Chapter 7: Training

Hi, everybody… Heheh… Sorry this took so long. I didn't mean for it to take so long… I've just been really, really busy. And I am alive! Yay!

Oh, and there was a guest review! Thank you to them! I'm also very sorry to zpup1224 for misspelling your name… Thanks to zpup1224, Tatltails, AzureHeart, and LORDUS (guest) for reviewing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


(Terra's POV)

Waking up somewhere far away from home was awkward. Waking up was weird in general, because I couldn't tell what time it was; the window still showed the view of a forest I'd picked out and time hadn't passed in the image. Time hadn't passed at all; it didn't pass in this place.

I yawned. I still felt pretty tired, and my body was aching all over like I'd just run a marathon. Part of me just wanted to stay in bed and never get up, but my conscious pulled me back to the reality that I needed to wake up. I pushed my way out of the covers, ignoring the strange feeling that they were being pulled back down. I stretched, yawning and untangling my way out of bed and nearly falling on my face when the covers were twisted off of me.

I stood up, scratching the back of my head, "What the heck?"

I turned and noticed that Roxas was sleeping in the bed, tangled in the covers. He mumbled something quietly and turned away.

I opened the closet in the room and found it was full of clothes that fit me perfectly. I changed quickly into a new outfit, just a black shirt and some jeans. I stopped myself before leaving the room, almost forgot it…

I reached my hand into the pocket of the pants I'd been wearing the previous day, and took something out to put it into my pocket. I smiled to myself, turning away and walking down the hallway. It was quiet as no one else was awake yet. I looked at the door at the end of the hallway, and found a set of descending stone stairs behind it.

I shrugged, walking down them nonchalantly. I didn't see anything weird about it, and if I should have I was too tired to notice that anything was wrong. I pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs and found myself in a huge garden, covered in dark green hedges that were expertly cut into geometric spirals, and various other soothing polymorphic figures. Everywhere there were unique plants from ferns with giant flat neon green leaves big enough for me to sit on, to tiny red flowers that bloomed at a vivacious rate spreading like wildfire along a patch of grass. There were other flowers that reminded me of hibiscus there, but they came in all of the shades of the rainbow, and some of them even had two or three different colors in them, red and purple, green and yellow, orange and blue, and hundreds of other combinations. There were several trees, though they were tall with huge straight trunks and branches sturdy enough for people to stand on them sticking out of the sides. There wasn't a cloud in the sky above me. There was a straight stone passageway that I decided to follow to see if I could find the middle of the garden.

I walked straight through the middle of it actually as it turned out to be a small circular courtyard with a fountain and a few benches. I sauntered down the path, and when I reached the end, I was surprised to find one of those little hut like drink stands, like you see on the beach in tropical places. I wandered under it and sat down comfortably on one of the stools, leaning down on my elbows. It was nice and warm here… Maybe I'd just take a little nap…

I woke up a few minutes later when someone hugged me from behind. I smiled, holding my hands over hers, "Hey Aqua. How did you get out here?"

She spun my chair around, smiling. To my surprise her ankle was mended and her arms were unscathed like nothing had happened and she was fine. She wasn't wearing her dress anymore, just a blue tee shirt and black shorts. She had on sneakers that were clean and white; everything about her was pure. I mumbled, "You… your leg…"

She put her right index finger in front of my lips, "Sh…"

Somehow, her laugh made it feel like the sun was shining brighter than before. She leaned into my lips and replaced her hand with her lips. It was a quiet moment; a perfect moment. There were no random fireworks going off above our heads, no mystical sunsets on the beach, no choirs of angels, and no bands. Love wasn't like the romance novels said it would be. It was a mix of the most beautiful emotions imaginable all culminating to form a sensation that was fantastic and true. It felt like all of the pain in my body was melting away…

She separated her lips from mine, opting to tap them against my cheek instead. As she did, the bruises on my face faded out into my skin. She pulled back, frowning, several tiny rays of green healing light still visible on the edges of her lips, "You poor thing… Please tell me you haven't been abused…"

Again was the unspoken word to finish her statement, "No. It was just some idiots who were trying to hurt me."

