fandomhigh | Flight- Monday- 3rd period

Entry tags:

flight and flying

Flight- Monday- 3rd period

By third period at least, the Danger Shop had been programmed, and once again the students would find themselves in a field, with Jaina standing next to a couple of crates.

"Welcome back, everbody. We're obviously not in ships today, but you do get to use something that you probably don't get to much in your normal lives." And with that, Jaina reached into one of the crates and pulled out a jetpack. "This a jetpack. It's from my galaxy, because while I know you occasionally hear about someone trying it here, it's often terrifying. At least I'm sure we've worked out this particular technology. You're going to wear a helmet so that you can control it using voice commands. Basically what you're doing today is getting to try them out and fly around as you want without burning off any body parts. Just as long as no one crashes into each other in purpose or tries to pick midair fights. For some reason I want to get that out there before anyone tries it."

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So, like, jetpacks were a bit harder to voice control than she'd thought. So sue her.

She wasn't meaning to wind up by Evan, really, but that was what happened. Mostly because she'd gone up higher and then wound up drifting his way and... well... yeah. That was a thing that happened.

Karina still wasn't sure how it had but whatever. "Do you think if we use a directional word in a totally unrelated sentence the jetpack will respond anyway?" she called to Evan.

Because she could. It was possibly things like this that were making Karina's flying more than a bit erratic but hey, at least she hadn't managed to crash herself. Definite win!

"Huh?" Sorry, Karina. Evan's mind had been anywhere but on who was flying near him, today. "Sorry... I wasn't paying... You mean, like if we say the opposite of wrong? Or ask what's... um..."

He pointed up with one hand. He suddenly wasn't all too keen on risking losing control over a conversation.

"Exactly," Karina said, nodding. Which was a bit weird with a helmet on. Was this how Sky High felt all the time? "Which seems pretty inconvenient to me but I guess it'd be hard to program this thing that strictly, right?"

She was totally going to give it a shot. Soon.

"I... guess." Noncommittal answer was noncommittal, right there. "When we used jetpacks at my last school, we usually had hand controls. Or I'd just use my rocket boots."

Way easier to steer, those rocket boots.

“Rocket boots?” Excellent way to distract her, Evan! “Wouldn’t those be heavy? The packs are pretty heavy on the ground after all…”

Wouldn’t boots just, like, slide off?

If Evan wasn't wearing a jetpack, he probably would have just defaulted to a shrug of his shoulders, here. Fewer words.

"Different world, different technology," he replied. "I'm usually wearing my rocket boots... I just don't really notice them anymore... but they're not as heavy as these jetpacks are."

Or, rather, he'd probably never leave home without his rocket boots again. Not after the way his spring break had gone.

Karina kicked her feet out idly. Okay, it was kinda cool to look way, way down.

“I guess if they weren’t as heavy…” Yeah, that would probably work. “How do they work? Like, not voice, I’m guessing?”

"Not voice," Evan agreed, looking down toward the ground, and then muttering a command to the jetpack. He turned mid-air to face Karina, and held his position there, hovering. "You steer with your feet. Where you point them is where you're headed away from. It's pretty simple."

"That would so suck if you had twitchy feet," she observed, because that was where her mind went first today. "But that does sound simpler than this."

"Twitchy feet?" There was a bit of an awkward silence, there, while Evan stared at Karina. And then he gave his head a shake and turned around again, flying in a casual sort of circle. "I guess I've never had that problem. I've been training with that sort of thing for years."

At least, he remembered training with it. Somewhere in his head. He fell silent again.

He was maybe not the greatest conversation today.

“Are you okay?”

Karina wasn’t sure if she was the right sort of person to ask that question but the concern that colored her voice was genuine.

But he hadn’t even given her a smile for twitchy feet which, come on, were totally amusing enough for a smile. Think of the visual! And he was sort of non-communicative, which Karina had been ignoring until she couldn’t ignore it.

Any other time? Twitchy feet probably would have been amusing, yes! Evan was just not in the right mindset to giggle today, though. He half-nodded, and then hesitated, and then settled for shaking his head. Just a bit.

"No," he murmured. "No, not really."

But he was in class and flying around with a jet pack, so he could pretend he was okay and maybe nobody would know any better, right? Apparently not.

Karina bit her lip. That wasn’t super surprising.

“Do you, like, want to talk about it?”

Or she could totally go find one of his actual friends. Since Karina didn’t kid herself into thinking that she was one of them.

Evan was completely silent for a few seconds more, and then he nodded, just a little, staring back down at the ground all over again.

"Just..." His voice broke, and his mouth went dry, and it took him a moment to be able to find words again. "Not here."

“Okay.” Karina wasn’t much of one for super gentle but that came out pretty soft nonetheless. “After class, maybe? Or… whenever is good for you.”

Seriously.

Even if he changed his mind about talking at all, she was okay with that.

"After class," Evan agreed, with another tiny nod of his head. "That would... I mean..."

He swallowed, blinking a few times to clear tears that were blurring his view. He wasn't going to cry in class. He was not going to.

"Thanks, Karina."

She was going to pretend really hard to not have noticed that he was fighting to not cry or something. He clearly didn’t want her to notice. So she wouldn’t.

… Much.

Karina nodded since she couldn’t say anything like ‘hey, that’s what friends are for’ and ‘you’re welcome’ just seemed rather stuffy. “Want to be left alone for class?” she asked, not wanting to just fly off. “Or I can hang out. We could try the directional thing if you wanted to.”

Okay, she was going to try it with or without him but…

"With the spoken commands?" Evan tried a tiny smile on for size. It was still falling pretty short, but that was what he could manage. It would do. "We could try that in a bit, if you want. I... I think I might just..."

He waved a hand around.

He wanted to say that he needed a moment, but he was pretty sure a moment wouldn't be quite long enough.

“Sure,” she said simply because, really, she’d have to be a total monster to not get a clue here. “We can do that. I’ll see you later, okay?”

"Later," Evan murmured. He hovered there for a moment more, and then, a moment later, he added, "Thanks, Karina."

And that was about all the conversation he had left in him.

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Flight- Monday- 3rd period

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