'No!! I'm not getting on there!! NO!!!" Those yells echoed throughout the boarding gate of the airport as a girl with chestnut brown hair and another girl with blonde hair attempted to drag a pink haired boy onto a plane.
"I'm so sorry about this." said the girl with chestnut brown hair who handed the lady at the desk her's and her other friend's boarding passes and passports. "He really hates any sort of transportation, but it was either this or swimming there."
"It's alright. " said the lady with a smile. "We have remedies for motion sickness in the plane if you need it ms..." The lady took a look at the passports. "Misaka..."
"Thankyou so much..that would be a huge help...erm could you also get some for my other friend there? She's also got some major motion sickeness issues."
The lady looked up to see a beautiful black haired girl standing at the end of the group, standing next to her were a pink cat in a light blue dress, and a blue cat. The lady couldn't help but notice that the two cats had their own passports.
"You wouldn't happen to be from that Fiore place would you?" asked the lady.
"Well my friends are." said Mikoto. "I'm from this world though.."
"PLEASE DON'T PUT ME IN THERE!!!" Natsu screamed as the lady returned the group's boarding passes. "I'll do anything!! Mikoto!! I'll buy 20 Gekota accesories with my own money!! Lucy!! I'll be your servant for a week!!! HAPPY!! I'll give you all the fish you want!!"
"Sorry Natsu." said the blue cat. "As tempting as that sounds, this is the quickest way to Honolulu."
"WHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"
"Seriously Natsu." said the black haired girl who happened to be named Nicole Mavros. "I have motion sickness just as bad as you but you don't see me complaining."
"Just try and endure it Natsu." said Lucy. "Really it's not that bad."
"How long is the flight?" Natsu asked as Mikoto and Lucy dragged him through the boarding hall by the armpits. "How long?"
"Well.." said Mikoto
"Erm.." said Lucy.
"I think it was 15 hours." said Elli scratching her chin with her paw.
"F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fifteen!?" Natsu stuttered, his eyes turning as round and large as dinner plates. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Elli.." said Mikoto. "What did we say about talking about the flight length in front of Natsu?"
"Er.." said Elli. "Sorry..I forgot."
15 minutes later, Natsu was seated at the end of a walkway seat on the plane with Lucy sitting next to him in the middle seat. Mikoto seated at the other end next to the window while Nicole, Happy and Elli were seated at the seats behind them.
The plane was already moving, and Mikoto could hear Nicole moaning behind her as Natsu also groaned from where he was, his cheeks all puffed up and his face all purple. The lady had already given Natsu several medicines meant for dealing with motion sickness. But of course none of it had any effect.
As the safety movie began to play on the screen in the back of the chair in front of her, Mikoto took a moment to look at her right leg. Just two days before, that leg had been completely blown off by a psychotic exterrestial demon man. But thanks to a strange mage by the name of Twilight Prankster, Mikoto's leg had grown back. At first glance the leg looked just like her left one, pretty normal..but on a closer look, you could just make out a strange extremely faint aura...at least you could feel it....
Mikoto looked at her friends. Unless you counted Natsu, who wore his usual clothing, they had all striven to look as ordinary as possible to avoid suspicion. Mikoto was wearing an ordinary lime green t shirt with a green Gekota face on it and ordinary blue shorts. Lucy was wearing matching shorts and a white shirt and a blue wind breaker. Nicole was wearing a sleeveless black shirt and blue jeans along with an American Braves baseball cap.
"I'm...going...to die.." Natsu moaned.
"Natsu, I know it's hard, but could you at least try to watch the safety video?" Lucy said with a slight frown. "We might need to know this in case of an emergency.."
"Is there anything about where the exits are in this plane..?" Natsu asked. "You know...in case I need to...jump off?"
Mikoto sighed. "Wow I'm glad I'm an esper..otherwise I'd be going through the same thing."
"Hey Mikoto!" Elli and Happy appeared peeking over the back of Mikoto's seat. "Do you know what this is?"
Happy was pointing a paw at a picture of a tropical black and orange fish on one of the in flight Magazines.
"Oh, that's their state fish." said Mikoto. "It's a Reef Triggerfish I think...it's most known by it's Hawaiin name though...er...let's see...I think it was...humuhumunukunukuapua'a.."
"Wha-?" said Lucy. "Humu...humu....apu....what?"
"It's a really long name I know." said Mikoto. "Took me ages to learn it."
"That fish..." said Happy as a little drool began to come out of his mouth. "I wanna eat it.."
