Watching the clouds breeze past never got old, he decided once again.
His hands resting upon the dome-shaped controls at the end of each of his seat’s arm-rests, Masaki Andoh grinned as he banked left, one of Cybuster’s claw-tipped feet skimming the whiteness below, disrupting the accumulated water vapor and leaving a trail streaming in its wake. He could do this all day. Nothing but him and the sky, an endless sea of cottony white broken by gaps of placid blue, like a completely different world from what he knew lay below. No aliens, no Divine Crusaders, no Shu…
“Masaki, admit it, we’re lost again.”
He sighed. Okay, almost nothing but him and the sky. He shot a halfhearted glower at the white cat perched on a ledge at his left shoulder, golden ball-shaped bell dangling from his blue collar.
“We’re not lost, Shiro, we’re cruising,” Masaki protested unconvincingly. “If you can’t take time out to just enjoy being able to fly now and then, what’s the point in life?”
“Masaki, just admit you’re trying to avoid Lune until she cools off, already.” This time the voice came from beyond his right shoulder, and Masaki glanced at the black cat with her large, bright red bow tied primly at the back of her neck.
“Ah, geez...gimme a break, would ya, Kuro?” He didn’t bother trying to deny it, though. Lune Zoldark’s temper was legendary, and somehow he seemed to have a preternatural ability to invoke it without understanding how.
He was sure it had absolutely nothing to do with asking if those ripped jeans of hers weren’t getting a bit tighter than usual.
Raking the fingers of one glove-sheathed hand through his artfully unkempt emerald hair, Masaki finally sighed and relented.
“Alright, alright…maybe, just maybe I am. Still nothing wrong with enjoying a good fly-around.”
“Maybe, but I don’t recognize any of this terrain,” Shiro countered, pointing one little white paw at the display below Masaki’s left arm, a digital imaging of the landscape across several square kilometers centered on Cybuster, mapped out by a series of external sensors.
In theory, the feature had been installed to help Masaki with his…directionally challenged issues. In practice, all it really accomplished was to tell him when he was completely and utterly misplaced.
“Masaki, bring us down below the cloud cover,” Kuro suggested, prodding at his cheek with the pads of her paw. “Let’s get a closer look.”
Placing both hands on the control devices again, Masaki willed and the Elemental Lord of Wind obeyed, its enormous wing-shaped thrusters angling to slowly reduce its altitude, sinking toward and then through the plush-looking cloudstuff. What he saw caused an exhale of wonder.
The landscape was pristine, not like anything he’d seen back home or even in La Gias—the grass was greener, the mountains brighter, all the colors more vibrant, as though the world itself were overflowing with life. Toward the right side of the viewport, he saw the thatched rooftops of a humble, rural hamlet, resting practically in the shadow of a high, towering spire of a mountain. What was more, built into the very side of the mountain itself, as though hewn from the very rocks, was the most picturesque example of a classic fairy-tale castle he’d ever seen. It was all very western-European in design, and he even saw a few tiny horse-drawn wagons rambling through the grassy pathways in the town.
In fact…he saw a lot of four-legged shapes. But none on two.
He started to bank toward the village itself, but before he could make more than a subtle course adjustment, Shiro hissed into his left ear, prompting him to sharply turn his eyes that way.
What he saw left his jaw hanging open.
Soaring through the air was a tiny figure. Its mostly cyan coloration would have made it almost indistinguishable from the sky, but for the rainbow-like streak of color flowing in its wake. Curious, Masaki tapped a button on the console to his right, causing the view to zoom in, and this time all three of the cockpit’s occupants gawked.
Sure enough, the creature appeared to be nothing so much as a tiny, exaggeratedly cute-looking horse; maybe more of a pony, perhaps—with wings, no less, though they seemed like they should be far too small to support its weight. Its entire body was a bright cyan in color, but for a small emblem he could see on its flank, resembling a cloud shooting a jagged lightning-bolt patterned with rainbow colors. The source of the prismatic trail was the strangest part; the creature’s mane and tail, both flying wildly as the wind whipped at them.
