Chapter 13: A Kiss of Two
Furious light beamed into the young Pokemon trainer's eyes. Bangs typically filled with brilliant autumn colors were now coated in damp seawater causing them to droop. Like heavy curtains, they blotted out portions of harsh sunlight in front of Feyera's visual field. His salt-crusted eyelashes quivered in the galloping turmoil. Glaring ahead, boundless miles stretched onwards and afar. The entire bay was a glass mirror surrounded by a jagged cliff frame, the edging of which had been encrusted and jeweled with Evercrest's reflective metal plating.
He had to leave Evercrest behind. Physically and mentally. There was no going back; the scientists and researchers there couldn't…wouldn't help save him from the heart shard embedded in his chest. Feyera was imprisoned with this fragment of Gardevoir anatomy, but he had been given a miraculous shot at extending his personal liberty to remove it through Sanaria's Teleport.
Peering down for a millisecond, he observed the glossy rubicund metal that pierced out from his chest, cleaving his layers of tattered clothing in two with a fine slit. Rays of golden sun danced off its broad sides, gilding the thin crescent edge with a gilt trim.
This was it. This was his chance to escape. However, the cruel turning of time's wheel pulled his lofty aspirations back to earth with a force beyond any he could remember. Much less comprehend.
A tight caress from behind startled him.
No, this was their chance to escape. Consolation, limitless in her purest form, abraded his back while the personal water craft continued to accelerate towards freedom. A freedom tasted by a tender tongue that does not forget sweetness tinged with bitterness.
A stray metal bolt narrowly missed his leg. Feyera caught a glimpse of the shimming artificial ray before it vanished into the water. The lustrous silver dash of light could mean only one thing: Nihil bolts. A second silvery projectile whizzed straight past the PWC's shallow footrest where Edge's Alterieno boot rested, touched by the exposed base of Sanaria's white leg guard.
"They're gaining! Shooting!"
Bringing his black boot up, he rubbed ankles with Sana.
"AH! Chris!" Sanaria screamed as yet another barb soon followed, with a "Thwip!" this time gracing over both their heads. The shrill sound of shredding wind whistled in his ears.
With rattling hands, the young man grappled with the steering bar. His heart rate continued to elevate, growing more substantial with every uncontrollable organic thump. Which heart was it? He couldn't tell the difference anymore. Panic set in. How fast would it take him? How long before either one of them gave out?
Sana pushed her head against his shoulder to duck, and he winced with her body's trembles. "G—get…get…us out of here…away…please."
He had to do something, anything; they were not going to get out of the spread of fire by going in a straight line. But in this bay there were no obstacles, no cover. Just water, cliff lines, and the research laboratory as far as they eye could see.
Silently, Edge tried to stall his stolen craft enough to turn, releasing a tad on the accelerator and tilting the main bar, but it wound up violently slackening in control. The machine wobbled and shifted along in the crystal clear bay as if it were but a tiny soap bubble amid the great basin of a tub.
"Veh Feyera!" the Gardevoir shouted, holding onto both him and the craft using her slender arms and legs respectively. Her action only served to increase his tension; knowing he was not the only one at stake here seemed to tug at his proverbial heartstrings.
Panicking, Edge compensated once again, this time pulling in the opposite direction, shifting back into a higher gear. The gauges and dials below spun like maddened timepieces. Black fumes shot out of the exhaust pipe like a locomotive engine. The PWC lurched unexpectedly, and veered off to the side, nearly capsizing.
Helpless, Feyera looked to his left as the watercraft continued to roll sideways. There were a few large Staryu visible at the base of the bay's shallow depths. Their brown bodies, jeweled with glowing orbs of flaming red, lay motionless while Edge and his blazingly fast craft sped over top their quiet and undisturbed underwater home.
Sanaria tugged on his waist as the craft stalled further and reoriented itself after the quick turn. Their pleading pulls towards equilibrium narrowly prevented a full out overturn. With an aggravated putter of the propeller, the craft's underbody sunk into the sparking water once again.
"Phew…" Edge exhaled through a crooked expression. "Haaa…" he panted.
However, the pursuing members of Team Rocket were hardly impeded. They too turned their crafts, momentarily ceasing fire while they hopped over the broad crescent moon wave Feyera had generated through turning.
Knowing he was unable to see their chasers, Sana told Edge with a start, "That didn't work, keep going—!"
Another zipping noise shot beyond their heads, heralding more fired munitions. "Thwip! Thwip!"
Before Sanaria could finish her thought, Feyera gassed the accelerator to full and the PWC shot forward, spewing forth a powerful wake and geyser of water behind it. The whole piece of machinery roared as the gauge dials vigorously turned clockwise in an effort to keep up with the blistering pace they had reached. Edge's mind had never traveled as hastily as it had during the mutual Teleport, and now by comparison, his entire perceived world was moving quicker. Too much quicker. Control slipped further away with each moment, like a vague shadow of a ghost in the night.
Sana nudged her body closer to Edge in silence. Their pursuers evenly matched the incredible power of the trainer's Samson ES. Feyera heard the rumble of the other ES engines gaining as the bay water doused his face with brackish warmth. His eyes darted amid the controls looking for some kind of way to push the motor even harder. Thoughts persuaded him; if he could push himself to the limit then why not the PWC?
"Damn," Feyera swore under his breath as the he tilted the control rod back to center. More of the lukewarm water splashed in his eyes and mouth. Its taste reminded him of something he could not fully remember. Why would he remember such a thing? What part of him was left to remember such primal senses? He thought he had forgotten all about these shady waters from his past. "Damn!" he said louder.
"Are you okay?" a careworn Sana asked.
Blinking twice in response to clear out the water, his lashes quivered. "Fine! That was close!" he shouted into the wild wind. His thick amber hair blew backwards and stayed blown out thanks to the wind and water. Its greased composition was unusual. He felt adrenaline continue to pressure his, now strangely, distant body.
"They're going to start shooting again," Sana squealed. "I can't keep them from missing us forever!"
She was employing a tiny conical reflect shield. Although lackluster, the light blue hexagonal crystals interwove behind them to spread the rain of fire. Each time a bolt hit the cone, it ruptured with a "clink!" and grew ominous cracks. It had grown rather dilapidated from all the abuse and was barely even recognizable as a solid form any longer.
Edge didn't waste his time with obscenities; they weren't any good at deterring bolts after all. "…Then let's shoot something back!"
"Huh? Veh Feyera, what do you mean? —AHH!"
Edge looked back and a screeching pin missed his shoulder by a hair's breadth. "GAH!" he shouted in dismay. The craft jerked and reeled.