"Happy, hate to break it to you..but it's actually illegal to eat a humuhumu...er humu umu...um...you know what I mean." said Mikoto.
"I still wanna eat it!!" said Happy.
"But Happy, we're not here on vacation." said Elli. "We have to find the gate of Igneel.."
"I've been doing looking at the map.." said Lucy. "It looks like the gate's in a volcano on the Big Island. And considering the active volcano there.."
"Right.." said Mikoto. "I thought it would be best if we tried to figure that out once we made it to Oahu..cause the only fireproof guy I know right now is Natsu or Diablo.."
Lucy nodded. "We might figure something out if we go there and ask some experts."
"..." Mikoto touched a finger to her right leg.
"Are you okay?" Lucy asked gently.
"Oh..it's nothing." said Mikoto. "This leg...just feels a little different, that's all.."
"Yeah." said Lucy. "Hard to believe you actually had your leg blown off huh?"1
"Probably one of the worst injuries I've ever gotten." said Mikoto. "It isn't every day you have a limb blown off."
Mikoto's other wounds had healed rather quickly. Of course it hadn't been much of a surprise, Dragon Borns like her were fast healing. But sometimes Mikoto would feel an emptiness near her right leg..as if she couldn't feel it again...it reminded her just how fragile a living body was....how easily somebody could be blown to pieces...how breakable even the life of somebody born of the blood of dragons was.
"Hello." said a flight attendent who was passing by. "Thank you for choosing Delta Airlines.."1
The lady handed Mikoto a bag of pretzels and a bag of peanuts and also handed some to Lucy. (She gave Lucy two sets as Natsu didn't look like he was in any condition to take anything from anybody.)
"Er thanks." said Mikoto as she watched the flight attendent walk off. That's when she saw it. There was a small white beetle fluttering around the flight attendent's shoulder. Where had she seen white beetles before...and since when had she seen any bugs on a plane?
"Lucy.." said Mikoto. "That flight attendent...does her skin seem a little pale to you?"
"Yeah.." said Lucy. "But it's probably nothing. Remember? Most of Hydra Head got left behind in Fiore's plague, they're probably all sleeping."
"I don't think so." said Mikoto. "Plague is supposed to be a member of Hydra Head..and I don't think Black Whisper would try to drown an entire world in sleep without making at least some of his members immune...and when you think about the type of magic Diablo is good at...did you notice that near the end of our journey, he was the only Hydra Head member who attacked us?"
"Now that you mention it.." said Lucy with a troubled expression. "But I always figured it was because Diablo was so powerful he really never needed any help taking us. I mean, he's the only guy I've ever seen take Natsu out in one hit when Natsu was really riled up."
Mikoto stayed silent at this...she couldn't shake this bad feeling in her stomach that something really wrong was going to happen.
The seatbelt light came on as the man on the intercom began to tell the passengers to put on their seatbelts. (Mikoto is one of the characters from the Index series who was exceptionally good at speaking English. In the Hawaii invasion arc Mikoto did a lot of translating for Touma whose English was not that good back then).3
Mikoto turned her head to make sure that Elli and Happy were both seated correctly and lay back as the plane gave a tremendous rumble and picked up speed before soaring up into the air. The entire take off time, she could hear both Natsu and Nicole groaning even more thanks to the increased motion that came with a plane in the air.
Wishing that there was some way she could relieve Natsu and Nicole of their suffering, Mikoto took some headphones and plugged it into the bottom of the screen on the back of the chair in front of her, the lady and the beetle forgotten.
10 hours passed, Mikoto watched 3 movies and watched as Lucy put on the Transformers: Dark of The Moon movie for Natsu in hopes of distracting him from his motion sickness. Mikoto had accompanied Elli to the bathroom twice and gave Nicole several more motion sickness pills...after a bit, about the time they were going to serve breakfast, Mikoto got up to go to the restroom.
Mikoto sighed and looked at herself in the mirror of the small cubicle, the girl staring back at her looked tired and battle worn. It had taken a lot of work in the past three days to get the money necessary for the plane tickets to Hawaii..and considering that right before that, she had nearly all the bones in her body broken and her leg blown off, it was astounding she was still alive...yet, this was all just to keep alive long enough to die in the end...life was twisted like that.
Mikoto shook herself and made to open the bathroom door...but couldn't...odd..Mikoto tried again, but it seemed like something was jamming the door.. She looked at the handle and was shocked to find tiny white beetles pouring out of the pull down door handle.
