Ayup. We ended the last book on a cliffy. Resolution time!
So here's the start of the next book of this epic!
Chapter 1: Lost in a Strange Land
The first thing Ike felt upon regaining consciousness was, surprisingly, nothing much.
The mercenary grumbled before opening his eyes, finding himself staring up at a strange expanse of auburn above him. He felt waves tickle his pant legs lightly, but other than that he found that he was completely dry.
Sitting up, the blue-haired man found himself at the banks of what looked to be a vast, expansive river with the other end seeming to be lost in a strange, ethereal mist. Groaning, the man looked around to find Ragnell on the ground next to him, the orange blade shimmering in the faint light that seemed to illuminate the shore.
Well, at least my blade's here, thought Ike as he stood up and walked over to his blade, holding it up in the air and thinking about how lucky he was to have his sword back before letting it rest on his shoulder.
Azure eyes darted this way and that, seeing for any signs of his friends. Unfortunately, none of them were there. He knew that by then Willie would have woken up, Maria probably would have found him, and Kuranga would have detected his presence, so he knew that wherever he was, he was alone for then.
A great surge of worry flew up in his being at this moment, however, as he realized that Maria was still with child.
"Oh, no..." said the mercenary softly. "Maria! Maria!"
Ike ran alongside the bank of the river, calling out Maria's name frantically as he ran in whichever direction he felt like running. When he found no success in his search for the cat laguz a few minutes later, he eventually stopped running and dropped down to the ground again, groaning in dissapointment.
It was going to be a very long day for poor Ike, and the mercenary knew this as he laid there and panted as hard as he could. He knew he could not give up, no matter how tempting that proposition seemed to him at the moment.
Standing back up, he looked around him again, finding no response from the immediate area.
Slowly, the mercenary walked along the river bank, calling out Maria's name systematically as he walked by the riverbank.
Eventually, he found himself going nowhere in his search for Maria, and he sat down on the riverbank and groaned in frustration.
He wished he knew where Maria was. The fact that the cat laguz might be under immense torture was something that was not far from the mercenary's mind at the moment. The mysterious dissapearance of both Maria and Fiordiligi was unsettling to him, but he was more worried about Maria. He wondered where she was, and if she was okay, and if she was all right, how their baby was doing safe within her womb. All of these thoughts were causing him immense stress at the moment.
As he was thinking about all of the things that Maria could have been doing, he looked around and saw something not too far off from where he was that was approaching him. As the figure drew closer, however, Ike recognized the blonde hair and the dress from a distance.
"Fiordiligi?" asked the mercenary.
There was a short silence as the figure turned around, emerald eyes connecting with his sapphire ones. The figure's eyes seemed to brighten up, and then suddenly out of the light mist she came out, and Ike saw it was indeed Fiordiligi.
"Ike!" cried the lady as she literally tackled Ike to the ground. "You're all right!"
"Of course I am," he said as he sat up, Fiordiligi still grabbing his waist. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," replied the lady as she let go of Ike's waist and sat next to him. "Where's Willie?"
"I haven't seen anybody else anywhere," replied the mercenary. "Have you seen Maria?"
"No," said Fiordiligi. "Which means we're on our own here..."
"Not for too much longer, scum of hell!"
After this cry, Ike and Fiordiligi both abruptly stood up, Ike brandishing Ragnell quickly as Fiordiligi ran behind him.
And then, out of the thin mist walked a young man who looked to be no more than in his twenties. The stranger, however, had a huge burn that extended across his entire body. As he walked towards them with a sword in hand, the exposed, tender flesh shone brilliantly, highlighting the blackened spots of flesh that was visible all over his body. The sight would have grossed out many beyond belief, and all of a sudden Fiordiligi felt her head become light as air as all of the color left her face.
"Oh... my..." she gasped as Ike's eyes widened.
The lady was unable to say anything else; Ike turned and held his arms out to Fiordiligi just in time to catch her as she fell towards the sand. Quickly, he looked back to the approaching figure, finding himself staring at the figure as he slowly laid Fiordiligi down onto the sand.
