Aaahh, I really wanted to go to bed earlier tonight, but I also really wanted to post this chapter today... Actually, I suppose I've failed in that regard, as it's already past midnight... Oh well. Also, since the first chapter contained quite a fair bit of action, this one moves at a much slower pace. I do hope you don't find it too boring... At any rate, here's the chapter; please enjoy.
Chapter 2: Foreboding
The sunset burned at Isaac's back as he looked out over Vale. The wall he had worked so diligently to erect lay splayed across the ground. The other attempts at reconstruction scattered about the town were in a similar condition. Much of the wood was seared, and embers from the fire that must have taken place still glowed here and there. Most significant, however, and most terrifying was the number of corpses strewn about.
Isaac gazed on the scene wordlessly, even breathlessly, his face a mask of horror. He took it in as best he could, but he simply could not comprehend the truth before him. He moved to approach the town, taking a few clumsy steps before stumbling and falling to his knees. He willed his body to rise, but he could muster neither the strength nor the will for such a feat.
The air reeked with the bodies' decay, intensified by the hours spent in the late afternoon sun. A film of crimson had settled on the riverbed. The barrels of water set out for the workers had been spilled, their contents completely wasted. There was evidence that a horrific battle had taken place: large rifts cleaved into the ground, an occasional weapon lying discarded near the hand of a fallen Adept, and doors ripped off of the hinges of the few standing buildings, likely where the townspeople had taken shelter.
It was a tragic sight, the likes of which that Isaac could never have imagined, or perhaps never would have dared to imagine. He was overcome by nausea and could no longer bear to look; he turned his head and gave every effort to calm himself, but the image was emblazoned upon his memory.
All the Adepts that would dare to defy me…
The ghastly voice resonated throughout Isaac's being. The boy started at the sudden words and searched his surroundings fervently. If there was a survivor, perhaps they could tell him what had happened to Vale…
All the Adepts that would endeavor to detain me…
Isaac collected his fleeting strength and stood, his hand instinctively seeking out his sword's hilt. The voice was not by any means that of a survivor. It was that of an enemy. It was that of the fiend that had wrought this horror against Vale.
All the Adepts that would dare to hope that they could destroy me…
"Shut up!" Isaac demanded, throwing his fists to his side in frustration; just as in Vault, he still did not have his blade. "What did you do to Vale?! What have you done to my home?!"
All the Adepts in the world… shall fall before my might.
"Is that what this is all about?" The Venus Adept was quivering with rage and anguish. "You want to kill all the Adepts?" He spread his arms in indication. "Well here I am! Why don't you just try and kill me?!"
The Golden Sun shall be my own boundless power, and never again will any fool dare to challenge me.
A searing agony rent Isaac's body in two. A strangled scream escaped the boy, but the sound caught in his throat and became silence.
Look well upon this ruin, pitiful vessel, for this is the fate of your world…
"Isaac!"
The addressed opened his eyes hesitantly, as though afraid of what he might see. He was greeted by Garet's anxious face leaning over him. The larger boy's worried expression softened to one of relief.
"Jeez, Isaac… Did you sleep well?" His voice was lined with heavy sarcasm. Isaac sat up to inspect the state of his body; a dull pain still lingered from his memories of what appeared to have been a nightmare. His shoulder sharply protested the movement, however, and he abandoned the effort. It was only then that he began to recall the events preceding his dream.
"Okay, so should I start talking to you exclusively in yes or no questions, or are you going to start using words some time soon?" Garet frowned, more concerned than irritated.
"Sorry." Isaac was surprised to find his voice so hoarse. "What happened?"
Garet struck a vial against the floor and offered its contents to his friend. "Uh, not sure, to be honest," he admitted. "Your Djinni, the only one that stuck around, managed to bring down that weird monster all by itself."
"Really? Flint did?" In reply, an almost impalpable weight applied itself to the Venus Adept's chest. He raised his head slightly and was met with the large blue eyes of the aforementioned Djinni.
"I did!" the creature declared proudly. "You don't have to worry about a thing, Isaac! Meanies like that can't hurt you as long as I'm around!"
"Yeah, except he did get hurt," Garet reminded with a small flick to Flint's ear. "Anyway, I got you into the armory as quick as I could—let me tell you, you are not light. I figured you probably wouldn't want your folks to see you out cold like that. I did what I could to take care of your injuries, but I'm not Mia. There's only so much I could do."
