The Jetpack

By Alasse Fefalas

Of course Ezekiel Jones had to be the first one to find it. He was wandering the Library, looking through what artifacts the previous Librarians had found and collected when he saw it. Placed on a pedestal, it seemed to have been calling out to him.

He looked around, making sure there was nobody around. Affirming he was alone, he smirked and approached it, casing its surroundings like a mark before he touched it. The metal casing was cold to the touch. He gingerly picked it up from the velvet cushion and analysed it.

It wasn't too heavy for a metallic jetpack. Its leather straps looked worn but they were still tightly bound to the metal when he pulled on them. His fingers danced along the wires that were dangling on the back of the pack, taking note of where they were coming from and what they were connected to. Two arms came out of the pack, one with a metal grip, and the other with a joystick that looked like it was stolen off a 90's fighter plane game. On its side, he saw a red switch with the universal power sign turned up. Thinking nothing of it, he flicked it downwards. It came alive. His eyes lit up when he heard the high pitch buzz of electricity running through the circuits and the lights that sparked at the bottom of the pack.

"Does it actually work?" he wondered aloud.

All he had to do was try. Shrugging to himself, he grinned and strapped it on. He tugged onto the ends of the ties to make sure they were nice and tight. After all, it would be a shame to die after all they had gone through if he accidentally slipped out from a jetpack. Turning, he faced the long corridor. Reaching out, he wrapped his left hand tight around the metalling hold and the other hand around the joystick. He could feel a low buzz of electricity from the metal grip in his hand, but to his surprise, it didn't shock him. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the red trigger on the joystick.

Hot air blew from the exhausts behind and sent him flying straight down the corridor, screaming. He held on tightly to the joystick and accidentally pulled it right. The jetpack fired up on its left exhaust and sent him spiralling towards his right side.

Straight towards a bookcase.

Not knowing how to stop, he released his grips and threw his hands up in front of him. With a loud "oof!" he crashed into the large shelf. Books rained on him as it rattled to a standstill.

The loud collision had brought Baird and Flynn running towards him, both having worried looks on their faces.

"Jones! Are you okay? What happened?" Baird asked frantically as she pushed some books away.

"Uh, nothing," he lied, shrugging nonchalantly as he dug himself out of the pile of books. The jetpack behind him sputtered, making Baird raise an eyebrow at him.

"Oh! You found the jetpack!" Flynn exclaimed excitedly as he clapped his hands together. "I was wondering who'd find it first. I thought it would be you and sure enough, Ezekiel Jones, here you are!"

"The Library has a jetpack?" Baird asked, surprised. Then she shook her head and sighed, "I don't know why I should be surprised. It has a unicorn; a jetpack isn't the most farfetched thing in here."

"It's bloody fun," Ezekiel said, grinning. He could still feel his fingers tingling from the adrenaline rush the jetpack gave him. He was definitely going to learn to fly it. Definitely.

"It is, isn't it?" chuckled Flynn, earning a glare from Baird in return. "Well, it is!"

"And dangerous," she tutted disapprovingly.

"Well, at least this time nothing was destroyed," Flynn said happily.

"This time?" echoed Ezekiel. He looked pointedly at Flynn. "What did YOU do the first time you flew this thing?"

"Nothing much really, it just knocked down a few bookshelves. Well, maybe 10, and almost released evil into the world for another 1000 years when Pandora's box dropped but then again, it was quite a long time ago my memory might be a little fuzzy." Flynn said quickly, shrugging it off.

Baird turned to him, eyes wide. "YOU WHAT?!"

"Oh. Don't worry. We managed to close it quickly," grinned Flynn.

Baird rolled her eyes exasperatedly.

Ezekiel motioned to the artifact behind him. "So are you gonna tell me how this works or nah?"

"Oh, this one's easy. Pull stick right, go right. Pull stick left, go left," Flynn explained as he demonstrated. Each tug made the jetpack sputter, but it didn't fly.

Ezekiel nodded. "Yeah, I kinda got that. It's not really the first time I'm using a joystick, you know. How about slowing down?"

"Ah, well, now, that's the tricky part," Flynn said, clapping his hands together.

"Of course it is," mumbled Baird as she crossed her arms. "No one takes safety into account when magic's involved."

