Fic: Forever In Mind (1/?)

[annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Forever In Mind, Part One.
Comments/Flames/Etc. to: annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Humid June
Always makes me feel blue. 
I dreamed I was a vase of salt in the rain;
Every day, I'm more diluted.

--

"Dale Approach, this is TransPac 242. We have an emergency."
"Go ahead, 242."
"Requesting priority clearance for an emergency landing."
"Acknowledge request for priority clearance. Say the nature of your 
emergency?"
"We're losing cabin pressure and have minor fire damage to the 
passenger cabin. Believe to be the result of an explosion in cargo."
Pause. "242, What is the condition of your flight deck?"
"Flight deck is operational. FDAU still shows nominal. Dropping to 
12,000 feet."
Another pause. "Copy that, 242. Fire crews are rolling. Advise of 
casualties?"
"Flight crew are in good condition, but must inform we have at least 
one death. Request ambulances."
"Copy that. Medical teams are now on way. Will contact FSDO and 
clear approach."

*

Amidst the chaos of TransPacific 242's passenger cabin, Willow 
Rosenberg seemed to be the only one unconcerned by the events 
unfolding around her. With her eyes closed, she appeared to the 
casual observer as if she were asleep. She seemed relaxed, almost 
serene. From the outside.
Inside, she was a bubbling wreck. However, years of training in 
magical arts and focused telepathy gave her the discipline needed to 
overcome her fear. She reached out with her thoughts to the 
Parapsychic Research Institute in Sunnydale, and touched the mind of 
a woman she'd once loved, and even now deeply respected.

Tara!
Willow? What's wrong?
There's been an explosion on board the plane! And another! Fire.... 
We're dropping! Oh Tara... Tell Buffy...
Willow!

In a meeting room inside PRI, Tara dropped the marker pen she'd 
been holding and seemed to go as white as the board she'd been 
writing on.
"Tara? What's wrong?" Anya, an ex-demon who'd taken up the magical 
arts herself when the man she'd loved was killed in a horrific car 
crash, gave her fiancee an inquisitive look.
"Willow's plane! There's been an explosion. She thinks its going to 
crash."
"Oh my god." Anya closed her eyes and sent her awareness out to the 
plane. "She's right. It's dropping far too fast to be in the pilot's 
control." Anya had specialised her training towards the kinetic 
forms, and was able to move quite large objects with her mind. Tara 
still hadn't anywhere near the raw kinetic strength of Anya, whereas 
Anya hadn't an ounce of telepathy, or empathy. 
Tara put her hand on Anya's shoulder and used the tactile link 
to 'see' the plane through Anya's mind. "Is there anything we can do, 
love?"
Anya shook her head. "Not a damn thing. It masses far too much for 
me to even slow it down. What the hell?" Like a feather in a 
hurricane, Anya's kinetic touch with the plane's superstructure was 
brushed away by an even more powerful force. "Jesus Christ! That hurt"
"Anya? What's going on?" Not being near the fulcrum of her kinetic 
touch, Tara hadn't felt the mental equivalent of severe friction burn 
that had assaulted her fiancee's mind. All she'd felt was her link 
with the plane winking out.
"No idea." Anya gasped, massaging her forehead with her fingers. "I 
guess she must have crashed." Anya shrugged.

Tara! How did you? No matter. Thanks!
Willow? What's going on? 
That wasn't you? Tara, someone caught the plane!
I'm not following...

"Anya, Willow's okay..."

Tara, the plane's floating 10 feet off the floor!
What?!

"What's going on, love?" Anya, unable to 'hear' the conversation, 
stood puzzled.

The plane just dropped to the floor, Tara. There's a few people hurt 
in that last drop, but we're mostly okay... You'd better call an 
Incident Team... And Buffy! This is going to be big news! There's 
ambulances and fire trucks everywhere! There's no way we can use 
a 'natural phenomena' story to cover this up!

"Give me a moment..." 

I'm... Just glad you're safe, Will.
Hey, thanks Tara! You'd better find out who that kinetic is... Wow, 
has she got some power!
Female? Human? You're sure?
That's how it felt.
Okay. Take care, girlfriend.

"Anya, we need to find out how much a plane weighs and quickly. The 
press will be here soon."
Anya crossed her arms. "You keep forgetting I'm not 'pathic. What's 
going on?"
"Someone stopped that aeroplane from hitting the ground. Someone 
kinetic!"

*

Megumi Takahashi lay semi-dressed on her bed, dozing lightly. 
Twelve years old and described by her teachers as shy, or self-
effacing, she was still finding it difficult to come to grips with 
her newfound powers.
To Megumi Takahashi, ostracised by her Japanese peers for her 
mostly-Western appearance, lacking the epicanthic folds around her 
eyes that marked her as an outcast, as gaijin, and a little too 
different to be wholly accepted by the Western girls at her school, 
she knew better than to chance her few remaining friends by admitting 
to anyone that she was a witch, and that she had *power*.
But here, alone in the dark, lying on her bed in the warm, she was 
free to explore the Art. At first she was tentative, he spells clumsy 
and amateurish. But soon she moved beyond glamours and light chants 
into the Darkness. Levitation, teleportation, telepathy, 
telekinesis... Yes, she was learning. And she was lonely, and reviled.

Tara!
Willow? What's wrong?
There's been an explosion on the plane! Another! Fire.... We're 
dropping! Oh Tara... Tell Buffy...
Willow!

Megumi's eyes snapped open. She'd heard more than a few telepathic 
conversations between Willow and Tara. Because the pair were strong 
telepaths, their thoughts acted like a beacon to Megumi whose range 
was becoming increasingly more powerful. They had become, in some 
strange way, almost like sisters to her. Their friendly banter, and 
sometimes heated arguments, often made her smile. Growing up in a 
small village, the folk tales of werewolves and vampires took on new 
meaning once she'd found out from her eavesdropping *they actually 
existed*. Being an only child, and having a single parent who was 
forever working, she'd missed out on the joys of family discourse. So 
many times she wished she could have joined in with the two wiccas, 
and now, one of her 'friends' was in trouble. 
Without knowing quite how, she reached... and gasped as her will 
enfolded 350 tons of aircraft as it hurtled groundwards. Blood 
dripped from her clenched fists as untrimmed fingernails scored into 
the flesh of her palms, and her back arched as if she were using her 
own physical strength to keep the plane off the floor. She could feel 
the heat from the plane's engines as if she had some sort of physical 
contact, and the screams of a red-headed woman thousands of miles 
away became her own. Had she done enough? The strain of holding the 
aircraft off the ground was too much... Just a moment longer... Could 
she?

Tara, the plane's floating 10 feet off the floor!
What?!

Yes... Enough. Unable to withstand the strain of holding nearly 
three quarters of a million pounds of burning metal aloft, she let 
go. Had she remained conscious for even a few moments more, she would 
have heard her mother enter the room, drawn by her daughters screams 
as she returned home, and seen her mother's dazed reaction at 
witnessing her daughter floating cruciform above her bed, blood 
pouring from the wounds in her hands.

*

End Part 1.