Legends: Beginnings

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is related, remotely related, or is in the game, Illusion of Gaia. It is owned by Enix and all related companies. All Original Characters, Stories, and anything that is not in, related to, or remotely related to the game, was solely created for creative and entertainment purposes. Thank you for your time.

Chapter Ten – Ashes Of Old

Michael stood where he was, his eyes scanning the forest that they had left behind as if he waiting for something. It seem to be more quiet then it had the day before, not even the sound of rustling leaves could be head from the jungle forest. It was as if the wind had stopped moving in this part of the island but it hadn't, he still felt the calm breeze winding its way through the trees and vines. There were no birds or other animals that were moving along the branches and roots of the trees, nothing they had seen since the day before. If there was anything else on this island other than this spilt expedition team and the knight, it wasn't making itself known at the moment.

Michael's group sat and stood not far from where he was, they had made camp in that spot late into the evening the night before. It hadn't been an order by Crystal but by Michael; he knew that they should have stopped when the sun had faded over the horizon as they did not have any natural light left to carry on with. Crystal had them bring out their flashlights and the group had headed to the south then rotated to the east before Michael told them to stop for the night. She had not liked it one bit but, according to Michael, if the group went any further without much needed sleep, they all would fall over from exhaustion or worse. The last thing she needed was a pack of human bodies refusing to move because they were extremely tired and very much on the brink of starvation.

The group had settled down peacefully where they were finishing up their packing, several members of the team had successfully shot down two birds for their evening meal. Those two birds had been the last living creatures they had seen besides themselves and, with a fire going, didn't expect anything to come charging out at them again. Not after the knight had scared them all senseless; a wild boar or a boa constrictor was a more welcome sight to them then the knight. The team had broken into several shifts, Michael and two others taking the first shift before they were rotated out with three others. Crystal had not taken a watch rotation; she had moved away from the group and set up her own camp away from the others once the evening meal had finished. That had given some of them a peace of mind that she was not hovering over them during the night but they also resented her for not taking a more active role in keeping them safe.

Michael, like the rest of the group, hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. His main worry was Kat and how she was, largely due in part that his tracking device didn't pick up her signal. He knew that she wasn't stupid enough to not turn it on but he was still mentally smacking himself for not turning it on himself earlier then he had; was she, like he was, panicking when he had turned his on? He hadn't bothered when they had split, he had not expected to be separated in the first place and it had not been one of the things he had been worried about; he still has his tracker activated in case Kat came looking for him and he hoped that she had hers on in case he was able to go looking for her first. If she had been like him and had completely forgotten, believing she was in capable hands like he did, then he could not fault her for it.

Taking in a deep breath and letting it out he turned around and started to walk through the cut path that lay before him. His group was just ahead, shivering in their fear of the island and what was out there, if not for fear of their leader. It had taken Michael this long, and the looks exchanged between his team members, to understand why so many people avoided the rest of the islands in the first place. The silence had grown too deafening for any sane person to think properly without seeing things come out of the forest or go insane from the fear. Had he not seen the knight, had he not taken notice of the apparent lack of wildlife, he would have thought it was just another island that had never been inhabited by any recent civilization.

As soon as he had gotten back to the amp, many turned to face him to see what he had come up with. They were already packed and ready to go wherever they were going to be lead to next, Crystal standing upon a rock as she towered over the rest of the group; had she been keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't run off? Michael knew she hadn't wanted to stop the night before but quickly understood that if they didn't, the team would have mutinied against her. The last thing she had needed at the moment, and even now, was to have her team set upon her on a remote island with the boat a day away from them.

"Well? Is there anything out there?" Crystal demanded as she turned her head down to him as Michael stopped by her rock. "Anything that has followed us here? Because if we stopped last night for no reason, I'd leave you here to find your own way back to the boat or even find that daughter of yours."

"Nothing's there, it's the same answer I gave last night and this morning. I'll give the same damn answer again if I had to." He had to shoot a glare at the rest of the group to keep quiet in their protest that there was something out there, watching them. He knew something was there but it was not around them, that much he knew. "And as I told you last night, Crystal, we had to stop, rest, and get something to eat. Otherwise we would not have been able to move any further and you would have had to carry all the supplies yourself."

