#hxs

That inspired him- that there was a goal, a beautiful purpose to living that was bigger than anyone person or their selfish wants or needs- then he wanted it too. So he worked and studied to get into the program that sends manned space capsules to gather intel, record heaven movements, and send back down to Earth research information that they process on their fashioned ships. It was hard work but Gon found himself enraptured and obsessed with it, so it was easy to dive into it headfirst and become one of the best, including top of his class in terms of flying manuervers.

His last name helped, although there was no familiar, genetic, osmostic, or oral passing down of luck or skill.

This career was lucrative too, which was saying something, on the upper atmosphere above the clouds, everything was opulent by region, and sterile clean and proper. It paid so much more well because they were the ones who left society to be isolated for years at a time, stars forbid you have family or a loved one. It was an honor, really to be one of the selected star flyers.

The announcement alerted on his screen letting him know his pod was ready to be launched with the others in his group. There were 8 pods lined up behind one each other in a launching device, similar to a canon, aimed upwards towards the makeshifted gravital current. The current will keep the pods on a monitored track around their system and surrounding planets and be able to retrieve through a simple system of vacuuming them out of the current. Simple.

The launch sequence started and Gon saw and felt the capsules ahead of him blast off, the metal around him shaking as it scooted up to be next in line. Gon grinned, feeling his breath deepen as his heart raced, he could see the expanse of sky and clouds meet at the horizon, the stars stretched out in a magnitude of colors of nebulas and systems and space dust.

The pod rumbled in a different way then it had when all the other pods went before him, it felt more like /ka-thunk/ then a /thwomp/. Then all Gon could see was red.

His pod lit up in fiery shades of red, alarms and system alerts blasting in the surround sound and each one demanding attention, as sure they are the most important thing as they other. Gon let out a cry and quickly went to work flipping switching, restarting servos, and dismissing notifications to get back to his controls or communications. He watched the perfect alignment behind the last launched pod sail away and then his trajectory was towards the clouds.

“Fuck!!” Gon cried out and just fastened for impact- this crash was going to hurt.

Gon felt like his body missed a step, breath leaving him in a shivery mess, like a ghost passed through his when his ship phased through the clouds like they werent there at all. Those weren’t solid? They were always told-

Gon’s attention was quickly stolen away by the new stimulus input, what looks to be the upside down of the upper atmosphere. The buildings were in shades of sepia, they were modern tech, retro fitted through grit and elbow grit. A patchwork effort making a city their own, the personality of a village working together evident in the look of the different levels of city blocks. It was a far cry of the sleek organized and manipulated look of the upper atmosphere, this was organic and things that were needed were plopped down right where there was space to be found. Cars that were made by hand and aircrafts which were repo’d zoomed by in dangerous manuevers around each other and electro tags depicting turns and indicated directions, Gon would think they were practicing for a astroid belt test. 

He was still in a dangerous downward crest, the lofty fall to the earth crust no longer feeling like a weightless energy but an inevitable happening and Gon cried out again. A larger aircraft craned down from its original direction, zipping around a couple other flying vehicles and doing a corkscrew to slip between two buildings and a pronged fork looking device emerged from the front of the vehicle. An energy burst forth from them and surrounded Gon’s pod, and his descent slowed quickly before coming to a complete stop in the new vehicle’s inertia beam. He was carefully manuevered to the ground and both ships landed softly, and gon could barely focus on the person’s amazing piloting skills pulled off to come save him. Gon’s not even sure he could have done that.

Gon climbed out and looked around, the air was definitely not as clean as it was in the upper crust, it looked like everything unsavory from above was casted down below and made into something new and transformed, more creative love put in for those that could not choose what they had to work with. In contrast, Gon’s sleek space craft was a glaring obvious angel from above dirty wings cracked in the soil of below. Gon’s attention was ripped away from the beauty before him to look to his left, where the pilot was coming out of his pilot pit, and he looked like he was crafted straight from the city, covered in an ever present grime similar to that always hovering on the city, large pilot goggles, much outdate, pushed up into his head of white hair.

“Are you ok?!” The man called out to him, jumping out from the pit to walk to Gon, only adjusting his baggy jumpsuit once to sit more properly around his waist. Gon blinked at him and then jumped, remembering his manners to introduce himself first.

“You were amazing, some of the best flying I’ve ever seen!” Gon said instead. The man gave an orienting blink and then laughed.

“Thanks! The name’s Killua.” He said, offering his glove clad hand. Gon grinned back and took it in a firm shake.

“Gon! Thanks for saving me, you didn’t have to.” Gon explained. Killua gave a cool shrug and pocketed his hands.

“‘S no problem. We watch out for each other down here. Your crash looked like it would’ve been gnarly. What’s happened that got you falling from uptown anyway?” Killua asked with a raise in his brow. Gon tensed and let out a shout, looking up towards the dusty colored clouds completely covering the view of above.

“Ah, geez, I need to get back up there! I was suppose to be deployed to the outer atmosphere today, something went wrong with the launching sequence and I got left out from the line.” Gon frowned.

“Ah, geez, seriously?! Can you still make it to outer orbit if you get back up there?” Killua asked, backing up towards his ship, and so Gon matched his steps to follow.

“Maybe, I honestly never seen a failed launch. Surely this won’t mess with my job, this wasn’t a reflection of my skill, not my fault. I should still be able to.” Gon reasoned, surely this mess up won’t mean they won’t launch him out there, right? This is what his whole life has been leading up to, to find the meaning of everything (including what’s wrong with him) out in the stars.

“Great, then let’s get you up there.” Killua smiled, and hopped up into his pit side step and turned to offer Gon’s hand.

“Alright, so if we go straight up, I don’t think the clouds will offer much resistance-” Gon started, reaching for his hand.

“Oh, I can’t take you up there. My ship can’t handle that altitude. But we’ll find you someone that can, and if not, we’ll build the modifications that will get you up there. Trust me, if you need to get up there, we’ll find a way.” Killua said. Killua knows there’s a lot of measures taken to keep anything and everyone that gets down to the downtown stays down here. But that won’t mean they can’t try. Gon looked surprised up at the man who he just met.

“You would.. Go through all that for me?” Gon asked.

“Number one rule out here, we watch out for each other.” Killua grinned and a race vehicle shot behind him like a shooting star.

(Gon focuses on the facts, turns them over til they’re grey and faded. Ging had left. He was gone. Gon was here. Killua is here. He is offering to stick around. Killua is still here.)

Gon took Killua’s hand with warm cheeks and Killua hefted him the rest of the way into his ship, roomier inside than Gon thought. The ships made in the upper atmosphere, more often than not, built to hold only one at a time.

“Alright, hold on!” Killua grinned, a touch a maniacal in his eyes and he leaned completely on the controls and the ship raced off like a… well, a rocket. Gon cried out, but still demonstrating his amazing piloting skills, Killua cruised like this was an everyday while at top speed. Gon’s shout turned into laughter and he could see his trashed pod shrinking into the distance.

“Killua!” Gon cried over the hum of the engine.

“Yea?” Killua called, a sharp tooth poking out in his smile.