It was useless. He couldn't make out where the shots were coming from, but one thing was for certain, they were definitely becoming more accurate and frequent. Feyera turned back to the control rod. "Are you okay Sana?!" he asked in worry, feeling her chilled cheek brush against his own.
"Yes…I'm—I'm just so scared. I don't want to die like this."
"We're not going to die!" Edge insisted. But the thoughts of Lorelei's recent murder haunted him.
"I…" Sana began to plea, but her telepathy trailed off. "…No…"
Edge Feyera bent his head down. No one was immortal. Why did he have all this faith? Who was he kidding? This may as well be their last stand. Ein was ruthless. His lackeys even more so, judging by their disregard for preserving Feyera's life. Had he really pissed off the scientist that much? Was he worthless? Expendable? He thought for sure that the valuable Reilken Mercurius around his wrist was worth more than he was. It had caused the merging of separate biologies after all. It was practically treated like a god by the city buried under Saffron! If that wasn't enough to preserve his life, then nothing was. Which made him worry. Maybe Ein had figured out a way to replicate the grafting process. He sounded keen on using younger specimens. How young? Children? Infants? It was all so disgusting. So vile.
"I sure hope we don't die," Edge admitted, the measures taken by Ein meant Feyera's life was no longer a viable component to his ex-researching partner's plans.
"Veh Feyera—" Sanaria thought about her acquired wound from the Nihil bolt that pierced her palm. Scaring was permanent, but death was much more so. Panic-stricken, she bent her shoulders back in a jolt, "You don't know for sure! What if they—"
"Hey, I'm already supposed to be dead!" Edge said as lightheartedly as possible under the circumstances. It came across as short and witty, frosted with a twinge of self-animosity. "Keep that in mind! I should be at the bottom at this bay like the bastards chasing us!"
"Don't say those kinds of things!" Sanaria pleaded, "You're not that way; Ein didn't make you that way."
"*Sigh*…haa…HA!" he exhaled in a broken spasm, abridging his thoughts with uncertainty. "You're right…I did. *COUGH!*"
She pet his gasping lungs. "You're alive; I can feel you're alive!"
"Sure…alive," he said peering down at his scar-like Gardevoir heart. "Not how I envisioned being alive."
"Now's not the time!" she insisted. The dramatically tilting craft made her grasp onto him even more than before.
In a fit of internal struggle, Edge stammered, "Y—yeah…gotta make sure we stay alive—AH!"
"EEP!"
A bolt struck the rear of the craft's seat, ricocheting off and causing the entire vessel to reverberate from the impact. Psychic resonance coursed throughout his frail body, undoubtedly from the Gardevoir pressed close against his back. The shared sensation weltered and drew forth fear across both their faces since the employment of cognitive defenses was only a mere gust against a riling storm of bullets. Sana's shield may have been enough to cause already misguided projectiles to narrowly miss along their wayward trajectory; however, all it took was a perfectly lined up shot though and they were done for. Granted, this was difficult for their pursuers to do aboard PWCs, but Nihils were proficient at one thing: quantity. The law of averages alone assured them a lucky shot eventually.
Feyera cursed into the wind, "DAMMIT!"
"We're both alive!" Sana chirped, "We need to stay alive; that's all, veh Feyera!"
"I know!" Edge swallowed nervously, the turmoil of the PWC's gallop made his stomach lurch. He wished he knew how to operate it properly. The frustration ate at him from the inside out, much like whenever he was confronted with his debilitating amnesia.
"Chris…it's important that we both—" Sanaria began, but she soon realized it was not the right setting to be divulging the newer conditions concerning being heart-bound.
"What?"
Edge waited for a second or two, but she didn't answer.
"We both what?!"
"Y—you can't die. Remember that."
"Well, hell, you make it sound like I want to!"
Silence, save for the skipping of the water and rumble of the diesel motor below.
"We'll be fine!" Edge hollered, "Just fight them off with something! C'mon, like before!"
He imagined her cocky attitude from before on the island when she had boasted her battle repertoire: "A small field Confusion attack followed by surgical Psyshock sufficed just fine. A full out Psychic assault would be overkill. What's wrong? You haven't learned those moves yet?" However, all that confidence was long gone. She was frozen and weak. Moreover, she was very afraid. And it rubbed off on him, overflowing like cold rainwater cascading down his apartment complex's eves in Pallet.
It stung. It stung like venom. And now it was a venom they shared together.
He felt Sana's ear clippings press against the back of his head, while her arms closed possessively around his torso. Their smooth pronged cartilage suggested playfulness, but nothing could be further from the reality of fact. She answered him slowly, "I—I can't…"
Gamboling over a few light waves, Feyera shouted, "What do you mean you can't?!" He wondered if the Teleport had drained her completely. Thoughts raced through his mind. Was she as fragile and defenseless as him now? Was it his fault? Did he somehow inflict this weakness upon her? What had he done? What had they done?
She brought her right hand down from around his shoulder and against his heart shard. It felt warm, but her touch always did. "…Not alone."
"What do you want me to do?! I'm a little bit busy ya know!?" Feyera yelled in aggravation while more bolts whizzed past their craft and splashed into the water. The metal barbs reflected the sunlight almost as much as the bright teal cove water itself, their sequential ripples reminding him of skipped stones.
"Feyera…"
"UGH!" he grunted, "Sana, I can't even see for squat!" The trainer bent his back straight and glared toward the massive facility built into the cliff on his left. Dark, lead-like fumes spewed out from behind his PWC, inflaming his nostrils with their redolence of pressured flight. "The blasted thing won't let me loosen the controls without thinking I fell off!"
Biting his lip, he waited to hear some kind of response from Sanaria. She knew he couldn't possibly couldn't fight the members of Team Rocket off. Not with psyonics nor with his Pokemon. He was too busy simply trying to make sure the PWC kept afloat at these blistering speeds. How Edge hated the craft's manual controls. It was archaic. Couldn't they have installed ARMOS on this? Seemed like everything used convenience navigation programing these days.
"Huhh…" There was a faint sigh followed by a quiver. Edge could not tell if it came from him or her since they felt the same way.
Grappling with the rubber grips on the control bar, he continued his zigzagging course to evade the raining projectiles. It was far too risky for him to look backwards because it tossed the control rod off to the side, inadvertently steering. Plus, even if he could somehow manage to face the gaining opposition, his psyonics were at an all-time low. He felt incredibly mortal. Incredibly human. Like he had felt long ago. It was all too real, all too present; life had begun to catch up with him. And this mortality tugged at his every thought, shouting questions. Would he survive? Would she? What would it matter if one of them did and the other didn't?
