Welcome to Gaia! ::

Arilam shook a little as the rock he was carrying the Ninth Gate on dropped to the sand. "Damn it. I'm still not completely used to this haze level. Might as well start working on it here."

Hopping up on the boulder, he pulled out his toolbox from one of the carrier compartments. Flipping several switches on the bike, a flurry of movement covered the bike as dozens of hatches flew open, allowing Arilam to reach into the bike to perform maintenence.

Arilam shook his head in frustration. "Not only might there be damage from the vines, but who knows what side effects Rannek's metal magik had on my ship." Scanning the mess of wires webbed throughout the interior of the helm, Arilam began the tedioius process of replacing, relocating and arranging the tangles of snapped and moved wires. "Stupid metal magik, only changes the bike enough to complete the task at hand, never changes it for the long term. And those stupid vines, tearing up the interior! I'm should find a metal locker and shove Rhin in for a couple hours..."

Zarina walked a little ways past the pier and went to the other side of the beach, so that the strangers wouldn't see her. She waded out once again into the water and started to practice. She knew full well that Rosalie would kill her. "ZARINA!!" yelled an all too familiar voice. Now, she was sure.

"Zarina...what are you doing?" asked Rosalie with a sigh as she waded in next to her. "I'm..uhh...well.." Zarina found it very hard to explain. "You're bending the water incorrectly. And you told me you had improved." said Rosalie while putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head. She then took both of Zarina's arms and moved them in a graceful manner. "Move the water as if you were dancing. Make the movements graceful, and in turn, power will serve in your favor." said Rosalie as they continued twirling.

Soon after, Zarina hadn't noticed, but Rosalie had let go of her and Zarina was doing it on her own. Rosalie then joined in, and there was one water mage, and a mage in training, using their water magik in the ocean.

Karawan watched her walk away and toward the village. He scratched his head, scratched up his almost revealing himself to nothing of consequence, and turned around. Running down the beach and toward Arilam, he noticed his difficulty with carrying his airbike.

"I should do something productive, to help this lot," he said, speaking to himself. Forming a few twisting vines and with the aid of the forest, he strapped up logs together, forming a large dock a few thousand feet down the beach from where the White Hawk laid, extending out into the sea. It was stout and quite rugged, but there was enough space both ships, including a few hoists for parts.

He ran up to Airlam and began speaking. "I know it isn't made of metal, but I took Primary and intermediate Carpentry, and it can bear the load of both ships well. And we don't have to worry about power to the hoists, because I can manipulate the mechanisms." Sending straps from the nearest hoist to Arilam's airbike, Karawan smiled. "Shall we being?"

Sitting inside the smallest room of the White Hawk Rannek was hunched over the projectile he'd found lodged in his ship. The room used to be rather large but it held all sorts of tool and lodges, mostly cargo and drop off. Some of those books though held advanced information about modifing and metal-magikal construction.

"Okay this wire leads to here, that's the guiding mechanism, bt that doesn't explain what this does." Rannek muttered as he moved wires about with a sort of omni-tool he had created out of steel block he always kept on the desk.

The Haze of lower earth was insteresting, it seemed to amplify a users abilities when you passed through it. The thicker stuff clung to magikal entities and users, slowly draining away like a battery here in the lower areas. That boost from the haze cloud was starting to wear off and Rannek took note that his magik ability was returning to it's sub-standard norm. He didn't bother with magik most of the time, he enjoyed working with his hands far more.

"It is a tracking device!" Rannek exclaimed finally pulling free a small blinking compartment that was obviously sending a signal somewhere, where that was Tenkyuu didn't know though.

"Well that's a curious thing now isn't it?" He asked to the empty room.

There was a quiet moment before a small view screen popped up and displayed a very small ship coming in through the haze. Rannek blinked a few times feeling a slight lurch of his gut as he finnally recognized the model and make. The captian of the White Hawk nearly spat when he released that the man piloting the incoming air-vessel was Darrik Merl.

"Why the hell are you coming to bother with me?" Rannek growned, turning away from the missile and moving to the top deck of his ship to greet the newcomer, though he did not look forward to the idea.

