to have a lot of stamina for one so young, though we haven't been doing much more than flight today."
"Which would be supported a great deal by the airborne ectoplasm," Pandora agreed, moving over to help right the flailing Phantom. Once balanced in the air, the child flashed a bright smile to Pandora and latched onto her, his ghostly tail still squirming about behind him. Pandora couldn't help but ruffle the excited child's hair.
"Did the meeting of elders go well?" Jupiter asked once Phantom calmed down.
"About as well as one could hope, given the new information that has come to light." She sighed, letting her eyes drift to Phantom who had managed to reform his legs and was tightly clinging to her armoured chest plate. "Providence and Aragon were the loudest to protest, but that is to be expected. Frostbite was the loudest in favour, and the rest were mostly neutral on the matter," she explained. "Providence insisted that the council be 'kept in the loop' as it were, over Phantom's training."
"That eyeball likes to be in control as much as he can. For all his power allows him to see, he is amazingly blind," Jupiter said as he exasperatedly shook his head.
"Indeed," Pandora chuckles. Turning her attention to Phantom, she asked, "Shall we get you some dinner little one?"
"Yeah!" he chirped excitedly. As Pandora began to turn away, he began to flail and struggle, however. "Wait! I forgot the fly charm!"
"Fly charm?" Pandora mused, putting the child down before he fell or flew from her grasp.
"Yea! See?" Phantom had darted over to the ground to pick up the broken spearhead Jupiter had been using as an example earlier. Pandora raised a brow and sent a questioning look to her soldier who in turn shrugged. "It helps me fly!" the child explained as though it should be obvious.
"Oh!" Jupiter laughed out. "I was using that broken tip as an example for energy formation, but no matter, you can keep it. In fact, here..." Jupiter hummed as he moved over to the broken weapons pile and pulled out a small green chord that once was a bowstring. He took the spearhead and tied the cord to it before tying it around the child's wrist. "There. Now you can always have it."
"Thank you!" Phantom grinned brightly playing a bit with his 'charm' bracelet.
"Come on little now little one, let's get some dinner." Jupiter grins happily at the child's exuberance. While it was always disheartening to see one so young end up here in the infinite realms, it was also great joy, as children were often purest of heart.
Phantom ran back over to Pandora before lifting his arms demanding to be held. The warrior woman, who was the guardian of some of the greatest evils in the known realms, melted into a puddle as she bent to the will of a child. Jupiter couldn't help the teasing smirk that found it's way to his lips, as his leader turned to head back inside with Phantom.
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*Gramercy: Used to express surprise or gratitude (based from the french word marci)
A/N: Hope you enjoyed reading :) Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts! (Crossposted on A03)