Where we were headed was very far away and would take quite some time to get to. I had found out about this place when I was traveling in search of my father. I wasn’t sure what the city was actually called, but I liked to call it the city of healers. Everything they did there was dedicated to healing the body from whatever illness it had.
The sun began to set and I put the plane down in a small field of grass, to set up camp for the night. I looked around the field there wasn’t anything around us, just a few trees spread far apart. I couldn’t help but think there was nothing that could be used for cover if we needed it. “We will spend the night here, we will need to rest tonight, tomorrow we can head out on foot.” I said to Anabella as I set up a tent for us to sleep in. She looked over at me with a confused look on her face then spoke. “Why would we go the rest of the way on foot when we have that flying thing to use, wouldn’t it be faster if we just flew the rest of the way?” She asked me as she pulled some of the bags out and sat on them. “Well, it’s not about how fast we get there, but more of getting there without trouble, I know that they will be unhappy that I took the plane for one and two what I did before leaving must have made them very angry with me.” I explained as I finished setting up the tent.
“That and they can track the plane, so if we travel in it, they will be on our trail by the end of the day tomorrow. So in the morning I’m going to send the plane off in the other direction we have to go from here on out. Besides you will enjoy the walk it’s not that far from here just a few days hick.” I said with a smile getting into the tent and laying back.
“Are you going to stay out there all night or are you going to come and get some rest.” I said and paused for a second as I waved at her. “Maybe you think I’m going to do something to you, you know I’m not a pervert even though you think so I’m a nice person.” I said again as I closed my eyes, at this point I didn’t care if she came in or not I was too tired to think anymore. Seeing that I didn’t sleep the night before and after chasing her all day yesterday I was already about to fall asleep while setting up the tents.
The morning came much too quickly for my liking. Before my eyes could open, I felt something on my arm moving slowly. I opened my eyes and looked over at what was there and I saw her there snuggling up to my arm. “Awww, you’re so cute like a little girl, and I thought you didn’t want to be next to me in here.” I said waking her from her sleep.
*Slap*!
She hit me right across my face a lot harder than I expected her to be able to. “Shut up you. You pervert it’s your fault you had one tent, you just wanted to try and get me in here so you could have your way with me.” She said as she pushed me away from her, I just laughed and got up. “Come on pack up your things we have to get going in a bit. There is a lake about a mile up from here, we will stop there and eat before hiking. I will go get rid of the plane while you get ready for the journey.” I said to her as I walked over to the plane and started packing everything up for the upcoming journey.
It didn’t take us long to pack everything up and be ready to get going, we hopped into the plane and off it flew. I brought it down by the lake to let her out and to take out what we would need for the journey. Then I headed back in the other direction along the path that we were taking the day before. I jammed the controls for the plane in place to keep it flying in a straight line, then opened the hatch and out I jumped hitting the ground seconds later. “Hmm, I wonder how far they are behind me; I know there’s no way that they would just let me leave just like that.” I said to myself looked around then vanished. I reappeared at the top of a tree a few hundred feet away. “Did you hear something?” I asked myself as if I was going to answer back. I looked all around to see what I could have heard; I heard it again, a whispering sound coming from the distance. I turned and looked, and there in the distance were five carriers headed this way. I smiled and vanished.
I went from one phantom step right into another all the way back to the lake. Something I soon learned wasn’t a good idea when I wanted to stop. I appeared at the edge of the lake, trying to look like I was totally the man. Going from one phantom step into another meant I was actually gaining a bit of speed each time, and that the air behind me was following me with quite a bit of force. So instead of coming to a stop next to the lake, I appeared and stumbled just a bit almost falling into the lake. Then, as I tried to play it off the force of the air that was following me hit me and sent me flying about three feet in the air and falling straight into the water.
“Oh wow is that how you look cool, I mean I know you’re from a different time than me, but was it ever cool to get knocked into a lake by wind.” Anabella said laughing at me. “Oh, ha ha very funny, I’m glad that I amuse you.” I said back to her as I walked out of the water. “Did you make us something to eat, I’m hungry.” I asked her as I walked over to the fire that was there.
After I finished eating and getting ready to go, I looked at her with a very sinister smile. “I’m going to need one of the vile of shadow. I am also going to need you to actually learn how to use the phantom style the right way, so take one of my coats and put it on it will protect you so you can move a bit easier. Do you see that tree over there?” I said, pointing at a tree about 700 feet away. “Yeah, I see it what about it?” She answered me with a confused tone. “Well get going you have a minute to get there, I need to see how you actually move before I can help you move the way you should.” I said back to her as I put the backpack on and pulled it tight.
She looked at me angrily, then vanished, I watched closely as she moved to see just what she was doing that was hurting her body. She arrived at the top of the tree and I smiled, I moved appearing next to her a few seconds later. “Let’s go no time to waste.” I whispered in her ear as my hands went around her waist and I moved vanishing and taking her with me.
I kept going pushing myself from one phantom step into another without stopping. Spinning around trees as I moved rushing through the forest, leaving a path of broken trees behind me as the air, followed me ripping through the leaves and branches behind me. I stopped after twenty miles at the top of a tree, then just dropped straight down from it and vanishing again a few feet from the bottom, appearing on the ground looking up and watching the top of the tree get ripped off by the air that was following me.