"That counts," she whispered, jumping up into my lap and kissing me warmly.

She separated from my lips briefly to whisper, "I hate to see you in pain. It breaks my heart."

I kissed her again for a short second, "Same here."

She pressed her forehead against mine, her breath smelling like mocha from whatever coffee she'd been sipping before healing me, "I know that, but I've already seen you hurt. You even had to spend half a year out of school because they had to keep you in the hospital with that awful wound."

I felt something wet on my face and realized she was tearing up a bit. I hugged her, thankful that she still even cared about things like that.

That wound… I was horrified of it. The last time I'd seen my father was when he'd found out that Eraqus had called for us to be removed from his care. He was deranged, and he'd grabbed one of the knives from the kitchen and stabbed me in the stomach. I passed out from shock and woke up seven days later in the hospital…

"I'm okay now," I lied quietly.

She shook her head and put her right hand right over the scar, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I caused you so much pain."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, feeling her shift until she was hugging me back.

"I went missing. It's my fault that you had to go through trouble," she responded.

"I know that things were bad, but now they're okay. I may get hurt, but I'm not a victim any more. I can fight and stand up for myself," I said, feeling strange as I admitted those words.

She stood back up, "Well, good," there was a long pause where both of us just looked at one another quietly until my stomach rumbled, "Are you hungry?"

I smiled, "Yes, but that can wait. Have you seen how blue the sky is?"

"No I haven't, let me check," she said teasingly, crossing over to the grass and falling back into it, staring up at the sky and saying with mock surprise, "Wow, it really IS blue."

I chuckled, wandering over to her and plopping down next to her, "You're right."

She laughed at how stupid we sounded and smacked my arm playfully. I narrowed my eyes at her, jokingly saying, "Oh, you want to go?"

"Yes," she replied and suddenly the two of us were play fighting and wrestling like little kids.

It ended with me managing to pin her down to the ground, breathing heavily, "Got you," I whispered in her ear.

She smiled brightly and I leaned down and kissed her. It was brief. We were cut off by a surprised voice, "Am I interrupting something?"


(Riku's POV)

Uh… Did I just walk in when they were about to...?

Both of them stood up awkwardly, dusting grass off themselves. I calmly asked, "What were you doing?"

Aqua's face flushed, "Nothing… We weren't doing anything."

I cleared my throat awkwardly, "Um… Terra… Your shirt's on backwards."

His face paled to the point where he looked like he was about to pass out and he quickly moved to fix it. Sora ran down the street after me, and skid to a stop so quickly he nearly face planted into the ground. I sighed, "Sora…"

He shook his head, his eyes big and sparkling, "Did I miss the moment?"

Aqua blushed, "Let's just go eat something, okay?"

We all sat around the little stand in the middle of the garden, waiting for the others to come out and find us. Sora talked with me until Kairi got there, and he gave her his full attention. Link came out soon after, but it wasn't like he could actually talk. Well… He could communicate a bit thanks to Terra, but he wasn't paying attention to me, he was staring at Zelda. I felt a bit like a third wheel. Then I looked up and noticed that Zelda had the same look on her face.

Well, at least she gets me…

I sighed, relaxing and poking around the breakfast Aqua was nice enough to make for us. It tasted good, I just wasn't that hungry. Luxord eventually entered, wearing a completely new outfit consisting of a brown suit and a small red bow tie, both of which suited him surprisingly well, "I'm terribly sorry I made you wait so long. I had to take care of some pesky little rifts in the space time continuum, if you know what I mean."

Nobody understood what he meant by that, but we all just nodded. We figured that his confusing explanation wouldn't have helped us understand any more than we did now. Silence followed for me as everyone finished up their meals.