Pulverized by feelings feeding through Sanaria, "Sana?!" Edge demanded blindly through his salt-rimed tears. He told himself they were from the wind. He told himself those compassionate feelings were not his own. But were they?
"…"
"Sanaria, answer me!" he echoed through thought and voice. Separating the two had become troublesome.
"Chris…" an exhausted Sanaria whispered.
"What!?"
Turing again, sharply, the light of the sun sprayed into his eyes.
"…Feyera…veh…Feyera?"
Edge violently shook his head; his curtain bangs caressed the area under his eyes with undying fondness, "What is it?! We don't have the time! SANA!"
The Gardevoir gave a half nod, her thoughts blending into actual palatable emotion, bleeding together in a river of strange liturgy, the creamy consistency blurring not only sight but nerve ends throughout the trainer's body. "We can do this together, right? That's what you said, right?"
'Can' wasn't even acceptable now, they 'needed' to. "We have to!" Feyera said as more of the bolts rained about them. "Do something! Get them off our tails!"
"Tails?" she scathingly repeated. Her breathlessness made it that much more derisive. "Haha! We have tails now?"
The young man felt Sana move from behind him. She shifted her body and seemed to turn around to face backwards. He took extra care not to shake the craft more than it already was. The Gardevoir kept one arm around Edge's neck for security. The glossy red protrusion from her back rubbed against the back of his loose rocket uniform. Her two thin legs brushed alongside his own.
"It's an expression! Our trail, get them off our trail!" Edge corrected indignantly.
"Okay," she replied in a half-hum. "Heh…tails…you're funny, Mister Feyera."
Then she clutched his at his back. Her silky hands abraded his uniform with their smooth and delicate tracing.
"W—what are you trying to do?" Edge stammered in shock. "Why are you…?"
"This isn't working, you don't have—"
"ACK!"
Another small wave launched the craft into the air momentarily. Sana squeezed the fabric tightly. He felt his muscles constrict in response to the tugging and sensation of a jumping stomach. The disorienting splash sent them both into a small panic. Sana shivered as more coastal water covered their already drenched Team Rocket uniforms.
"…! *Gasp!*"
"What?!" Edge asked her, "What don't I have!? Tell me!"
"Y—you don't have your heart going through you," Sana quickly replied, invisibly flushing at the thought of how perfect that would be. "There is something stopping it from…"
"I…what?!" Feyera questioned. "What are you talking about—?"
He felt Sana paw at his spine. She deprecatingly went on to say in a hushed tone, "Like I do, like Seph did…it's not natural; it doesn't…*sigh* it doesn't…drive through you—"
"NO!" he impulsively retorted. He realized that thankfully he didn't. It was a relatively minor detail. But he knew based on Sanaria's anatomy that Gardevoir had heart shards that penetrated their entire essence. Literally. It was their core after all. Corporeally and mentally, it drove through them. Though the latter symptom was more irksome, at least for Edge Feyera.
He only had a portion of it. The glossy thin 'heart' split out from his sternum bone about a palm's distance. How deep it burrowed into his actual body was anyone's guess. The doctors associated with his amnesia were anything but credible for telling him that it was Electrode shrapnel. Hell, they probably were told to lie to him by Rallsen. No use arguing, it was stuck for now and he had bigger things to concern himself with. However, his heart shard definitely had gained a mental foothold; he could practically feel it perpetually in his mind. Abasing his thoughts. Gone were the days where he could ignore its sensitivity to emotion. Even the idea of it being only temporary seemed to vanish in the haze of indeterminate reality.
"NOT NATURAL?!" Feyera bellowed at her patronizing words. He was the antithesis of natural in his mind. Everything about his selfhood was derived from the insecurity of past, the unsteadiness of falsehood, and the resignation of erstwhile identity!
She continued to brush one of her hands against his straight back, rubbing his spine. These motions, though tender, sent tingles throughout his body like silver soupçons of the moonlight on a cold cloudless night, chilling his essence with the embodiment of touch itself. Her hand lowered in displeasure at the conclusion of her search.
"Why?" she rhetorically asked herself.
"Because I'm a person! A human! I don't have your every bodily feature!" Feyera scolded. The last thing he wanted was to wind up with more of Sephiteos' features. It was bad enough that the Reilken Mercurius around his left wrist had begun to expose a paler skin tone. The blasted artifact from the past was as problematic as it was valueless to Ein! "I'm not—"
"But you need to be able to…"
"Thwip!"
"No!" Edge insisted, "Find another way!"
As if she could change his anatomy in any way. That was a laugh. Had that been possible, he'd be long out of this mess.
"A-another—" Sana paused before vocalizing, "—way?"
"Yeah! For Pete's sake, Sanaria!" he belted. The boat tilted just enough for both passengers to become pressed close. Water and mist stung Edge's eyes.
"O—okay, let me think of something!"
"Sana, we're running out of time!" he huffed, "I can't get us out of the channel at this rate."
"Time…" she repeated softly. Time was of the essence now that they had both come down from their emotional high point. He could feel the pressured breaks in his mind slowing cognitive functions. Time was returning to normal, and now only adrenaline stalled the clock. The mind could only accomplish so much, now it was the body' turn.
Sana sighed quickly, "Quickly, put out your left hand."
"My…what?"
More turmoil forced the small craft into a chaotic mess. Sunlight reflected off the unstable bay water in piercing notes.
"Just do it!" she demanded.
"W—what do you plan on—" he ducked as arrows rushed past him, nailing the water in front of them with sharp impacts.
Sana urged him raising her arm in protest, "Do you want to live to see another day? Do you want to stay alive?"
"I…" bittersweet feelings started to pull at him like marionette strings. Each of their tugs prompted questions, but questions were not what the young researcher could investigate right now. There was only feeling. The feeling of every single nerve responding in pitched fever to the gratuitous adrenaline coursing through his body, augmented by his emotions. Could he really trust her? What if there was no going back? What if—?
"FEYERA! NOW! Your mind is slowing down; mine is too! I can feel it! We're gonna crash the second the rush runs out."
She was right. It was futile to argue now. The adrenaline was wearing off, floating off behind him in the gusty wind. Soon, there would be nothing left for his body to function on. Whatever she wanted to do would have to be acceptable considering the circumstances. He hoped it wouldn't involve the patch of ultra-sensitive skin surrounding the Reilken Mercurius. But somehow he knew better.
"Sanaria, don't do anything that will—" he began, but the rest of his thoughts escaped him. That would what? Make him more like her? Wasn't that damage already done? He didn't have to look very far to see that. What was he fighting? Why was he fighting? There wouldn't be anything left to be fighting for if he kept this up. His rationality blended with his emotions. Feelings shifted. Realigned. "Sigh…okay."
