Crossing the Continent

[Gray]

Gray was growing weary of listening to Archer talk in reference to the map that Gray focused his attention onto Prometheus, the far more interesting of the two. From overall appearance and from what Gray could make up of the two, and he had always been pretty good of assessing his opponents skill, Prometheus seemed like he was stronger.

Archer, he could tell, has great strength with his... toys. He didn't care much for it though, he could feel it from Prometheus though, when the pebble he was using stopped falling back down after being tossed into the air.

"Hmmm..." Gray said looking at it as Prometheus was. He watched the amazed look in Prometheus' eyes and thought long. "Pro, are you using geo... no... not the same energy," Gray said watching the guy carefully, scrutenizing what he was doing.

---"Try lifting up those items," he said, pointing to the orbs of matter that was once his camp, "and we'll see what we can do from there, Bra--" He paused for a moment.

"Prometheus, was it?" he said, "I like the ring of that..."---

He looked at Archer with an eyebrow raised but said nothing. This man obvious thought himself the leader of this little... team they just made.

An Alchemist, A Geomancer, and Prometheus... with this unknown talent. Gray was going to stick close to this boy. He wanted to see how Prometheus' story would unfold.

[kihaku]

I shrugged before letting the pebble fall back into my hand. The stone was warmer than when I'd held it, which confirmed what I'd discovered. Somehow, some way, I was able to change the energy acting on the stone purely with the power of my mind. I blinked and the world changed back to normal: dark, chill, and uninteresting. I slipped it into my jacket pocket and turned towards the items. Gray started to ask me something, and I turned my head to listen, but he seemed to correct himself and stopped. Since he didn't seem very talkative, I smiled in a friendly manner and shrugged it off before turning back to the stuff.

I took a deep breath. "Okay..."

I closed my eyes, concentrated, and opened my eyes. I was excited to find that I seemed able to call this newfound vision purely by thought, and I could feel my smile grow wider. I could see the items in front of me, all of them shrouded in a dull gray aura that swirled around them, pushing them against the ground. I raised my hands, my heart hammering against my chest as hope rushed through my veins. My palms were facing outward and my arms were about chest level, and I began to concentrate on the items in front of me.

Slowly, the darkness became increasingly sluggish, before finally I could see it begin to disperse. Now the materials began giving off a flowing red light, which I knew was probably representing Heat.

'No, I need to move it, not heat it...'

Just then, I could see some of the red change to a sort of teal-ish color, and several material packs began to rise off the ground. My smile shrinked to a smirk, the amount of concentration needed was more than I'd inticipated. The whole set of materials was now a good four feet off the ground, and I pulled my hands towards my body. The camp materials glided towards me, and as they came close I twisted my hands about in a circular motion, sending them into an orbital spin around a central point.

I took a deep breath, prayed to God, and lowered my arms. Thankfully, Archer's transmutation materials remained floating, and I was maintaining my Sight without any sort of conscious thought. My smile returned and I just sighed with electric elation.

"Yep, I think I can manage. I'm 99% sure that I can do it to myself, so I think that Gray and I have really got the flying thing covered."

I slid my hands into my pants pockets, my posture easy and my smile friendly and sincere.

"Now, the question is, 'what about our good friend Archer?'"

[Archer]

The concentration upon Prometheus' face verified the fact that this talent was indeed newly discovered; which made it all the more incredible. As his camp materials floated easily into the air, gliding across towards the man who's features were brushed with a sense of elation he had probably never felt before, Archer simply watched in awe.

"Quite incredible..." he muttered, sincerly taken aback; if only one thing could silence the arrogant alchemist, it was newfound knowledge, "I've never seen anything like it..." Although movement with the power of the mind was commonly known as 'telekinesis', this seemed different somehow. Although his actual means of transportation were still unknown, when the bolt of lightning had brought about this man's consciousness from his palm, it seemed more like an unconscious discharge than an expression of power. And even now, as the objects floated in a circular motion through the air, he could feel an unnatural chill, if only ever so slight, as if the heat, even on such a small scale, was being withdrawn from the objects. It seemed as if it was not the objects he was willing into flight, but the very energy that held them to the ground.

"Yep, I think I can manage. I'm 99% sure that I can do it to myself, so I think that Gray and I have really got the flying thing covered. Now, the question is, 'what about our good friend Archer?'" said Prometheus, revelling in his newfound success. Archer let out a sly grin; apparently, his initial confidence did not hold as much power of the group as he'd have hoped; it almost seemed too easy to secure himself a means of transportation without exerting any effort himself.

He let out a brief sigh, raising one hand to rub at his temple with two fingers in a soothing, circular motion, easing his train of thought into the station of consciousness, in order to be inspected by the fat-controller of inginuity.
"It seems that unless I was to be carried by one of you two, I have no means of flight. Something tells me," he started, turning to face Gray momentarily, "that young master Gray would have a problem with that. And you, Prometheus; although powerful, your ability is still young. I doubt that you would be able to last the journey with such an excessive burden."

Walking closer to the slowly revolving materials, Archer browsed his selection of compacted tools, as one would a revolving desert buffet at a restaurant; although he knew what he had brought, it took him a moment to think of what it was. The spherical remnants of pots and pans floated past him; copper, iron, zinc... There were many metals waiting to be tapped within these tools. Fuel would be little trouble, as most combustable fuel began it's life as rock and plant life, compressed and mutated over millennia.