“…I think we’re lost, Masaki.” Shiro’s voice was too stunned for irony to be any part of it. The pilot could only nod numbly.
Magenta eyes turned toward Cybuster, and goggled—admittedly, Masaki couldn’t really blame their owner. The sight of the giant machine must have been as astonishing as a flying rainbow-maned equine was to him. But what was even more astounding to him, as that curiosity sank in, was that the little animal was actually keeping pace with the Lord of the Wind as they flew toward that little town and castle.
Raising an eyebrow, Masaki tilted his head slightly. And then, with a slight nudge of his hands on the controls, he accelerated a bit, beginning to pass by the pony.
That got a reaction. The creature’s initial astonishment was replaced by a startled blink—and then narrowed eyes, and it actually accelerated, not only catching up with but passing ahead of Cybuster a bit.
“Oh, this is gonna be good…” Masaki murmured. Shiro and Kuro performed mirrored double-takes at him.
“Masaki?!” Shiro blurted.
“Don’t you even think about it…” Kuro chastised.
He ignored them, pushing Cybuster harder. Its wing-shaped thrusters angled straight back and contracted a bit, arms and legs pointing slightly backward, reducing its wind resistance as he picked up speed, gaining the upper hand once again.
There was no mistaking the competitive gleam in his opponent’s eye as the rainbow-maned equine caught on. Its mouth even twisted into a little smirk. The race was officially on.
Suddenly, like a bullet, a rainbow streak shot past his viewscreen, corkscrewing through the air and leaving prismatic whorls and curlicues in its wake. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and then a feral grin split his lips.
“Playing it like that, huh? Alright, then…mode change!” LEDs lit like a Christmas tree across the panels in front of him, the Elemental Lord of Wind awaiting his voice command. “Cybird!” he roared, slamming his hands down on the control orbs.
Cybuster responded immediately. Its arms and legs tucked inward, sliding and folding into the chassis as its torso contracted vertically, lower body and head both retracting into the main chest compartment and thruster wings parting and sliding forward. From the center of its torso a bird-like head—containing the cockpit in which he sat—jutted forward on a long, segmented “neck”, while Cybuster’s clawed feet and a tiny portion of its bipedal legs remained visible below, leaving it looking like nothing so much as a soaring bird of prey ready to snatch its quarry up from the ground.
The change had happened in less than the space of an eye-blink, and with a high-pitched whine of the engines, Cybuster’s thrusters ignited, dazzling blue light erupting from the rear and sending it hurtling forward, rapidly gaining on the rainbow-like trail his racing partner had left behind.
A self-confident look over the pony’s shoulder turned into a slack-jawed gawk to see the metallic bird rocketing toward it, and then past, soaring at improbable speeds.
“Masaki, this is hardly fair,” Kuro grumbled, folding her front paws daintily and propping her chin on them as she stretched out on her shelf. “How’s that little animal supposed to keep up with a machine, let alone the Lord of the Wind?”
“You think so?” Masaki grinned, and jerked his thumb toward the right-hand side of the viewscreen. Both his Familiars gaped to see a rainbow streak shooting past once again, the pony’s lips drawn back from its teeth by the G-forces. “I knew I had a good feeling about this,” he continued, smirking as he leaned forward a bit in his seat. “Now let’s see what you can really do.”
The two fliers streaked through the sky, blue light and rainbow streak running parallel, corkscrewing, intertwining and mingling only to separate again. A bank turn to the left turned into a spiraling nose-dive, and then a spinning ascent, barrel rolling toward the sun. If this little pony thought it was going to lose him with a loop-the-loop, though, it had another thing coming: Cybuster’s greater size was deceptive. Its maneuverability was nothing to sneeze at, as a startled cyan Pegasus realized to see him still keeping pace.
Determination filled those magenta eyes, and the equine soared toward a cloud-bank, but rather than plowing straight through, it skimmed the left side of one, and then veered to skim the right side of another. What was most astonishing about this was that the clouds didn’t merely dissipate…they actually started spinning in place like tops.
