Nana, sitting atop Todd’s shoulders, peered out, her eyes wide with wonder. "How can so much metal be moving so fast?!" she exclaimed, fascinated by the sight before her.
Ty realized the sight was new to both Nana and Todd: a train crossing the sky on magic. Their astonishment made sense. A month ago, he would have stopped too. Now he simply added it to the growing list of impossible things this world treated like public transportation.
For a second, he almost laughed at how normal the word train felt in his head compared to the thing roaring above them.
"Well, I can’t really explain why or how it’s flying, but I’m sure it’s due to whatever magic properties they have here. That appears to be a steam-style engine-based train.
In my world, trains like that were used for transporting a massive amount of people but died out due to how hard it was to maintain the railroads," he explained.
"I suppose they figured out that little problem though," Ty mused, his gaze following the train through the sky.
Nana stared after it, excitement taking over. "I want to learn more about the flying death trap!" she declared, her eyes still fixed on the vanishing train.
Todd shifted under her weight. "Maybe learn about it from down here."
"Coward."
"Correct."
The fairy opened one eye from its place near Nana’s shoulder. "Falling from that height would leave a very ugly stain."
Nana patted Todd’s head. "See? Educational."
Ty almost smiled. The moment helped. The bridge was too wide, too crowded, and too clean for the kind of danger he had learned to expect. Workers hauled crates under church banners. Children ran between carts until their mothers snapped them back by the collars. A pair of armored riders passed with lances folded against their saddles, and both of them stared at Todd long enough for Ty to notice.
As she expressed her fascination, Ty noticed the locals’ eyes on them, their gazes lingering on Nana’s animated reactions and Todd’s unusual appearance.
"The streets seem to be distracted by us," Ty observed, glancing at Todd with a knowing look. "I guess you get a lot of hate for looking like whatever creature they have here."
Todd reassured him, "It barely bothers me. I’ve dealt with it my entire life on Alexira. These people are nice compared to them."
His grin was wide, showcasing his unworried demeanor.
"You only say that because they give you free beer all the time, isn’t it?" Ty remarked with a sly smile, teasing his friend.
Todd just gave a slight shrug. Meanwhile, Nana continued to stare at the train as it passed by over the region, eventually descending out of sight between an array of buildings.
Ty, peering off into the distance and surrounded by foggy clouds, noticed that there were bridges spanning hundreds of miles off in other directions. ’I suppose that makes sense,’ Ty thought to himself.
"It only makes sense there are more ways to get in, but this is just the bridge to get to the main gate." As he pondered, his thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a man in a dark cloak bumped into him.
Ty’s eyes quickly caught a glimpse of a three-leaf clover icon on the man’s wrist, sparking a moment of recognition.
Hastily, he emptied his free hand into his pockets, only to find that the crystal given to him by the Demon King was missing. The realization dawned on him: the cloaked man had just pickpocketed him.
Panic hit Ty hard. The crystal was his only clean line back to Jade, and the thought of losing it on a bridge full of strangers made his hand close into a fist. "I’ve just been pickpocketed," he blurted out to Todd, his voice laced with urgency.
"Go ahead and wait for me at the end of the bridge. I’m going to chase this guy down," he decided swiftly.
"You don’t want me to help?" Todd asked, a note of surprise in his voice.
"No, you’re already scaring people enough," Ty replied without looking back, breaking into a sprint after the dark-cloaked figure, his resolve etched in every stride.
Ty, his skeleton frame concealed beneath a masterful human disguise, launched into a sprint.
Though he lacked the muscles and sinews of a living being, the illusion cloaked his movements with the fluidity and grace of a human runner.
His feet, nothing but bones artfully hidden, pounded against the cobblestone with the simulated weight and sound of flesh and blood.
The fog curled around his legs and broke apart behind him.
His breath, though unnecessary for his undead form, came in simulated gasps, crafted perfectly to mimic the rhythm of a human in haste.
His heart, long still in his skeletal chest, seemed to pound in his ears - a sensory illusion to complete his disguise.
The cloaked figure ahead cut through the crowd like a knife through cloth.
Ty followed with cold precision, the cloak of humanity disguising his true nature as he pursued the thief through the giant bridge. He dodged a fruit cart, slipped between two guards arguing over a cargo seal, and vaulted a stack of rope before the first shout behind him became a full sentence.