Reaching out, he picked a few choice spheres from the air; they felt cool to the touch, confirming his suspicions about the nature of Prometheus' power. This should be enough, he thought, mind racing with ideas, but it needs to be faster. Almost...[/i] his mind was having trouble with the concept his imagination was trying to force upon him; he knew all the mechanics behind what he wanted to accomplish, but it would be a snail's pace unless he could add a certain element of... hyperactivity.

Hearing the still rustling bag in the background of his thoughts, a grin played across his face. He turned his attention back towards the others.

"Given one hour, I am confident I can complete a means of reaching Metapha within the remaining two. I would be grateful if you could carry the rest of my possessions, Prometheus, but these," he gestured towards the items he had gathered in the crook of his arm, "I will need."

He moved over to the bag, dropping the items (unknowning of whether they would still actually fall), and undoing the rope tie that bound it shut. Falling out of the bag in a cartoon fashion, the robot took in a mock-gasp for the air it did not need, haunched over in a panting heap as recovery from it's obviously traumatic ordeal. Leaving the robot to it's own bizzare devices for a moment, Archer retrieved a stick of chalk from his person once again, and began work, his mind delving into the theory of alchemy for the abilities he would require.

"You are welcome to go on without me if you wish," he said, loudly and clearly so that both of the newcomers would hear, "but I assure you that I will be there at midnight in Metapha, one way or another."

[kihaku]

When Archer pulled away the materials he'd selected, I had the energy change happening around them disengage, so when the alchemist dropped the spheres of stuff, they plopped to the rocky ground.

"And you, Prometheus; although powerful, your ability is still young. I doubt that you would be able to last the journey with such an excessive burden."

I was about to protest, but a voice from long ago echoed in my mind. 'Think before you speak and act.' I'd always found this advice to be the most reliable ever given to me, so I restrained the half-baked argument from leaving my throat. In all reality, he was probably right. I'd only just begun to use this power, so there was really no telling where my limits were, be they time, quantity, distance, or even line-of-sight.

"Given one hour, I am confident I can complete a means of reaching Metapha within the remaining two. I would be grateful if you could carry the rest of my possessions, Prometheus, but these, I will need."

"Yeah, that's fine, it's your stuff anyway."

When he up-turned the bad I'd been somewhat drafted into holding for a while, I wasn't all that surprised to see a small robot dumped onto the stony ground. It acted as if it were dazed and confused, which struck me for a moment as an odd sort of thing to program into any sort of mechanical consciousness.

"You are welcome to go on without me if you wish, but I assure you that I will be there at midnight in Metapha, one way or another."

I turned to look at the map that was still etched permanently into the rock, and assessed how far away this Metapha was. It was then that several questions came to my mind, each of them unanswerable. If this was to scale, exactly how big is the planet? Where in Bedoe were we? Where, in all of Metapha, were we supposed to go?

I realized then that Archer had probably already answered these questions while I'd been otherwise distracted with my stone, but pride wouldn't allow me to ask again. I prayed that Gray had paid attention, and turned towards the... um... well, since I couldn't pronounce whatever he'd said he was, towards the Murphy.

"Archer's been a big help, but if he says he can get there without us, I believe him. Shall we depart to this meeting place, then?"

I thought to myself, 'Okay, the list: Gravity?'

I suddenly had an uncomfortable sensation of having no weight, no mass, of floating off the ground.

'Check. Whew, Heat off?'

The wafting hot air that'd been breezing across my face suddenly diverted, and I could feel myself begin to move ever-so slowly upwards, less than an inch a second.

'Check.'

My smile came back, unbidden, to my face, and I gestured for Gray to join me up in the air.

[Gray]

Gray's eyes watched him, as if he were looking into every fiber of his being, seeing things that wasn't ready noticable to the naked eye. Then, when Prometheus began to rise into the air, he snapped out of the concentration.

"Yes, lets get going," Gray said with a nod floating up himself. "You must let me teach you Eyeel combat, you have a good form for it," he said almost off handedly with a shrug and gave a light hearted smile.

"Well, Prometheus," Gray said floating beside him and pulling out what looked like a clay flask that would normally hold water. "Lets figure out where to go," with that, he pulled the top off and poured out, not water, but sand, though it didn't fall far. The sand fell only a few inches before hitting what seemed to be an invisable table or something. The sand flattened out to create a thin square about 2 feet by 2 feet, almost paper thin.

"According to the map that Archer laid out," Gray waved his hand and the sand seemed to almost dance about, parts of sheet of sand rose, others moved, leaving air between them, until finally, it seemed as though Gray had made a topographical map of Archers out of the sand.

Gray glanced around looking towards the horizon. "We are... here," he said pointing to a flat area seemingly in the middle of no where, just like where they were. "We need to head... this way," on the map a thin, but noticable, snake trail made its way from one point on the map to the other and with his finger, Gray pointed in the direction.

"If we travel this way, we should be able to make it, though we are going to have to travel quickly," he said with a nod and a smile. "I hope on this other area, where we are going, there is something besides sand... this reminds me too much of home... Well, there is no time like the present, lets get going," he said and with a wave of his hand, which Archer might have seem a slight green glow to them, barely noticable, it coalesced back into itself and slid gently back into the clay canister from wence it came.

Gray had no issues with controlling a small amount of sand like that to his will, things like that were easy for him now, but he still had a long way to go.