Feyera extended his arm out straight to the side so that it extended at a perfect ninety-degree angle from his body. The billowing bay mist salted his exposed flesh, tingling about the soft pale green makings adjacent to the grip of the Reilken Mercurius. The device's ebony contour gave forth a weak neon green glow, hardly visible from the object's straight-lined markings in the bright mid-afternoon sun.
"Okay…Keep it heading straight and don't let go of the steering rod with your other hand. Eyes ahead, not behind, don't tilt the wheel when I—"
"Wait!" Feyera raised a curious brow, "Huh? What? I know how to—"
But he was not ready for what Sanaria did next. To be fair, neither was she. This was all being done on a whim after all.
"Mmm!" She grasped his outstretched wrist tightly, clasping on the soft skin close to the Reilken Mercurius bracelet. It riled him with sensation as she pulled fast and pressure caused a myriad of flooding neurological explosions. They blossomed in convulsions, turning the bay ahead of him into a field of bright color and emotion.
The next thing he knew, the Gardevoir had leapt gracefully from the back of the PWC. She swung her body around, kicking her rail-thin legs outwards, and swooping in front of Edge, soaring in the air like a weightless gymnast partially cloaked in jet black Team Rocket attire.
"…!" Feyera's jaw dropped at the spectacle.
Her inky clad form barely made it in front of his vision before obstructing it with all the enchantment that such a maneuver could evoke. With a delicate "thump!", she plopped down facing him on his narrow lap. Her stolen Team Rocket uniform had begun to sag and fall off her body revealing her chalky white garments underneath.
Feyera looked wide-eyed at her exposed left shoulder, now touching the right shoulder of his uniform. "Sana?" he whispered as she loosened her grip on his wrist, albeit reluctantly.
"What?" she said closer than ever. To add to the splendor, she wasn't even panting heavily after such an acrobatic motion. It was as if she did not feel the weight of the world at all.
Face to face, Sanaria smiled innocently while Edge adjusted his bottom to compensate for her change of location. Her hair, now flowing in the wind, had all but lost its balled-up form, instead gaining a slight wave to it, not much unlike Feyera's own. Salt water had a tendency to do such things. Follicles blew in the trainer's face.
"Um…" Flushing, he said rhetorically, "You could have told me you wanted to sit up front!"
"Ha," she bobbed her head responding, "you need to drive though."
Indeed, but with her dead in front of him, it was becoming difficult to see where they were going. So long as he kept the expansive Evercrest base on his left, he was heading in the correct direction, since it occupied only about two-thirds of the Ponyta-shoe shaped bay. Beyond Sanaria's milky mint green hair, he could make out the bay's inlet. Almost there.
From Feyera, a smile.
Nevertheless, it was incredibly distracting to have her in his line of sight. His eyes traveled from the inlet to the way her arrow like clumps of hair sloped perfectly below her ears, hovering just above her effeminate shoulders. Even amid all this tumult, there was still consistency in her allure.
In a trance-like state, Feyera managed to utter, "Sanaria…?"
"Hmm?" Sanaria noticed him looking at her ruby eyes. "Wha—wait! Don't look at me. You need to drive; stay in control!" she said with a tone of suppressed endearment. The words sprayed him with innocence as light and crisp as the inlet's water.
Feyera acknowledged her with a genuine smile. "Right!" he said softly. What was he thinking? He must have been losing it.
A few bumps pushed her closer against his chest. She tried to maintain composure, but the wind and churning of the PWC was certainly limiting her and causing problems.
"Arrowhead formation! Cut them off north of the main port, before the straightaway!" shouted one of their pursuers. "I'll lead; I don't give a damn about what that egghead said back at base, he's not in control here! Use your Pokemon, boys!"
"Poliwhirl, go!"
"Tentacruel! Snare them!"
Two flashes of light from behind, followed by the battle cries of Pokemon made Edge tremble. Now it was five against two.
"That one up front is as good as mine!" hollered the leader. "Keep firing you two!"
Sana placed her chin on his shoulder. "Oh no." The soft sides of her face tickled the area under his earlobe.
"What are you going to do, Sana?" he murmured to her perky hair lock beneath her ear. It reminded him of the microphone Kanto News anchors wore on television. "What's the plan?!"
"I'm not going to do anything, but we are."
"I don't understand you!" scolded Edge with a rapid shake of his head. They were fleeing from men with the closest things to automatic weaponry and aquatic Pokemon in the water. Sana made it sound like they were on a picnic together. "Why do you need to be in front of me?"
"Thas—veh Feyera, I need to have your heart here against my own," she told him quietly. "Like it was before. A…kiss."
"HUH?!" Edge recoiled in surprise, "My heart? Don't you mean Seph's—"
He felt her flush. Her cheeks were especially warm. In fact, Sanaria's entire body was warm, and it was all right here in his possession. A very real part of him wanted to be with her, and he could not fully attribute it to just the horn on his chest alone. She lazily pushed off his shoulder, troublesomely with the PWC's lurching, but such an act was certainly not impossible. She looked longingly at his face before anxiously biting down on her lower lip with her pearly teeth.
"…Heart?"
Continuous volleys of projectiles continued to spread around the pair's position, spreading and narrowing with each heartfelt moment. Even with two of their Pokemon giving chase, the Rockets were ruthlessly firing away. Extremely dangerously since the Nihils had little prejudice in their spray of fire. More likely than not, one of their own Pokemon would be shot.
Edge shut his eyes for a brief second and shook his head angrily. "I can't believe this!"
"I meant what I said, veh Feyera; keep looking forward," she said melodically whilst forcefully pressing her body against his. "Whatever you do, don't turn you head."
"Okay." He glanced over at the Evercrest complex on his left one more time before fixating on the gap between cliffs ahead. The gateway to freedom.
"Lub-dub-lub-dub-lub-dub…" The frantic beating of his human heart was deafening. Was it from the last surge of adrenaline? The anticipation of joining hearts with Sanaria? Or something else?
Sana paused, pulling in a breath of air, like a diver before taking her plunge. The Gardevoir's heart loomed ominously close to Edge's own. Feyera could feel the static electricity jumping between the two shiny surfaces. She then began to exhale, "I—we…I know this may be hard, but don't allow my body to distract you."
"W—Wha?! No, why I'd never…" Edge said, very unaware of what Sana was talking about. He winced in apprehension. Was she seriously coming onto him at a time like this? Had she gone insane? Was the idea of the two of them interlocked in this "Gardevoir kiss" enough to drive them both into insanity? He was sure that it was, and yet there was little arguing he could muster. He simply did not understand. But he wanted to. And he wanted to understand this differently than he had ever understood anything else in his life.