Ignoring the Guardian, Flynn continued, "You have to coordinate your right hand with your left. Right is for direction. Left is for power. That buzz you feel when you grip it? That's the power from the jetpack. How hard you grip it controls how much power is flowing. The harder your grip, the more power."

"Ah," nodded Ezekiel. No wonder his first flight was very sudden. Gripping the handles again, he looked expectantly at Flynn.

"The red trigger on the joystick starts the power flow. If you let it go, it'll cut off the power supply, so don't do it while you're flying," instructed Flynn. He pulled Baird backwards by her hips and gave Ezekiel a wide berth for take off. "Gently, please. We don't want to have to clear up another bookshelf afterwards."

Grinning, Ezekiel made a mental note to bring his helmet in the next morning. Nodding to Flynn, he pressed the red trigger again, gripping the handle on his left very loosely. Behind him, the jetpack sputtered again. He tightened his grip a little more, and he could feel the thrusters vibrating voilently behind him. Weirdly, he couldn't feel the heat of the pack, but then again, magic had its weird ways.

Slowly, the thrusters burnt their way up. He could feel himself lift off the ground, as if being carried up by helium balloons. He hovered over the ground for a moment, getting himself used to the feeling of flying. He rotated his ankles, bent his knees up and down, and stretched his neck. Finally, he gripped hard on the stick and went soaring upwards.

Ezekiel whooped in delight loudly. The wind rushed past him, blowing his hair all over the place. He tested the turns, first turning right, and then left, and then going in a zig-zag formation. He then released his grip slightly, testing out the braking system. Sure enough, he started to slow. Laughing happily to himself, he shot upwards again. He flew around the Library, turning corners sharply, occasionally bumping into the side of a shelf but not crashing into it.

When he came back to where he had started from, he noticed Cassandra and Stone had joined the other two on the ground. The grin still plastered on his face, he made a clumsy landing, hopping forward three times just to get his footing.

"The Library has a jetpack?!" Cassandra shrieked excitedly.

Stone's eyes were shining with excitement. "Dude, that's amazing! I wanna have a go!"

"Okay, that's enough for today!" Baird interrupted, as she stood in between the three, her arms up and out in front of her. "It's nearly midnight and you should all be going home to rest!"

Protests from the three were cut short when Flynn announced, "Colonel Baird is right!" He took the jetpack off Ezekiel and turned it around so that the front was facing the LITs. There was a small bar indicator on the top of the right tank. There were green, yellow and red bars, and only the red ones were lit. "Besides, Ezekiel Jones used up most of the power just now, so we have to let it recharge. It probably wouldn't be best of the power died on you mid-flight. Of course, it's definitely survivable - well, actually, that would depend on how high you already were - but I don't think that's a good scenario to be in, in the first place."

"Hey, that's not fair!" Stone crossed his arms angrily. "Why does he get to fly it and we don't?!"

"You guys can take turns flying it," Baird answered as she took the jetpack from the Librarian. "Write a roster or something, I don't know."

Cassandra's arm immediately shot up. "I call dibs for tomorrow morning!"

"I'm next!" Ezekiel said quickly.

Stone glared at the other two. "Fine, I'll go last."

"See! Problem solved!" Flynn grinned as he looked at his LITs. "Just don't forget to charge it after your turn is done. It takes a little over two hours to charge and it can only fly for ten minutes maximum."

"Awesome!" grinned Ezekiel.

"And please bring a helmet," added Baird. She handed the jetpack over to Flynn for him to charge and herded the LITs towards the Library exit. "Now go home. Rest. We've all had a long day."

Nodding to each other, they smiled and exited, making their way back to their apartments. It was hard for Ezekiel to sleep - with the adrenaline still rushing through him from his previous flight - but when he did, he dreamed of flying through the air, the wind in his hair and the zipping through the long and narrow corridors of the Library... and not knocking down Pandora's box by a hair's breadth.

Fin.

A/N: I'm FINALLY done with this fic omg! I started writing this last July and I abandoned it... honestly I don't remember why I didn't finish it but I picked it up a couple of weeks ago and now it's finally done!

I really hoped you enjoyed it! Tell me what you think about it! Thanks for reading!