"Listen, all of you." Crystal raised her voice high over the mutterings of the group, plainly ignoring the last comments made by Michael. "There is nothing out there that can harm you, even if there was it is just animals native to this island. You need to put your fears to rest so that we can move on without any more interruptions." As she spoke the last sentence, she shot a glare towards Michael. "We are behind already because you just had to sleep. We will move out now, get your gear and move."

Making sure that the team was getting their supplies in order and putting them away, she jumped down off of her rock and slinked forwards. Some of the team looked at each other than the jungle forest behind them before sighing and following suit; the boat was beginning to look better and better from where they were standing. Michael and a couple of others held back to get the last of the supplies before they moved in line behind the rest of them; what little rest they had gotten the night before had not been enough. They knew they had to take another long break before dinner if not for another night.

"You sure there wasn't anything back there?" One of his fellows asked, moving his head over his shoulder as they walked along the brush. Even though he, and others, kept glancing around there wasn't anything there beside themselves; the appearance of the knight had spooked them and good.

"Positive," Michael said hotly then lowered his voice. "If we encounter the knight again, which seems unlikely, we must not harm him. He won't harm us so long as we don't harm him. The last thing we need is an injured person; we're too far away from the main island to do much in the way of medical treatment."

"What makes you so sure it was a him in the first place?" Another asked who also was looking around not just at the jungle forest around him but also towards the front where Crystal was walking. "We didn't run into Crystal until about ten minutes after we ran from where this spirit was. She said she was looking for something and then turned angry when we explained what had happened. What if she is the knight?"

"It would be too close to impossible for her to transform like that," Michael said softly. "She would need his statue to transform into the knight, which wouldn't be possible if he's already taken another person's body. Do not forget that the knight's statue is back on the main island. Do you really think she had the time to get to that island, transform, leave, transform again, and then return in a matter of minutes?"

"What makes you sure she is human?" Someone else put in. "She could have used some sort of alien power to transform herself into a replica of the knight without even have to go in front of his statue?"

Michael suppressed the urge to scream; in doing so he would not only give their position away but also draw the attention of Crystal. The last thing they needed to do was have to explain their conversation, which was going into a downward spiral as it were. The other team members, chatting nervously around him, seemed to want to latch onto anything that would put their leader into the knight's role. Michael had the same thought the day before but had pulled himself out of that thought; it was impossible. There would no possible way that Crystal could be herself and the knight at the same time; that was not a very comforting thought. He hoped that Kat was still in one piece and was safely tucked away with the rest of her team and the knight had decided to only observe her for the time being.

"These conversations are absurd," Michael mumbled loud enough for the others around him to hear him. Either they hadn't or were ignoring him; they continued to talk amongst them about what Crystal was and if she really was the knight in female form. His irritation with the rest of the group was mounting, so much that he walked further ahead of them without any other word. He would not speak to them for the time being, not until it was needed; he had his own worries and none of them were concentrated around the trek or the statues.

He kept one hand on his tracker device, flipping it off and on several times as they walked, hacked their way through the forest, and stopped every so often to rest for several moments. Crystal only allowed five minute rest periods before they continued on again and only because several had threatened to munity against her; the longest had been for about forty minutes while they ate a late lunch several hours later. Crystal had moved away from the group once again but unlike the day before, stayed within a short distance away from them. She was mainly keeping an eye on Michael as they all ate; it was at this moment that he stopped flipping the device on and off. That told whoever had the second set to hurry up and get to where its partner was at, if the other device was on. He did not expect Kat to come right away, only that she needed to get to him as soon as she could.

She knew that Michael was trying to figure out a way to part from this team, she had an inkling of it since they had continued on after the encounter with the knight. If he left she would follow him, right into the hands of the knight; the worst thing that would happen was that she could use Michael for leverage. If he knew his daughter like he did, Crystal would back Kat into a corner and Kat did not do well being backed into corners. He silently told himself that this was the reason why Kat did not have her tracking device on and kept that mentality as they packed up their lunch and left not long afterwards. As long as he could keep the thought that Kat was still alright and that she did not want her father coming after her at the moment, then that would keep him going for now.

