Pirates of the Skies

Chapter 11

Riku, the loner

The spinning vortex of air touched down in an abandoned dead-end alley. Trash cans and empty boxes housing the stray cat or two were blown away as its winds dissipated to reveal its passengers. Yuki stood in the middle of the now non-existent vortex. Riku was lying on his stomach and was slowly getting up while Mary, on the hand landed on her back was also rising to a standing position. Shinji like his wife was on his feet but was still spinning around like he was still engulfed in the vortex.

"Is everyone okay?" Yuki asked.

"I'm fine," Mary said.

"I was not talking to you, honey." Yuki said before placing her palm on her husband's head to stop him spinning.

"I'm going to throw up." Shinji said as his eyes were replaced by dizzying swirls. He ran for a trashcan that was nearby before thrusting his head past the opening to give a home to his breakfast.

Riku dusted himself off before putting his hands in his pockets.

"My boy is finally back," Yuki said running to her son with her arms wide open, poised for a hug.

Riku raised his hand to gesture her mother to stop. Yuki stopped in her tracks but her arms were still held out open in hopes of completing the gesture. At that moment, everyone was quiet… except for Shinji who could be heard throwing up.

"What are you doing here, ma?" Riku said.

"We… we came here to save you after you sent the message for help." Yuki said confused but her arms were still held wide, like most of her body was frozen.

"Yeah, we heard you broke a few laws like your rebel old man." Shinji said proudly looking at his son before he felt his stomach lurch and returned his head to the trashcan opening where he continued throwing up.

"I never sent a call for help." Riku said.

"You did," Yuki said lowering her arms after realising it would be a while before her son allows her to embrace him. "We received the letter via Lassie."

"Lassie? But Lassie was with…" Riku turned to the blonde woman at his side.

Mary rubbed the back of her head guiltily. "Yeah, I sent the letter after you were thrown in prison…"

"Ye even went to prison?" Shinji butted in. "My boy!" He said, pointing proudly to his son before throwing up some more.

"I didn't know what to do and reports said that your family were around, so I…"

"It was not your place." Riku said.

Shinji finally regained control of his body and approached his son. "Ah don't see what the big deal is son. All we wanted to do is help you."

"I don't want your help." Riku said to his father before turning his hazel eyes to his mother. "Go," he said before he quickly scaled the wall by climbing jumping between the alleyway walls in a zig zag.

"Riku?" Mary shouted after him. "Wait up," she said also scaling the wall in a similar manner.

"Hey, we're still talking!" Yuki shouted after her son angrily.

Shinji tried to copy his sons movement to also scale the walls but failed when he slipped on his first zig zag and fell to his back.

"Don't worry, I'll get him." Yuki said looking down at her husband as he sat up.

"Okay." Shinji agreed.

"I'll meet you back at the ship!" Yuki said as she summoned wind to propel her up.

/

Kai was sitting in a cross legged position on the floor of the deck. Omoi was sitting not too far away from him, watching curiously as he hummed and tried to create a forcefield. She tilted her head in confusion as no forcefield appeared around the boy like it usually does.

"Would you shut up!" He suddenly shouted, visibly annoyed.

Omoi was startled by his sudden outburst. "But… but I never said anything," she said quietly, almost as if to prove that she had been respectably silent the whole time.

"Not you," Kai said before pointing into a seemingly random direction, "him."

The person he was talking about was the person only he could hear and see. Hazumi floated near his brother with a smile on his face. "What? I also did not say anything. All I was doing was humming."

"Well, you're throwing my humming off!" Kai angrily said.

"Kia, the situations when you'll need a forcefield the most will not be quiet or peaceful, so may as well get used to different external stimuli so that you don't lose focus." Hazumi said ina lecturing tone that seemed to only infuriate Kai even more. "And besides, I'm using the humming technique to focus my own powers."

"Liar!" Kai said pointing at the transparent boy. "You're only doing it to get on my nerves! You've never needed to use the humming technique to use your corporal powers before so why would you be doing it now?"

Hazumi sighed to himself. "I haven't needed to hum for a long time but I now I do because I think I've discovered something else I can do with Corporal Mode." Hazumi looked at his brother, whose face changed from anger to confusion, much like Omoi's face who could only hear one side of their conversation. "I'll leave you to practice. Right now, what you're doing is more important then what I think I can learn to do." Hazumi said before floating away.

Kai looked at his brother as he phased through the floor to the rooms below deck. He wanted to ask him what he suspected he could do but decided against it. He returned his attention to humming and intertwined his hands. Omoi saw the forcefield appear around Kai.

