Up and Down Walls (Koga)

He was running again, through the streets. He'd been running a long time. Massive feet thumping the pavement like palms on a bongo drum. Cars in the streets bounced to the rise-fall beat of his legs. And then he broke the street line, and scraped to a stop in front of the vendor. A giant red finger pointed up at the picture on the vendor's menu, then down to its own chest. The vendor shook one head, then nodded upwards to the sky with the second.

Shin reached upwards, scraped... hopped. But could not reach. All the strength in the world, and cotton candy cloud puffs were still beyond his grasp.

He woke sweating. Back shot straight up in bed. Hazel eyes turned to squint at the clock's glaring '3:17' menace.

"Too early..." But now he couldn't sleep. The image drifting by his mind's eye wouldn't float away. The accumulation of cumulus was like smog on the horizon. The covers fell away as Shin rolled himself out of bed. Lips smacked. Food rattled into a dog's dish. He plucked a blueberry bagel from the bag on his mini-fridge, and pulled a container of whipped cream cheese and a knife from within. Padding over cold wooden floor and carpet to the window, he leaned against the sill to gaze.

Stars still in the early-morning sky. The lights of the city obscured heavenly bodies less here at the mansion. It must've had to do with how good a neighborhood they lived in. Or maybe the fact their large front lawn didn't have a light every five steps.

The taste of cloud cotton candy still tugged at his mind. He'd never tasted cotton candy made from cloud puffs, not even in his dreams, but he had to think... it tasted good. And even when he'd been in Abyss's form, he'd been unable to reach the sky. Kasumi could jump high. Koga could climb walls. But even with all the strength that red giant had mustered, Shin had still been forced to deal with two feet firmly rooted to the ground.

People dream of flying. It is their way. He remembered when he was younger, and how the dreams had been. Good, humorous, clever... there was always an inventive method Shin had discovered to circumvent gravity. Be it a hover-car, a pair of wax wings, or a milk jug one blew in to levitate and swim through the air, he'd always woken up the same.

Falling. Flat on his face, feet to the ground, nose to the grindstone. He'd told his dad once about the dream. Pops had told him "Get your head out of the clouds." He'd tried to pass off the dreams as a phase of childhood. Told himself he'd been a big dreamer.

But dammit. Even big dreams have a chance at becoming reality. It's all about what one does to make it so!!

Being in Abyss, he'd been inspired by many vague and disconnected ideas. I guess walking in another person's shoes, you got to feel the extra wiggle for toes. And all that strength, Shin had wondered, had to have some sort of relevance in his own mutation... He could move things with his mind. Lift them with shards, and drop them. The ring toss with Jewel, Juka, and Shana had proven that to him. He'd had enough practice building constructs with shards to know their strength... and he'd had enough time to suspect the levitation they possessed had alternate strengths he hadn't explored. The creeping suspicion grew on him, until it was choking Shin's throat like a morning glory chokes a dahlia. Why couldn’t he?

Why couldn’t he test that theory to see if shard levitation could be put to further use!?

Staring at the navy haze of clouds at 6AM as the sun crept ever up, inspiration came to Shin. He turned the last half-disc of bagel in his hand so that it contrasted with sky like a Frisbee. He’d fly today. He’d fly, or die trying.

And the creativity that had driven him to conceptualize the idea of a skyward shard platform hadn’t stopped there. He’d fly alright.

In a giant moving maze of stairs and walls and floor.

And Koga would help him learn how.

~*~

Shin’s footsteps creaked down the old mansion floorboards of the second floor hall. He’d showered, walked Thor, and dressed in the three hours since cloudburst had shocked him out of sheets. He wore a red t-shirt with a curled dragon over his top, and blue jeans. A silver chain necklace wrapped around his neck.

The person he’d chosen to train with today wasn’t chosen out of the blue. Ever since Ghost had been assaulted and Koga had injured his arm, Shin had been a scant worried about the little Lizard-boy’s power level, and its proximity to values above 8000. The training session would be good for Koga. Shin had chosen him for that reason, and that reason alone.

Oh, and there was the fact the training session idea he had was awesome, and Koga’d probably get a kick out of it.

That too.

“Knock knock.” Three quick raps at Koga’s door. Shin called to the inhabitants within. “Rise and shine. It’s time to get sunny-side up! I’ve got a training regimen to follow, and you’re getting roped in too!”