XXXX

Kat felt like she had the ability to fly as she kept her grip tight on Freedan's shoulders, keeping her body close to his back so she wouldn't fall off. The knight was running as fast as he could with the girl and the bag on her back; she knew he could possibly go faster if he did not have so much weight on his back but there was no complaints about it. He just kept going, focusing on where he was going and the ever changing direction he went in; every five to ten minutes he changed from one direction to another. She thought it was odd that he was zigzagging all over the place and she decided he knew where he was going; if he was the sole human inhabitant of this island then he knew this island better than she did.

They had left Kat's campsite what seemed like hours ago; judging by the way the light of the sun was, they had left about four hours ago and had only stopped twice. Both times was to give them a rest and to relieve themselves; they both had the decently to find places away from each other. It mattered not how Freedan could do his business in all that armor and she didn't question it; she blushed just thinking about it! She also kept her tracking device off while they took their quick fifteen minute breaks; she knew her father had his on when she took out the hand-held device from the backpack to check Michael's position. The dot on the small screen that was her father blinked rapidly off and on numerous times, which told her that her father wanted her to get to where he was and as soon she could

He was about fifteen miles west of where they were if not further away, she still could not wrap her head around how big his island was and told Freedan as much. When he told her how big this island really was, she stared at him for a minute then looked down at the device; it was not flashing off and on like it had before. It was not possible she had told him, her father was not so far away from them; Freedan did not question how the device worked nor did he do more than look at it, only merely suggested that maybe newer inventions were not as reliable as she thought before they continued on their way. He told her to put it away before they wasted more time looking at nothing.

She could not begin to explain that the device was not wrong and that her father would want her by his side as soon as he could; he, in turn, could not accurately explain how this island worked without wasting more time then he already had. They both made mental notes in their mind to tell the other as much once they got to where they were going. Once she had put the device back into her bag they took off again, Freedan resuming his random pattern; she thought that maybe it was to confuse anyone that may or may not be following them. It certainly was her.

She was surprised they had not run into anyone else since leaving the campsite, Kat wishing that Freedan would take her to where her father was instead of finding this person he had called his 'mistress'. But Freedan had not and most likely wouldn't, he was on a different track of mind; if what he had told her before was correct then the only other people on this island was the team her father and Crystal were on. She shuddered to think what Crystal would say when she saw the knight standing before her and what would happen if the two should meet.

"Aren't we there yet?" Kat yelled into the wind as loud as she could so that the knight could hear her. She didn't know if he could hear her or would just ignore her after their last conversation, even if he didn't answer they would come onto their destination soon enough.

"We're going to see my mistress. You won't be able to see the gateway right now since it's typically hidden from most mortals but with the ring on, you'll be able to pass right through it but it won't be pleasant," Freedan called back to her, which surprised her. She hadn't expected him to answer her and was annoyed that he did not elaborate more on who this 'mistress' of his was and what he meant by 'hidden gateway'. Nothing had made sense since she had stepped on this island so why should anything start now?

Kat opened her mouth to yell something else to him before she felt something wash over her and started to pull her in every direction. Squeezing her eyes shut at the sheer force that pulled her, she held onto Freedan's shoulders more tightly. Flashes of her life passed through her mind, mostly from her younger years and when she was a baby; there was an echo of a motherly voice that went along with these images, in a language that she could not understand. It was not Freedan's voice; that much she knew as it sounded more and more feminine the more she listened to it; the images stopped seconds after the voice had quieted down. It was a relief that the images were gone but she found herself longing for that soothing voice to talk to her again.

Just as the images and voice stopped, a vortex of wind pressed against her body and she nearly let go of Freedan from the force of that vortex. Whatever was pressing against her it also was attempting to slice open her skin while trying to force her back into the jungle forest. It was as though something didn't want her to go further than she was and believed her to be an unwelcome intruder in a home she did not know she was invading; had she not been on Freedan's back, this vortex would most likely have succeeded in pushing her back where she had come from. This must be the gateway, was the only thought she had as she pushed her body onto Freedan's.

