The thunderclap was deafening.

No one at the party was immune and several people were physically thrown back from the lightning strike that hit Ryan directly in the head. The flash had momentarily blinded many people who just happened to be looking in that general direction. The guards were the first to recover, rushing to the area. Charity was among them, dragging along the suitcase on wheels that Ryan had put her in charge of.

Ryan, surprisingly, was physically unharmed. He was kneeling on the ground, holding his head, and letting out a stream of expletives and curses as it seemed he was in a great deal of pain, but otherwise unharmed. The guards dragged the queen away to a place of safety, but Morgan refused to retreat, instead rushed towards Ryan, in spite of his guards protests. He and Charity were the first to reach the hunched over Ryan.

As they approached a strange atmospheric phenomenon manifested above them. A dark rolling mass of water vapor appeared several hundred feet directly over Ryan. Immediately it began to spread out and dissipate. It appeared to be some sort of side effect of what had happened and was not long for this world. Charity knelt next to Ryan and tried to put an arm around him, but got an electric shock for her trouble. She yanked her hand away and fell back on her rump. Prince Morgan, seeing this, held back a few feet.

"Sir Reed, can you hear me?" He yelled at Ryan. Ryan kept his hands over his ears as he slowly seemed to recover. His blinking was out of synch. He eventually focused on Morgan and the gathering crowd of guards. Above, the dark mist had faded. Ryan spotted the case that Charity had dragged over and abruptly lunged for it. There was a massive spark as what ever energy he had built up inside him was discharged. There was a blue spark, a zapping sound, and the smell of ozone. Ryan finally spoke coherently, "Could have sent a telegram."

Charity just stared in disbelief, "Sir Reed? What happened?" She looked at the sky, "Was that an assassination attempt?" Ryan shook his head, "No. That was the Bat Phone." He slowly opened the suitcase, "Preston Garvey says another settlement needs my help." Morgan raised an eyebrow, "What the devil are you talking about?"

Ryan looked at Morgan, paused, whacked himself in the side of the head a few time, then shook his head violently before saying, "Sorry. The all-Father downloaded an emergency message into my brain. I'm no where near a temple to him so there is no localized faith for him to draw upon so-" He suddenly winced and doubled over, "FUCK!" He grabbed the side of his head and seemed to be in pain as he spoke, "Ferramwyn is being attacked! Forty humans! Mercenaries who are pretending to be from Eirin but-" He staggered for a second, "They were actually hired by demons!" Blood started to trickle out of both of Ryan's nostrils as he pressed the palms of his hands against his temples.

Morgan looked angry, "That's the primary source of iron for the kingdom!" He looked up into the sky briefly, "Even with hard riding, it will take over a day to get out there. We can try and contact the closest military outpost there, but it might be too late to-" He stopped speaking to stare at Ryan.

Ryan had begun stripping off his clothes.

Morgan clicked his tongue, "What are you doing?" Charity apparently expected something like this and had begun unloading equipment from the luggage. Ryan quickly stripped down to his underwear, "Gotta get changed." By this point many a curious noble had gathered around to watch. The reaction was laughter from most of the men, and looking away from the women. Lilith had finally arrived and immediately covered her face with her fan. A fan lacy enough to see though, one might add.

Morgan's jaw hung open, "So go inside! Have you no shame?"

Ryan, standing there in his underwear, started applying armor plates and bags of black goo to his body. The bags burst open and started to flow over his body, cementing the armor plates into place, "I brought my jet pack with me. I have the location burned into my brain. You send troops, I'm going to fly over there." At this point Charity handed Ryan two mana potions that he immediately began to chug. She came around and attached a large device to Ryan's back that looked like a hoover vacuum cleaner mounted on a large metal 'T'. Two thrusters stuck off to the sides so the engines wouldn't accidentally burn the wearer.

People had stopped laughing and were now murmuring for Ryan no longer looked like a fool and more like the murderous knight he had the reputation for being. Ryan lifted up a biker-like helmet to put over his head. He reached up to pull a lever under his chin and lock it into place while Charity pulled out a large glass cylinder full of the characteristically blue colored mana potion. The sheer size of it was enough to shut up anyone who was watching. That amount of mana potion would be suicide to consume and nobody could imagine how Ryan intended to survive using it. Charity pulled up on a lever to open the jetpack with a hiss. She pushed the cylinder into place, then pulled the lever back down, locking it into place to the sound of gurgling fluid.

Morgan started to back up, getting the feeling that this wasn't something you wanted to be standing next to, "Reed, are you insane? My father is one of the best air elementalists in the country and he couldn't fly half that distance before falling out of the sky!" Ryan finished attaching silver bottle-like devices to the sides of his forearms and ankles. He motioned for everyone to back away as he turned to Morgan, "Well then, I guess it's a good thing I'm a Water Wizard, huh?"

The bottles he just attached all fired blasts of steam. The air pressure caused everyone nearby to hold up their arms to protect their faces. White jets came shooting out as he climbed up into the sky, slowly at first, then with ever increasing speed. At about a hundred feet off the ground, he cut the thrusters as he leaned forward in the direction of Ferramwyn.

The jet pack ignited.

This was far stronger than the limb mounted thrusters. With a roar, the resulting gout of steam propelled Ryan up into the sky and towards the horizon. Everyone watched for the full minute it took for him to fly out of sight. Everyone watched in silence at the unfolding spectacle. When someone final spoke, it was Charity who made the first comment, "Oh Good." 

Everyone turned to look at her.

"He didn't explode this time."