The Airship

Fire. Fire everywhere. All that could be seen for several hundred feet through the billowing smoke and flames was the smoldering ruins of a town. The smell of burnt crops and stone fills the air, it was enough to kill a person from carbon monoxide poisoning. Aside from the rubble of buildings, there were broken airships scattered across the hellscape, seemingly totalled by some unknown force. Now... above all of the chaos are two silhouettes, a big one with white eyes, and a smaller one with blood red eyes. These two menacing shadows stare each other down before the Red Eyed Boy speaks up.

"...You're having fun here, aren't you?"

The White Eyed Man lets out a light chuckle, setting a hand on his head.

"It would have been much more fun if I had my fleet, boy. Now I'm gonna have to kill you with my bare hands, I would have preferred to keep my armor clean." He says.

"You should really have more faith in your opponents, the one who's gonna get their hands dirty is me." The boy states gloatingly.

The Man's chuckle turns into a full blown laugh that was directed at the boy...

"You're going to defeat me!? That's laughable!! A mere adolescent boy that hasn't even hit puberty yet is going to defeat a world ending force!!" The man chortles. 

In response, the boy grits his teeth and shouts out.

"Everyone I know is evacuating!! They're already long gone!!"

Further away from the ruins is another silhouette of a frightened boy carrying someone injured, while the other survivor is seen escaping in a car with his family, already far from the town already.

The boy says "There's nobody here, which means I don't need to hold back my power at all, so we'll see who loses everything after this!!"

"Well said boy, some fine last words before you perish along with this rock!" The man says before flying out towards the boy, who charges forth in response. Their fists clash, creating a devastating shockwave that lights up the town...

Los Angeles, 5 years later...

An annoying alarm clock starts blaring on top of a dresser. It keeps going before the man laying in the bed next to it jabs the clock, launching it out of the window. The clock murderer rises up in his bed, brushing his messy blond hair out of his face.

".....Another day..... Just gotta keep going....." He says, dragging himself out of bed, he wasn't even wearing pajamas, he was wearing jeans with a white shirt under a blue jacket. He turns on the lights to reveal that he was in an old and run down apartment. The walls were peeling and mildewy, and the whole room smelled as if someone dumped a whole bucket of rotten fish inside of it. The blinds were closed, and in the corner of the room was a desk with a box of what seemed to be experimental tech next to it. Above the desk was a board, clad with multiple photos and red string drawn together. The man walks towards the desk and sighs, looking up at it.

"....All of these leads are getting me nowhere, I need a better place to look, but even with this work I've been doing, it just seems... Hopeless... Techway isn't giving me anything obvious...! " He mumbles.

He walks over to an old couch and plops down before hearing a knock at his door. An old lady's voice echoes through.

"Christopher Jenson, you better have your rent in today, you're 3 weeks due! If you don't get the money by tonight, I'm kicking your ass out!" She nags.

Chris groans yet again and says "Shut it, you old hag! I'll pay you when I feel like it!!"

"Oh will you now? Isn't that the same thing you told me last week?" She states haughtily.

"Oh you little-" Chris pipes up before he feels a buzzing in his pocket, he reaches in and pulls out his phone, it reads "Corry". He picks up.

"What do you want? You haven't called me in forever." Chris pipes up.

The voice in the phone giggles lightly before saying "It's finished." Before he hangs up. Chris hears those words, taking a bit to process them before his eyes light up. He springs to his feet and bolts over to the desk, pulling down the board and setting it next to his box full of tech. He throws his shoes on and picks up the junk, opening the door to a shocked landlady.

"And where do you think you're going??" The landlady says.

"Away from here, you should really learn how to clean up after a guest, lady." Chris remarks before walking out towards his car, he was on the bottom floor.

"What-!? You're the whole reason that room is like that!! It was your room, so you should clean it!!" The landlady shrieks, stamping her foot on the ground.

Chris ties the stuff to the top of his car and looks at her.

"Yeeaaaahhhhh.... I don't really care all that much, goodbye-" He says.

The landlady gets furious before pointing at Chris.

"Just wait until I get the IRS on your ungrateful ass!" She yells at the top of her lungs.

Hearing this, Chris quickly climbs into his car and pulls away, driving away from the apartment complex as fast as he could. Now, he's just going for a nice leisurely drive, admiring the surroundings as he leaves the L.A area.