Isaac decided to give another go at sitting up; he managed to do so with a groan, his hand impulsively clutching at his injured shoulder. He realized for the first time since waking that he was lying on the building's floor with Garet crouching beside him.
"Thanks," he murmured. "Both of you."
"Yeah, well…" The redheaded boy rose with a sigh and stretched his arms. "It's not like you're all set to go. We had really ought to pay a visit to the healer and see what can be done about that shoulder."
Flint hovered nearby as Isaac stood, careful not to make great use of his arm. "It can wait until we get back to Vale, right?" he suggested. Garet furrowed his brow in response.
"You sure it wasn't your head that got hurt rather than your shoulder? Vale's sanctum was destroyed along with everything else."
The notion brought fresh memories of his nightmare to Isaac's mind, and his face blanched. The sudden change did not go unnoticed.
"You all right, Isaac?" Garet moved to support his friend should he need it, guiding him towards the equipment crates so that he could seat himself. "You look about ready to pass out there…"
"Isaac's probably in a lot of pain from his shoulder. If that monster was pressing hard enough to crush the rock behind Isaac, just imagine what it did to his bones," Flint cooed. He seated himself on his companion's unharmed shoulder, his ears drooping sympathetically. Isaac, however, shook his head to dissent the Djinni's theory.
"No, it's nothing. I'm fine." His assurances were scarcely taken to heart. Garet rested his hands on his hips, a behavior he had likely acquired from his time spent with Jenna, and sighed deeply.
"All right, then, let's go see the healer. And if you try and argue with me, I will make you go see the healer. And you will not like it."
"Now Garet's being a meanie!" Flint exclaimed. He cast an innocent look at Isaac. "Do you want me to hurt him?" The boy laughed in response, a sight which did much to put both the Djinni's and the Mars Adept's worries to rest.
"No, I don't think that will be necessary. Thanks anyway," the smaller warrior grinned as he started for the door. He pushed open the door, Garet following closely behind, and quickly evaluated Vault's condition. A group of people had already set to work raising the bell tower, and others wandered about to assess the damage done to other parts of the town. The sanctum remained the center of attention as a number of people carried what seemed to be medical supplies into and out of the chamber.
"They're probably treating the injured there," Garet assumed. He gave his companion's elbow a slight nudge. "Sounds like just the place where you had ought to be, huh?"
They made their way to the small building and briefly studied the interior. Each of the stools seated an injured person, and each of the injured people, as Isaac had dreaded, was an Adept from Vale. All the Adepts in the world shall fall before his might, huh? he mused grimly. He shook his head slightly to clear his mind of such thoughts. I can't ignore the possibility that it's just a coincidence… Maybe only the Adepts were injured because they're the ones that tried to fight back…
"Hey, Isaac," Garet said, "are we just going to stand here, or are we actually going to go inside some time soon?"
The Mars Adept had not made any effort to lower his voice, and the sound attracted the attention of most of the room's occupants. Some stood to approach the boys, appreciative smiles on their faces.
"Isaac and Garet!" one greeted. "We thought you might come when we sent our request for help to Vale. You were the ones that brought down that wretched thing that attacked us, weren't you?"
Garet turned to his friend with an air of expectancy; it appeared he had no intent to answer in Isaac's place. The blonde boy put on his most professional demeanor, "Yes, sir. We were able to defeat it with my friend's help." Flint beamed with the recognition.
"Isaac?" Dora appeared beside the man who first addressed the young heroes. "So it's you after all… I thought that was your name that I heard." She stepped forward to embrace her son, who did all within his power to suppress a reaction to the discomfort that the gesture provoked.
"It's good to see that you're all right," the boy said, breaking away from his mother's arms, but a new worry soon seized him. "But what about Dad? He wasn't hurt, was he?"
Dora refuted his concern, "No, he's fine." She stood aside and gestured to the far corner of the sanctum; Kyle was tending to an elderly woman with his psynergy. "Kyle's one of the few Adepts here who can use Cure, so he's helping out with the worse injuries."
"Speaking of worse injuries," Garet remarked as he clapped a hand on Isaac's wounded shoulder; the action was so sudden that the Adept had no time to prepare himself, and a pained sound escaped him. With a stifled gasp, Dora rested her fingertips lightly near the source of the ache.
"What happened?" she implored, taking her son's hand and tugging him towards the back of the sanctum where those that were caught up in the attack were being tended.