Just like it had begun, everything stopped attacking her body. The feeling of being pulled in all direction, the vortex, even the images and voice did not reappear – where there had been noise and light there was nothing but silence. Kat knew they had stopped; Freedan pushed her off of his back as soon as they had stopped. She hadn't even felt her body hit the ground, her eyes opening as she glared up at him; it took her a moment to stand up. Taking her bag off of her back, she walked around to face Freedan and ignored everything else that was around her; the first thing she was going to do was address him on what had just happened and why he had suddenly put her onto the ground.

"That was your gateway, huh?" She snarled at him as she glared at him. "How nice of you to not tell me something like that would have happened. I'd like to know where we are and when we leave if I have to endure my skin being peeled away again."

"You are in the Dark Space, young one," a cool voice said as Freedan returned Kat's glare. The girl smirked at the knight, turning around to face someone who would, in all hopes, give her the answers she needed to have. That smirk soon faded when she turned around; she had expected to see what might resemble someone in a human form but saw something completely different. Sitting on what looked to be a large pedestal was the head of a woman, her smiling eyes watching Kat. Her snake-like hair wound itself above her head, her smile lighting up her face. It was not what Kat expected at all to see of Freedan's supposed 'mistress'.

Kat's legs gave out on her as she fell onto her knees on what she thought was the floor, her hands moving to her throat where a scream had died. Had she looked around she would have seen more of where they were but her eyes were fixated on the giant head in front of her. On all of the treks, trips, and expeditions she had been allowed to go on with her father since she had been able to walk, nothing had produced anything like this. She had not been prepared for what she saw in front of her, she could not be seeing this. None of it could be real, she was still in her bed on the island and the group hadn't gone to the island yet; she was dreaming, that had to be the explanation for all of this.

But that part of her knew this wasn't a dream, the giant head giving her a moment to digest what she was seeing. It took her a moment before she lowered her gaze once the initial shock wore off, embarrassed that she had been staring at it for quite some time. Freedan had come up next to her and put his hand on her head for a moment, to reassure her that everything was alright before he put his hand back to his side. Kat finally understood who Freedan was talking about when he spoke of his mistress and had been stupid enough not to connect it before, this was the one who he followed and perhaps this was the best way to communicate with what the knight had said were mere mortals.

"You aren't as afraid as you were; I assure you no harm will come on you while you are you here." The head's large eyes blinked several times. "I am Gaia, the spirit of the Earth. I believe you already knew that."

"Yes," Kat mumbled, rubbing her upper arms. Freedan glanced down at her before returning his gaze up.

"She has the ring," Freedan said, nodding to Kat's right hand. Gaia scrunched her eyes to see the ring on Kat's hand then let out a long breath. "She says she got it from her father, where he got it she doesn't know."

"That ring has clouded my vision for the last five decades," she said, her eyes moving from Kat to Freedan and back again. "I see and know just about everything that goes on in this planet, yet the Ring of Two Souls is something that I cannot seem to keep track of. I knew it was not active, I would have felt it if it had."

"I don't understand," Kat mumbled again, looking up at Gaia again. "I don't understand any of this. You're Mother Nature; you're supposed to know things! You're in control of this planet!"

"Not in control of it, child, far from it. I just guide it. The ring you wear does not have elements of nature in it like the other two are, I know Freedan explained how it was created or at least gave you enough details of it." She did not have to look at the knight to see him nod. "This is a complicated matter that would take time to explain."

"I'm tired of people telling me that things are complicated or there's no time to explain," Kat snapped, her frustration spilling out." I want out and want to get to my father."

She stood up with what strength had returned to her legs, taking a moment to wobble where she stood; at least her stomach had not decided to become upset again. Looking at both the giant head and the knight, she turned on her heels strode slowly towards where her bags were. Freedan did not move from where he stood, allowing Kat to pick up her bag put it over her shoulders. She then walked where she assumed they had come in only to find that there was no doorway, no anything that would make a gateway out of this 'Dark Space'. It felt like there was an invisible wall around her as she placed her hands where there should have been an opening to the outside world. Instead there was nothing but the wall that kept her sealed inside the room.

"You can't leave without me or Shadow taking you out, you do not have enough Dark Essence in you nor do you have any experience with the ring to make a doorway appear," Freedan said from over his shoulder. "That will be one of the abilities you'll gain if you go on the right path and if Gaia allows the ring to open the Dark Space to you."

