The next few days passed without incident. Angel spent most of his time talking with the Star Fragment, prying all the information he could get on Magicore Command out of it. For someone that was supposedly on his side, the fragment wasn’t particularly forthcoming with information.

From what he managed to learn, Magicore Command didn’t actually need a fully functional artifact to run. However, it needed a place to draw power from. The more an artifact functioned, the less modification the feature had to do to access its power source and modify it.

To Angel’s disappointment, Magicore Command was unable to activate or modify the artifacts that didn’t have a power source built in. They were only a small percantage of the artifacts floating around in the Barren, but they were also usually the oldest. He’d been hoping that the feature would finally grant him access to the lost technology that he’d been seeking for so long, but he still needed Alison’s help to do anything with them.

“If we could just figure out how they worked, we could do away with canisters entirely,” Angel grumbled as he studied an artifact. “This is the key to passive Old World Magic, you know. Making them turn on by using Alison’s magic is brute forcing it. I need to figure out how they work, not make them run with a crutch.”

“But isn’t your arm like that?” Tilly asked. “It doesn’t use canisters.”

“It’s different,” Angel said, shaking his head. “It runs by gathering multiple forms of energy from my body constantly. Think of it like a battery that I charge by walking, moving, or even breathing in addition to adding a steady flow of my magic.”

“And some artifacts don’t do that?”

“Nope. They’re different. They also have power inlets, but they connect to nothing and they aren’t meant for direct energy. It’s as if someone went around and removed a bunch of runes from every single artifact, but that’s just impossible. But what use is an artifact that just… waits for energy to fall into it instead of actively gathering it?”

“That is weird,” Tilly said. “Maybe there was some sort of device that everyone carried around before the Great War that made the artifacts usable?”

“There wasn’t.” Lilian shook her head. “My memories of back then are a very fuzzy since it’s been so long and I didn’t get anything to improve my memory, but artifacts just worked. There were a few with internal power sources similar to what I have inside me, but many of them didn’t need anything.”

“Then they probably need some form of Old World Magic that we’ve lost,” Angel said. He considered asking the Star Fragment, but didn’t bother wasting his time. The purple gem refused to give information about anything that wasn’t directly related to finding the Vault or using the Key.

He continued pressing the limits of his power, trying to maximize what he could do without using Alison’s energy. His control over the power grew steadily better and, after a few days, he was able to modify and keep artifacts together for nearly a minute before they tore themselves apart.

The only thing he’d ever modified without destroying was Lilian. When he questioned the Star Fragment on it, the orb told him it had to do with the amount of power he had to work with. On his own, his magic simply wasn’t strong enough to sustain the transformations.

On the sixth day of travel, Angel was pulled from his studies by the smell of smoke. He frowned, flipping his eyepiece back and tearing his gaze from the artifact he’d been working on.

“Do you smell that?” he asked, leaning to peer out the window and check if they were passing over a city.

“I just noticed it as well,” Silver said grimly. “We aren’t near anything. Check the power source, would you? Access should be in the back of the chopper. The dashboard says nothing is wrong.”

Angel slipped from his seat and shuffled past Tilly. He knelt and went to move the latch housing the motor. The metal burned as the fingers of his good hand touched it. He hissed, yanking it back and cursing. “It’s hot. Something’s wrong.”

“Just what I love to hear when we’re in the air,” Silver said, yanking a lever down. The chopper shuddered and started to descend. “Can you fix it?”

“Working on it,” Angel replied, grabbing the latch with his metal arm and pulling it open with a grunt. A puff of black smoke rose up as he broke the seal and a wave of hot air washed past his face.

He grimaced, coughing and waving the smoke away as he squinted at the power source. Blue liquid trickled from the arm sized canister and it was bulging in several locations. Angel’s eyes widened and he let out another curse.

“We need to get out of the air. Now.”

“What’s happening?” Alison asked, peering over his shoulder. Angel carefully closed the latch and pushed Alison over to the other side of the chopper with Tilly.

“Canister is bad. Really bad,” Angel replied. “It isn’t able to properly contain the pressure. It could have been damaged or it might have just been old. Doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that we’re sitting on a bomb that could go off at any second. Silver, how long until we’re grounded?”

“Five minutes. Any faster and I’ll drive us all into the sand so fast that we’ll join the desert forever,” Silver said. The floor shuddered under them. “And the chopper is losing responsiveness fast.”

Despite his cool demeanor, the man’s hands flew across the dashboard as he tried to wrest control of the airship back. Angel peered out the window. A fall at this height probably wouldn’t kill him immediately, but Tilly and Alison were a different story. Even if they all did manage to survive, the injuries would be severe and a monster would likely eat them all before they could heal.

“Can’t you fix the canister?” Lilian asked.

“No. It’s already rupturing,” Angel replied. “Messing with it might just make the explosion worse. If I keep it behind the trapdoor, we might mitigate some of the damage.”

“I can try to stand between it and everyone,” Lilian said, slipping out of the captain’s chair and squeezing up beside him. “My improved healing should make me the most likely to survive the blast.”

“You won’t,” Angel said grimly. “A canister that size doesn’t go out with a tiny pop. We’ll all be little pieces raining from the sky.”

He glanced out the window again. They were lower in the air, but still not nearly low enough. A low whine started to rise from the canister.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Tilly said, backing up and pressing herself against the wall of the chopper.

“Lilian, shield them,” Angel said. “Silver, get us moving faster. We can jump before the chopper hits so we don’t go down with it.”

Silver slammed the lever down as far as it would go. The rotors sputtered to a stop and the speed of their fall started to increase.

“I’ll try to turn the rotors back on in a few seconds,” Silver yelled over the roar of the wind rushing past them. “This is going to be a rough landing.”

Angel wasn’t listening to him. The whine of the canister was growing louder. The ground was approaching them rapidly, but judging by the sound coming from beneath his feet, they weren’t going to get a chance to jump.

He lunged, grabbing the latch and throwing it open. Purple energy arced down his arm as Angel drew desperately on the Star Fragment. He knew the force of the explosion was too large to be absorbed, but there wasn’t any choice. He needed to do it anyways.

Ice raced down his shoulder, darting into his chest and wrapping around his heart. Something popped and a roar filled his ears. The canister ruptured and brilliant blue light spilled forth.

Someone screamed. There was a brilliant purple flash and a surge of power rushed through Angel. The world shattered as if he were looking at it through a dozen shards of broken glass, and then he knew nothing.