"Wh-who the hell are you?" asked Ike loudly.
"That's none of your business, mister!" cried the man. "All I know is that you shouldn't be here right now. Now go back to the circle where you came from!"
"Circle?" cried a now even more confused Ike. "What're you talking about?"
"I'm not warning you again!" cried the figure with the burn. "Go back to your circle and I won't send you deeper into the pit!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" screamed Ike, who was more confused than ever. "What pit are you talking about? What circle are you talking about? Where the hell am I? Why the hell do you have that burn all over you?"
"Ha, you just lost your chance!" said the man with the burn all over his body, twirling the blade in his hand once. "Now, you're coming with me, even if I have to make you!"
With this, the man slashed at Ike. Despite the fact that the mercenary got no warning to this action, he managed to block it with Ragnell, the orange blade glinting in the mist before Ike jumped away. The young man with the burn all over his body made to slash at Ike again, but the mercenary dodged this deftly now that he knew he was in a fight.
Ike then slashed at the young man, but when the blade came across his flesh there were no signs of bleeding or that a wound had even opened.
"What the...?" whispered Ike under his breath as he saw that.
This second of abstraction cost Ike just a little bit as he found himself suddenly getting kicked in the chest. The mercenary was sent to the ground, but he managed to roll out of the way of the blade that was then trying to slash him. The mercenary successfully dodged this attack, and he moved to kick the stranger's legs out from under him.
This, Ike managed to do successfully, and the mercenary quickly stood up as the strange man took a hold of his footing.
The two of them traded blows after a snarl from the man with the burn. As Ike blocked the blows being sended his way, he found that the young man showed no signs of slowing down. Ike decided to see if he could take advantage of the rapid strokes his opponent was delivering upon him.
Ike jumped out of the way of the multiple blows, his opponent stumbling forward as a slash missed quite awkwardly. Ike took this opportunity to bring Ragnell down on the young man again, but this time, the young man managed to turn around and place his blade in a blocking position just before the orange blade would have connected with his seemingly impenetrable flesh.
With this one blow, the two of them found themselves in a bladelock. Without wasting a second, Ike exherted all of the pressure he could against the young man. The bladelock was easily won by the mercenary, and then the man with the burn stumbled back so that he fell onto the ground after loosing his footing.
This gave Ike an opportunity to jump at the stranger, and he then proceeded to slam the sharp side of Ragnell against this stranger for quite some time, none of the blows having any visible effects on the opponent.
However, when Ike had finished bashing him, the mercenary breathed as the young man beneath him frowned at this display of dexterity.
Quickly, he slid out from underneath Ike's legs as a groan sounded from behind Ike. The mercenary turned to see Fiordiligi slowly sitting up and rubbing her head, and then back to see the young man with a burn standing in front of him with rage showing on his face.
"You've won this time!" cried the young man. "But next time, you're getting no mercy, because I'm bringing a friend!"
With this, the man with the burn darted off into the mist as Fiordiligi slowly stood up. The plit of Fiordiligi's steps on the sands of the riverbank was all that was heard for a while.
Fiordiligi cleared her throat, breaking the relative silence and sending Ike's gaze in her direction.
"What in the world happened?" asked Fiordiligi.
"Don't ask me," said Ike. "I don't know where we are, and that man certainly did not help anything."
"I see..." said the woman. "This is all very strange..."
"You're telling me this, Fiordiligi?" asked Ike. "I don't have a clue! That man was talking about circles and pits and how I shouldn't be here!"
"Oh, really?" asked Fiordiligi, rubbing her chin as she thought. "Hm..."
The two of them were silent as the lady tried to thin about where they could be. After a while of thinking, however, she shrugged.
"No, I would not know where we are," she said quaintly.
"Shoot," said Ike. "But we need to find the others."
"Yes," said Fiordiligi. "Let's go."
Ike could have sworn he had heard Fiordiligi say something completely away from who she normally was, but he shrugged it off as unimportant and the two of them walked down the riverbank whence Fiordiligi had come.