Go look at the new cover for Re:ARitA! Go! Look! And then come back and enjoy your double update. :D

*You've got a lot of explaining to do when this is over.* –Jade

Chapter 2.5 – Race, Double Agent!
Part 14

"Mirage, wake up! Anise and the others are on their way here!"

I sighed.

"I'm already awake, Arietta. I've been up longer than the rest of you."

Twilight growled from next to me. I wasn't completely sure, but it sounded like confirmation. I sat up slowly and stretched. Even laying down like that, meditating for any amount of time resulted in stiff muscles.

"We have to get to work quickly," Arietta said. I nodded, getting out of the bed and pulling my boots on quickly. Again, I was down to just the blue dress and black spandex shorts that usually hid under the maroon coat they'd given me.

I grabbed the coat, sleeves, and the blue belt that went along with the outfit, pulling the coat on without zipping it up as I stepped out the door. I glanced north, toward the border, and reached out as far as my mind would stretch. Sure enough, I caught on the edges of Jade's mind.

*Kairi?*

I smirked. So, he was starting to figure out how to do that the way Asch and Sync had learned long ago. Good. It made my job easier.

*The southern sun creates a false image, a girl who lies within a real mirage.*

I cut off the moment I'd relayed the riddle, pulling on the sleeves quietly. "So, what first?" I asked. Arietta frowned.

"We have to put the ferry out of commission and kidnap any engineers who can fix it," she said. She turned to the soldiers. "Go find the engineers. We'll deal with the ferry," she ordered. Twilight stayed close to me, and as I zipped up my coat, I re-connected with his mind. Arietta then turned to me.

"Do you know any fonic artes?" she asked. I nodded.

"A couple. I take it we're going to find the ferry and attack it?"

Arietta nodded, then turned to Twilight. "You and the other ligers are going to help us destroy the ferry. I'll have one of my brothers guard our backs," she said. Twilight nodded reluctantly before taking off toward the ferry. Arietta and I followed at a more sedate pace, while I put the belt on and tied my sheath in place, still on my left hip.

Once we were standing in front of the ferry, I frowned and settled into a casting stance, reaching out through my fingertips as opposed to my forearms. It was odd, because even though I wasn't used to this, I could still pull in the fonons as if they were Energies, almost.

It did take me a minute to figure out the difference between fonons, though. Once I'd gotten the fourth and second fonons collected up, however...

"O frigid blades, pour forth! Icicle Rain!"

"O twisted door, open wide! Negative Gate!"

"Hey!"

I turned, spotting the Kimlascan soldier almost immediately, and drew my sword. Arietta's liger would only be able to handle so many of them, after all.

Sure enough, more soldiers showed up while Arietta and her monsters (I noted a few griffins joining in now) unleashed hell on the ferry. I worried about protecting Arietta while the liger kept the soldiers from getting to the ferry, but one liger isn't much of a fight for seven soldiers.

"I hope those soldiers found the engineer, because we're not going last much longer here," I warned. Arietta growled in frustration, then let out a bird call. Her hresvelgr, the blue bird she's always fighting with, dropped out of the sky just in time for one of the Oracle Knights to come running onto the scene with a tied-up mechanic. Arietta screeched something else before growling as loudly as she could.

The four surviving ligers retreated, Twilight shooting a glance at me before following the yellow-bodied ligers.

"Arietta! What is the meaning of this?!"

I realized then that Van couldn't yet see me, and contemplated disappearing as quickly as I could, now that the three soldiers who had been fighting to push me away from Arietta were dead.

The hresvelgr dipped down and took off with the engineer, while the remaining Oracle Knight was cut down by another Kimlascan soldier.

"Mirage?!"

Luke and the others came into view then, and I realized it was too late to hide. Oh well. They were going to find out eventually anyway.

"Arietta, what are you doing?" Van demanded, apparently deciding that I really must not have had an idea as to what was going on.

Arietta hid most of her face behind her doll. "Dist told me to!" she said quickly.

"And you always listen to Dist, Gloomietta?" Anise asked. Arietta growled.

"I am not gloomy!"

"Arietta!" Van snapped.

