Shinji’s jaw hurt from clenching so hard, his knuckles white as they gripped the statue. Beside him, Lucy and Roux were tense, with Lucy trying not to gasp every time the plane fell from the sky. Oliver had both hands on the wall next to his seat, bracing himself, and even Phoebe looked a little green.
The plane rose sharply into the air, thrown by a gust of wind, and Shinji’s stomach leaped to his throat.
“Woo-hoo!” Scarlett cheered, as if they were on a roller coaster at a theme park and not fighting a monstrous natural
disaster. “Is that the best you got, you nasty thing? Come on, why are you holding back?”
“Scarlett, maybe we shouldn’t taunt the angry, mythological hurricane god,” Oliver said through a clenched jaw. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think attracting the Storm Boar’s attention is the best strategy.…Oh.”
His voice trailed off, and Lucy let out a gasp. Shinji looked out the window, just as a section of clouds broke away from the rest, swirling into the form of an enormous boar. Not the Storm Boar itself, Shinji realized; this was a cloud shaped like a wild pig, not the massive, intimidating Storm Boar of legend. But it was still huge and powerful-looking, nearly as big as the plane, and clearly not happy.
With a thunderous roar that caused lightning to erupt around it, the cloud boar charged the plane.
Scarlett banked hard, barely dodging the boar as it thundered past, and Roux let out a yelp as the plane dropped from the sky. Oliver braced himself against the wall again, squeezing his eyes shut. “Right, I think my point has been made. If we live through this, remind me to tell you I told you so.”
“Why is the stupid pig attacking us?” Roux wanted to know. “We’re trying to give him back his statue. Stop trying to kill us, pig!”
“I think he’s just too enraged to see reason,” Phoebe said, grabbing her seat belt as the plane dodged the pig once more.
“He doesn’t care who we are or what we’re trying to do; he’s just lashing out at everything in his anger.”
The plane swerved away from the boar’s next attack, but this time, it didn’t move fast enough. A tusk clipped one of the wings, and a vicious blast of wind upended the plane, sending it spiraling away into the clouds.Rhetttumbled through the air, making Shinji feel like he was in the inside of a blender. Both Lucy and Roux screamed, and Shinji closed his eyes, gripping the idol and focusing on not throwing up.
Scarlett finally got the plane under control, stopping their free fall through empty space. “Okay!” she announced as they righted themselves. “That’s not something they teach in flight school. How’s everyone doing? Still hanging in there?”
“Great,” Oliver wheezed. “Maybe when we’re done here, we can go back for my stomach; I think it flew out the window and is floating around the ocean by now.”
Shinji looked up. Overhead, the swirling clouds parted, revealing the wispy form of the pig glaring down at them. It pawed at invisible ground and tossed its head, squealing a challenge, as lightning flashed and thunder boomed around it.
“Well, that beastie is going to make it very hard to go any farther,” Scarlett muttered, also watching the cloud boar with narrowed blue eyes. “Flying in a hurricane is tricky enough; another hit like that, and we might be swimming home.”
Shinji set his jaw, feeling a tingling power stir within. Reaching down, he unbuckled his seat belt, causing the others to blink and frown at him.
“Shinji, what are you doing?” Oliver asked. “Sit down and buckle up. If we take another fall, your brains are going to be all over the seats.”
“I know what to do,” Shinji said quietly. The power swirled inside him, straining to be unleashed. “Scarlett, fly right at the Storm Boar,” he said, pointing out the windshield. “No turning or swerving out of the way. Don’t stop for anything.”
“Oh,” Scarlett said, glancing over her shoulder with a raised brow. “So, we’re playing chicken with a giant mythological storm god, are we? Sounds like fun. Did you hear that,Rhett?” She patted the dashboard of the plane. “Time to show it what you can do. Let’s go!”
The plane surged forward and up, rising through the clouds and driving rain, toward the cloud creature that was waiting for them. The pig roared a challenge, slashing the air with its tusks, then lowered its head and charged.
Shinji raised a hand, fingers spread wide, feeling the power of the storm whipping through the air. It churned inside him as well, as wild and unpredictable as the wind. This time, he didn’t try to grab on to the magic or control it. He let it swirl around him, shaping it into what he wanted.
“Shinji!” Lucy cried, her voice seeming to come from far away. “The boar is going to hit us!”
No, it won’t,Shinji thought, and let the magic go.
A long, serpentine form rose up from the roiling storm below the airplane. Its feathered body seemed made of clouds, though its eyes blazed emerald green as it soared into the air. On great, sweeping wings, the cloud Coatl flew like an arrow at the charging boar, who gave a snort of alarm and swerved aside at the last second. Wheeling around, the boar squealed in rage and came at them again. Shinji swept his hand out, and the Coatl flew between them, forcing the pig to change direction once more.
“It’s working!” Roux cried, watching the battle rage between the two huge creatures in the sky. Abandoning its attempts to charge the airplane, the boar turned its fury on the Coatl. It darted and lunged through the clouds, slashing at the Coatl with its long tusks, but the winged serpent was quick and agile and dodged out of the way. Winds still buffeted the plane, tossing it like it was made of paper, but Scarlett kept the vessel under control as they continued through the storm.
“Hold on to your seats,” she said. “I think we’re just about there.”
Almost as if it heard her, the boar spun around, blue eyes flashing dangerously. The Coatl lunged at it, but it leaped away and sprang into the clouds, vanishing from sight for a few seconds. For a moment, the winds died down, the lightning ceased, and the rain beating against the windows calmed.
“I don’t like this,” Oliver muttered, his gaze wary as he stared out the window. “It’s too quiet. Usually that means something big is about to happen—”
The clouds parted, and the boar stepped directly in front of them. Eyes blazing, it raised its head with a squeal, and the sky overhead erupted with lightning. White-hot energy strands rained down, flashing like strobe lights.