Purple Phoenix

Chapter Twenty-Five

Okay, I lied, but just a little bit. There's no action fighting in this chapter. I'm sorry. BUT, I promise you, 100%, action fighting in the next one. Even if my brain decides to do something funky, I swear on my Precalc grade that I WILL have action in the next chapter- no matter what. But don't worry, it's going to get heated pretty soon :). 

- Orspace

The air whipped by my face, causing my hair to fly wildly. A strand of hair somehow got stuck in my mouth, and I tried to spit it out. When that didn't work, I grabbed and pulled it out. My nose scrunched up as the hair slid out of my mouth. This was making me regret not bringing a hair elastic.

Soraya, flying beside me in the shape of an eagle, gave me an amused look (as much as an eagle can look amused), before using her wings to propel her like a dancer in the air. She dipped down, her brown feathers a dark contrast versus the green fields. In the distance, however, I spotted an abrupt ending of the green and the entrance of the gray. The rising buildings towered over the puny humans, and soon enough, the noises of the city entered my perception. I flew faster, swirling the air underneath my feet. Soraya flapped her wings quicker to catch up with my pace.

I looked down at my suit before we neared the city. Even though I knew that Soraya could not speak as a bird, I talked to her. "By the way, Soraya, this suit might cause some trouble. I would not be surprised if someone would see me because I'm basically a beacon of red in the sky."

Soraya gave a loud caw in response.

"You know you can ask your Talker to camouflage your suit, right?" I jerked when I heard Lidia's clear, annoyed voice in my earpiece.

I sputtered. "Since when can you hear us?"

"Since always? Why do you think I gave you the earpieces?" She snorted. "Obviously so I can communicate with you."

"I didn't have time to connect the dots." I rolled my eyes. "Also, do I just... ask the Talker to be camouflaged?"

"Yeah," Lidia responded, "Say: Talker, activate camouflage."

"Okay... um. Talker? Activate camouflage?"

"Camouflage activated." A woman spoke in my earpiece, her voice reminding me of Lidia's, but not quite. I looked down again, to check to see if something changed. And indeed, it did. My body was... gone. But when I moved my hand back and forth, I could see the faint outlines of my arm. Bringing my arm close to my face, I narrowed my eyes at it. The fabric mirrored the green terrain; it seemed I was looking directly through it. I poked my arm, and the suit displayed a ripple effect, like water. "Cool."

Lidia kept quiet, but I decided to test other capabilities of the suit. "Talker, activate GPS."

"GPS activated. Where would you like to go?" She asked me.

"A building on..." I searched my brain for the name. "Burlington street, I think?"

She informed me, "Okay, GPS calculated. Please continue flying straight. In three miles, turn a sharp right."

Her name, 'Talker', seemed weird to me. She sounded like a real person, so she deserved a real name. "Hey, what should I call you? Like a name, I mean."

"You can call me whatever you'd like."

"How about Iris?" I proposed as Soraya and I entered the towering height of Shard city. I found cities fun because fear, but at the same time, excitement, coursed through my veins when I twirled around skyscraper after skyscraper, dipping, and rising like a trained bullet. The city was to me as a playground to a child.

"Sure, Iris sounds good," Iris said, "Please take a right turn now."

"Go right," I called out Soraya. I angled myself right, and Soraya shot after me based on where my voice came from since she couldn't see me. I continued following Iris' directions until we arrived at Burlington street, one of the streets that bordered between the skyscrapers and the so-called 'ghettos' of the city. In a way, I supposed, the 'second' ring of the city.