"Damn this Haze. I hate coming through this stuff," Darrin thought as he continued his descent. His body began heating up to an almost unbearable temperature the farther down he went. If it wasn't for the fact that he had lost his first bike like this, he wouldn't have had this bike protected from the heat, and he would have lost this one, too.
Soon, his whole body began to smoke, and then burst into flames, destroying the clothes he was wearing. Lucky he had brought an extra pair, otherwise his arrival would have been an embarassing one. As he finally got below the haze, his body began returning to normal, although he knew that his powers would still fluctuate a little here and there before his body adjusted to the lack of Haze. As he landed, he grabbed the extra clothes and his weapons from the compartment in the back of the bike. He donned his casual clothing, a white button up shirt, with the top 2 buttons unbuttoned. He put on the khaki slacks, then his black socks and dress boots. Finally, he donned the harness for his to guns and the sheath for his dagger, and threw on his black sports coat and covered his two guns. "There we go. Better," he said as he proceeded to the White Hawk to visit his long time competitor.
As he entered the top deck that he knew Rannek greeted his guests on, he thought of how coincidental it was that he should find him out here.
"Hello, old friend," he said as he came aboard the top deck and spotted Rannek. "Its been a long time. Almost a year, hasn't it. How have you fared since the last time we met?"

Pandora sat on the bridge of the Zeus and sighed. She listened to the reports flocking in from all corners of Olympus of their victory, how the Valhallan ships were fleeing en mass. How the Rhinemaiden had been successfully averted from Olympian airspace and detonated over the ocean. However, no news of a captured princess reached her ears. 'Seems the little bird has escaped the cage, then,' Pandora thought, wearily.

Pandora stood up and began to pace across the bridge. The crew of the Zeus watched expectantly. They had seen this action many times before, and knew that something was amiss in the Queen's mind. Something was not right, and that most likely meant trouble for all of Olympus.

"This attack makes no sense at all," she said, the room in silence, listening to her thought process. "This obviously wasn't a full-scale invasion, not without the Nidhogg at the head of the attack. No, this is a precurser. That dimwitted Heimdall would do something like this, sacrificing massive amounts of troops just to give some prophetic warning. He must be preparing to attack in full soon, no doubt with that "secret weapon" of his. How much time is left before a full assault?"

"As for Beate, what is she planning? Making an appearance here in a battlefield, then letting her ship be destroyed? What's the purpose behind it? It's obvious she'd live, she's not that stupid..." The queen stopped pacing, and the crew looked of worriedly. "But Heimdall is that stupid. He'd think Beate would be so noble as to go down with her ship. But she's more cunning than that. The Valhallan fleet is too idiotic to try and find proof of her death. Let the ship fall, and allow Heimdall to believe her dead. Then she could... no, she wouldn't, would she? Such a bold move..."

"No doubt she has some force backing her up to be this confident. But she'd need a high-ranking officer to get her in range of Heimdall. So there must be more than one traitor amongst the Valhallan fleet. Seems I've underestimated the planning abilities of my dear Beate."

An ensign rushed forward. "Ma'am, sorry to interrupt, but we're recieving a call from the Leviathan. General Sheperd wishes to speak with you."

"Ah, no doubt he wants me to praise his tactics and his troops, for the sake of morale. Such a bothersome human need." The crew around her chuckled. They'd become used to the queen's method of thinking. "Very well, patch me through."

As the handsome face of a man several years older than the queen flickered to life above the heads of the crew, Pandora smiled. She always had liked Joshuwan more than the other generals, due to his strength of will and desire to suceed, while still concerning himself over the safety of his crew. Such compassion was rare, and the queen highly admired such a trait in her fleet.

"Greetings, my dear General. It's good to see you well and victorious. I wish to be the first to issue congratulations to your wonderful tactics and unmatchable crew on this glorious victory over the soil of our precious Olympus."

((Ah. In retrospect, I should probably create a profile for Pandora. I didn't originally expect to get this detailed with her.))

{{uh Thaesimir your character's name has changed from Darrik to Darrin, which one is it?? sweatdrop }}

Rannek watched as Darrik waltzed into the Hawks viewing deck. A sneer appeared on Tenkyuu's face at the friendly greeting and the phrase 'old friend'. Moving around the edge of a small table Rannek took a seat on one side, kicking a chair out on the other and offering it to his geust with a gesturing hand. When Darrik didn't immediately move to the chair Rannek slouched alittle in his seat, he really did hate this man.

"Tell me 'old friend', why should I not kill you right now?" Rannek's voice cutting sharply through the silence.

"Or better yet," He continued as if he hadn't ment the threat,"Why did you take the chance to come through the Haze and follow me down to lower-earth? I wouldn't find it all that odd if it not for the massive fire-fight that was taking place of Olympus at the time."

"When you really think about all that, not to mention you being a large rival to myself while I was in the trader's guild, most people would quickly become suspicious." Rannek's hand, not so casually, slid over to the large caliber weapon strapped to his hip.