Ourana Palace

Far up beyond the clouds, the Ourana Palace floats still, silent, ever watching down past the blanket of fog.

-----

There is an arena-like chamber somewhere in the palace, though no living things are present here. None, save for a recent addition - Alexander von Koopa. How and when he got there remains unknown, but here he is. Surrounding him are a few unused training dummies.

-----

At that time, dawn is just beginning to break across Unitas...

Alexander von Koopa shows no interest in interacting with the training dummies, and is instead lying down in the middle of the room, staring up at the ceiling.

Alex's stomach groans and he begrudgingly gets up, heading for the exit of this arena-like chamber and looking for a kitchen. No sense lazing around on an empty stomach.

Thankfully, someone has been tending to a garden of sorts, providing enough food to last for months on end. Strange, how all these plants could be growing up here. Still, no pests would be able to reach this place.

Alex isn't the biggest fan of "Green Food", but he does appreciate the zen-like qualities of the garden. Taking only enough food to make a decent salad, Alex sits down and begins to eat.

Alex then hears a big "boom" outside, puts down his salad, and rushes to see what it is... only to come to the edge of Ourana palace and see, many miles down below, a mushroom cloud over Bacania Shrine.

"... Well, shit," said Alex.

Alex knew he needed to do something. He was a hero, for God's sake! He could stop this madness! All he had to do was step forward and...

Wait. No. That would be a poor idea. He's on the edge of a floating palace and cannot fly.

He sat down at the edge and looked at the destruction below. It was a shame that he couldn't do anything. But then he remembered even if he could, it wouldn't matter. The Corona royals probably had, like, ten people capable of solving the problem all on their own. Then they had a hundred more capable of outclassing anything Alex could do, and a thousand who could perform at a level equal to his... hell, they probably had some of those Majestic guys with Alex's abilities on their payroll. Alex realized it wasn't a big deal, that he wasn't down there helping. No one would appreciate it. Hell, no one even needed it.

Then again, it was getting boring hanging around a floating palace with nothing to do. Some might say "oh, there's plenty to do even though it's abandoned, there are training dummies to hit," but that wasn't true, because Alex was unarmed, not known for his ability to fight unarmed, and not interested in the slightest in whacking a bunch of inanimate objects. So he stood up and started searching the palace for a way to get down. Since he couldn't fly.

Ironically, there's a functioning parachute all prepared in the arena, lying near the dummies. Did whoever brought him here leave this for him?

how the hell did alex not notice that before

Alex took the parachute, straped it to his back, and headed back to the edge of the palace. He looked down and calculated the distance - at least a hundred miles to the tip of the Deumanus Mountains, and lord knows how long it will take him to get to civilization from there. Incredibly high winds mean he'd be blown to who-knows-where if he opened the parachute too early, and he'd likely be drifting around for hours with the only good way down to be getting out of the parachute and dropping to his probable death. So that meant the only good way down was dropping several miles and opening a parachute at the last possible second.

Alex had never done a HALO jump before. But he was known for doing exceptionally stupid things for the betterment of mankind.

And besides, it was better than being cooped up here. He took a few steps back, then ran for the edge and took a flying leap...