Arietta held up an arm, and I spotted two griffins descending and lifted my own as well. "I have to take the engineer who can repair the ship," she said, loud and clear. "If Ion and Luke don't come to Choral Castle, they'll kill him."

Jade's eyes watched me, and I saw him tap his head once.

*Thanks for not blowing my cover,* I told him. He took a deep breath.

*You've got a lot of explaining to do when this is over.*

I resisted the urge to chuckle. *I know.*

The connection cut off as the griffins flew out of my range, and I started feeling around for Twilight.

"We're going to have to land on the roof. It'll take them a couple of days at least to get to the castle," Arietta said, seemingly thinking out loud. I nodded to myself.

"How long will it take the ligers?" I asked. She frowned.

"They should make it before nightfall," she told me. She then proceeded to ignore me, while the griffin carrying me shifted to fly right over the other. I figured out what was going on just before the bird monster could drop me.

Let it be known that I don't much care for riding on griffins. Being carried in one's claws? Okay. Riding on one's back? Yeah... No.

The griffin I was now riding on then dropped Arietta on the one that had originally been carrying me, leaving us to once again ignore each other. This was perfectly fine by me. It gave me time to stop and think.

Asch was currently pretending to cooperate with the God-Generals. I was still pretending to have amnesia, but Cantabile, Flick, Asch, and Jade knew better. Maybe the others in the group, since none of them had called out, despite them looking shocked when I'd been there. And we were currently on our way to Choral Castle, where Luke's fonslots will be lined up with Asch's. Which I want to happen, so I can take Asch, find Reighn, and maybe see about slowing Van down while still keeping in contact with the others.

So, first order of business would be... Freeing Asch. And then finding Reighn after that.

I didn't even notice we were approaching Choral Castle until the griffin started dropping. I blinked, spotting silver hair on the roof waiting for us, right next to...

"Aerith?" I whispered. The blue-haired girl wasn't wearing black and pink anymore. In fact, she was dressed up in black and light blue, in a similar outfit to what she'd worn before, but it seemed more similar to the God-General outfits than anything else. Wait a minute...

"Aerith, Star! Did the engineer make it okay?" Arietta called just as the griffins were landing. Aerith nodded.

"Yes. And Mohs said he's got a backup plan if we don't manage to stop them from getting to Baticul," the blue-haired girl said. She glanced at me and frowned. "You look familiar..." she added. I shrugged, hopping down from the griffin.

"I've got amnesia, but I may have met you while undercover on my last mission," I told her. She blinked a few times before she frowned again.

"I see..." she turned and walked away. "Mohs wants a report from you, too, Arietta!"

The pink-haired girl sighed. "She gets appointed as the head of the Intelligence Division and suddenly she thinks she's in charge. Arg..."

I sighed, deciding not to fight with it, and stepped past Arietta to head down the stairs. Star followed me, watching me carefully.

"You already remember, don't you?" she asked after a while. I'd made it down to the ledge by the sea and sat down, watching the waves.

"Do you care either way?"

Star shrugged as she sat next to me. "The God-Generals are a means to an end. We need you alive. So long as you don't get killed, I don't really care what you do. Zion and Van don't really want you interfering, but Zion won't stop you if that's what your heart is really set on. Danté's probably pissed 'cause you escaped... You haven't met Rhunön yet, she's holding down the fort up north. Ryndor finds your... antics, I suppose we'll call them, amusing. And... Seth has never met you, nor does he really know enough about you to say anything. He's out at the base in Tataroo Valley, cleaning it out so we can finally cut it down to just two bases."

"And you're telling me all this... why?"

"I'm bored. And you already know about the base near Shurrey Hill. Also, you did something that made Flick happy. I still don't know what, but she's been in a very good mood since you asked to examine us," Star said. "And... I don't really like fighting. Really, the only reason I'm here is because of Zion."

I frowned. "What happened with that, anyway?" I asked, wondering if I could get the story out of Star. She seemed to zone out for a while.

"He was sick. The replicas were made. He got worse. I took him and left Daath, and we found Ryndor. Ryndor healed him. He refused to go back to Daath," she said. The short, clipped sentences were my first hint that she was really uncomfortable with the topic, so I leaned back, propping myself up with my hands.