"Oh crap..that's not natural" Mikoto said. She began to charge up electric energy in her fist when suddenly she remembered she was in a plane...every time she fought, electrical things near her went crazy...meaning if she decided to go all electromaster Thunder Dragon here, she might as well start looking for a parachute.
"Alright.." said Mikoto. "Guess we do this the old fashioned way." Though she might not be able to use electric power here, Mikoto did have enhanced strength thanks to her dragon blood..
Mikoto punched her fist straight into the door and wrenched it open, immediately, a swarm of the white beetles all swarmed over her and she fell out of the bathroom yelling out in fright as she tried to escape the sudden swarm. Suddenly, a massive clawed fist smacked straight into her torso and she flew into the back of the plane amid some horrified screams from the passengers in the plane.1
Mikoto got to her feet dizzily as the swarm of beetles cleared to reveal a brown haired boy in a well dressed outfit. next to him was a large clawed hand floating in mid air.
"Dark Matter.." Mikoto said. "What's the number 2 Level 5 doing here? And what the heck do you want?"
"Well met Railgun." said Teitoku Kakiene. "I must admit, I didn't think it would be this easy, but it seems it's true, using electro powers in a plane that's still in the air is a really bad idea."
"It's been hours" Mikoto growled. "If intended on attacking me, why didn't you do it before?"
"Well, I've only just boarded." said Teitoku.."Or at least one of me that is."
"Kakiene..listen." said Mikoto. "Don't start a fight here...these people have nothing to do with whatever you're schemeing.."
"And why should I care?" said Teitoku. "I'm the one whose going to reach the level of god...these people will be nothing but mere insects to me."
"I get it now.." growled Mikoto. "you wanna reach level 6...you're thinking like Black Whisper...that if you kill me.."
"That I'll reach level 6.." said Teitoku. "Yes...you'll be surprised to learn how similar me and Black Whisper's Personal Realities are...despite the difference in our abilities...But enough about that...time for you to start dying."
Several more massive clawed hands formed in mid air and converged on Mikoto while the swarm of beetles did the same.
Mikoto turned tail and ran as fast as she could as the hands and beetles came at her. Suddenly a twenty or so humaoids with black armored bodies and large octagon-like heads that had strange octagon lenses all over them jumped out from the other end of the hall and leapt at Mikoto.
Time slowed down for Mikoto as weeks of hand to hand combat training with Laxus Dreyar went to work. Mikoto punched and kicked Teitoku's Dark Matter drones out of the way..."
"Not bad.." Teitoku was clapping somehow miraculously having appeared in Mikoto's path. "You've gotten some skills...but without your esper power...you're dead.."
"Didn't anybody tell you?" said Mikoto. "I'm not just an esper anymore..I'm a Dragon Slayer.."
Mikoto launched herself at Teitoku and punched straight in the face. Teitoku fell back on his back and got up grinning, his face not showing any sign of injury. "Not bad at all..you're stronger then a normal human..but it's one thing to just fight me...but how about..all of me?"
multiple copies of Teitoku appeared around the plane walkways all chuckling darkly as they rose out from the floor of the planes constituting themselves out of the strange matter that Teitoku used for his creations.1
"Crap.." Mikoto muttered. No way was just some enhanced strength going to be enough to defeat the 2nd most powerful esper in Academy City.
"You were doomed to begin with." said Teitoku. "After all, I am everywhere...I am immortal."
"And I've got a friend whose a Celestial Wizard." said Mikoto with a grin.
"What?"
As if on cue. Lucy ran up from behind Teitoku, raising a golden key into the air. "Open! Gate of The Ram!! Aries!!"
In a flash of gold light, a girl with pink hair, small ram's horns and a wool dress appeared. "I-I'm sorry.."
"Eh? What is that?" said Dark Matter with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm sorry about this.." said Aries with a shy blush. "WOOL BOMB!!"
A ginormous explosion of fluffly pink wool erupted throughout the flight cabin, taking out multiple Dark Matter clones with it while miraculously leaving all the passengers untouched.
"Was...th-that okay?" asked Aries twiddling her fingers.
"You did great!" said Lucy.
"Oh...my, my, my...you sure that was an attack?" Dark Matter's voice seemed to come out of the very air itself. "That actually felt like I was being hugged by an extra comfortable pillow."
Strange white matter began forming out of the air and constituting itself until Dark Matter's body was recreated. Now his hair and skin was white and his eyes were completely black with yellow glowing irises.
"Wha-what are you!?" said Lucy with shock as Aries backed off looking scared.