Sora, unfortunately, had been given coffee, so he was jumping off of the walls from how hyper it made him. I sighed, "So, what are we doing today, Luxord? Saving the universe, causing time paradoxes-"

He cut me off, "None of the above. We're training."


(Kairi's POV)

We were all standing under a set of incredibly tall straight trees with flat branches that ran parallel to the ground sticking out of the sides of them. Roxas had been pulled off to the library for some reason, and the rest of us were just told to wait under the trees. So Sora and I were holding hands and laughing like nothing had ever happened. We were talking like it was normal life, saying things like, did you see that episode of that show? How was the dance on Friday? Even though we were awkwardly detached from the time we came from. We were just stuck here, in this timeless place.

Where were we anyway? Luxord kept on saying we're 'everywhere and nowhere' but how could I be everywhere and nowhere at the same time? Was there possibly a little cranny of time where this place existed? Did it encompass a planet? Was this heaven, or hell, or purgatory? Were we beyond the bindings of time itself, or did time pass here normally? I tried not to think about it too much, because the more I questioned it, the more confused I became.

In fact, the less I thought about it, the calmer I would feel here. One thing was for sure, this definitely wasn't a dream.

Luxord reentered the scene through a strange black portal, "Alright, then. All of you, stand by your trees."

Sora asked, "So what are we doing here?"

Luxord said, "We're going to climb up trees."

"That's great, I love climbing trees!" Sora exclaimed before jumping into a new story, "This one time there was this really huge-"

Luxord cut him off, "The only catch is, you're not allowed to use your hands."

"That's impossible," Terra said, crossing his arms, "How exactly do you expect us to climb a tree without using our hands?"

"Like this," Luxord replied, walking over to a tree to demonstrate. He put one foot against the bark, and then another.

Soon enough, he was walking on the tree, up it. He stopped when he reached a branch about halfway up and walked onto it, "Alright then. I'm certain by the looks on all of your faces, you're curious about how to climb like that. Everyone has energy deep inside of them that allows them to perform fantastic feats. Many people whom you call 'magicians' possess the ability to manipulate this energy strategically. If you are to focus the correct amount of that energy to any surface, you will be able to use it to climb up vertical surfaces. Other techniques include shooting fire, ice, electricity, and healing magic, but I should start you off with the basics to see how good you are at controlling it."

"So, how do you even focus this energy?" I asked, curious and almost excited to see how this worked.

"You need to find the place where you center yourself. Find a reason to fight, and your being should follow through with your orders. You have to find the things that are most important to you. Other types of magic require the manipulation of these images and feelings, but for something simple like this, it's just focus," Luxord replied, flipping himself on the branch so he was standing upside down on it, his suit jacket hanging loosely on him, "Are all of you ready? Try to reach the branch I'm standing on. You might want to start off at a run first so you have a bit of momentum to push you up higher."

Zelda and I stood back to watch what happened to the guys when they tried to climb the tree. Well, I was trying to figure out how to get up the vertical surface, while she looked like she was trying to find something to focus on.

Terra, Sora, Link, Aqua, and Riku all ran at the tree simultaneously. Riku made it up about two steps before nearly falling back down and managing to brace himself with his hands. Link charged at it, but didn't manage to get his left leg off of the ground. Terra got up about four steps before he stepped on the bark so hard that it cracked under him. He flipped off of the tree, managing to land on his feet. Sora ran up about three feet before tumbling back down because of the force of gravity and landing on his head. Aqua gracefully sauntered up the trunk of the tree without a problem. She stopped on the sixth branch up off the ground, sitting there comfortably. Luxord sighed, speaking up again, "No, you see, if you don't put enough energy into it, like Sora," I felt a sensation that felt like wind rushing through my body and started climbing up the tree in front of me, "then you'll just end up falling back down and hurting yourself. However, if you put too much energy into it, like Terra, you'll end up getting thrown off of it by your own force. You need to find a balance between the two. This is the way of-"

"Hey, this is really fun!" I shouted, smiling and waving down.

