Terror.

Flashes of light illuminating a stone.

Fierce pleasure in the rush that came with winning.

Learning to fight back. Words were useful, but they didn’t solve everything. Sometimes physical action was needed.

A small green body racing closer, only to stab it first.

An encouraging voice from behind. The voice belonged to the winged instructor.

Dancing.

Jumping from one floating platform to the next, laughing as with each fall into the water.

Listening to boring lectures, then hearing one that was interesting. The winged instructor again; it seemed impossible, but it was still interesting.

The staff was pointless. A pair of blades seemed to be best; they were quick and cut what they hit. A great deal of practice with them led up to a demonstration fight, then a Path.

A tiger on the ground as while hiding in a tree-

A kaleidoscope of broken images and emotions twisted together into a nightmare for Jacob until he suddenly woke, covered in sweat. He was going crazy. None of that had happened. He’d tried to make light of it to his sister, but he was grateful she’d be here soon.

She’d always been the one to fix things when he was a child, and surely she could fix this.

Either way, he wasn’t going to get back to sleep immediately. Jacob slipped out of bed carefully, trying not to wake Denise.

Serenity was surprised on the way to the airport; they weren’t headed to LaGuardia. Instead, they headed to New Jersey and a small airport he’d never been to before. When he looked over at Rissa, she punched him in the shoulder.

“You can’t fly commercial without ID, Serenity. You know that. We might be able to deal with that, since you’re known and all, but I don’t want to take you through the airport when you’re being ostentatious. I’m sure you’d rather not sit in a plane with wings anyway.”

It was true. Serenity wasn’t in his chimera form; riding in a car was far more comfortable in his human shape, with the added benefit of being able to see out the windows. “I’m not being ostentatious. It’s just what I look like.”

“Uh huh, sure.” Rissa clearly didn’t entirely believe him. “Still, it seems like your Dad knows someone with his own plane; he apparently runs a charter service these days. So he helped me charter a trip. It’s surprisingly convenient; I didn’t know how many small airports there really are, so we’ll be coming in a lot closer to where Jacob lives than if we went to the main Austin airport. I’ve even got the rental car arranged at the other end.”

Serenity noticed that Rissa didn’t mention the price.

Russ dropped the two of them off at the small airport. They walked up to the terminal building; there were far fewer people than at a commercial airport and no long lines for checkin.

“We’re supposed to meet him at the terminal building; he said to call when we got here.”

While Rissa started the phone call, Serenity looked around. The first person he noticed was tall and thin, wearing a cowboy hat and jeans. He didn’t have any weapons or other signs of combat ability, so Serenity kept looking for a moment before the familiarity of the person registered. “Baxter?”

He said it louder than he intended and the figure turned towards him right as his phone rang.

The first words that came out of Rissa’s phone sealed it: that was definitely Baxter. “Miss Latimer, you did not tell me you would be traveling with the son of my old friend.” The phone hung up and Baxter waved them over.

“Thomas. It has been a long time.” Baxter nodded. Serenity remembered that he’d never liked shaking hands.

“Three years? Something like that. I don’t think I’ve seen you regularly since I lived at home.” Serenity glanced around the terminal building again.

“I do not wish to interfere in your time with your family.” Baxter was always exceedingly formal unless he was drunk. Serenity had only seen him drink twice. “Please follow me; once you two are on board, I’ll finish up the last few things and get us on our way.”

The airplane was small. That was obvious from the outside; it wasn’t tiny, but it was smaller than the jets that Serenity thought of as “business jets”. Once they were inside, there was room for six passengers, but he and Rissa were the only ones onboard.

Serenity had to admit that it was much nicer than the commercial jets he’d flown on before; it was rather like the difference between a limousine and an ordinary rental car. There was even a small built-in bar where they could get their own snacks and food, along with a coffeepot, microwave, and small fridge.

This trip might not be so bad.

It wasn’t until they were in the air that Serenity remembered the other reason he was nervous about flying: the Blue Line Dungeon. If something like that happened while they were in the air, the resolution might not be nearly as simple.