Masaki had only a moment to goggle at this, though. Raising an eyebrow, he shrugged, then banked left, skimming the first cloud with Cybuster’s right stabilizer without quite touching it, the wind of his passage causing it to spin faster. He banked right faster than anything the size of the Lord of the Wind had any right to, left stabilizer skimming the second cloud’s right-hand side, keeping it going.
He could have sworn the little blue pegasus actually looked impressed when it glanced back. But it lasted only a heartbeat, before the race continued.
Descending lower and lower, they roared over the thatched rooftops of that little village at last—sure enough, the inhabitants were more like his racing partner, miniature equines of a myriad of assorted color combinations, all stopping in the middle of whatever daily business they had to gawk up at the two racers thundering by over their town. Cybuster’s stabilizers barely cleared a chimney, leaving streaks of black smoke running in its wake as it followed that rainbow afterimage.
And all the while, Masaki Andoh was grinning like a schoolboy on a playground.
After passing the village outskirts, they continued to skim the ground, the tangle of a dark and foreboding forest to the right, the sheer rock wall of the mountain rapidly closing in ahead. Oh, he saw where this game was going.
Daringly, the pegasus never wavered in its course, hurtling straight toward that mountain at breakneck speed. Taking that challenge, Masaki held his course, on the edge of his pilot’s chair now, ignoring how both Kuro and Shiro batted at his cheeks and tugged at the shoulders of his jacket with their claws, trying to persuade him to stop or turn.
That wasn’t how the game worked.
They were parallel now, the cyan pegasus soaring alongside Cybuster’s metallic avian head, little front hooves stretched out ahead and a daring smirk plastered on its face. Sheer, immovable stone filled up more and more of his viewscreen, he could make out every crack in the surface now, loose stones trembling as though in anticipation of the terrific explosion they would make on impact.
Given the mecha’s size, Masaki had to pull up first, though he still heard the underbelly of the machine scraping stone with a shriek of protesting metal. At this point, Shiro’s claws were dug firmly into the left shoulder of his jacket, while Kuro was wrapped around the back of his head, yowling plaintively as she clung for dear life.
“Masakiii!” Kuro wailed in protest, “Cybuster is not a toy!”
Shiro just cowered, his face buried in Masaki’s shoulder and his claws digging deep into the fabric of the young man’s jacket.
Masaki could only laugh—but not at them, no. He was watching the rainbow-maned pony, who had managed to cut the turn even closer, underside skimming but not quite touching the mountainside, still parallel to Cybuster’s cockpit. Glancing over, it smirked again, flashing teeth confidently, and then with a wink, bolted ahead again.
“It’s not over yet, Skittles…” Masaki muttered, taking a moment to pry his Familiars off before placing his hands on the controls again.
Roaring upward, the two competitors put enough distance between themselves and the mountain that they could see the castle perched above, all white stone and golden spires and parapets, the gushing streams of multiple waterfalls cascading down from its base. The two racers weaved between these, water rushing over Cybuster’s stabilizers and dazzlingly reflecting the pegasus’ rainbow trail.
They split apart as they veered around one of the outcroppings that supported a part of the castle city, elegant spires on either side but not quite close enough to touch. Masaki grinned as he saw a startled, dusky equine face peeking out a window just in time to see him rushing by, and then slam the window shut.
Reuniting as they left the last golden spire behind them, they soared higher and higher, following the waterfalls that traced paths in the mountainside above the castle, rushing at blistering speeds toward the snowy cap. Before reaching it, however, the blue equine veered away again, leaving a rainbow-colored arch briefly over the top of the castle that he matched with a trail of blue-white exhaust. What was it up to, now…?
Aiming straight for the ground far below, it looked like. Curious, Masaki dared to keep up, velocity picking up as gravity assisted the descent. The rolling grassy hills and lively, swaying trees below approached at an alarming rate, filling up his view until he couldn’t even see the sky any longer.
And yet, somehow, despite Cybuster’s greater weight, the little blue equine was not only ahead of him, but was still gaining speed. His brow furrowed, he watched as that rainbow trail streaked downward, faster and faster, the very air seeming to form a shimmering haze around the bullet-like form of his competitor...