“We can take a break here for a bit, I’m going to take a nap can you make me something to eat after all it’s only fair I’ve been carrying you this whole time.” I said to her smiling with my eyes closed, expecting her to slap me. “Yeah I’ll make you something for when you get up.” She said as I heard her walk away from where I was laying. I was left speechless; there wasn’t even any anger in her voice. Maybe she was hungry too, even though we had eaten about a half hour before. On the other hand, maybe she was actually being nice to me now and she was over the calling me a pervert thing.
“Wake up pervert you have slept long enough, and I made you something to eat even though I shouldn’t have.” She said as she pushed me, waking me up from my nap. “I guess not.” Was the first thing I thought as I opened my eyes. “Yeah yeah I’m up now let me eat, we have a long way ahead of us for today.” I said as I stretched a bit, then took the food she handed me.
“So you have a few problems when you move.” I said to her as I ate the food she made. “What you need to do is relax first, it seems as though you are working against yourself when you move because of how tense you are. This taste good by the way. Anyway, what you need to do is to plan your movements before you move, plan all of them so that you are thinking what you will do after your next two moves before you make the first. Also, you need to clear your mind of all other thoughts.”
I finished eating and stood up, then looked around and spotted a small clearing about half a mile away on the side of the hills where we were about to go into. “There I want you to get to the clearing right there make sure you do what I told you and you should be able to get there with no problem at all.” I said with a smile as I pointed at the clearing.
She looked up at it and vanished, I gave her a few seconds, then I pulled the straps on the backpack I was wearing tight, then I vanished. I showed up, turned around, put my hands out, and caught her, as she appeared falling forward. “That was a lot better and sees it didn’t hurt this time did it. You still need a lot of work, but we will work on it tomorrow when we arrive.” I wrapped my hands around her and smiled. “Hold on tight, we are going a lot further this time than we did before.” I said with a smile and vanished.
I stopped to rest for a few minutes every few miles for the rest of the day. However, we spent most of the day moving. Though we could have walked I knew that I should hurry and get there to get her looked at, I had a strange feeling that something was off about her. I also had a good idea that the cause of it was the shadow, which was actually the reason I was teaching her how to move better.
The sun started to set and I stopped for the day, we had traveled almost 400 miles already, this means that we could walk the rest of the way tomorrow and I was really tired. We set up camp for the night in a large valley that lay at the bottom of a volcano.
I watched the stars in the sky as I thought about my life so far, I figured I would sleep out here tonight and let her have the tent all to herself. I smiled, it was such a clear night as I drifted off to sleep, thinking about what I would be doing the next morning.
I was awoken the next morning by a tug on my arm. It was her getting all comfortable with my arm. “Really, it’s time to wake up we have a long day ahead of us Anabella.” I said to her as I pulled my hand from under her. She just looked at me with a blank expression that screamed, I got caught. She didn’t say anything at all as we got ready for the long walk ahead of us. Which I honestly found to be a bit disturbing.
We headed towards the volcano; it wasn’t a hard walk seeing that everything was flat. Well for now, anyway once we hit the climb we would be going up 2 miles and only half a mile forward so pretty much climbing straight up. “I think I want to skip this part, hey do you want to carry me for a change.” I said with a straight face, hoping for here to give me her normal reaction, but instead of a slap, I got a look. “No, you just want to be on top of me you pervert. Don’t go thinking I like you because of last night. I only did that because there were bugs in the tent, I think you put them there to scare me.” She said as she looked at me with an angry look. I just laughed it was nice to see her back to her normal self.
We began the very steep and long climb up the side of the volcano, wasn’t long before we were tired and needed a break. As we rested, I looked over the side to see how far we had gotten, and was kind of disappointed that we had barely even gone anywhere. Looks like this climb was going to be a lot more difficult than I had originally expected. “Do you think we can make it to the top by nightfall?” I asked Annabella while drinking some water and looking out and up at the top of the volcano. “No, that’s not happening, it just isn’t I mean really, do you see how far up the top is. We will be lucky if we make it there tomorrow.” She replied to me, then stood up and began to climb again.
We climbed until the sun set that day. “Let’s stop I can’t keep going I can hardly see. And I’m a girl stop making me work so hard you pervert.” She said as she sat down on a small rock that stuck out from the cliff face we were climbing up. I looked at her and then I looked up, we were only an hours climb from the top and there was nowhere for us to sleep safely here. “Sigh we can’t stop here, it’s not safe you could fall if we aren’t paying attention. I guess I’ll have to carry you up the rest of the way. Take the rope and tie it around me and you then hold on tight, this is going to be a lot bumpier than before.” I said to her as I helped her wrap the rope around us.
I took a look at everything around me then found a good solid rock to stand on to get started from. Then I took a deep breath as I looked to see where I could jump to, and then vanish. I went from rock to rock as quickly as I could vanishing right after I appeared on it in order not to stay on them for too long. I wasn’t going to take the chance and wait to see if the rock or where ever I appeared on would hold our weight. A few minutes later and we were at the mouth of the volcano looking over into it as clouds of white smoke slowly drifted up to us.
“We are here finally, the city of the healers is below us are you ready to go.” I said to her then jumped before she could give me an answer.
Continues in Chapter 21 or go to previous Chapter 19
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