And then it happened. Her heart shard touched his own, rubbing along its side profile, tingling with every sensation of vibrancy imaginable.
Blissful thoughts crescendoed, growing around his mind in relentless volleys of warm radiance. The limitless surreal overtook reality, dousing the heated flames of mind with fresh invigoration. Her heart met his in a surge of joint comfort. Whilst the initial sensation mimicked how he had felt during the Teleport, it was soon superseded by the sublime comfort that only comes from an external being, invoking comfort; the type of interaction in which one loses oneself in the other.
The craft was still charging ahead at full speed according to the capped gauges, and yet its pace had bizarrely slowed down. Stranger still, the horizon ahead of them pulled away as if someone had just tugged on the massive carpet where sky met sea.
A quick rush of vivid colors and illuminated insignias filled his visual field; they danced in ruminant patterns akin to constellations. Edge jolted as the vibrant light coated his sight, dousing it with exploding blossoms.
"SANAAAAA!"
Petals of light and luster blitzed outwards from their bodies. The external world continued to slow; the rhythmic hops of the PWC became like distant stars in the morning sunrise, fading, draining, and hazing into colorful obscurity.
"…!"
"…!"
Had they Teleported again? It felt the same way. It was difficult to judge how close the Southern Sea was now that the world was blanketed in color. And the horizon pulling backwards seemed to suggest that…well he really didn't know.
Squinting, he was able to see the water ahead of him. Able to see his hands urgently gripping on the PWC's control bars. Even able to see the smooth sloping of Sanaria's hair in the lower right quadrant of his visual field. The Evercrest base was still off to the left, but also on the right.
That was odd. Incredibly odd.
Before he could ponder how Cipher had suddenly built a whole new mirroring section to their cliff side base, another sight infiltrated his mind. Or rather, overtook it—much to the young man's surprise. What was it? How could it be? Worried thoughts attempted to comprehend the incredible. The impossible.
What he saw…how he saw…it was Sanaria's vision pervading his own.
How bizarre.
As she embraced him, her sight superimposed on top of his. He was able to see exactly what she was seeing. The three rockets pursuing them were as clear as day and at the same time he could control the watercraft with impunity, shifting its direction with the hands in front of him, below Sanaria's backside. Splashes from the Poliwhirl's muscular strokes and the metrical contractions of a half concealed Tentacruel were in sight. He wasn't turning his neck at all. His pursuers were all in front of him. Edge had to blink a few times to be sure. As he did, he felt a flutter of Butterfree from his stomach.
It was like looking through a transparent lens on top of his own vision. Only this lens was vibrant, organic even; he could feel her very eyes against his own as he looked over his shoulder through her. The glassy images continued to blend and meld together with increasing intensity. He was sure if he blinked, she would too, and he would feel exactly what it felt like for Sanaria to blink. Trying blinking again, with this in mind, made his head spin. Feeling her eyelids against eyes he would call his own…
"Gasp!"
It was utterly phenomenal.
"Sana?! Sana?!" he asked breathlessly, time slowing slightly once more, but not enough to halt the torrent of Nihil bolts nor the chasing Pokemon. Their minds, in synchronicity, elevated their nervous systems to new heights causing time to appear to slow itself. However, there was a very big difference between being able to appear to slow time down, and to actually slow time down. What they had was illusory; their bodies would struggle to keep up with their minds unless it was a mutual Teleport.
She continued to hold herself against him and feel the pulsating rocking of the small watercraft drive their twin hearts closer together in embrace. "Umm…ha…—focus on the boat; I need your heart to do this."
"But Sana, I'm—" Edge muttered telepathically. He could not find the words, literally and figuratively. Everything that was happening to him seemed too unreal, too farfetched, and too foreign. While he could see the bay's inlet ahead of him, Sanaria's sight pressed forcefully against it, and he found himself looking behind his own shoulder. Viewing himself from another point of view boggled his mind.
Edge saw her slender hand rise as if it were his own above the steering rod. It took him a moment to realize that she was pointing it behind where he was directing the PWC. Everything was terribly disoriented and wonderfully drenched in color. "Ahhh!" he called out in mental delight. "What are you doing now?!"
"Just drive!" she said firmly, with enough command in her tone to match the Pokemon Champion himself.
"Guh…" Feyera said as mild vertigo began to kick in, turning this shared world into a lofty precipice. "This is t—too much."
Her hand clenched into a slight fist. Glowing lavender surrounded her fingers in a foggy mist. The vapor began to swell and grow, aflutter with the same animate life flowing through the veins of Sana and Feyera.
Edge saw two bolts whiz towards him from Sanaria's perspective; they scarcely missed, scraping past his, or rather her, hair. Then they flew beyond his actual sight, going off into the distance ahead of him. It was mystifying and terrifying all the same to see the same event twice. A perfect déjà vu. Feeling his alarm, the Gardevoir drew closer against his body, folding the blanket of mutual awareness tighter around them.
"Sana! Don't! What's happening?!" he shouted as the orb of growing psychic energy spun round her outstretched hand behind him. He could feel its maddening drawing power. His focus began to wander and situate itself entirely in her perspective. Entrenching itself. Burying himself.
"…!"
All of his thoughts had begun to align themselves with her current sensations. Edge felt the smooth contour of her own body from an internal perspective, heard the hum of her heartbeat, and sensed the route of channeled power as it flowed down her slender extended arm.
"NO!" she shrieked.
Something pushed his mind away and once again, the bright vision of Chrono Island's inlet zoomed into focus for Edge. Blocks of color and light dripped and poured along the sides of their—now shaken—mutual sight. The trainer wondered what had just happened while the craft skipped over a few more small waves in slow motion. Every time he tried to retain focus on his own vision, he'd become lost in seeing what Sana was witnessing. She had fought his mind off only a moment ago, but now she began to conform slightly to their briefly shared consciousness. Though initially uncomfortable to share cognition, it was slowly becoming familiar to the both of them.
"T—ta—thas Feyera, you have to let me go after this," Sanaria whispered to him, her voice closer than it ever was before. "If our hearts don't separate…then…"
He wanted to nod, but such a physical action was useless; she could commune with his thoughts instantaneously. The craft bounced slightly, but he did not feel her shake against him this time. What would happen? He asked himself. What could happen? These thoughts became superseded by genuine concern.
"Okay," he assured worriedly. Psyonics were one thing, but whatever he was dabbling in at this moment went beyond anything a human could hope to experience. Much less contain. It was purely Gardevoirian.
She felt his thoughts go there. He was curious.