Kai's eyebrows furrowed and his eyes were shut tight as the forcefield began growing wider, in short bursts. A few growing bustrs later and the forcefield was only inches away from Omoi.

"Uhm… Kai, your forcefield is growing." Omoi said with uncertainty in her voice.

"Oh yeah!" Kai said pumping a fist in the air, causing the forcefield to dissipate. "I'm close to perfecting that technique."

"You want to make your forcefields grow?" Omoi asked, tilting her head.

"Yeah, mom once mentioned it as a way to give some offense to my abilities."

"Your mom sure is smart," Omoi said before a nervious bead of sweat escaped her brow. Yuki's behaviour towards her had made her very anxious when she even thought about the older woman.

"She's okay," Kai said. "But she's nothing like my dad! Wow, his a great man! Anyways, you want some lunch? I'm tied of training so I'm taking my break."

Omoi raised an eyebrow at this as Kai had only started training 3 minutes ago. "Okay," she said, feeling unsure.

"Great!" Kai said as he led her to the kitchen.

/

Riku and Mary ran across the buildings of the town. The buildings were close enough for their impressive leaps to cross the distance between them. Some of the jumps they made could only be achieved by top notch athletes.

Riku looked back to confirm that Mary was following behind but to his dismay, he saw his mother also following. She was using air currents to leap the distances she could otherwise not clear on her own. Riku suppressed the urge to moan in annoyance before scanning the area, hoping for a way to escape his motehr. He saw nothing but more buildings, most were of the same height while others were a few levels higher.

Mary followed wordlessly behind Riku. She was surprised at his reaction at seeing his family. She noticed that he kept glancing back, past her. This prompted her to also look back and she saw Yuki coming in fast, with a cloud of dust accompanying her wind aided jumps. From how she controlled air, Mary already guessed that Riku's mother was a +Human, more specifically a Aeromancer. Her train of thought was abruptly ended when Riku suddenly changed directions. Mary had to stop her momentum, which caused her to slide on the roof before changing directions too.

Mary look back and saw Yuki also having to change directions to keep on their trail. She had a confident and calm look on her face. It made Mary feel like Yuki knew it was only a matter of time before she caught up. Mary looked at Riku who was still leaping and running from one building to another.

Is this some kind of game? She thought to herself before she had to make another impromptu sharp turn in an effort to keep up with Riku. Are they testing each other? Mary did not want to be left behind. She wanted to prove that she was just as good as the both of them, if not better.

Riku made three more turns before looking back. To his relief, Mary was still keeping up but sadly so was his mother. A building three levels higher was coming up fast. He turned to use the building adjacent to it to go around the bigger building.

Mary was surprised by this move. She knew Riku could definitely jump to the top of the 3 level high building but she did not word this out and instead diligently followed his lead and also went around the building.

Yuki stopped at the three storey building and used her air currents to assist her in jumping up to the top of the 3 level high building. By going over the building instead of around it like Riku and Mary, she had gained more ground. She stopped at the edge and saw her fast moving son, who had changed direction again to make her lose her gained advantage. She smiled at herself. Has he forgotten what I'm capable off? Doesn't he know I could easily end this cat and mouse game now if I wanted to? Fine son, I'll play this game a little longer but it can only end in one way. She summoned another swirl of air that helped her safely jump to the next building.

Mary looked back and saw that Yuki was once again closing in on them. She was beginning to break a sweat from all the activity and looked forward to determine if Riku was feeling the same. She could not see Riku's face as he looked ahead, focused on whatever his plan was. Once again, he went around a taller building when he could have made the jump. Yuki had caught on to his trick and instead of going up the building she followed their path closely and as a result she was getting ever so closer to them. Mary could feel the air swirls behind her and dared not look back at their clearly faster pursuer. She now knew that Yuki was only a few metres away from them and getting even closer. Ahead, they approached the biggest building in their line of sight. It was a wide four level high building. Mary's breathing had grown shallow and she was unsure if she could last long enough to go around and still stay ahead of Yuki.

Yuki looked at her targets. They were heading for a wide four level high building. A confident smirk etched its way across her lips as she saw this as a perfect opportunity to end the chase. So far, they had proven that they could not jump to the three level high buildings and therefore there was no way they could jump to a four level high building. When they reached the big building, she would corner them before they could change direction and catch them. She used her wind currents to jump further into the buildings and to glide for longer distances, this effectively closed the distance between her and her targets drastically.