"What are you talking about?" Kat demanded, turning around to face them again. "Look, all I want is to get out of here so I can find my father and go home. I don't care about rings, Dark Essence, or anything else!"

"It is too late for you back out of this now, child. Because you put the Ring of Two Souls on you have become tangled up in it," Gaia said as slowly as she could. "It was something at one point was a gift to mortals but now has become something much worse."

"I am sorry, Gaia, for bringing her into this. I knew I should have taken it from her sooner," Freedan said quietly. Kat could tell he regretted the decision to include her in this yet it was not his fault that she had gotten wrapped into this, it was hers. Had she known what this ring was, if her father had given her any type of idea as to what he had given his daughter, she would not have put it on. Instead she was standing in front of a large head that represented the Spirit of the Earth, talking about things she did not know of as though it was a daily occurrence.

"No one in this Space is at fault here; I cannot put any blame on you or her or even myself. The question is: can she do what is asked of her when the time comes? Can she withstand what the ring will eventually put her through?" Gaia looked directly at Kat, who dropped her bag next to where she stood. "It won't be easy. I have seen what the ring can do to mortals, sometimes it was not pretty. Not all who touched upon the darker side of it corrupted."

"All I came to this island for was to look for a pair of statues," she said, her voice breaking. All she had been told was that there were two other statues that the elders wanted to make sure were alright; she did not expect to get mixed up into something like this. The statues weren't even supposed to exist and Gaia, she was a myth told about during a time to explain how things on the planet and in the universe worked. Yet here she was, in a form that could communicate with Kat and was trying to explain something that she still could not fully understand.

"If you mean Shadow's," Gaia said, smiling at her. Like a light switch turning on, the left side of the small chamber they were in lit up and shone down upon a statue. There stood the form of another, more liquid in shape and held no concrete form that Kat could make out. It was like it resembled a shadow of a man but not in a form seen by anyone in recent centuries.

"So that's Shadow," Kat breathed, her eyes looking over Shadow's statue before she turned her head to the other side of Gaia's pedestal; that area also had lit up but was complete void of any statue. "So Freedan's would have gone on the other side of you if it were here."

"As you can see it this area is completely empty, no one else has transformed into Freedan," Gaia said, moving her head in what would be a nod. "The ring you now wear was on the finger of the person who was supposed to transform into Freedan. Freedan gave you the short version of how the ring forced him out of his statue."

"Indeed." Freedan turned to Kat as she slowly walked back to where she had been kneeling before. "I told you the three ways that I can get out of my statue, the ring being one of them. What you need to understand is that while the two were done with their battle in the heavens, the Earth went on as it did for millions of years before. It did not suddenly speed up like it had for those two; they only saw a condensed version of how things changed. Both of them spent centuries up there, if not longer, and had no way of what really happened on Earth.

"After the battle, both Shadow and I returned to Earth to tell Gaia of the turn of events before she allowed them to come back to their 'New World'. No one knew about the ring until two decades after our return when it suddenly appeared, it took many more years to understand where this ring came from. Its name came from the two rings that help create it." Freedan paused, smiling just a bit so that Kat could let this sink in, then continued. "The ring was passed from mortal to mortal once it was no longer needed, or wanted. Most of the masters of the ring actually handed it to someone else, only a few did not and threw them away. This happened in between us returning and up to fifty years ago."

"The Ring of Two Souls does something to the Dark Essence of the statues; it splits the two bodies instead of joining them when one allows themselves to become what the statue is," Gaia said, taking over for Freedan. "The idea of the statues is to allow the one inside of it to take over the mental and physical properties of someone and the other to take statue form. The ring does not do this; it destroys the statue and keeps both bodies as separate entities."

"So in the barest of terms the ring messes up what you created? All because of how it was created and the powers it possesses?" Kat asked, trying to wrap her head with the information.

"In the general sense, yes it is. Like I told you earlier, I can force myself out of my statue if I wanted to even if there is no one else to take over my statue. Shadow can do the same but he has an easier time of it, he's more Essence then he is Man," Freedan said, stealing a glance over at Shadow's statue. "But unlike what has happened with the ring, my statue stays intact."

"So if the ring destroys the statue when it is worn and there are two bodies for a single statue, then why is Freedan's statue intact?" She looked at Gaia for the answer, who smiled broadly at the question.

