Online Friends

Chapter 5

XxXxX

The ability to fly was one of the few things that humans wanted to master from the very beginning.

To move gracefully through air like a bird, not being bound to the earth under our feet by gravity that acted like chains restricting our freedom.

Our ancestors dreamed of the day when their feet would leave the ground, allowing them to spread their metaphorical wings and soar.

Still being in a slight shock from the sudden launch, Jaune Arc could tell them all that it was heavily overrated.

They could argue that he wasn't flying per se, more being lobbed like from a catapult so it wasn't the same.

He could argue back that they could shove their argument up their nose, he was the one flailing through the air in the end.

Thinking quickly he straightened his body, spreading his arms and legs to slow down the tumble and somewhat regain a bit of control.

With adrenaline pumping through his veins, the whole world moved in slow motion. It was a strange feeling, to be flying like that.

Between the terror of his quickly approaching demise and the exhilaration of doing something extremely dumb that no sane person would do, there was a bit of joy connected to the fact that at long last he could use his hard training and start his journey of being a huntsman.

'Okay… flight. How do I survive this?" Feeling that he started to lose upward momentum, Jaune started to analyze the problem like Sally's notebooks taught him to.

'Flight, what's used for flight? Wings? No, too complicated. What's needed to fly? Counteract gravity by lift generated from wings… or thrust generated by engines like in a Bullhead.'

Starting his descent, Jaune moved his arms in front of himself, palms facing forward.

'The jet engine in a Bullhead works by compressing air, creating a mixture of air and dust, combustion, high speed exhaust provides thrust.'

Focusing the ambient Aura he created a glowing ring of energy in front of each hand while using his own, internal energy to reinforce his whole body to withstand the pushback.

'Visualize… Focus… Just like Sally wrote…'

A few seconds before crashing into the trees he activated his improvised technique, a great gust of wind starting to quickly slow him down.

The two rings in front of his palms working like engines, just without the middle steps. Taking in air in great volume, the technique compressed it before ejecting it out the other side, pushing him the other way as physical laws dictate.

"Yeah!" Smiling like a loon, with arms trembling from the forces he had to hold in place, Jaune couldn't help but exclaim from excitement.

Feeling understandably confident, he pumped more air into the glowing rings in front of him while decreasing their size to increase compression, aiming his arms a bit lower to clear the big tree that he would clip with his legs otherwise.

It took him approximately one tenth of a second to understand that momentum, gravity and the said tree had a different opinion.

Losing balance, the blonde Aura user moved his hands out of place, causing his still active technique to push him into a spiral.

Exclaiming in a very manly, and certainly not high pitched girly manner, Jaune crashed into a tall tree with a loud thump.

"Ughhh… I'm not flying any time soon…" Mumbling into the very comfortable bark of the tree that was kind enough to arrest his further fall, he decided to stay there a few more seconds just to be sure that his leafy friend felt appreciated enough for its help.