Everyone who was still on the ground was staring at me in shock, "Kairi, how did you do that?"

I have no idea, I just walked up the tree. I smiled down at them, "You guys look like ants!"

Luxord gave me a glance, "Well, then, it looks like Kairi has the best control," he looked down at Aqua and nodded his approval, "and Aqua's not that far behind," he gestured vaguely in the direction of the people on the ground, "You all need work."

"How do we keep track of our progress, anyway?" Riku asked, Link nodding in agreement to his question before falling off of the tree again.

Luxord glanced at me, "Kairi, may I borrow your knives?"

"Sure," I tossed the little bag down to him, and he caught it deftly.

He took out several knives, and chucked one at each of their feet, "Every time you feel as though you're going to fall off of the tree, make a mark in its bark to remind yourself how far up you've gotten. This will also track how slowly or quickly you progress through this exercise. As soon as all of you can manage to control yourselves enough to make it all the way up the tree we can start with more exercises."

Zelda was the first to charge at the tree again, and she managed to get about three branches up before falling back down. Riku smirked, "Hey guys, how about a little contest?"

"Okay," Sora said, "What kind of contest?"

"Let's see who can get to the top of the trees faster," Riku replied before again trying to force his way up the tree.

This was going to be a long day. As it would turn out, Zelda, Aqua, and I managed to get all the way to the top on the first day, but the boys were still at it for a couple of days. Roxas would occasionally join us, but he was busy on something else in the library usually, so he couldn't. The boys would come back to the little hut where we ate covered in bruises at the end of every day, each boasting about how great they were and how high up the tree they'd gotten, only to be scolded and healed by Aqua.

It took them about five days to finally reach the top of their trees, and while we were all sitting around the table eating dinner, Luxord came to explain to us about how magic worked, "Alright, so other than Aqua, do any of you know how to control magic?"

"No," was the simultaneously reply from almost everyone.

"Magic is the ability to cause supernatural events. The types that I will be currently teaching you are the basic magic skills of light. There are three simple types of magic," Luxord said calmly, "Fire, ice, and healing. When you become skilled enough in a certain type of magic, you can use it to evolve your element. For example, becoming skilled enough in fire magic allows one to manipulate lightning. Each type of magic has a certain emotion connected to creating it. Healing magic is strongest when the user channels their happiest emotions; fire magic comes when one channels their angriest sentiments and ice from the sadness."

"That sounds complicated," Sora said, "Is there a simplified version?"

"No, Sora," Luxord said, "Many things in life are complicated. However, those of you who are the reincarnations of the sages," he gestured towards Aqua and Zelda, "will have less difficult times learning the magical skills of your element. Don't be discouraged if you don't get it on your first try."

Riku stretched out his arm, and a small burst of fire flashed out of his hand, "You mean like this?"

Luxord nodded before asking, "What is it you're angry about?"

Riku shrugged, "That's none of your business."

I sighed, "So, what if you're happy and no one needs to be healed?"

"Deal with it," Luxord shrugged.

I pointed at Riku, who had now burned down a bush, "He should be more careful."

"Riku," Terra called, "Don't burn the garden down!"

Riku growled, releasing another burst, inadvertently lighting up another tree, "Wow, that's really good for relieving stress."

I quickly bolted over to the place where the flames had started, "Fire, there's a fire! What do we do?"

Luxord shrugged, "Go create some water."

Sora and Link fanned at the flames with their hands, "Well, where do we get water if no one's sad?"

Aqua whispered something to Luxord, who whispered something back and raised his hand. Rain suddenly started from the clear sky randomly. I shouted, "What's going on?"

Luxord quietly slipped his hand down and the rain ceased. Smoke rose in tiny wisps from the previous sweltering bushes. I frowned, "Luxord? What did you do?"

"I manipulated the emotions of the water," he said.

Riku asked, "How can the water have emotions? It's an inanimate object."

Aqua stopped them, "He's being metaphorical again. He means that he manipulated my emotions."