"There was never one version of either statue, I can create or destroy the statues as I see fit. I make sure the inhabitant is out of it before it is destroyed and created again," she explained. "Freedan's statue was recreated many years after it was destroyed. It takes time for me to create a statue again, longer if it has been destroyed by something other than myself. Thankfully this marks only the second time I had to create Freedan's statue again, Shadow's was the first when it was destroyed fifty years ago."

"Wait, both statues were destroyed at the same time?" Kat blinked.

"No, I forced the inhabitant out of Shadow's statue out which destroyed his statue and by doing so, I killed the person inhabiting the statue. That statue is now residing at the bottom of the ocean, in several pieces so that it can never be found. This is not something I ever want to be forced to do again." Gaia's voice shook when she said that but regained its normal tone seconds later. "Because of what Shadow is, in this age he cannot roam the Earth for very long before someone believes that he is a threat when he is not. His statue was created first, nearly thirty years ago. Freedan's was created next, that was created and finished only two years ago."

"Okay so that explains why Freedan's statue is fine, I understand now," Kat said, waving a hand. "But how did the statue get out from the Dark Space? Considering how much the gateway wanted to keep me out, I would think it would be harder to take a statue out."

"Not unless you can harness the Dark Essence inside of you and a will to harm those transformed," Freedan said in an equally low and sullen voice. "Even though you may not have wells of Dark Essence in you to tap into, Gaia will not be able to sense your presence as well with the ring on as opposed if you have it off. The same way goes for the Dark Essence, if there is an ability to hide your life-force from Her."

"Or you were corrupted from the ring," Kat said suddenly, fingering the ring. Gaia and Freedan looked at each other then back at her; it was that look that made her become uneasy about wearing the ring.

"Sometimes the ring's effects do horrible things to the person wearing it," Gaia said before Freedan could say anything. "I only have so much control over the statues when they are out of the Dark Space, which is something that has to be so when they are being recreated. While I can control who comes in and out of the Dark Space, it is ultimately up to Freedan and Shadow if they want to let someone transform into their forms. The person who wears the Ring of Two Souls is granted permission to come into the Dark Space if the ability to see it appears. I granted the last person to wear it permission, they came in with someone else behind them, Freedan's statue was destroyed and eventually the person who transformed into Shadow had to be forced out."

"Would I be able to transform into Shadow if I did not wear the ring?" Kat asked, walking up to Shadow's statue and stopped two feet away from it. She did not dare to get any closer to it, did not touch it for fear that if she did, the statue would break into millions of tiny pieces.

"No, your Dark Essence is not that strong. Everyone on this Earth, whether they realize it or not, has some form of Dark Essence in them; some just have more of it than others. It has many names and many forms but it comes down to being the same thing," Freedan explained. "This Essence is what allows some people to see, do, and hear certain things while others can't. It defines our abilities and sometimes even the creativity inside of people. I believe that is what some would call their inner muse."

"But that still does not explain how Freedan's statue ended up many islands away from this one." Kat turned to Gaia. "I understand how Freedan's statue is not the original and that it was recreated, but how did it get out of here? If what you said is true, I can't get out because I do not have the correct permission to leave and have to wait until Freedan takes me out."

Gaia did not say anything right away, her eyes turning away from her as she remained silent. Freedan did not respond either, taking a silent cue from his mistress to not say a word until she did. Kat watched this face in front of her look as through its mind was thinking of what to say and how to word it properly. Gaia knew more than she was letting on; she was, after all, Mother Nature and admitted herself that she saw nearly everything that was going on in the outside world. Even Freedan seemed to know more than he was letting on, perhaps not on the same level as a goddess but close enough.

"There are certain things in this world that I cannot see once it goes onto a certain path. The Underworld, despite how many times it says it does not interfere, does often enjoy shrouding certain aspects in darkness. But even I will admit that while there is some taint to this, the Underworld has had just as much trouble with it as I have." When Gaia faced Kat again, gone was the tenderness and sorrow that her eyes radiated. Now there was anger flowing in her eyes, an emotion that scared Kat to the bone. But even though she saw confusion on Kat's face, she did not explain what this 'Underworld' was. "The statues are vulnerable right after they are recreated, which is why Freedan did not return to his so soon and why it had not yet been put into the Dark Space, much like I did with Shadow's. But unlike Shadow's statue, I did not have the chance to get Freedan's statue back into the Dark Space."

