[center][img] https://i.imgur.com/2cVYNXa.png [/img][/center] [color=gainsboro]Dennis' flight jacket rippled, completely unprotected from the open air. The old pilot's mask and goggles he generally didn't bother to wear, were now taking a battering from this flight. The gravity rod, unlike the Golden rod, did nothing to reduce gusts or windshear. The young man was having his most harrowing flight since his first, and it was one of the few parts of the job he normally enjoyed. Bug remnants were splattered across the lower half of his face, as he fought the wind to keep his mouth closed. His eyes were pried wide, as if to ensure he didn't miss any part of the movie of his life as it rapidly flashed before them, but moreso to prevent that event from actually occurring. But none of that mattered. All that [b]DID[/b] matter was getting to his grandfather before it was too late. There was only room for one family member to be making stupid decisions, and apparently with Dennis having passed out his grandfather had stepped up into the role and grabbed it with both hands. [hr] Alan and Keelan circled, Keelan fired a blast from his rod, which Alan parried effortlessly, and countered with a construct - a giant hand, swinging a swift backhand across the Admiral's face. Causing him to backpedal a few steps in shock.[/color] [color=goldenrod][b]"I think we both know what kind of fight this will be."[/b][/color] [color=gainsboro]The old man said with a smirk.[/color] [color=goldenrod][b]"I've been wearing this getup for the better part of a century. You think I haven't seen every kind of ray gun, firearm and energy blast by now? You think that's how you're going to take me down? I thought you were watching me with this thing?"[/b][/color] [color=gainsboro]Keelan wiped a small trickle of discoloured blood from his lip, with a dark smile. Suddenly the Admiral brought an alien creature to bear in construct form, a large beast with three eyes and sharp claws, which the Aquilifer had never seen before. He quickly countered through reflex with a large polar bear, which grappled the beast and slowed it's attack, barely sure of how he did it himself.[/color] [color=lawngreen]"Ah. The beast you used to counter that foolish costumed hack - what was his name..? - Jack Frost..?"[/color] [color=gainsboro]Keelan called off the alien, and returned to circling with a glower.[/color] [color=lawngreen]"Indeed, we have been watching. Did any of those petty fools realise you were only using them as practice for when this day should finally come?"[/color] [color=gainsboro]The veil of Alan's stern heroic visage finally lifted enough to allow a smile through. They still didn't understand. He drew the Golden rod forth and sent two saw blades slicing through the air towards the enemy combatant. Keelan deflected the pair with a kind of plough, or cow-catcher design that remained true to the designs of their small one pilot fighter-craft.[/color] [color=lawngreen]"From when you fought the 'Lumberjack'. You really are nothing more than the sum of your experiences. No new ideas in quite some time. Is that an effect the aging process has on your kind?"[/color] [color=goldenrod][b]"Yes. Your own counter was the pinnacle of innovation and had nothing whatsoever to do with your own personal experiences."[/b][/color] [color=gainsboro]Alan's reply dripped of sarcasm as his brow did with perspiration as the physical exertion was starting to take effect. The heroic facade he'd so long cultivated and looked to project cracking like a broken pane of glass. Keelan replied with a swarm of bird-sized insects from a distant long-ago murdered world. Alan bottled them with some effort with his own construct, before shaking them into a frenzy and hurling them back. The Admiral threw up a quick shield to protect himself, but missed the Aquilifer's true intention. They buzzed through the holes his previous buzzsaws created in the hull, and following shrieks from his fellow Arlaeekans the ship lurched to one-side, throwing Keelan off balance. The Aquilifer seized the advantage, throwing blasts and a massive construct boxing glove, which the Admiral could barely slip and offer up any kind of solid defense against. Alan panted from the sustained effort, and was about to bring down a solid rock, not dissimilar to those he clamboured over when hiking the day he found the Golden Rod almost a hundred years ago. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement from his grandson. His heart seized under the weight of the stone he'd conjured as he was about to drop it. It was all his opponent needed. A sudden spear of hard light was fired by the fallen Admiral and skewered the old man to the ceiling, where he barely got out a grunt in agony, before the spear was removed leaving the Aquilifer to drop to the floor, the Golden rod spilling from his hand. Dennis screamed. His scream drowned out all thought. All the doubts. All the anxieties. He held a palm out and the Golden Rod came to his hand. His scream turned from terror to rage, and with a single shot he fired a wide burst from the rod, driving the Admiral, hiding out of desperation behind his rapidly raised shield, from the deck. The sudden shift from technical, finesse-based construct battle to crude blast-based brutality catching the Arlaaekan Admiral by surprise.[/color] [color=goldenrod][sub]"Dennis..?"[/sub][/color] [color=gainsboro]The younger man rushed to his grandfather's side.[/color] [color=goldenrod][sub]"It's-- It's attuned to you. That should have taken years..."[/sub][/color] [color=yellow][b]"It's okay grampa, I'm here..."[/b][/color] [color=goldenrod][sub]"It's alright... he still hasn't realised why-- why we..."[/sub][/color] [color=gainsboro]A smile curled across Alan's face as he sighed a half-lung exhalation, The old man reached out a withered hand and Dennis it was like a veil had lifted and Dennis finally saw how age had affected the old man, he'd never seen him appear so vulnerable before. He briefly winced in pain, before continuing to extend his hand. A man who could raise such fear and respect from him all his life, reaching out with a hand which he now saw had such weathered, papery skin. Dennis went to meet his hand, and then, with a second's consideration, reached out to him with the Golden Rod. He took it, this object which had shaped so much of his life. So much of this world's last hundred years. And held it to his chest, with Dennis still maintaining his grip. He hugged it to the older man, and felt his last few breaths - the older man smiled, almost in relief, and that smile would never leave his face as everything else which made him the man he was left this mortal coil. Dennis took a few moments, tears streaming down his face, to hold and hug his grandfather before the sound of boots snapped him back to reality. With his off-hand he wiped them from his eyes to clear his vision, and pried the Golden Rod from Alan's grip. He pocketed the gravity rod within the inner fold of his flight jacket and reaching around his grandfather with an arm to hold thim in place, he created a surrounding spherical energy shield and started to float back out of the hole in the outer hull, which he had flown in through in the first place. Energy blasts frazzled impotently against the shield as the pair drifted out of the ship and onto the roof of a nearby building. The Admiral rushed back through one of the hole's torn into the inner hull, and barked a demand at the younger Aquilifer. He still wanted his spoils of war. He demanded the Rod.[/color] [color=lawngreen]"You dishonour your grandfather! If you flee from here with that rod, you will be in breach of our gentleman's agreement! I will no longer protect you! You will be pursued and torn, from whatever hole in this globe you try to hide in! There will be no safe--"[/color] [color=gainsboro]The audacity of this tiny teal man - so small before the power he now held, one who killed his grandfather, no less - to suggest that he had been willing to do any kind of favour for the old man, proved too much for Dennis to bear. With rage in his heart, throbbing through the fist that clenched the Golden Rod, and through a contorted face that so seldom carried such weight of emotion, an explosion of energy burst forth. With barely a thought for control, Dennis had created a colossal eagle, surrounding the energy orb which held his grandfather and himself, perched on the building's roof with massive talons. A caw, coinciding with a scream of rage from the younger man, as it's beak seized the [i]DoomSpear[/i] and shook it, before tossing it down to the ground. It fluffed it's wings after, briefly extending over fifty yards in either direction, and then dissipated into countless floating energy embers of golden light. Dennis collapsed once more from the exertion, and hugged the body of his grandfather, but by now the man who had done so much to raise him was long gone.[/color] [hr] [color=gainsboro]Alan Coghlan fell from the darkness of our existence with a thud. But he got back to his feet easily, because there was no pain in this place. A long corridor with a bright white light beckoned him. A familiar warm voice called him homewards.[/color] "It's been so long, Alan. But finally, we can rest. It's finally our time." [color=goldenrod]"Margie--?"[/color] [color=gainsboro]Alan barely trudging at first, stepped forward towards the light. His strides getting longer, more sure as he began the long walk home, down the corridor of light.[/color]