"Well, how did he do that?" Sora asked.

She gave him a look that would've better been seen on a criminal, and spoke with a murderous tone, "That's none of your business."

"Okay, okay, calm down," I said quickly, trying to make sure that it wouldn't start raining fire.

"What did he tell you?" Terra asked, looking up at her with general concern.

She shrugged, "It was nothing, really."

An awkward silence followed, which was broken by Zelda speaking up, "Well, I think we should move on off of magic as our training regimen and move onto some more physical training. What do you think, Luxord?"

Luxord nodded, "You are correct, we do need to hurry to complete it… Time waits for no man."

I didn't even want to bother trying to understand what that meant, Luxord's just too confusing. I mean, he's nice I guess, but he needs to learn to speak in a language other than one that's full of metaphors.

"It's settled," Luxord stood up, "Aqua, will you please come talk to me for a moment?"

He pulled her away from our little gathering into the far reaches of the garden, leaving the rest of us to wonder what to do in a place where time was limitless. Link sat down and seemed to be trying to send pick-up lines to Zelda with his eyes… or something like that. He kept on giving her these really weird long stares, which I would assume would translate into something like I have a crush on you in English. I laid back on the grass and stared at the sky.

It was perfectly empty, void of clouds and birds. There weren't any ants or bugs crawling around to tickle me or creep along my skin. The grass itself was so soft it felt like falling on top of a soft plush layer of feathers rather than normal scratchy, itchy blades. It was perfect… too perfect. This place was like heaven on Earth… or heaven wherever we were. Was it heaven? Was it just a beautiful garden somewhere where if we opened enough doors we'd find our way home? Did this place show up on a map somewhere on some world, or were we nowhere? If we were actually nowhere, what did that make us; how could we even be nowhere? Were we dead or alive? Was any of this even real?

I stared at the sky for a long time, thinking up more unanswerable questions about this weird place, and our crazy journey. A shadow fell over me, "Kairi, I know you're pondering about this place, but everyone else left."

I didn't need to think about who was talking to me. Who else would be able to read my mind? "Sorry, I was zoning out," I replied.

Terra sat down next to me, a contented smile on his face, "You know, I never thought I would be happy like this."

I felt a smile starting on me too, "It is nice here. I just hope that Sora and Riku don't accidentally burn down the garden."

"Agreed," he replied, "I wonder what Luxord told Aqua…"

"Why do you say that?" I asked, sitting up and stretching out so I could wake myself up.

"It must have been something terrible to make her upset like that. I just don't know what's bothering her. I can tell when she's lying, though," he sighed, "I know her too well to fall for any of that."

"Well, what are you doing here then?" I responded quizzically.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"Don't you think she would want you to be there when she was getting bad news?" I said curiously.

He laughed, which was awkward in the situation, "Aqua's a lot stronger than you think; she's independent and I love that about her. She can handle things on her own, but if she really needs me, I'll come running."

"I wish I could be that strong," I quietly said.

He shrugged, "I'm sure you will be. Everyone's strong; we just need to be put to the test to see how strong we actually are."

He stood up after letting that sink in for a few seconds, "I forget who told me that, but it's true. I'm going to get out of here because I'm tired"

I smiled, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin and starting to doze off again.


(Roxas's POV)

I wasn't sure what Luxord was trying to teach me. It almost felt like I was in a cross between a History class and an English class. I was given free reign of the giant maze of a library, and I could read any book I wanted to as long as I put it back afterwards. Classics, modern books, and random books I'd never even heard of that probably had yet to be written littered the shelves in sporadic patterns. Sometimes I would just sit in a corner of the bookshelves and read a book continuously, and others I would just wander around, checking the dates when they were written. They ranged from the Renaissance period to 2009 to 3497.