Ty, his voice echoing with an ounce of anger, shouted out to the cloaked figure. "Stop, before I seriously hurt you!"
The figure merely looked back at Ty with a playful grin. In one quick movement, he jumped onto the side of the bridge, where rapid waters churned beneath. The figure’s voice, young and playful, taunted Ty.
"See if you can catch up?"
Then he leaped off the bridge toward the water below. Instead of plunging into the depths, he hopped across empty air, moving towards a far-reaching cliff.
"How the flying Fuck..." Ty stopped himself short, his mind racing to figure out how to follow the man. ’I could have just had Nana pop his head,’ he thought, but that would have caused more problems.
Murdering someone on a bridge packed with people would bring unwanted attention. Losing the crystal might cost him Jade. Ty hated that the second problem felt larger, and hated even more that he understood why. He placed a finger over his lip, trying to choose his next move while the cloaked figure escaped.
Ty honed in on his focus, and time slowed down around him. The Wheel of Souls materialized in front of him, pale and steady against the chaos around the bridge.
He muttered to himself, evaluating his options: "Fire, Yami King, Gravity guy, Barrier guy, The Wolves... No, no, none of these will do."
An idea struck Ty. A terrible idea. A falling idea, the kind a person had when every reasonable option had already sprinted away wearing a stolen cloak.
"I’ve seen this done in some TV shows, so maybe it can work here?" he thought.
He reached for the Flame Life orb and the Barrier Life orb, which he had started to disassociate from their actual human counterparts.
In his palms, they began to glow, their light intensifying as two new orbs replaced their spots. A giant cranking noise erupted inside Ty’s mind, accompanied by a small voice that gradually grew louder. "Yes, continue on," it encouraged.
As the Wheel faded away, time surged back to its normal pace. A number appeared above the now-vanishing wheel, initially showing 1320, before shifting to 13:18.
The sequence seemed to hold some deeper significance, a hidden message or code that Ty had yet to decipher.
That must be how many souls are left in a blank slate, Ty pondered, but the significance of the colon in the number sequence eluded him.
As time snapped back into motion, he noticed it accelerating, catching up to the time he had gained during the freeze.
"So even if I use this ability to freeze time, it will cause the moments afterward to speed up," he thought, recognizing the inconsistent nature of this power. "I can’t overthink it now," he decided, focusing on the task at hand.
With a sense of urgency, Ty summoned fire to his hands. It swirled like a vortex, grasping at the soles of his feet. Without hesitation, he leaped off the side of the bridge.
The dark-cloaked figure, slightly turning around, showed a shocked grin at Ty’s bold pursuit.
As Ty fell, he released all the fire from his hand. The soles of his shoes transformed into a translucent half-dome, from which small flickers jetted out.
An eruption of flame shot out, doubling Ty’s speed. He had combined the fire with the barrier ability, using it as a thrust inducer for controlled speed.
Struggling to stabilize himself in mid-air, Ty momentarily lost sight of the dark-cloaked man, who had reached the ground and dashed off with incredible swiftness.
Ty steadied himself, the flames transitioning from orange to a darker blue, signaling a further increase in speed. He surged forward towards the man at blinding speed. The bridge dropped behind him, then the cliff rushed closer, then the thief became a moving black mark against the pale stone path below.
Meanwhile, at the edge of the bridge, Todd had caught up and turned to Nana, remarking, "I guess we really do just gotta wait for him."
Nana leaned forward until Todd grabbed her ankle.
"Do not jump after him," Todd said.
"I was measuring."
"Measure from here."
The fairy looked down at the water, then at the shrinking blue fire in the distance.
"He has poor survival manners."
Todd sighed. "Yeah. That sounds like him."
Ty kept chasing the figure, propelled forward by the messy new use of his powers.
Ty’s voice echoed back towards them through the air. Around them, dozens of onlookers had gathered, their eyes wide with awe and disbelief.
They watched, spellbound, as Ty’s figure, now a diminishing speck in the distance, leaped daringly off the bridge.
The spectacle of the chase began to break apart as people returned to their carts, arguments, and deliveries. The bridge swallowed the shock quickly. A place this large had practice moving on.
Nana, amidst the murmuring crowd, placed a hand over her face. "There should have been an easier way than this," she murmured.