Edge thought he heard her begin to laugh, but this morphed into a strange feeling of her laughter as it bubbled up from inside of her. Externality morphed into internality. Its rhythmic jolts sparked his core like electricity from inside and preceded outwards, overflowing as a goblet would from a heavy-handed pour. It became impossible to tell where one mind ended and the other began in the flux.
"Keep your emotions focused on one thing."
"What?"
"I thought you of all 'people' would never…!" she exclaimed, emphasizing the word 'people' contemptuously, almost as if it were a foreign term to her. "I thought I'd never be saying this to you during a kiss."
Feyera fought a blush, but it was too much of their flush at this point to conceal it. Mixing sensations that were neither his nor hers but theirs had him deeply troubled. More so, he didn't even know what Sanaria expected him to do. Here she was slighting whatever humanity he had left.
Submerged in tar-like frustration, "I'm trying my hardest to…" Feyera began to say.
"It's simple," she said whilst wagging a finger, "protect me. Protect us. That's it. We're 'protectors protecting each other'. Don't worry about how, I'll handle that. But you need to be here for me…with me."
Confusion gradually seeped into courage as a river feeds into a bay. He didn't even have to ask the Gardevoir. Edge felt like his body knew what to do instinctually. For it was no longer just him doing anything on his own. Images intermingled until there was little differentiating what he saw and what she saw. He was flying at the rockets as quickly as he was fleeing them.
It was awe inspiring. Like magic, he began to pervade her sight, bearing witness to the very things lying ahead of her, but behind him. He saw her hand in front of him, its three fingers all too familiar, but he questioned whether it was hers or his own. Senses pointed one way, and reason another.
"Sana?" he asked the Gardevoir's hand as if it could answer.
Sanaria's hand twisted, she spun out a vicious discus of spinning indigo energy, whirling about the fine tips of her fingers, like a vortex of boundless fount. The nebulous shockwave twirled, mesmerizingly blossoming into a wide sphere of dark energy. Its revolutions quickened, and the sensation of being on a PWC became but a dream as his own mind touched her hand in joint assentation.
"SA—NARIA ?!"
The moment her fingers felt as if they were his own, the second he could no longer peer at where they were heading, her hand opened wide releasing the sphere. As it left her hand, Feyera felt as though it was just as much his creation as it was hers. His vision returned, though it was still superseded by her own thanks to their union of hearts. Edge saw it zoom in front of him towards the rockets he was paradoxically fleeing.
It billowed and contracted, as a breathing entity would. Feyera felt his eyes, or rather Sana's eyes, illuminate the second the energy wave made contact with the teal bay water. For their Psychic creation exploded outwards, growing countless expanding arms of violet, thick in murky texture, iridescent colors, and peerless vigor. It skipped along the water like a flat stone, shredding through the diamond-incrusted waves with complete freedom. The kaleidoscopic sphere's spiral arms chopped against the water, creating waves of unstable psyonic energy. Its pitch-black center tugged against the pristinely clear water, forming a chaotic whirlpool, biting and clawing its way through.
The Pokemon swimming after them didn't stand a chance. The Poliwhirl pulled a brawny arm out of the water to confront the maelstrom. A loud crackle and ear splitting howl followed; shrouding the Rocket's Pokemon in ink, but leaving very little to the imagination. Tentacruel swiftly dove underwater, but could not defeat the draw of the vortex. A surge of viny charcoal colored tentacles flew into the air with a second crackling scrunch. Sprays of ooze mixing with the bay water did nothing to conceal the mess.
And the shockwave pressed onwards. Feyera could not hear the profuse obscenities over the deafening roar of suction. Two of the rockets veered off course to evade the approaching psychic monstrosity. But there was no escape for the rocket leading the chase immediately behind the Pokemon. His unfortunate watercraft dove straight at the focused well of energy. Menacingly, the energy's efflorescence only continued in response to his fright, drawing upon fear to further its growth, pulling in emotion in order to pull in the physical.
Edge could see it. Indirectly. Not indirectly as in through Sana's eyes, but rather he could feel the dread, the jet-black fright that the man gave off. It was thick enough to cut, strong enough to feel.
Perhaps in his last moments he tried to evade the swelling death. Maybe he even had the nerve to fire another round with his Nihil Repeater. It was all in vain. Nothing he did mattered. His fate was sealed. Twisted thoughts, thoughts of perverse acquisition pervading through the villain's mind fertilized deeper animosity from the energy well itself, feeding it. It was sensation made whole. Feeling made into reality. Reality that could—or rather begged to—consume.
The base of the pursuing rocket's PWC was cleaved in two by one of the energy disc's wide arms, effortlessly splitting it into jagged halves. Cataclysmically, remnants of the craft crumbled and buckled, its operator howled in pain while his body was pulled in towards the incredible suction. Everything became deformed through the orb's centrifugal influence.
Fiberglass bent with flesh. The sphere of dark energy continued to drive through the aquatic machine with unstable ambition, crushing it into unrecognizable fragments and shards. Focused gravity ripped the chasing vehicle to shreds nearly instantly. The groan of twisting and collapsing metal could be heard even over the loud PWC motor.
"ARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!" Unfiltered shouts of horror exited the lead rocket's mouth as his craft and his body were crushed into one another by the insatiable pull of Sanaria and Feyera's creation. He only managed to muster a few howls of agony before being molecularly torn in two as the spiraling energy ran him through. Without hindrance, the psychic well of intense gravity seared further along the wake of the—now crushed—PWC, with blitzing indifference.
The other two rockets, aghast with fear, pulled their watercrafts into wider evasive patterns. They managed to avoid the well of energy by retreating to the sides of its devastating path. However, even their ebbing away became hindered by the abysmal draw—the draining of gravity itself. Their crafts stalled numerous times and they had to direct them in complete separate directions just to insure escape.
Feyera became lost in the daze of drunken miasma that came with unleashing such a power. For it was not his own, but hers. Theirs. But theirs witnessed through her. It was all really confusing. Was she even still there? He could not tell for sure. He was becoming lost, possessed. The scent of destruction, the unadulterated feeling of another's fear, the Gardevoir against him, inside him, it was becoming too much. Edge wanted to roll his eyes back, to collapse out of this heightened sense of awareness, but cruelly his vision was locked into place. It was shared with Sanaria after all. He was as much her as he was him. The bleeding unification permeated each nerve with undying…
"FEYERA!" she cried out loud. A loud crackle brought his attention away from swirling orb, now far off, and back to the two overlapping images. It was suddenly painful. Burning. His eyes felt like they did at the end of one of his psyonic meltdowns.
"NO!"
"AHHHHH!"
