Skyfire Avenue

“What an interesting name, I think I’ve heard it before,” Leng Lingxi said though her smile.

“Oh?” The young man watched her with interest.

“Ever since the first time someone was called the name, many have since imitated. Only, though the name is Zeus, it certainly doesn’t mean you are he!”

“Haha,” the young man chuckled.

The expression in Leng Lingxi’s eyes abruptly grew sharp. “This space shuttle is fitted with thirty-two first-class cabins, and they’ve managed to fill fifteen, including my own. I know clearly the identities of the other fourteen passengers. Can you tell me, where are you from? Choosing this time, recently awakened from deep sleep to sit beside me, it seems as though you have a reason. Don’t think because you’re attractive you can flirt with me. In this case, you have no opportunity to flee. And yet I merely must acknowledge, you’re quite amazing. On this trip we have more than twenty people, separated in to different cabins, and you come from Middle Class to sit beside me specifically. But unfortunately, you’ve encountered me. And if you think us women are easily bullied, you have another thing coming!”

“Ha ha!” The young man laughed again.

Leng Lingxi leaned casually in her chair. “You’re in such high spirits, but let’s see how long that lasts. Tell me who you are, your rank, then give yourself up without a fight and at least I wont have you executed. I’ll have you remanded directly in to the custody of the Luo Interplanetary Police. If you don’t want to get hurt, you’ll obey!”

“HAHA!”

Leng Lingxi’s smile melted away. “Hey, ass! If you’d have avoided this in the first place, I’d have let you off. However, you deliberately called yourself Zeus. If I can’t beat you until you’re senseless, I can’t call myself Leng!

The young man looked at her in astonishment. “Why?”

Leng Lingxi unfastened her seatbelt and, standing, shot him a cold glare. “Because you have the audacity to try and pass yourself off as my idol, calling yourself by his name!”

“Haha!” The young man again let loose a peel of laughter.

Leng Lingxi responded scornfully, “I’ve seen through your ruse, and still you laugh?”

A small smile spread across the young man’s face. “You want to know why I’m laughing?”

“Why?” Leng Lingxi retorted rashly.

The young man replied earnestly, “Under certain special circumstances, the sounds ‘Ha Ha’ mean something different; stupid!”

The stupefied expression on Leng Lingxi’s face gradually darkens to a thunderhead. “You want to die? Then I’ll help you!”

“HAH!”

It has been ages since Leng Lingxi had been this furious. She had to admit, the man before her had expertly stoked her rage!

An icy chill suddenly filled the air, and the border of Leng Lingxi’s eyes instantly became white. Her right hand groped toward the man, five fingers extended, and five streams of white air burst forth to surround him. A close examination of the white blasts would reveal their icy constitution. Instantly, the temperature of the First-Class cabins dropped more than ten degrees.

Frozen in ice! A crystal prison!

Power is the root of confidence, and Leng Lingxi was nothing if not confident. She questioned herself, but knew that even a large elephant she could freeze almost instantly. She detested this stupid fellow, and decided to teach him a lesson he’d remember for the rest of his life.

Looking on, Leng Lingxi saw that hateful smile soon to be frozen in ice, and at once ceased. Now there was no evasion, no defense – there was no way for him to run! Nor was it permitted to carry any weapons on to a space shuttle.

She was clearly pleased with herself, but in the midst of her gloating suddenly her beautiful brown eyes shot open, their depths full of disbelief. Because that man, the one who had called himself Zeus, suddenly broke in to pieces.

Indeed, shattered!

In the instant before the Ice Disciplines’ power fell over him, the man’s body unexpectedly fractured in to countless bolts of bluish-purple lightening that forked through the ice prison, and swept over Leng Lingxi’s body.

How could this be? No!

As she grew conscious of her mistake, Leng Lingxi lost control of her body and began to shake violently before she gently collapsed. A slender, strong hand fell upon her shoulder, arcs of lightning racing along it’s length.

The young man, recently smashed to fragments, stood behind her in perfect condition, allowing Leng Lingxi to rest gently in his arms.

Leng Lingxi’s eyes popped open, feeling as though her brain had crashed like a computer system. I lost? I actually lost this quickly? Even so badly that I don’t know how he did it.

No, it can’t be!

An adept in the Ice Discipline, a Level 6 Genetic Talent. Escort for the Luo Heavenly Auction House of the Northern Alliance. Me, the most talented Chief-Ranked Mecha-Pilot in the Northern Alliance. And yet.. and yet I lost like this?

At three, the Ice Discipline awakened within me, and I was evaluated as a Level 6 Genetic Talent, a genius among geniuses. I piloted my first mech by eight, and by twelve enrolled in the Institute of Mecha-Aeronautics despite their regulations. At fifteen, became the sixteenth youngest Rank Three Mecha-Pilot on Planet Luo, Rank Two at seventeen, and Rank One at eighteen. At nineteen, a Special Grade. Now I, twenty-one, Chief First-Class Mecha-Pilot.

How could I have lost?

In her heart Leng Lingxi screamed, but outwardly she could not say a word. From behind, a slight hint of top-grade Giorgio Armani Triple Crown eau de toilette filled her nostrils, not thick, containing West African incense and Somalian frankincence to leave quite an impression.

“You’re so young, so delicate.” The young man’s voice reverberated in her ears, and at the same moment his slender fingers find their way to the slipper of her track suit.

Gently he began to pull the zipper down, the chill air eliciting an involuntary shiver from Leng Lingxi.

Within the track suit, aside from an sapphire-bordered brassiere, was also...

“I have no intention to offend you, only... you’ve hidden something in your cleavage. I can only say I’m sorry.” The young man’s voice whispered in her ears, no different from that of a demon.

Those slender fingers pulled forth a silver necklace, inevitably brushing against her white unblemished skin which blushes in response, blossoming like a peony flower.

It was the first time in her twenty-one years a man other than those of her family had lain a finger on her, it was...

The silver chain bore a pale golden pendant of exquisite craftsmanship, and in it’s center a chestnut-shaped transparent gemstone.

Supporting her body, the young man placed Leng Lingxi back in her seat, and considerately fastened her seatbelt. His finger remained on the pendant, gently stroking the gemstone.

The atmosphere began to distort slightly, and a small wormhole no greater than a foot in diameter opened in the air before them. Inter-dimensional technology!

Leng Lingxi struggled desperately, yet her body still would not comply to the demands of her mind.

Extending his hand searchingly in to the hole, the young man produced a small box from it’s depths.

The box was not large, composed of black ferrous metal, three coded locks on it’s surface. The electronic locks were among the most precise, requiring input of three thirty-two character passwords within one minute to open. One mistake, and you’d have to input them all again. Three mistakes, the destruction mechanism would activate.

The young man once again held the pendant between his fingers, the portal behind him closing, and with it the pale light emanating from the pendant ceased. He moved closer to Leng Lingxi’s face, replacing the necklace upon her neck, going to far as to replaced the pendant upon her cleavage. He moved to zip up her track suit.

Ferociously did Leng Lingxi glare at him, anxious to destroy the man so near.

“Don’t think you’ll get my password,” Leng Lingxi frigidly spat. Saying this, she realized suddenly her capacity for speech had returned.

The man shrugged his shoulders. “You understand nothing, of course I won’t get it from you.”

“How do you know?” Leng Lingxi nearly blurted out.

“Ha ha!”

“Bastard!” Leng Lingxi, in her twenty-one years, had never hated this word so much!

The young man was not angry, and looked upon her with eyes filled with pity and regret. “I’m sorry our encounter had to be this way. You’re a girl of quality, a girl of vision. Goodbye.”