"Hmm..you are turning out to be a little more trouble then I predicted." said Dark Matter. "And fighting in here is so cramped...so I think I'll move on to the final death scene..."
The plane gave a sudden shudder and more screams were heard as Mikoto could feel the plane start losing air. "What did you do!?"
"Why that's easy.." said Dark Matter. "Remember those beetles? Well I just had plenty of them eat through engines...you could say...it's going to be quite a quick wet landing.."
Dark Matter ripped a door next to him off it's hinges and jumped out, six massive white feathery wings formed on his back as he flew off cackling. Lucy and Aries screamed as the vacuum of air began to pull them out of the plane.
"HOLD ON!!" Mikoto grabbed Lucy's hand as Aries dissapeared in a flash of golden light. She slammed her other hand against the floor of the plane using electromagnetism to cling on.
Mustering all her strength. Mikoto pulled Lucy up to a chair where she clung to the legs of the chair for dear life. Meanwhile passengers were all putting on the oxygen masks which had fallen out of the cieling thanks to the change in air pressure. Noticing the empty seat next to the seat of the man whose seat Lucy was clinging to, Mikoto looked at the man pleadingly.
Thankfully the man understood, draggin Lucy up by her armpits and fitting the spare mask over her face.
"What about you!?" Lucy yelled.
"I've got an idea!!" Mikoto yelled out. "But it's insane!!"
Mikoto let go of the floor and flew out of the door of the plane. As she tossed and turned through the clouds, Mikoto concentrated and immediately activate a pair of powerful electric wings on her back. However, Thunder Dragon Wings weren't made for flight...not yet at least.
Mikoto concentrated on the massive moisture of the clouds around her, using electricity to ionize the water particles around her, all the vapor converging around electric wings. There was a massive glow, and her wings changed shape, becoming oval like and much larger.
With a supersonic boom, Mikoto shot out of the clouds gliding at amazing speed towards the plane that was going down at an angle, it's engines trailing smoke.
Mikoto flew right under the belly of the plane and gathered all the electromagnetic power she could in her hands, then slammed her back and hands against the belly of the plane...willing her electric power and using all her Dragon Slayer strength to guide the plane.
Mikoto then let out a yell as a massive eletric blast shot out of her wings like rockets. Mikoto continued to carry the plane along with her at impossible speeds, praying with all her heart that she would make it...miles and miles passed beneath her in seconds until she could make out an island in the distance, narrowing her eyes, Mikoto could make out a large city....Mikoto let out another yell and propelled herself and the plane at the city...noticing something that looked like an airport, Mikoto began to manuever the plane to the airport1
The plane soon began to grow heavier and heavier as Mikoto searched for an open runway...finding one, Mikoto pushed with all her might till the plane began heading nose down towards the runway.. the pilot must have noticed something, because the plane tires suddenly came out in preparation for landing...Mikoto however, noticed something else that was wrong...they were coming in two quick.
"Aw crud.." Mikoto growled.
As the plane's wheels hit the ground, Mikoto flew over to the very front of the plane and dug her feet into the asphalt of the road leaning her back against the wheel of the plane.
"OOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!" Mikoto growled as she pushed on the speeding plane, her feet digging into the asphalt and throwing up rubble. "THIS REALLY HUUUURRRRRTSSS!!!!!!"
Suddenly the metal stalk that was holding the wheel broke from the plane, causing it to fall forward.
"CRAP CRAP CRAP!!!" Mikoto caught the front of the plane with her two massive wings morphed into giant electric hands. Mikoto continued to dig into the ground with both her hands and feet that were now engulfed in lightning as her massive wings kept the plane from destroying it's nose area...finally in a burst of smoke and sparks...the plane slowed down to stop just short of another plane which was crossing the runway in preperation for take off.
"Hah..hah..hah..." Mikoto panted as mega dropletts of sweat came off her face and she gently lowered the plane's nose to the ground with her wings. "Owowowow....ow..."
Meanwhile back on the plane, Natsu Dragneel and Nicole Mavros were jumping out of their seats looking absolutely happy.
"YEAH!" Natsu said cheerfully pumping his fists in the air. "We've finally stopped!! My personal hell is over!!"
"You said it!" Nicole began before expression changed to one of shock. "Wh-what!? What just happened!?"
People were all tearfully hugging each other in fright, luggage was strewn around everywhere and there seemed to be a massive slant in the plane's floor level. Happy and Elli were both hugging each other tightly with their eyes shut in fright.
Natsu scratched his chin. "Hmm...weird..it doesn't usually get like this until after I fight something..