Airborne Fury (Mr.Man)

There are many unique places in the world. There are even more so considering all of the different worlds, parallel universes, and alternate realities. That is, if a person held any belief in such things. As it happened, Kashet was one of those people. It would be hard for him not to, considering that he was currently in a world not his own. And coincidently, he was in one of those unique places. Early on in his travels, if he had been told of a place where a great tree, several miles wide, grew high into the clouds, he would have passed the speaker off as a drunkard. Or maybe an overly imaginative poet. Either way, Kashet wouldn’t have believed it. He did now. The masked man looked down over the side of the “branch”, gazing serenely at the thousands of glittering lights cast out below him. The branches of the humongous tree were easily several miles wide, and each housed a small town or two.

Kashet continued to gaze out over the twinkling lights in the twilight of the pre-dawn, his long bangs waving in the cool breeze. Such was another thing Kashet had failed to comprehend. He estimated his altitude to be at least two thousand feet, yet all he felt was a small cool breeze. He had been told that the entire tree was magically shielded to protective the inhabitants from the heavy chill winds of the higher altitudes, yet he fathomed to think of a continuous spell of such magnitude. Magic had ever been a thing of wonderment for the analytical Kashet, yet he found himself becoming more and more understanding of it the more he encountered it. At first, magic had appeared to be . . . well, magic. Yet Kashet continued to discover the existence of magic’s own set of rules and logic. And the more he discovered, the more he became fascinated by it. Yet the idea of a spell that continuously covered an area several miles wide and several thousand miles tall was unfathomable. Perhaps, the masked man mused, there were many spells, each covering a small area, linked together? For a man of science and measurements, he lamented that fact that he lacked the means to properly observe and study it.

Turning his silent gaze upward, the man stared up at the stars. The white lights twinkled majestically, mirroring the lights of the myriad of towns below and around the man. A sudden urge overcame Kashet then, and he bent into a half-crouch. His cloak wavered around him, splitting down the middle and spreading apart to form two great, leathery wings. Flapping them experimentally, Kashet trotted over to the edge of the branch and leaped off. His leathery wings caught the updraft almost instantly, the air carrying up past his previous perch and up even higher. Twisting in the air, the winged man soared through the branches, finally rocketing through the final layer of clouds and giant leaves to float above it all. Jagged peaks cut across the velvet black of the night sky, the rocky lines outlined in a faded pink. Sighing in the serenity of it all, Kashet closed his eyes and simply hung in the thin air. For a moment.

Something within him buzzed, and his wings twisted and collapsed around him. The man plummeted, his wings twisted into distorted spikes and his arms and legs weirdly elongated. His back hunched, and he writhed in agony as electric currents ran wildly over his body. The massive branches were soaring up to meet him, and he still couldn’t regain control. Rolling over in mid-air, the spikes protruding from Kashet’s back shot out to disappear beneath the leaves, and new wings grew from his back. Flapping wildly, Kashet, angled himself towards the closest branch, a “small” thing only several yards wide. The masked man hit the limb hard, his wings collapsing around him as he latched on with razor-sharp talons. Groaning, Kashet clenched his eyes shut and waited for the pain to subside and for total control to return.

Shan sat on a, well, “twig” he supposed, with his legs hanging over the edge as a surveyed the world around him. He used the word “twig” lightly since the area was only big enough to hold him, which was nothing compared to the rest of the gigantic tree. It’s like that world tree you hear about in ancient myths. Yggdrasil. The tree that supported heaven, hell, and the human world. Looking up, it wasn’t terribly hard to imagine such a huge organism reaching to some fantastical world of immortal beings. He couldn’t even see the sky through all the foliage, though sunlight managed to find its way down.

Then again, what I’m looking for isn’t up. Swinging his legs back and forth, he noted several villages laid out on the branches below. Apparently, a valuable research specimen had fled to this tree. But perhaps research specimen was another term to be used lightly. After all, it was a person he was after. Humans had a tendency to get riled if you referred to them by something other than human. Intel on the target was pretty scarce, too. Apparently, it was a human who could use nanomachines to change his body into whatever he pleased. “I hope you don’t mind if this takes awhile,” Greg had said when he was being briefed about the job, “because it will take a hell of a long time to find someone that, not only do we not know what he looks like, but can change if we ever do find him.”

Shan slightly agreed with that. However, the challenge was far better than any setback that could, and probably would, occur. Fighting a human who could change their shape would almost be like fighting another Lilim. What could be more fun? The mercenary shivered at the thought. Oh yeah, this will be fun. “Hahah!” he laughed, unable to contain the excitement.

“Hey. Over here. It fell over here.” Shan looked down to see a couple of kids run down the branch under him. They were heading to the edge of a smaller branch to gawk at whatever had caught their attention. And now mine, as well. The pink-haired man scooted the rest of the way off the edge and landed on the wood below. “Hey, mister, are you an angel?” he heard one of the children ask. It probably wasn’t a bad question. The man did have wings. Only, they weren’t the white, fluffy ones people see in all the paintings. They were dark and leathery, more like the wings of a bat. He was also groaning in pain, though whatever had happened seemed to be letting up.

“Better give him some room, kids. Doesn’t look like he’s doing to well,” Shan announced. The children regarded him with a curious look, turned back to the winged man, and then ran back down the branch, talking loudly about the “angel.” Another word to use lightly. I wonder if “research specimen” would fit this one better. He glanced down at the mysterious person, a grin forming on his lips, “I don’t suppose your name is Kashet, huh?”