Alitia: In Heavenly Light

XXXVIII: Pick Apart a Smile

"What's going on?!" came a squeal of panic from Sylvia. She had taken to firmly attaching herself to S.M.'s arm, and the other girl had resigned to simply allowing Sylvia to cling to her. 

"The ship is malfunctioning," Lianna growled as she tried to fight the steering wheel. The minor complications that had kept the controls from listening previously were now going on strike, showing open defiance of everything Lianna wanted them to do. 

"But that doesn't make any sense. We looked at it before we left Loduke, and everything was fine back then, right?" Iris questioned, doing her best to hide the way her voice was shaking. She was doing a poor job of it, and when the ship lurched again a moment later, she was almost sent to the ground. Anneliese was barely able to keep her in the seat, and Luce found herself wishing there were seatbelts in the ship. Then again, it wasn't as if any of them could have expected they would suffer so regularly from crashes as they were trying to get away from Fortunia and the Church of Starlight. 

"We're going to be landing on Amity!" Lianna cried out over one shoulder. "I don't think there's going to be a way to stop it at this point! If anyone is willing to help me buffer the landing, that would be much appreciated!"

Tanith immediately made her way up to the front of the ship, sliding down next to Lianna so the two of them were sharing a seat. Tanith's eyes flashed violet, and a moment later, she was manipulating the air around the ship to make sure it didn't completely crumble as it fell to Amity. It was easier said than done to control the tiny traces of air that had escaped into the cosmos from magical planets in the past, but Tanith was doing an impressive enough job of it, and Luce was glad she was at least trying something. 

"I can try and open a portal for us so we won't land so roughly!" Anneliese cried out. She raised one hand to try and begin executing a display of her magic, but she was ultimately cut off when the ship's angle shifted once again, this time angled directly down toward the nearby planet of Amity. The front of the ship was acting like an arrow that cut through the wind to try and land on the ground below. 

"You won't be able to do it as long as the ship is moving this fast though!" Nebula exclaimed. She was grabbing tightly to the rest of the ship, and she held up one hand, a sudden sweep of light passing through the area. Luce figured out what she was doing immediately; Nebula was trying to see if the sudden malfunctions were brought on by any outside interference, but judging by the frown that appeared on Nebula's face, the answer was negatory. "I don't see any other ships around here that could possibly be messing with our controls!"

"I don't think defeating them would do much at this point anyways!" Rie shouted. "We're going to crash whether we want to or not!" From beside her, Reye had taken to the same air manipulation trick Tanith was using, but it was clear that it wasn't going to be enough to completely buffer their fall. 

Luce glanced around rapidly, desperate to see if there was something she could use to try and keep them from crashing so roughly into the ground. She could already tell it was a lost cause though; the twins were right in believing they were destined to crash. Her grip on Cryon's seat grew so tight she came close to splitting open her top layer of skin, but it was all she could do if she wanted to keep standing against the rapid momentum trying to tear them all apart. 

Luce couldn't say what it was, but for some reason, it felt like her body was weighing her down all of a sudden. She had jolted herself out of a drowsy state rather quickly when she realized something was going on with the ship, but her adrenaline should have canceled out that exhaustion. She could still feel her heart's strong slamming against her chest, the only thing keeping her from seemingly falling apart. She knew she had to stay awake and do something, so why was her body doing so much to resist her?