"This you don't need to explain to me. There was an expedition a year ago that had taken the statue back to the main island, which is why I'm here in the first place." Kat smiled, finally able to put in something to this conversation but her smile faded once again. "But that leaves a year that his statue could have come back into the Dark Space. Why wasn't it moved then?"

"What you need to realize, Kat, is that my statue and Shadow's often are the last things Gaia needs to worry about and are mostly holders for us. She had to ignore my statue for the time being and put her focus elsewhere. This allowed my statue to be in an even more vulnerable state and you know what has happened to it. Gaia could have it destroyed again but at the present time, it's not something we can afford to waste time on," Freedan said, finally looking at her. "There is a darkness out in the world that comes and goes like the tide does, it is not always the same thing and is not always a threat to the world. Sometimes it's stronger, sometimes it's weaker; the stronger it is, the more likely that something horrible will happen. The last time there was darkness like this, a taint, was several hundred years ago."

"The comet," Kat said her eyes wide. "But that was destroyed, wasn't it? Even if it wasn't, it wouldn't be due back for centuries, right?"

"It is not the comet, but it has to do with the ring and the last person who wielded that ring. I believe that person is still alive, not as you are, but in another form of existence." Gaia took in another long breath. "This person does not walk on any plane of living as you do, more like how Freedan and Shadow live and exist but yet not even like them. The ring helped her through the path of corruption and she now fights to keep her existence, as meager as it is now. That fight is against the ones who she believes made her as such."

"Wait, will that happen to me? Will I turn into some sort of monster?" Kat looked frantically between the head and the knight, her face showing her horror. Gaia's face softened, her features becoming less angry then they had been before.

"It depends on how you use the ring. You will be tempted to use the darker side of it, be careful when you do use those darker abilities. I cannot tell you how to use it, but you will be watched more closely than the previous master of the ring was and help accordingly. Regardless of how your fate reveals itself, you will be the last master of the Ring of Two Souls. I will not allow it to fall into the hands of another mortal." Gaia's lips curved into a thin line, her face returning to its previous state. "Both of you need to find the person behind this darkness and weaken it before it reaches a Dark Space again. It may run away but perhaps by identifying what it is and what it can do, we can stop it again."

"How are supposed to look for this person if you can't sense it?" Was Kat's next question, before Freedan nodded and turned to face where they had just entered. He did not look pleased about having to face what was out in the open again and Gaia did not answer Kat's question, instead she solemnly mumbled several sentences in what sounded like ancient Greek.

"Get your bag," he instructed Kat, having heard what Gaia had said but, like Kat's question, ignored it. She looked at him for a moment, looked back at Gaia then sighed; the last thing she needed was to leave without getting any more answers. Neither one of them believed she needed to know more than she did and how either one of them expected her to fight was beyond her; Kat still did not know what the ring did much less access it's apparent darkness!

"Where are we going then?" She asked once she fastened the bag on her shoulders once again and made sure it was as comfortable as it had been. Freedan did not answer her question, scooping her up and put her on his back, much more gently then he had the first time he had done this.

"Don't question what you've been told and don't worry, this time you have permission." From his tone of voice, Kat could tell he was amused by what she had experienced and, if they had not been in the actual presence of Mother Nature, she would have hit him on the shoulder. He did not hesitate to walk through tie invisible wall that Kat could not get through nor see, heading back into the world that was becoming more and more strange to her.

Until Next Time

Author's Note: I was originally not satisfied with how this chapter turned out and spent a couple of days not touching it before I came back to it. Most of what I wrote was a tired ramble, since I typically write after 11 pm and it was closer to 3 am before I stopped and called it a night. But after I read it over again, tweaked a few spots, I am more happy with it then I was days ago. I am still not satisfied with the first part of it and this would have been closer to 8,000 words had I not stopped where I did, but I feel as though I at least attempted to explain a few things better. Most of what I have put in this chapter, the last one, and the next several ones are only stepping stones for future stories. I also tweaked a few things that may be considered canon for the game or the series as a whole.