I didn't understand how any of this would help me more than improving my fighting skills, but I wasn't about to ask Luxord any questions. Nothing he said made sense, and I was still upset with him about Ven… Even though I knew that wasn't his fault and it couldn't be helped…

I wandered around the maze, eventually finding my way back to Luxord's desk, and noticing something on it. It was that book… that book that he told me not to read was sitting right in front of me. A little rebellious spark started in my mind and I sat in front of it quietly, stretching my hand out and using all of my self-control to not throw it open and read every word that instant. A huge sense of foreboding ran through me as I tapped the cover, pulling my hand back just as quickly.

I felt like he'd placed Pandora's Box in front of me, and I was tempted to open it.

So tempted to open it…

I slowly looked around; making sure that Luxord wasn't around. One little peek wouldn't hurt, right?

…Right?

I opened it slowly to a random page about a quarter of the page through the book, curious about the writing style of the author to see if I would enjoy it. What I read surprised me:

'I slowly moved back, shaking my head in shock and trying to function through the tears that made my vision go fuzzy, blurring out the world.'

That was all I got to read before the book was slammed shut in my face, "Uh… Hi, Luxord…"

His voice rang out clearly behind me, and I had to turn the chair around in order to properly talk to him, "How much of that did you read?"

"Um…" I mumbled, gingerly picking my words in hope that he wouldn't kill me if I did; he looked really angry, "I just read a sentence… It's probably nothing important."

He did seem to calm down a bit when I said that, "Okay… What was the sentence about?"

"Something about someone crying or something," I shrugged, "I didn't get to read much."

His face suddenly seemed to become as pallid as a specter, "This was exactly what I was trying to avoid!"

"Why?" I asked, wondering why he was overreacting so much.

"You have no idea what you've done!" Luxord shouted, "You're supposed to be the one who changes people's fates, not sets them in stone!"

"How much pain can reading one sentence cause?"

A lot of pain, Roxas… And not just to you.


(Link's POV)

I shot another arrow at the target, but that one didn't even come close to hitting the white. Why is this so difficult!?

"Do you think I'm having fun?" an annoyed voice questioned in response.

That scared me so much that I shot an arrow into the sky nearly vertically, Terra! Don't scare me like that!

He mumbled something that vaguely sounded like, "I'm sorry."

The two of us were training to learn how to properly shoot a bow and arrow, because we both were terrible at it.

I tried to concentrate on getting another arrow onto the target, but my aim was ruined when he spoke again, "So, what do you think of Princess Zelda?"

I shot another arrow straight past the target, my concentration completely broken, why do you ask?

"You're not thinking about her as much as you usually do. It's kind of strange how little you're thinking about right now. Are you really concentrating that much on archery?" he asked.

I shrugged, I don't know.

"You've been thinking about her non-stop since we met her!" he laughed, narrowly missing hitting his own target with an arrow.

I have not! I angrily thought back.

I realized after a moment that I was having the first argument I'd ever had in my life. It's pretty hard to get your point across to someone who's yelling at you when you can't yell back. Somehow, the feeling is empowering. He shook his head, moving to string another arrow, "Nope, don't try to pull that one. Remember, I can hear everything that you're thinking."

No you can't! I shouted, annoyed at this invasion of privacy, I don't like her!

"Oh come on, you do."

No…

"Yes."

Finally I got so annoyed I threw down my bow and shouted at the sky, "I DO NOT LOVE PRINCESS ZELDA!"

I covered my mouth quickly afterwards, horrified that words had actually escaped from it. As quickly as the empowerment had come, it vanished away. I touched my throat, shaking my head, and coughing from how weird it was, W-what was that? How did your voice come out of my mouth?

Terra coughed several times, "Ugh… This just gets weirder and weirder."

"What the heck just happened?" I asked frantically, covering my mouth again as the voice once again escaped.

Calm down! Terra ordered me quickly.

I nodded, taking a deep breath, and trying to talk again, but no words escaped my mouth. Okay, I thought, trying to keep the insanity of what was happening around me in order, so… what just happened?