Mary succumbed to the temptation to look back. Yuki was quickly getting closer. She looked at Riku, thinking that he would change directions anytime now, before they got too close four level high building. Does he not realise that if we change direction too close to the four storey building that his mother will have corner us? She thought to herself. To her surprise they got really close to the building and just when she thought the game was done, Riku did something that surprised her. He bent and leapt off the ground, giving it all he had and was able to get on top of the four level high building. She quickly followed suit and was able to get her hands at the ledge.

Yuki had sped up for the final stretch of the chase. She gave one big leap with a lot of air assisting her. When she was close to her prey, they surprised her by leaping up onto the four level high building. With her targets no longer in sight, she was quickly heading towards the wall of the high building. She joined her wrists and thrust her palms out to summon a spherical wind to stop her momentum and keep her from crashing into the brown brick wall. The sphere dissipated into two powerful streams of air, one flowing up and pushing Mary over the ledge and onto the roof, while the other one flowed downward, along with Yuki who used her abilities to land gently on the floor below.

Mary smiled at Riku's trickery. He avoided the three leve buildings and made me believe that there was no way he could jump that distance and waited for a building even higher to further lull her into a false sense of security and then at the last moment he showed his full potential. It was a good plan but not enough as Yuki had already recovered from her near collision with the wall and was steadily rising up the height of the building with a small whirlwind under her feet.

Mary got to her feet and saw that Riku had never stopped moving forward and jumped off the buidling. Did he already know that his mother would not be stunned for long? She thought bewildered as she followed him. She jumped off the building, aiming for the next and on the way down she was grabbed and pulled into one of the windows of the four level building. The window closed after she was pulled into it. She looked up at Riku who was the one who had pulled her in. His arms were around her stomach and chest and as he had to readjust his grip on her to support her. Her back was resting in his lap and she looked up at Riku, who was looking forward out of the window. She just kept quiet and looked up at his serious face, just admiring his steely focus. He saw his mother speed by in an attempt to catch up to them and unceremoniously let her go to walk forward towards the window.

Riku looked back at Mary. "Come, quickly. We need your grapple hook." Mary had always carried her grapple hook and that is what they used to climb down from the window into the alley way below. They were about to leave when Yuki suddenly landed in front of them out of nowhere. A strong gust of wind came along with her and blew their hair about.

"Nice try, son." Yuki said. "The first trick you played on me was good but the second one was one that only a person born yesterday would fall for."

Riku sighed in disappointment. "Ma, just let me be."

"I can't. You're obviously in trouble and I want to help. Everyone is here to help you."

"It's not your problem, its none of your business." Riku said.

"Did I not give birth to you?" Yuki said, approaching him. "Is your father's blood not running through your ungrateful veins? As long as the answer to even one of those questions is yes than whatever is your business will automatically be ours, especially mine because I'm your mama. Now you have two choices, either you refuse our help and we give it anyways which will result in us getting in each other's way or you could accept our help which will coordinate our efforts better."

Riku sighed in defeat. "Fine."

"I knew my baby would come around!" She squealed happily before running to hug him. He lovingly squeezed him tight. The sun was already going down over the horizon, threatening to shroud the Town of Git in the darkness of night. "Oooo, it's getting late. We better get back to the ship."

/

Shinji and Kai waited on the deck of the ship. He saw his wife, son and Mary approaching. Mary's eyes lit up when she saw the sky ship.

"Wow, that is your ship?" Mary asked Yuki.

"Yes," Riku said looking at the ship before he whispered, "Dream Glider."

They boarded the ship and Mary stood back while Riku got reacquainted with the rest of his family.

"Nice to see you again, deserter!" Kai said folding his arms over his chest.

"…"

"So, did you miss us? Did you at least feel guilty for just abandoning us?" Kai said pointing at Riku's chest accusingly.

"No." Riku said.

"No, you did not miss us or no, you didn't feel guilty?"

"Both."

Kai sighed, giving up on trying to make his brother feel guilty.

"Oh, don't take him too seriously, Kai." Shinji said with a hearty smile. "Our boy did miss us!" Shinji said before surprising Riku by grabbing his head and squeezing it in a mock wrestling move. Riku was able to escape and return to his cool posture.

"Yeah, I'm sure he missed us." Hazumi said.

Riku looked around surprised. "What was that?"

"Hazumi." Yuki said.

"But… he…" Riku stuttered in surprise as he looked around frantically in an effort to spot his younger brother.

"He's back… actually, he never left us." Yuki said. "We'll explain everything to you later."

"Yeah, for now introduce us to your friend." Shinji said gesturing to Mary.

"This is Mary Campbell."