Half an hour into the flight, Baxter invited them to come up into the cockpit one at a time to chat. Serenity wasn’t sure what he and Rissa talked about, but when he went in, he and Baxter ended up talking about old times.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the present. “I couldn’t help but notice your eyes and lack of wings,” Baxter commented. It wasn’t a question, but it certainly implied one.

“I have some limited shapeshifting ability. My wings are impressive, so they’re part of my image now.” Serenity thought for a moment. Baxter already knew he could shift, after all; a little more wouldn’t hurt anything. “I couldn’t get this close to human back when those interviews happened, either.”

“That is interesting. Thank you for the explanation.” Baxter said it in the same uninflected tone he used for almost everything. If Serenity hadn’t known him well enough to know that Baxter didn’t make them, he would have thought it was simply a polite statement. If that were all it was, Baxter would have simply thanked him. “I believe that you are also an instructor in the Tutorial, and that that is where you gained a great deal of information about what is happening. Do you happen to know if it will affect air travel in any way?”

Serenity started to answer that he wasn’t sure, but realized that wasn’t really true. He hadn’t traveled by airplane much as Vengeance, but he had traveled by flying. He thought he also remembered what had happened as the world fell apart.

He simply had to couch his memories as predictions. “Not directly, but a lot depends on what we do. If we’re splintered by the invasions and other effects, air travel will falter. Some of the invaders may also target flights, either by accident or after they’re attacked from the air. If that causes fear, it could ground all fights, but it should be just a local problem.” That had happened the first time around; it took months for air travel to resume in the areas where flights weren’t attacked. Air travel never really recovered.

“Air travel requires a lot of things to work together, so that you have what you need when you need it. If we start having trouble with getting things where they need to be or with making them, that could be an even worse problem.” Serenity thought that was what had finally shut down air travel in the other timeline. He remembered guarding an expedition into a hangar to scavenge parts once; it had been a surreal experience, even as lost in rage and pain as Vengeance was at the time.

“If we get past those, it should be fine, unless magical transport is cheaper. A lot of planets use portals for long-distance travel, while the wealthy travel on personal flight devices. Poorer people walk or ride. I don’t know how the prices will compare, but it’s entirely likely that there will still be a niche. Most planets don’t have anything even remotely as extensive as our air travel network.” A few portals between cities and/or dungeons was more common, and on some planets all of the portals were like Tzintkra’s, where you had to go through a dangerous area to even reach the portal.

Baxter nodded as he did something to his controls, then talked to an air traffic controller. Serenity thought it was something about elevation, but his knowledge of aircraft was limited to what he needed to know as a passenger despite his father’s best efforts. Serenity had simply never been interested in planes; when his father gave him complex toys, he took them apart to see how they worked instead of playing with them.

Most of the time he was able to get them back together well enough that they would work, but he always lost interest once he understood the toy.

“Would you tell me more about these personal flying devices? Are they like small planes?” Baxter must have finished with whatever he had to do to fly the plane.

Serenity described a number of different devices he’d seen, starting with the ones on Tzintkra. Despite Baxter’s formality, he did laugh at the idea of a true flying carpet when Serenity used it as an example.

The remainder of the flight was uneventful. Serenity didn’t feel any ley lines and was even able to catch a nap during the next time Rissa went to the cockpit to talk to Baxter.

Once they landed at the Georgetown Municipal Airport, Baxter escorted them into the terminal building. Serenity suspected that the reason it was so simple was that they were escorted; he did catch a glimpse of a security guard once, but they weren’t stopped.

“If you need another flight, please keep me in mind. You were pleasant passengers,” Baxter stated unemotionally, clearly directing the statement primarily at Rissa. “I do already have some flights scheduled for the next few days, but I will fit you in as soon as I can. If by some chance you wish a more permanent relationship, I would be happy to discuss it.” Baxter nodded deeply again and did not seem to expect a response, since he then turned and walked away.

“That was strange,” Rissa commented. “He’s nice, but his feelings don’t make it on his face at all.”

“He’s always been like that. Unless he’s drunk.” Serenity didn’t say anything more. Baxter’s story wasn’t his to tell, and he knew Baxter didn’t tell anyone normally.

Serenity was going to have to remember the option of chartering a flight in the future. If he had the money, it was quite convenient.