Hermes - Plan to save the plane

As her mind raced searching for a solution, she stumbled into the meeting room and noticed a pair of green pants huddled beneath the table. “Mister Conrad!” she shouted over the rumbling of the plane’s shattered engines.

“Yes?!” Hermes called, his voice a thready wail of undiluted panic.

“Is this how you plan to die?!” she called, her cool temperament slipping as panic let her anger seep out. “Mewling beneath cover whilst your team fights and dies protecting you?!”

“That was more or less the plan, yes!”

Despite the tension of the situation, Elodie rolled her eyes and scoffed with disdain at her counterpart’s cowardice. “We are falling out of the sky, Hermes, and our options are rapidly dwindling! Perhaps if we combine our efforts, we can save this plane! Luke is struggling to pilot the craft, and Aqua cannot suspend it for much longer.”

“No,” came Hermes’ voice softly, barely loud enough to hear. “No, no, no no no…”

Running out of options, Elodie connected her thoughts to Hermes’ mind. What she found was… perfect order. Not just a semblance of order, but every single thought rigidly documented, filed, and organized. It was a spectacle of function over form, of a unified mind in perfect synchronization with itself. More than that, Hermes had turned that mind towards the world around him.

“No,” Hermes repeated as he crawled out from beneath the table. His eyes were distant, unfocused, as if he was amazed by his own thoughts. With a start, Elodie understood why- the ideas springing to mind like a geyser had only just occurred to him. He’d had… no, ‘epiphany’ was too simple a word, too incomplete. He’d had an awakening.

Hermes brushed past Elodie in a daze, wiggling his hips this way and that to perfectly balance his weight with the shaking of the aircraft. He reached Aqua, whose focus was on maintaining her anti-gravity field, and began to inspect her posture, adjusting her back with a finger and pushing her arms up and down an inch here or there.

“Wh-what are you doing?!” Aqua cried in confusion.

“No no no,” Hermes said in a daze, “Poor posture. Inefficient.” He turned to face the cockpit and frowned deeply. “No no no no no,” he said softly, then turned back to Elodie, braced against one of the chairs. *How many objects can Luke manipulate at once with the Force?*

*At least one per hand,* Elodie answered.

*Does Aqua know other spells? Combat spells?*

Elodie nodded. Hermes frowned in thought for a moment, then looked back at her. *I can save this plane.*

A moment later, Aqua, Danny and Luke felt Elodie’s thoughts enter their mind. *Are you serious?* asked Luke and Danny at the same time. *She’ll die!*

*That’s why we need you to let go of the controls,* Elodie explained. *We can’t perfectly pilot the plane and defend it at the same time without failing at both. We can, however, defend the ship and guide it well enough to keep it from crashing. Move.*

The seeds of further argument having been stamped out, Luke let go of the controls and moved to the cabin, where he opened the door for Aqua. Danny grunted in pain as the full weight of the plane pressed onto his back, but a moment later it lightened as Luke extended one arm towards the cockpit, gripping the front of the plane with the Force and tugging it up, lightening the load and guiding it towards the airport as best he could. With his other hand he reached out to Aqua, anchoring her to the side of the plane like a magnet. Without falling to worry about, Aqua clambered onto the roof of the plane and got her feet beneath her. All around the plane, a maelstrom of winged creatures swarmed, preparing another assault on the plane’s damaged hull.

Aqua’s keyblade manifested in one hand, and she extended it upward like a banner. Power bloomed in her mind, and she brought it to bear with a raw shriek of adrenaline.

**“THUNDAGA!”**

(...)

At this point, the plane hardly resembled a plane so much as a tube of metal with a bunch of very-killable people inside. While Aqua’s defense of the plane was admirable and Danny had done a lot to protect the plane’s underbelly, the two could only do so much. The wings had been torn completely off along with the plane’s tail, and gouges in the airship’s hull from the constant attacks had torn off the landing gear, windows, and much of the sides. It was the carcass of a plane, but for the time being it held, and that would have to be enough.

Inside the plane, Elodie had constant telepathic contact with all three fighters running to assess the situation. *Luke?*

*I’ve got it in the right direction, but it’s gonna be close- with the wings fried, that’s the best I can hope for.*

*Aqua?*

*I think they’re backing off- did you hear that scream just a second ago?*

*Danny?*

*OHGODMYBACKMYARMSEVERYTHINGHURTSHOLYSHITOWOWOWOW*

Elodie turned to Hermes, who had already strapped himself to a nearby chair with about as many straps and belts as he could possibly find. “Mister Conrad, have you any ideas?”

“I DON’T WANNA DIE!!” Hermes screamed.

***

Round 8, FreestyleKneepad