"Is she your giiiirrlfreind?" Kai said in a mocking tone.

Yuki was visibly annoyed by the statement. A vein popped in her head before she became animated. "WHAT KIND OF A t**t THINKS THAT SHE IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR MY DEAR RIKU?!" She shouted, casuing a strong wind to blow around the ship.

"I'm… I'm not his girlfriend." Mary said. "Right, Riku?"

"Yes," Riku said.

Yuki calmed down. "Fine but I'll be keeping my eyes on you." Yuki looked up at the sky. "It's already evening, let me get dinner ready."

/

A few hours later, the passengers of the Dream Glider had congregated on a makeshift table with barrels for legs. Shinji sat at the head. Riku chose a seat close to his mother who sat at the other end of the table, facing Shinji. Mary was about to sit next to Riku when a rogue breeze lifted the plate in front of the seat and caused it to flip over, spilling its contents on the chair she was about to sit in. She raised her eyebrows in confusion before deciding to sit on the other side with Omoi. Kai sat closer to his father, so that he could admire him some more.

They began eating the food in front of them while trying to make conversation.

"So, how did you and Riku here meet?" Kai asked Mary.

"Uhm… we have temporary common interests." Mary said.

"Hopefully those interests are very temporary." Yuki commented.

Mary was a little taken aback but was able gto keep her composure She looked at Omoi for an explanation and the little girl smiled, understanding what it was like to be the target of Yuki's ire. Omoi was just thankful that Yuki's unwanted attention was not on her for once.

"I don't get it." Kai said. "What do you two do. I'm sure Riku does nothing, he is no better than a deserter…"

"Kai!" Yuki scolded. "Be nice to your older brother."

"Sorry, mom." Kai apologised before continuing. "What I'm getting at is… what do you do?"

"Oh, I do a lot of things. I dabble in everything really…" Mary began explaining.

"She's a thief." Riku simply answered.

Mary had a surprised look on her face. Why would he tell them I'm a thief?

"A thief huh? That explains everything." Yuki said.

"Wow a thief, what have you stolen?" Kai said.

"Ha ha ha, a thief, you trying to learn some of her skills, Riku?" Shinji said.

They all spoke simultaneously making Mary take a spoon full of food and nervously put it in her mouth while thinking of how to react. The awful taste hit her after a few seconds of choking and her eyes went wide. She looked and saw Yuki was watching her carefully. Mary knew that Yuki was the one who cooked so she forced the food down her throat and smiled. She looked around and saw that only Shinji was wolfing down the food like it was the best he had ever tasted. The rest had wisely tried to avoid consuming what was on their plates. Kai and Riku were simply played with their food and Omoi tried to secretly push her portion off to Lassie but the bird chirped/barked offensively at the unwanted offering.

"Well you are in good company, thief. You know, with us being pirates and all." Shinji said around mouthfuls of food. It surprised Mary how Shinji called her thief as more of a compliment than an insult. She involuntarily smiled at the older man.

"Speaking of keeping good company: what's your relation to this Kazu Ita character? He has committed some horrendous crimes." Yuki said leaning closer to her son. "Did she get you caught up in with this guy?" Yuki gestured to Mary with her fierce hazel eyes.

"No," Riku simply said.

Everyone looked on him to elaborate but it became painfully obvious that he was not going to. Mary sighed and decided to explain further. "Kazu Ita is the reason Riku and I have teamed up." She began. "We are tasked to apprehend and deliver him to… a mutual friend."

"So this is like a bounty?" Shinji asked.

"Something like that, yes." Mary answered.

"Then we'll be helping you catch him." Shinji said. "Right honey?" Shinji looked at his wife's face and saw that something was wrong. "What's wrong Yuki-hon?"

"I don't know," she said. "Ever since I've sat down I've just been having this nagging feeling like I've forgotten something or that… something is missing."

"Really? Hmm!" Shinji began scratching his beard in thought, trying to figure out what was missing. "Hey, where's Shuji?"

Yuki's eyes went wide in panic. "Where's my son? WHERE IS SHUJI!" She shouted so loud that people a few blocks away could hear her.

/

In a dark prison cell that smelled of dried urine and had only one small window with iron bars, Shuji was being kept.

"You know, when my parents notice that I'm missing, you guys are going to be in so much trouble." Shuji said.

"Shut up four eyes!" One of the guards said.

Shuji sighed to himself. What do people even do in prison? He asked himself. He suddenly got the idea to sing. "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen. Nobody knows…" his voice carried the melody while hoping that he would be rescued sometime soon.