"I don't know," Terra replied calmly, "It probably has something to do with your heightened emotions."

Well… They did say you were supposed to be my voice, I thought quietly, so maybe when I need to talk the most you can lend it to me.

Terra shrugged, "That's a good guess."

He strung another arrow, managing to hit the white part of the target, Terra, how are you so calm about this? A little while ago you were denouncing all of this stuff, and now you're accepting it all of the sudden. Is something wrong?

He sighed, "Well, it's certainly better than what life is like back home. At least here I have friends. And… I guess fairy tales aren't that bad."

We may make a romanticist out of you yet! I silently laughed.

He shrugged. The silence that followed was awkward and tense. Um…Terra?

"Yeah?" he asked, his arrow whizzing past the target he'd attempted to aim for and hitting the bark of a tree.

Are you okay? Is something bothering you? You're acting kind of strange. I finally allowed those thoughts to slide to the front of my mind.

"I'm fine."

His response was short, acute, and most likely a lie. Terra was always a terrible liar. He sounded different and acted slightly strangely, and sometimes he'd even start twitching awkwardly. Right then, his arm was shaking uncomfortably and he shook his head like he had a headache and was trying to knock it away. For all I knew, that might have been the case, but he was probably just lying.

The silence was really killing me this time. The more thoughts I sent in Terra's general direction, the less he seemed to respond, and the more he seemed to be in a daze – it was like his spirit had vanished away and been replaced by one that was distant and cold. It was so uncomfortable that I felt a shiver come through me. Even if I hadn't known him well enough to know that something was wrong, I could see it in his eyes. Instead of the usual sharp cobalt light of his irises, they seemed clouded over like a stormy sky at sea.

Terra!

No response. Something was definitely wrong.


(Terra's POV)

Something was off… No, not just something… What was that?

I listened intently to it. It was quiet and far off, and at first I had assumed it was my own heart beating, but no… it was… different… It sounded slightly like a heartbeat, or maybe a clock or a metronome.

I strained my ears to hear it better, and the sound came slightly into more detail:

tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…

After the 26 little quick beats, the sound stopped, and then it started again. I tried to shake it off, but it was still there; getting slowly but surely, decibel by decibel, louder and louder, and louder. It grew until it almost sounded like my own heart beat ringing out in my ears. It was weird, like some kind of metronome constantly ticking away at a high speed, but I managed to ignore it for the rest of the time when we were training.

As soon as we were done, we started to walk away, but suddenly, my feet felt as if someone had super glued them to the ground. Link stopped a little bit ahead of me, Are you okay?

I shook my head, "No… I-I can't move."

I noticed then, that there seemed to be small particles of blackness emanating from my figure, starting from my feet in small proportions, and gradually getting much larger. I gasped. Oh, come on! Give me a break already!

I heard people running towards me, two of them trying to pull me away from the shadows before I vanished. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them we were in a completely different place, "What…? What is that?"


End Chapter 7

Lol, I'm sorry about the cliffhanger thing. I usually never write those because they annoy me in real life, but it fit in perfectly with where I want the story to go from here.

I wonder who caught all of the references here. I'll give you a couple of hints:

One was very subtle and from the song "Suddenly Seymour" in Little Shop of Horrors.(I know that I've been doing that play for WAY too long now, because it's starting to influence my writing. XD). The other was from Naruto.

If anyone's wondering why there's so darn much Terra x Aqua at the moment… Um… I have my reasons. (It's not just because I love the pairing it literally has to do with the story) To those of you who don't pay attention to detail, you probably should. For anyone who was wondering about the weird sound plaguing Terra's brain… count the number of ticks he heard. It's a hidden little clue for what's going to happen… Most of it will come up later in the story. Oh, and for people who want to see more of the villains, they'll be back next chapter, and the chapter after that(I'm pretty sure…), just not this one for now.

Just be prepared for the next chapter… We're losing a major character…

Well, I hope you enjoyed it! Please proceed to the second chapter of the double update. :)