With a prompt tug, Sanaria pulled away from Feyera. The moment their hearts split, two things happened nearly simultaneously. First, the spiraling ball of energy began to dissipate. Its spiral galaxy arms folded outwards and bent into the water while its center dissolved into a hazy levitating ink. There was a loud "CLAP!" accompanying the fading psyonic well. Sharp pain barracked Edge's mind. Sana pushed him back slightly with both her hands on his shoulders. Their hearts ceased to brush against each other, and his vision snapped back to normal.
"…!"
Well, partially normal.
He was now looking only at the cliffs of Chrono Island's bay. They were drenched in colors foreign to them. He told himself it must have been a Feedback Fall. In front of him, Sanaria held her head down and took in multiple quick breaths. "Huff…haa…"
"Sana, are you okay?!" he asked her, surprised by how fast he could respond to feelings of concern.
She didn't respond and weakly collapsed against his frame. The PWC slowed as he caught her.
"Sana!" shouted Feyera. "SANA!"
The collar of Feyera's charcoal grey shirt underneath his Team Rocket uniform pressed against his neck when her cheek rested there. She nudged him with her minty green hair. It sensitively rubbed his exposed neckline, comforting him with its unintended tickles. The topmost point of her ear's cartilage rubbed in his ear, making soft squishy noises.
Then she cooed softly, speaking aloud. "We…*cough* we did it, Chris veh… *gasp* *cough*"
"Yeah…" Feyera breathlessly answered. The boat was nearing the main channel and gaining speed. Each bump made him anticipate their escape even more. Their pursuers were no longer shooting. They'd be lucky just to be breathing.
"I told you…and you trusted me."
Edge tried to make light of what had just happened, "Together, huh?"
She remained silent and pressed her face along his neckline, where his shirt collars usually sat.
"How do you like that?" he said rhetorically, "Sure as hell took care of those assholes." The young man was positive she 'liked' what had just happened. He felt it through her while the whole thing was happening. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that during the kiss, everything was a quick glimpse into what she felt. Such tight connection to another had never been felt before. Those contemplations alone seduced him with their far-reaching interpretations.
Her wheezing turned into short breaths. Although incredibly weakened, the Gardevoir's clasp remained as firm as ever.
Despite the loud motor, the silence from Sanaria was eating Edge up from the inside out. "Huh?" he said, fishing for some kind of a response, anything really. "Sanaria…?"
She pushed her soft face again against his wet uniform's shoulder. He felt her wiggle her legs behind his own as she continued to look back. "…There's great bright light…like when Volbeat dance in the night sky when they mate…like…like…the noisy colors."
Perplexed enough to try to scratch his head, but realizing he could not, Edge asked, "Noisy colors?"
"Haa…they're rare, veh Feyera. They only come out once a year over the Petalburg skyline…What are they called?"
Sanaria must have been delirious. Come to think of it, Edge was on the brink of delirium too. The fever from linking minds would set in any moment now. Desperately, he tried to fight it off until they made it past the bay's mouth, past the place that invisibly haunted him for the past two years. If only they could just get a little bit further maybe, just maybe she would come to her senses. They needed to leave the place where so many negative emotions had resided.
That had to be it! Maybe she was talking about the surge of colors Gardevoir often witnessed after invoking their emotion-driven powers. He was under their spell too judging by the burgundy and rose tinted cliff lines bordering the bay. And to think, he once thought Progenitor was the culprit! In his defense, they were both characteristics of Sephiteos.
"Are they pretty colors, Sana?"
"Hmm…no, not yet."
"Oh." That was strange. He could see all kinds of colors right now. Why wouldn't it be the same for her?
"Remember, the pretty colors come out when there is a great big noise, veh Feyera."
"Hmm…What are you talking about?"
"The loud stars in the sky. I don't know how the humans make them, but they are beautiful."
"Heh. Fireworks?" he said on tenterhooks. How did she even know what fireworks were? Sanaria did mention Petalburg's skyline.
"F—Fireworks?" Sanaria whimpered aloud.
Edge wiped her head delicately with a nod of his chin. Her hair was so soft. So thick and luscious. He wanted to bury his face in it and inhale the floral sweetness.
"That feels so…nice," she murmured.
Edge asked, "What does?" He backed off, and did his best to not sound afraid or awkward.
"Your…ambitions," said Sana as she snuggled close, her temple pressing on his jawline.
"What are you talking about?" Could she really tell what was going on in his mind right now?
She didn't answer Edge. She didn't feel the need to. Words could only convey a fraction of actions, and actions could only convey a fraction of emotion.
Her forehead was especially warm. Probably a fever. Had to be. On the other hand, did Gardevoir even get sick like humans did? Like experience hallucinations and whatnot? Who knew?
"Stay with me, Sanaria; we're almost free."
He thought he felt her lips pucker sweetly against his neck. Her muscles relaxed and she shivered for some reason. She took a deep inhalation, and hummed. Edge did not seem to mind that she showed him a hint of affection. They had just been through an awful lot. Linking minds so frequently was bound to mess with their emotions. Maybe she mistakenly thought he was Seph again. For a moment there, he might have even thought he was Seph. He sure felt like it.
"Mmm…yeah the colors," she said as one of her hands danced about in the back of his shaggy auburn hair. Stroking his deeply buried scalp playfully, she went on to say, "But there's only one and it is going up and up…so high up…"
"Wait what?" Edge asked. He tried to turn his neck to see, but the watercraft lurched as he did so, nearly throwing them both off. He swore, disgruntled to say the least that he was forced to stay facing forward. For whatever reason he found it difficult to not believe the Gardevoir. Her voice seemed so serene, so sincere.
"Aw…" Sana used this as an opportunity to caress him tightly. "It's okay. Don't worry. The loud colors aren't out yet."
"Sanaria, are you serious? Is there really a 'firework' behind us?" Edge asked in a frenzy.
She tilted her head up, going out of her way to affectionately press against his ear with a partially open mouth as she did so. "It's up high above us now; I wish you could see it. It's so bright and pretty…*sigh*…I just want to watch it together with you, Chris thas…I mean veh Feyera."
Not nearly as perturbed about her slip-up in naming as he was with the prospect of a 'firework' soaring above them, Edge twisted slightly on the PWC's bar to slow it down. The toddle of the motor still rumbled, they were nearly out of the bay by now. This was too important to miss. What was going on behind them?
"Where is the…?" Triggering the engine's auto-kill, Feyera stopped the PWC by lifting both his hands completely off the steering bar. He whipped his face around to face Evercrest.
However, he stopped. He had to.