"Poor Isaac got smashed into a wall by that monster!"
"You don't have to exaggerate it so much, Flint…"
"Don't listen to him, ma'am! Flint's hardly exaggerating at all!"
The fuss, surprisingly, eased the dismal atmosphere that had presided over the sanctum before the warriors' arrival. Isaac sat as still as he was able while his mother tightly wrapped his shoulder, all but immobilizing it.
"You know this means you won't be able to work on rebuilding Vale for a while," Kyle mentioned as he approached; he had taken care of everybody who needed his attention and was eager to see his son.
Waving his nondominant arm up and down, Isaac refuted, "But my other arm works just fine! Besides, it's not like my shoulder is seriously hurt or anything. With psynergy, it'll heal in no time!"
"Isaac," Dora said, her tone resolute, "the point is that your parents are asking you not to do something. Can't you just agree to it and leave it at that?"
The earnest nature of his mother's words struck Isaac with regret; it was a simple request made out of concern for his well-being, and he was arguing against it. He lowered his gaze and muttered an apology.
"Who knew Isaac was such a problem child?" Flint chirped playfully. Said "problem child" glared at the Djinni, but the rest of the company found great amusement in the title.
On the promise that the blonde warrior would abstain from any sort of labor involving his injured shoulder, the pair started back towards Vale. Isaac, however, was having difficulty focusing on the task. With the knowledge that his parents were well and Vault was safe, questions regarding the strange monster were free to claim the boy's thoughts. The similarity it bore to a dragon had indicated that it would likely align with Mars, so it came as a great surprise when it suddenly displayed characteristics of Mercury.
And it's not as though it acted like just any monster with Mercury traits, Isaac considered. It definitely used Ply to heal itself. It's not unheard of that a monster use psynergy to heal, but I was sure that psynergy like Ply and Cure is reserved for Adepts…
It was not long before Garet noted his companion's silence, "What's up, Isaac? You look like you've got something serious on your mind there."
"Just thinking about that monster."
"Yeah," the Mars Adept replied with a knowing nod, "I've been wondering about that too. It's just so weird that it used Mercury psynergy to heal, right? By the way," he leaned forward to more obviously address the Djinni perched atop Isaac's head, "what happened to your buddies? We got into a huge mess because those guys split like they did! For a while there I thought we might not make it!" Flint wrapped his tail around his body and made a rueful sound.
"They were afraid," he explained. "I was too, but I couldn't leave Isaac all alone…"
"What were they so afraid of? It looked like the Djinn were actually our best way to fight that thing," the Venus Adept reminded, referencing how the monster withdrew when his Djinn appeared.
"I'm not sure what it was exactly," the creature confessed. "There was just something about it… It made me feel like no matter what we did, it was just going to get us anyway." Garet raise an eyebrow.
"Get you, huh? Can Djinn even be killed?"
"It wasn't that we thought we would be killed. I don't know how to explain it…" Flint shivered at the memories, and Isaac narrowed his eyes in contemplation.
"You thought you would be captured?" he suggested. The Venus Djinni's ears lifted, and he assented eagerly.
"Yeah, that's it! We thought we'd be captured and have our powers used for bad things. I don't want to say that we didn't have faith that you two would prevent that, but the others got so scared that they didn't want to risk it."
Vale loomed in the distance, and Garet was the first to notice it, "Well, everything worked out, so it's no use worrying about what happened. We'll just work on fixing up Vale like usual and the Djinn will come back on their own."
"Garet's kind of an airhead, huh?" Flint whispered, and Isaac couldn't help but laugh in reply.
The warriors arrived at Vale's gates to find that a shipment of heavy stones had been made in their absence. Felix and Jenna stood nearby, the latter pointing to the parcel as she spoke and the former nodding in understanding.
"Hey!" Garet called, approaching the siblings with a discerning glance over the rocks. "These are the supplies for the sanctum, right?"
"Oh, Garet, Isaac, when did you two get back?" Felix said nonchalantly. His sister, however, was far less placid.
"More importantly," she admonished, her irate eyes focused on the other Mars Adept, "when did you leave? Jeez… It's one thing to goof off on your own accord, but don't drag Isaac into it too, since he actually works!"
"We're sorry, Jenna," Isaac said, apologizing for both of the boys. "Something important came up in Vault that we had to deal with."
Jenna frowned but accepted the explanation nonetheless. "Whatever," she sighed. "Isaac, could you help Felix to move these things to the building site for the sanctum? I think they're a little too much for one person, even with psynergy."