"Things haven't been the same since the Chaos War... This area that used to be mountains is like a full on desert now... Not to mention the beach over in Oceanside is completely frozen over... Even the outskirts of the Great Crater are friggin' purple now..." Chris thinks out loud. It was true that whoever caused the Chaos War also completely changed the overall structure of Planet Earth, whoever did this was certainly powerful, or at least had access to some powerful machinery. Chris passes through crystal covered mountains that lead straight into the purple fields on the outskirts of the Great Crater. The Crater was a result of the last thing the attackers did before mysteriously vanishing, it spanned almost the entirety of the Central Valley. Chris ends up in the main Crater, a lifeless, barren wasteland. In the distance, something massive can be seen... It gets bigger as Chris approaches it. Once Chris arrives, it's revealed that the big thing was actually a massive airship, at least 2,000 feet in height.

Chris gets out of his car and beholds the ship in it's full glory. 

"So this is it... This is the ship that Corry recovered, it looks like it's in mint condition..." Chris mumbles.

The small entryway opens up to reveal a man that was a little bit shorter than Chris, having short brown hair and a red/black sweater.

"Chris! I never thought you'd get here so soon! You must really be excited, yeah??" Corry chirps happily, patting Chris on the shoulder.

Chris laughs a bit and says "I'm as excited as I'll ever be, this is where it all begins..!"

Chris then blinks and looks around.

"Hey, didn't you say Noland was gonna be showing up too?? He seems to be a bit late-" Chris says curiously.

Corry smiles and says "Aw, don't worry, he'll show up soon enough!! In fact he should be arriving about... now!"

Not long after, a white car pulls up next to Chris's car. A man with glasses and a hat comes out, scratching his long brown hair awkwardly. 

"Sorry I'm late, traffic was absolutely horrible down where I live... So this is it, huh? Dang... I can see how it took you 5 years to get it fully up and running again." Noland says.

Corry shrugs his shoulders, chuckling.

"More like 4 years, I was kinda busy back in 2022." He pipes.

Noland turns and waves strangely to Chris.

"Nice to see you again, it's been a while,  hasn't it?" Noland states, scratching his head nervously.

Chris responds with "Yeah, it really has been a while, I see you grew out your hair, it looks good on you."

Chris smiles lightly at Noland before walking to get his stuff from his car, leaving Noland to become self-conscious about his appearance before going to get his stuff. Chris and Noland come back to Corry with all their luggage.

"Alright guys, follow me!!" Corry chirps, turning and running towards the entryway, Chris and Noland running behind him.

They walk into a lobby before Corry leads them to an elevator. Corry presses the very top button and the elevator shoots upward, pushing Chris and Noland down from the force. When the elevator arrives, Chris and Noland smack their heads against the ceiling. Corry laughs and runs into the room up ahead, the other two groaning behind him. They were in the control bay, it was lined with multiple arrays of controls and desks, buttons and levers, pulleys and lights, the list kept going on.

Corry giggles before turning to look at the other two.

"Take off sequence, initiate!!"

Corry pulls out a big blue key and jams it into an ignition port before pressing a bunch of buttons. The ship rumbles before it was evident that they were rising into the air, as the Earth fell away from their vision. Corry cheers in delight.

"It works, it really works!! Now, let's go explore the world!!" Corry shouts.

"Let's find some materials so I can practice my tech skills!!" Noland chimes.

"Let's go after Techway and take them down..!!" Chris joins in.

Corry and Noland freeze and look at Chris confusedly.

"....Techway? Those guys that produce those new phones and stuff??" Noland asks.

"They don't just produce phones and crap like that, I have evidence that they're planning something!! Look, I got pictures!! They're making some kind of airship army, a lot like the one we're in! That's the whole reason we took off, right-?? To find who caused the Chaos War-??" Chris asks dejectedly. 

A somber look spreads across Corry's face before he speaks.

"Chris... It's been 5 years, you need to let go. I fixed this thing up so that we have a free place to live and so that we can have fun."

"But- But There's evidence-!!" Chris chimes, a frown forming on his face.

Corry sighs before responding with "Chris, we're gonna have fun, ok? Just calm down and we can talk things out." 

Corry smiles at Chris, but Chris does not return the happy look, now he looked genuinely angry, clenching his fists before storming back to the elevator and going down. Noland frowns and looks at Corry.

"Do you think he'll be alright? He seemed pretty set on what he wanted..." Noland asks Corry.

"....He'll be fine, he'll get used to it soon enough, and we'll enjoy ourselves as all good friends should..." 

Corry looks out the window, the blue sky shining before him and his friend.

"This'll be perfect for us." He says, smiling happily.

TO BE CONTINUED