What he saw before him appealed beyond compare. Robbing his attention were two scarlet cherry eyes, each bejeweled with pools of dilating ebony met his curious glance. They moved closer, closing thorough distance as Sanaria pushed her ecstatic face towards him.
His eyes circled her every feature longingly.
Edge forgot about the idea of a 'firework'. In fact, he forgot about everything. He lost the sense of feeling in his legs and felt dreamily lightheaded. Delirious even. The motor beneath them puttered to a complete stop, adding to the hypnotic trance. She was right against his body, studying every detail of his face. She smiled endearingly at his confused expression. It was quite obvious that she was looking for something to happen between them. He felt it too. Time seemed to pause with each tiny heartbeat superseding the last with increased attraction. Feeling. Emotion. It bled together.
In a fit of pitched emotion, Edge put both his hands around Sana's head, touching her minty green hair, damp with bay water, running past her now tender sensitive ear clippings.
She clasped his shirt's collar from behind and stroked his neck.
"Sanaria…!" he ardently whispered, feeling a rush of attraction.
Sanaria tugged tighter against his back and pushed her entire frame against his with a soft purr through broken lips as her heavy eyelids sagged, concealing her scarlet eyes just enough between the twin black forests of eyelashes.
Without delay of thought, he brought her frantically quivering lips near his own. His heart beat frantically. Her breaths soon caught up to his own quick ones. What was there to do? What wasn't there to do? Questions rallied his mind; the swift eudemonia of potential romance overtook his sensation of control. He felt like he was flying. He felt like he was losing control. Of his body. Of his mind.
Before any real sparks could fly, a brilliant flash of blinding light illuminated their entire world with its blanketing whiteness from above.
Feyera snapped his gaze up to face it, just as Sanaria's small mouth touched his. Awkwardly, they continued the half-kiss, her mind trying to infiltrate his own and amplify desire like before in his dreams under the guise of Lorelei. But now it was physical. No. Not just physical; that hadn't worked and ended in a Feedback Fall. This was genuine.
The dousing light meant he could not see anything. Only imagine. Feel the soft pecks and reciprocate. The bright flash dissipated in what felt like hours, but was only milliseconds.
Following the painful light overhead—reminiscent of the Reilken Mercurius hidden in the underground sanctum—came a distant rumble. The entire bay shook with the ensuing dismal sound wave. The small quake melded into the water, into the watercraft, and into the two closely bound fugitives by rocking their cores with its far-off explosion.
With sight returning, his eyes remained locked on the blue sparkling stars between his saturated amber bangs. They were so pretty. So high above him, and perfectly framed underneath by Sanaria's hair interweaving with his own. It was like being under a massive umbrella made out of the stars themselves in broad daylight. The rusty cover gradually proliferated into senseless smog above them in the harsh afternoon sun. Every moment shaped the luminous clouds into new forms, mutating their appearance over and over.
Under this constellation of electrical stars, the two of them wondered not only what they were even doing, but also what was above them. Yet this curiosity began to flee when Sanaria yanked on the hair covering Edge's ear to make him look back down at her.
Those bright ruby eyes sparkled with anticipation. Their nebulous irises reflected the bright navy blue falling stars from above. She batted her eyes and Feyera initially resisted, but she was already up against him and on his lap wrapping around him unconditionally with her slender legs and arms.
He could have sworn she whispered a faint phrase amid her peaceful humming.
With a nervous cough, he backed away slightly. He knew he had told himself over and over no matter how this made him feel it was wrong. A taboo. Punishable by law. Flat out wrong.
Those were stupid reasons. Legality? He had robbed the Pokemon Sanctum as a member of Team Rocket. Morally blameworthy? He'd been assisting Cipher's researchers with the grisly Progenitor Procedure. Edge Feyera had no reason to take a stand on the high ground.
No, he had to go deeper into his mind. He had to see where his heart met with his mind, a concept previously thought impossible by the dogmatic researcher.
Her eyes continued to sparkle and reflect the stars. Radiating crystals as beautiful as when the sunset kissed the silhouette of the mountaintops northwest of Pallet Town.
What heart though? His human heart? Nonsense. This all had to be derived from something else. Something foreign. These emotions were not his own. How could something like this even real? It didn't make sense. It didn't have to.
Once again he was playing in her hair with his hands. Caressing the back of her neck with his forearms. Squeezing his arms possessively around her slender torso.
What was the reason for all of this? Why this fatal attraction to a Pokemon? Had this all really come out of a dream she had penetrated so long ago? Feyera's questions were overcome by the moment. There was no more why; it simply was.
Closing his eyes and moving forward, he nudged her upper lip with his own. He longed to split them apart. They were so enticing; warm to the touch and slightly wet. A mixture of scentless pheromones and aromatically pleasing floral notes stoked a fire within his nose. The preromantic pleasure and surge of endorphins urged him closer to her. However, the second he broke his lips apart in order to kiss her fully, a jolt reverberated throughout the small motionless craft they both sat upon.
"Huh?"
"Hhmm?"
Edge's eyes opened to see a very confused looking Sana. She was redder than he had ever seen her before; her checks completely flushed pink rose petals.
Chaos followed, a loud buzzing noise came from behind her back. Quickly, Edge looked past her slenderly sloped shoulder and saw that his stolen PWC's instrument panel had gone completely dark. A few sparks jumped from the metal bars to the speedometer dials. The motor had completely stopped; the bay water gently pushed the PWC to and fro.
"ARRRGHGHHHHHH!" a loud scream from behind him filled the sound void.
Edge and Sana both peered over to see both of the rockets had completely lost control off their still in-motion PWCs. One of them had partially caught on fire. The scarlet flames brushed against the gas engine, creeping along side in the wind. With a flash and bang the machine exploded with a deafening blast.
Feyera and Sana squinted at the violence and smoldering ash.
"Eeep!" she went and he felt her hold tighter onto him along with the flinch.
The other craft veered way off course. Rolling onto its side, it sent its operator flying into the water with a scream and a splash.
"Oh my gosh!"
"What the hell…?" Feyera whispered, looking up. Miles above him, the willow tree of deep sapphire star-like lights drifted down from what looked like a dimming second sun. The beads slowly floated downwards; falling, drooping, tiny specks of twinkling moonshine. At the center of the wilting blue diamonds, where all of their comet-like tails originated, was a bright star, now fading into obscurity in the broad daylight. Twinkling. Sparkling. Dancing. It was an incredible sight to behold.
"Is this…are we…?" Sanaria asked his worried face.
He knew exactly what she feared. She wondered if they were dead. He did too. It didn't make sense. Afterlives weren't supposed to happen.
However, as for the two kisses the two of them shared… It all made sense. It all was supposed to happen.