The boy agreed to the work and paced around the large stacks of stones a few times, considering the best way to transport them; Jenna, meanwhile, hauled Garet off in the direction of the inn with which he had been assigned to help.
"It's probably best to use Carry," Felix advised. "We can get them there in one go if we work together." Isaac gave a small nod and made to activate the proposed psynergy, but other thoughts distracted him.
"Say, Felix…" hesitancy interrupted the younger Adept's words, "did anything weird happen in Vale while we were gone?"
"What do you mean, weird?"
"…Never mind."
The two set to work conveying the massive bricks to the back of the town. Isaac relied chiefly on his nondominant arm, so the feat was more time-consuming than either would have predicted. The blonde warrior, however, had no desire to share the tale of what happened in Vault, not only for the fact that he did not wish to tell of his injury but also because he felt that perhaps if the events remained unspoken, they would lose their significance. It was worrying, he realized as they neared the future location of the new sanctum, to think that some great danger might be encroaching upon Weyard once more.
"Is everything okay?" Felix asked when they had set down their cargo. Reading his friend's perplexed expression, he elaborated, "You seem a bit out of it. And what did you mean earlier when you asked if something weird happened?"
Isaac brushed the back of his hand across his brow to clear away the sweat that had accumulated there. The sun was beginning to set, and a cool northern wind had started to blow. He gazed out towards Mt. Aleph, taking a moment to appreciate the gentle breeze as he pondered the best way to respond to Felix's concern.
"I'm just kind of tired, I guess," he lied. "It's nothing to worry about." The older Venus Adept frowned at Isaac's blatant secrecy.
"If you say so. Anyway, it's getting kind of late. We may as well call it a day."
"All right. I want to stay out here a little while longer, though. You can go back without me." The boy's eyes were locked on Mt. Aleph. Felix watched him warily for a short time before shrugging and heading for the encampment that had been set up around the river for the workmen and the few families that had insisted on staying in Vale.
As the sun slipped closer to the horizon, a silhouette began to take shape; there was a person standing out on Mt. Aleph's rubble. Isaac stared intently at the unmoving form, only half convinced that it was really there, before he set out to see who it was. The stranger's identity became increasingly obvious as he approached, and it was not a particularly welcome sight.
An abruptly strong gust sent the Mercury Adept's pale blue hair partially aloft as he turned to face his company, his arms crossed and a smirk on his lips.
"Well, if it isn't the better half of my power."
"Alex," Isaac growled. "What are you on about now?" A brief expression of confusion crossed the man's face, but it was soon replaced by his familiar confidence.
"Ah, right," he recalled, "the Wise One never told you directly."
"Never told me what?"
Alex waved off the inquiry, "That's of little importance right now." Isaac's stance became almost hostile.
"You're right," he said, his voice firm. "So tell me, just what are you planning this time? What are you doing here?"
"That's a good question. Actually, I'm not really sure myself. Somehow I just wound up here without even trying," the Mercury Adept explained. He took a few casual steps in no particular direction, searching for a way to voice his thoughts.
"Just out of curiosity, how have you been sleeping?" he at last inquired. The question visibly startled Isaac, and Alex chuckled, "Well, no need to say. That dumb look on your face tells it all." His disposition grew solemn. "That dream, don't just shrug it off like it doesn't mean anything. I don't know any more than you do, but I've got a bad feeling that it's an omen for darker days. You might want to talk to your old Alchemist friend about it."
Before the young hero had the opportunity to inquire further, a series of blue rings encompassed Alex, signifying the use of psynergy, and he disappeared. Isaac's eyes lingered on the place where the Adept once stood, a new fear seizing him.
I'm sorry; I feel as though I've left out a large number of important things... For one, the way Garet shrugged off the fact that Isaac was obviously having a nightmare, and then Isaac doesn't really give a whole lot of thought to his dream, then he hardly talks at all with his parents, and then Flint, whom Yuja has convinced me is really quite energetic and chatty, is largely silent and all but disappears. I hope these things don't make the progression seem too unnatural... I simply hate writing large amounts of dialogue and try very hard to avoid it if at all possible.
Um, so... That's about it. From here I'll be winging it a bit more, as my planning notes become a bit more scattered and vague after this point, but I'll still do my best to keep updates coming. Your lovely reviews will only motivate me towards this effort, so please do review as you see fit!
