—------------

  Two and a half minutes later

  —-----------------------------------

  As I rotated my cogs, I had a neutral look on my face.

  Pilot Sampson had woken up, since there was no medical kit with any healing flasks or any healers present, he had every last of the two and a half more minutes to feel said pain, plus the extra time it would take for him to get any treatment.

  There was nothing to be done, all I could do was wait for us to arrive at the airbase and have aid administered as fast as I could possibly get it to him. Which would be damned fast since I could dilate time and ‘requisition’ a few flasks for him.

  I would do anything in my power to help the man who came here to bring me to safety. I would not let this debt go unpaid.

  That's when I heard the spacial mage shout in a terrified tone, “we have a craft that just intercepted my worm hole, Its lining up for a strafing run and will be in firing range in ten seconds.”

  The dart-wasp then shook and hundreds of crack-pop-thuds sounded out as a volley of the same lead rounds impacted the back hull, missing the propeller cog by a few meters, it seemed.

  I snapped into action. I dilated time to ninety percent, making sure not to move a muscle.

  The lead bullets then turned to armor for the ship as I flexed my will into the metal. Lead was one of the least manipulatable metals for a Steelblood to use. It had to take double or more focus and will than tungsten, which was already hard enough to shape.

  I made my progress known to myself as I shaped it.

  Then, I undilated time and took any of the excess metal and threw it back at the craft.

  It wasn’t nearly as effective as how it had been to the craft I was in. It mostly either deflected or smushed against the armor of the craft which was clearly made to take said attack type.

  A frown appeared on my face.

  I need to send a charged bolt of electricity directly through the hull of the dart-wasp without having even a spark of it damage it.

  I dilated time once again.

  I focused. Really put myself into a flow state I had never been in even when almost dying to Cerys’ focus attack.

  I clenched my teeth, my brain buzzing like the actual insect dart-wasp that lived in the wilds of a land far south.

  My right hand outstretched ‘I’m gonna feel this later,' I thought, resigned.

  I exited the power and grunted with effort.

  A flash of light followed by a deafening crackle-pop erupted inside of the dart-wasp, when the flash subsided, everyone blinked in a confused manner, the spacial mage thankfully, still had focus due to his goggles.

  No one got incinerated.

  The enemy craft wasn’t nearly as fortunate.

  It turned to electrified, superheated slag and just erupted into an explosion of blinding light that was seen from the back gunner seat up through the fuselage and into me, blinding me.

  The shockwave was no less disastrous. I forced my will to my ears as the shockwave threatened to deafen me.

  My ears rang, but still had an amount of hearing.

  ‘Too much power’ I told myself.

  Everyone was either screaming, shouting incoherently or silent. The last being Cerys, who looked at me with shock, then pride and lastly respect.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I whirled around to check on the pilot. She was alive, but squinting and barely able to see. She definitely couldn’t hear either with how loud she was screaming.

  I put my left hand on her shoulder to attempt to calm her.

  She looked back for a second and calmed down as she saluted with her right hand, then got back to piloting in a more calm state at least.

  I moved over to the spacial mage and looked expectantly at him.

  “Sir, we are thirty seconds out from the airbase, three thousand cog turns” My right brow arched.

  “We won't make it in this wormhole, the enemy craft exploding and your attack destabilized it, it’s going to collapse in the next-” before he could finish his sentence, I heard a popping noise like air being displaced.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  My stomach lurched.

  We were over Ahadia. The enemy craft then started to plummet down towards the capital city, a massive, flaming, electrified ball of death raining down towards countless citizens of the empire.

  “That won't do,” I looked to Cerys, “are you coming with?”

  She smirked and left her seat.

  “Can you make it to the air base, pilot?!” I shouted, hoping her hearing had come back in any measure.

  She didn’t respond.

  Lead dammit.

  Literally, lead, dammit. The lead was clearly weighting the lighter craft down, there was no way they would make it.

  I moved over to the pilot cabin, pressed the emergency off button, marked by a giant red X and encased in a glass-metal compound and then sprinted towards the right exit. Slamming the door open, I jumped out, hourglass in my left hand.

  I flexed my will and grit my teeth once again.

  I took the dart-wasp with me as I also sped toward the falling wreck of the enemy craft.

  ‘We still had time,’ I told myself.

  Roughly a thousand meters were in between me and hundreds of thousands of people.

  I reached out with my will and my physical right hand and pulled, attempting to stop it.

  At the same time, I pulled the currents of electricity inwards to my cogs.

  I grunted. Too much power indeed, rust dammit.

  My cogs were at dangerous risk of overload.

  I shouted as I let go a torrent of electricity harmlessly into the sky purging the chaotic energy from my system that could have hurt me badly.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  Cerys then pulled the heat away from the wreck. One less danger to the magic-less humans down below.