…and then, when the Pegasus was mere meters from the ground Masaki had to throw up an arm to shield his eyes as his world exploded with color. A shockwave of prismatic light exploded outward, rattling Cybuster’s entire frame, forming an expanding ring of rainbow-colors that spread across the horizon as he watched in breathless awe. But not only that, the blue pony had actually shot straight back upward, forming an impossibly acute V and flying into the sky again.
“MASAKI!” Kuro screeching in his ear brought him back to attention, and with a yelp, he slapped his hands on the controls again. Cybuster stopped on a dime, switching back to its humanoid form in a fraction of a second to dig its clawed feet into the grassy turf to absorb the shock of impact. It still rattled his teeth and nearly spilled both cats from their perches, though somehow they managed to spread their feet and keep their balance.
Turning to look upward, Masaki slowly shook his head.
“Wow…not bad,” he breathed, and then whistled. “Not bad at all.”
Not to be outdone, Cybuster’s left hand extended, and with a crackle of lightning, a black sheath appeared in its grasp, a sword’s hilt emerging from it. The Lord of the Wind closed its right hand around the Discutter’s grip, sliding it free and casting its scabbard aside, which vanished in a flash of light.
“Uh…M-Masaki, what’re you doing…?” Shiro asked him apprehensively. “You can’t seriously be planning to…”
“I’m not gonna be shown up that easy,” Masaki retorted, drawing shocked and apprehensive looks from both Familiars.
Thrusting the blade into the air above him, it actually disappeared into the center of a magic circle formed from glowing blue light, tracing arcane symbols in the air directly overhead. “Akashic…” The rest of the weapon sank into the circle as well, and when it had disappeared, from the other side burst a bird made of searing orange flames, screaming straight up into the air.
“…Buster!!” Cybuster vaulted up, and in the same motion snapped back into its Cybird configuration, flying through the magic circle. The light clung to its frame, shimmering energy trailing behind it, enveloping it in pale blue radiance. Faster and faster, he rapidly gained on the firebird and then overtook it, colliding with it in a thunderous explosion, flames mingling with blue energy and the cry of a great, predatory bird shaking the air and drawing the pegasus’ attention back down. It was the pony’s turn to goggle, watching this shape hurtle straight at it, too petrified with alarm to even dodge.
But Masaki swerved to the right, flames dancing in his path as he passed the pegasus by, and high above the altitude of the castle, higher and higher, until at last he had cleared the cloud-cover overhead again. Sagging back in his chair with a sigh, he beamed at no one in particular, glancing at the impenetrable cloud cover below once again.
“Now that…was wild,” he chuckled tiredly, beginning the slow descent from his adrenaline high.
“Hey, that’s funny…” Shiro piped up, peeking at the map imaging display again. “We’re back in familiar territory now. Look, that’s the Hagane’s IFF signal…”
Blinking, Masaki sat forward, and then peered at the cloud cover below again and scratched his head. “…um. You guys saw all that too, right?” he glanced at the two cats apprehensively.
“I think you scared off about six of my nine lives,” Kuro retorted, glowering at him. Masaki frowned, scratching his chin, and then he shrugged.
“Um, guys…? Let’s…not mention this to Lune, alright? Or…anybody.”
Some time later, while helping the maintenance crews check over Cybuster’s frame in the Hagane’s hangar bay, Masaki found something almost imperceptible tucked between two of the armor plates by its knee. A single cyan feather, too large to belong to any bird he’d seen. Twirling it between his fingers, he smiled a little and tucked it into his pocket.
Maybe someday he’d get to race that daredevil again…
* * *
Standing at the edge of the indent where the giant metal bird-thing had impacted the ground, Rainbow Dash peered at the source of the glint she had seen from high above. With a smirk, she stomped her hoof on the edge of the dented metal plate, flipping it up into the air and letting it land edgewise into the left pocket of the saddlebags draped behind her wings. She looked up at the hole in the clouds into which it had disappeared, and slowly shook out her mane.
“Now that…was cool.”