Hermes - Catching a plane

Gon made it to Yellow first, and raced to her side to catch her. She hadn’t realized she was about to fall over, but the jolt helped her keep her head. “They’re going to…” she slurred slightly, before getting her wits about her and snapping out of it. “They’re going to shield the plane,” she said to Gon and Karin, the latter of which was sporting a series of ornate ribbons wrapped around her eyes. No time to ask now, if it didn’t seem to be hurting her then it wasn’t a concern. “We need to slow its descent, cushion the landing.”

“Maybe with…” Karin began, before getting visibly concerned. “If there was no other way…”

Gon, however, grinned from ear to ear, despite sporting a healthy bruise on half of his face where he’d taken a hard hit from a kaiju.

“What?” Yellow asked.

Gon’s grin widened further. “You’re saying we need to catch it.”

Once Gon explained the plan (based on a dodgeball match, of all things), Yellow relayed the information to Elodie.

“They’re going to *what?!*” Luke demanded. Aqua was silent, but only because Luke had voiced her question for her.

“They’re going to ‘catch’ us,” Elodie repeated. “By cu-” A piece of metal tore from the nose of the plane and screeched along the hull, and Elodie seamlessly switched to thought before they lose too much time. *By cushioning the runway as much as possible, they plan to soften the blow to a survivable level. We can then help that along by shielding ourselves from this end.*

“That’s insane!” Luke said back. “We’ll get pulped on landing!”

“We’re pretty much out of options,” Danny admitted from his spot spread-eagled on the floor of the plane, “Unless YOU want to go hold up the plane for a bit. Try it, it’s really fun.” Luke shot him a bit of a glare and Danny cackled derisively. “Besides, I have faith in my friends.”

Elodie nodded. “I’ll give them the go-ahead. Get ready to land.”

From the ground, the fast-approaching plane best resembled a falling comet or a stone flung from a catapult- unwieldy, dangerous, and likely to destroy anything it hit. If anything, it made Gon’s “catch it” plan about fifty times crazier than it already seemed. But now that they were all on the same page, there was nothing to do but try it and hope it worked. Omny had spent the past minute or so churning up a blizzard, pumped as much as Yellow could manage to coat the ground in snow. It wouldn’t help much, but any cushion was a good cushion. After that, Dody got in position near the end of the runway, and at Yellow command began to whip up a Whirlwind of epic proportions. Again, it wouldn’t land the plane on its own, but it would kite it along another few hundred feet, which was enough.

All according to plan, the Plane neared the end of the runway, falling like a rock, and Dody’s winds pushed it sideways, so that its trajectory resembled more of a long jump than a free fall. That set it in line for Gon and Karin, who leapt into the air as one, placing themselves directly in the flight path. Just before collision, Gon raised one hand containing a bright red Pokeball. A flash of red light summoned Gravvy, who immediately went into Defense Curl, as per Yellow’s orders. That was the easy part.

The plane hit like… well, like a plane. Even with everything they had done to prepare, when the nose crashed into Gravvy and Gravvy slammed into Gon, even with all of his Nen focused into his chest and arms for defense, it still knocked the wind out of him harder than any blow he’d taken before. He scrambled to get a firm grip on the cracks of Gravvy’s thick shell, any form of handhold at all, and then his back collided with Karin’s stomach.

The three “caught” the plane like a pane of glass catches a bullet- they were forced backward hard by the sheer speed and weight of the object they were trying to stop, pulled along like just another part of the wreckage. When they hit the fresh snow on the runway, though, Gon’s plan kicked in. Gon and Karin dug in their heels as hard as they could, grinding deep gouges in the earth as they fought against more pressure and weight than any one of them could handle on their own. Gon groaned with raw pain as he felt his legs trembling with exertion, but still he held strong. The sensation stretched on for an eternity as the plane pushed them further and further, but as Gon was reaching his limit, he felt it slow, then stop entirely.

For a few moments, the airport was very, very still and very, very quiet.

Hermes’ voice pierced the silence like a trumpet. **“SWEET SNOW SLOTH OF HOTH, WE’RE ALIVE!”**

***

Round 8, FreestyleKneepad