  I then forced even more magical energy out as I forced the craft to slow.

  I couldn't stop it. Maybe if I was stronger, I could.

  I desperately looked for a place to launch the still falling wreck towards, any place that couldn’t have people in or could have people evacuate beforehand.

  I saw a large patch of dirt, the length of multiple castles at one of the highest points in the city.

  ‘Wasn’t that where the main church of the master work stood, tall and proud, opulent and amazing?’ I thought in confusion.

  I shook my head.

  “Cerys, see that field of dirt there?” She nodded in affirmation. Thank the masterwork she can hear.

  “Go ahead and see if there are any humans there, if there are, command them to evacuate, if not, send a flare of fire into the sky to signal me.”

  She took off in an explosion of speed towards it. I grinned widely, proud and amazed at her trust and quick thinking.

  I once again shook my head in a bid to focus.

  I started slowing the craft further. I then shaped stabilizing fins on it that reminded me of the dart-wasp craft. They turned to the left and the wreck started to move towards the direction of the dirt field.

  My cogs started to hurt.

  “No, not now, you hear me, NOT NOW!” I screamed into the air as though it was the herald of all this doom.

  I forced my magical will to feed the direction of the wreck and hold the battered, patchwork dart-wasp afloat in the air.

  A plume of fire erupted above the field, signaling the success on Cerys’ side of things.

  I broke out into a face-wide grin.

  We were less than two hundred meters away from the field now. Not much time at all.

  I forced all the magical will I could into the wrinkled, deformed craft.

  I tore it into six chunks. Then those chunks into six, then again and again until they seemed about as small as pebbles.

  My cogs were angry at me, thrumming with a conniption that threatened imminent backlash.

  Fifty meters, I passed Cerys, who was floating around a hundred meters away from me.

  The only thing I overlooked, some would say, was the most important thing. Myself.

  “Masterwork, guide my body!” I screamed.

  The pieces of the wreck impacted first in a prestigious boom.

  I impacted secondly.

  Everything went black.I heard the dart-wasp touch down safely with a quiet, muffled thud.

  I tried to exhale, but dirt entered my mouth.

  I almost panicked.

  I started clawing my way through the dirt, towards where I heard the dart-wasp from.

  It took a long time, I resisted the urge to breathe, above me, pieces of the dart-wasp dug the ground and pieces of the enemy craft sped towards me, slamming into my body, forming around me.

  I flexed my magical will. Nothing came out. No magic answered the call. The metal pieces fell to the dirt, falling away from my body.

  How deep did I end up?

  My consciousness started to wane.

  ‘I will not die in a mound of dirt!’ I shouted inwardly.

  I continued to claw upwards, gritting my teeth. I felt my right hand break through the earth, then my left. I forced my physical body past its limits, as incredible and inhuman as they were.

  I pulled myself up. Or at least attempted to, but the dirt sank through my fingers.

  My chest felt like it would explode. My head, pounding. My throat, burning.

  My hands grasped around, searching for something to help me out of this ordeal.

  My right arm fell unresponsive, due to the time catching up to it.

  I felt two hands grasp onto each of my own. One muscular and strong, but rough and calloused. The other, smooth but comfortingly warm. Hot pain flared through my right arm. Pain meant I was alive.

  They pulled me out. Ridley grunting and yelling with exertion.

  I gasped, hacked and coughed in a fit as I swallowed dirt and other grime. But I also swallowed air.

  Beautiful, life fulfilling air.

  “Heh, hah, ha, hahaha, HA HAHAHAHAAAA!” I broke out into manic laughter.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to dying and staying conscious to experience it before. That was the difference between my other two fiascos.

  “Aaahhhh, it’s good to be alive” I commented in satisfaction as though I ate a particularly proper meal.

  Though I only ate dirt.

  “Heh.” one last laugh escaped my lips.

  My brain adjusted to the situation.

  “Cerys, are you there?” I asked. My eyes still blind from the dirt caking them. My magic will was still unresponsive due to there being no energy available.

  “Erec, I am here.” her voice replied.

  “Would you be a dear and get Sampson and I a medical team?” I asked in a jesting tone.

  The joke didn’t land. “Of course, love, I’ll get right on that.” She replied.

  Ridley, most likely, cleared his throat.

  Before she left, I stated “Oh and Cerys?”

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “I love you.” I confessed.

  A silence enveloped around me, not even the marine had anything to say.

  “I, too,” she replied.

  An explosion of controlled flame erupted as she flew away.

  The marine was still silent so I asked him “By any chance, marine, do you happen to have a canteen on you?”

  That’s when I noticed how quiet it was. Really noticed. Sampson.

  “He didn’t make it, the pilot.” I observed. A solemn silence enveloped us both for a few seconds.

  “No sir, no he did not.” The marine replied.