I thought to myself for a moment before nodding and laying back.

"What are you doing?" Star asked. I shrugged.

"Meditating," I answered. Then I took a deep breath and slipped most of the way out of my body. I started thinking about the night-time plains I liked visiting, and let the image of the stars overtake everything.

It felt real, honestly. As if I were really there.

I'd been laying there for what had to have been a half an hour before I noted the movement off to the side. I ignored it, expecting my imagination to give me Sync again.

"Um... exactly how far away from the Tartarus are you?"

I frowned, looking up again and realizing that it was Asch, not Sync, who had joined me. I took a moment to sit up and examine my surroundings, coming to the same realization I'd come to in my earlier dream.

"I'm on the third plane again..."

"Uh, don't you have to be dead to get there?"

I couldn't help it, I started laughing.

"Which is why I'm seriously thinking I'm having a strange dream. Or, series of dreams."

"What do you mean?"

I frowned as Asch sat down next to me. "I... Sometime between losing consciousness in the fight against Van and waking up without my memories, I... I was here. And Sync was here. And... we talked. I told him the story of Swan Lake. But... it can't have been real. This can't be real... Sync's dead. I thought I was, for a moment there."

Asch was silent for a while.

"Do you think it has something to do with the concussion Van gave you? I mean, I fixed the blockage of Energies that was repressing your memories, but there was still something off in your head. I didn't want to mess around with it, in case I did something I'd regret," Asch said. I frowned.

"You mean..."

"You remember when we spent hours laying outside Engeve one time and talked about the third plane?" Asch asked, knotting his fingers in the grass. I nodded. "Well, remember my idea? That if the first plane is the physical, and the second is the spiritual, then the third would have to be mental? Maybe... Maybe it is possible to reach the third without dying... Which would explain why we're both here."

I took a few moments to think that over. "Do you think I could find Sync here again?"

Asch sighed and quit playing with the grass. "Why are you asking me? I just fell asleep and felt something like your telepathy at the edges of my consciousness. I'm not sure I even made the decision to come here. I just... did," he admitted. I groaned.

"I'll try again later. I wasn't trying to do this, I swear," I said. Then I frowned. "I think I'll go check out the Energy thing you were talking about."

Once I had decided that I wanted to leave, Asch started disappearing. One moment he was there, then he was transparent, and then he was gone. Then the rest of the place disappeared in a similar manner, fading to black and then to white.

"...ri? Kairi?!"

My eyes shot open, and I realized Star was bent over me. She looked really, really panicked, which I found weird. "Are you trying to blow my cover?" I hissed. Star sighed in relief.

"Your heart rate and breathing slowed down a lot. For a few minutes, I kinda brushed it off, but then I started to get worried. I thought you'd dropped into a coma!" she told me.

I frowned. "Was I in a similar state... before?" I asked. Star blinked a few times.

"You mean after Van bashed your head in? Yeah, for a few hours. Why?"

I sat up slowly and thought about that. So, I dropped into a coma whenever I made the journey to the third plane. That made sense. Without a mind, the spirit has no support, and the body no direction.

"It's alright. It's supposed to happen," I said.

"When you're supposed to just be meditating? I'm not stupid. I know you can put your body into a similar state during meditation, but a coma?"

"It wasn't actually meditation... Van may have actually helped me, giving me that concussion," I said, sitting up straight but Indian-style and closing my eyes again. "This time I'm actually meditating," I warned Star.

Then I slipped right out of my body and turned to look at my head. Oddly enough, nothing looked too out of place, so I took a closer look. Asch wasn't crazy, I knew that, but... Ah-ha!

There it was, a little bubble of moon and earth and water Energies that seemed to be acting like a second Energy Core. Except, this one was built like... like fonslots in a seventh fonist, almost. So, this was the reason I could now reach the third plane? I'd definitely have to experiment a bit.

Fun Fact: Sometime while working on the new Re:ARitA cover, I decided on about a dozen other projects... One of which involves Dark with black angel wings... (I blame listening to Angel with a Shotgun on that one.)