Elven Raised

The Ether

Fletcher and Othello walked through the halls of Vocans, heading to their next etherwork class. Fletcher thought back to the day before, and his duel with Tarquin, Isadora, and Malik. None of them had been punished in any way, which he had expected, and now they would all be together again in class. Talk about tension. Fletcher smirked at the thought and wondered if they were scared of him now. They probably were. He did take them out in a three on one confrontation.

They arrived in class and sat down as the rest of the class filed in around them. Sylva sat to his right, and Othello on his left. He noticed that Astoria had decided to sit with the nobles, in between Tarquin and Malik, and narrowed his eyes slightly, before turning back to face Captain Lovett. She spoke for several minutes about the ether and its dangers, all of it was information that Fletcher already knew, before getting ready to create a portal.

The portal opened into the deadlands, and Fletcher watched with interest as Lovett's mite, Valens, flew through the air. He had never seen this part of the ether as the elvish keys( basically coordinates for where in the ether the portal appears.) which tended to not only be in a completely different area of the ether, but also many more demons, and powerful ones at that. It was where he had gotten Bur and Vol, although Vol had been near where the elves thought the orcs part of the ether was.

Valens continued to fly around, passing other mites as she went. Fletcher could see the strain on Lovett's face and wondered why she wasn't using a charging stone before coming to the conclusion that she just wanted to use this as a teaching moment, without any of the methods used to make it easier. Just a traditional portal to the ether.

Fletcher watched as Valens drew near to the edge of the ether's disk, and looked down at the abyss, filled with tentacles horrors, before turning around and flying back towards the portal. As Valens neared the portal she got hit with something from behind, causing the mite to fall the few feet to the ground. The mite turned and saw a shrike standing there, ready to finish of Valens.

Lovett cursed as Valens dodged the shrike before gesturing at Fletcher and a cabinet

" Quickly, get me an ether suit. I need to get in there." Fletcher ran over to the cabinet she had pointed to and pulled out a heavy suit. He brought it over to the captain, who quickly put it on. She handed Sylva and Othello a cord that was attached to the back of her suit

" Keep a hold of this cord, it keeps me able to breathe, and when I get Valens, use it to pull me back." they nodded and Lovett stepped into the portal. She slowly made her way towards the injured demon, before picking Valens up and starting to turn back to the portal. However, as she did so the shrike struck out, cracking her visor, and allowing the ether's poisonous air into her lungs. She collapsed to the ground, and as Othello and Sylva tried to pull her back, a horde of shrikes landed around her, and one of them cut the cord, stopping them from pulling Lovett out.

Quickly Fletcher ran to the portal and looked at the coordinates before powering up a portal of his own in the same area. He quickly summoned all his demons other than Athena and sent them through the portal. Vol and Ignatius ran at the shrikes, breathing fire at them to get them away from the captain. Once they did this Bur raced forward and picked up Captain Lovett, before turning back to the portal, Ozzle covering his back. The two demons jumped back through the portal, and Fletcher could hear Arcturus in the background, but ignored him, and continued to focus on the portal, and his demons who were holding back the swarms of shrikes advancing on the portal.

Fletcher had his two demons slowly back towards the portal, occasionally sending bursts of fire towards the approaching horde. Ignatius and Vol reached the portal and dove through, followed by a single shrike that managed to get through the portal before Fletcher closed it. Immediately Fletcher dove on to the shrike. He wrestled the large bird to the ground, ignoring the slashes and cuts that it gave him before shoving it on to a summoning leather and holding it there while he infused it.