Hey hey hey! Whassup! Let's keep this story going while I'm on a roll!
Superfan44: I can't wait either
Anna the Viking XD: yeah both Siria and Jim both need to learn to compromise, but that's why they complete each other
Carlisle Fan 22: aww thanks, yummy cookie, and eventually Silver will open his eyes
rinpup14: oh I don't plan on quittin now
flipper887: I'm excited too
LuluCalliope: thank you and yes, that does make sense
Disclaimer- yeah...I don't own this in case you didn't know
Siria, Jim, Silver, Morph, the doctor, the captain, and the remaining crew all piled into the longboat and sped off in the direction of the green light. After travelling to the opposite end of the planet, they finally docked. Silver took the two teens, Ben, and a handful of the pirates, but he left the doctor and the captain in the boat with one crewmember to watch them.
The little blob started whimpering in Jim's pocket.
"Shhh," Jim comforted. "It's ok, Morph. It's ok." But when the boy looked back up, he glared at Siria, who was walking just ahead of him. How could a girl that skilled not realize she had a trace on her?
"Stop staring at me," Siria retorted (barked) without even turning around.
"I'm just curious how somebody who can do flips off of a hundred foot mast, move without making a sound, and, heck, probably kill a person without leaving evidence couldn't figure out that she had a tracking device on her forehead!"
Siria whipped her head around to narrow her eyes at Jim before she fully turned around to correct his facts. "Ok first of all, I have never killed a person before!" Jim opened his mouth to argue but she cut him off, "Scroop does not count because he was not a person, he was a walking piece of **** with claws who was asking for it for months! Secondly, as good as I may be, Silver is better! And third, this is not my fault. Face it Jim, you're predictable."
"Am not!" Jim denied, but because he was predictable, Siria knew to say it at the same time.
Siria smirked victoriously. "I rest my case," she stated before she spun on her heel and continued after the others. Her walk was almost back to normal, only a slight limp, since Elementals had the power to heal very quickly.
Jim growled, attracted to but at the same time angry at the girl with the attitude.
"Jimmy, I, uh, don't know about you, but I'm starting to see my life, passing in front of my eyes...at least, I think it's my life," Ben stuttered. "WAS I EVER DANCING WITH AN ANDROID NAMED LUPE?!" Ben screamed. Siria rushed back over to help quiet the robot.
"Ben! Shh!" Jim hushed. "This isn't over yet."
"Far from it," Siria agreed.
"We're gettin' close lads!" Silver declared, holding up his sword in triumph. "I smell treasure ahead!" The greedy crew cheered.
"Really?" Siria asked sarcastically, tilting her head to the side questioningly. "Cuz all I smell is betrayal, selfishness, and unwashed pirates." She waved her hand around in front of her nose to ennunciate her point. "Whoa!" Silver grabbed Siria and Jim by the shirts and dragged them forward as he sliced through the trees blocking his way.
But there was no treasure. "Where is it?!" Silver demanded through gritted teeth.
"I see nothing! One great, big, stinking hunk of nothing!" the lookout alien complained.
"Ok the stinking part is all your's, boys," Siria insulted, still facing forward but gesturing to the peeved crew behind her.
"Quiet!" Silver yelled back at the bickering people behind him. "What's goin' on, Jimbo?!"
"I don't know!" Jim admitted in a worried tone as he fiddled with the map. "I-I can't get it open!"
"We shoulda never followed this boy!" the female alien pirate exclaimed, jumping up and pushing Jim on to the ground.
"Hey! You leave him alone, you shriveled-up-prune! You call those arms?! I've seen better ones on a skeleton!" Siria kneeled down next to her best friend as she continued trash-talk the pirates who have been taking advantage of her for so long.
"I suggest you get that gizmo goin' again and fast!" Silver ordered Jim. The rest of the aliens who weren't in an insult match with Siria cried out suggestions of what to do with the "useless" teenager.
But Jim didn't listen. He brushed away the moss on the ground in front of him and noticed carvings that matched the map. He thrusted the golden ball into the curved out spot and watched in amazement as the carvings on the surfaces around him began to light up.
A green holographic globe on a tripod appeared in front of the adventurers and just as they began to examine it, rays of light began to zoom across the ground toward the cliff, shooting up to form a giant, triangle-shaped gateway, revealing a part of space that was trillions of lightyears away.
"The Lagoon Nebula?!" Jim realized in confusion.
"But dat's halfway 'cross the galaxy!" Silver replied in awe.
Jim looked down at the green sphere. "A big door...opening and closing," he recalled Ben saying earlier. He hit two or three random buttons before he tried identifying specific locations. "Let's see...Kinapis...Montressor Spaceport!" Jim pressed the crescent-moon shape and indeed, the door opened to reveal the place where this whole journey started.
Siria glanced over Jim's shoulder and recognized her home planet on the key. She gently but emotionally pushed the boy aside and touched it. The gateway closed again before it opened up to display the place that nobody had seen or touched in years. Siria gasped before she choked out, "Elementia!" All of the girl's childhood memories, even the ones she had long forgotten, rushed back to her as she stared at the remnants of her home. The field of wildflowers had withered without the terrain Elementals to take care of them, and the villages had fallen to shambles. It was a sad remainder of a once great planet, a once great people. All it did was confirm Siria's fears that she was the last remaining Elemental in the universe.
Siria felt Jim's hand close around her's and looked up into his eyes. He understood her pain and pressed a different button to protect Siria from the horrors of Elementia's reality. "So that's how Flint did it!" Jim thought out loud. "He used this portal to roam the universe stealing treasure!"
"But where'd he stash it all?!" Silver bellowed impatiently, shoving the two teenagers to the side as he started poking at random locations. "Where's that blasted treasure?!"
"Treasure! Treasure!" Ben stammered. "It's buried in the-"
"Buried in the centroid of the mechanism," Siria finished, rubbing her chin pensively, the riddle distracting her from crying over Elementia. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and Jim recognized that as her light bulb face. "What if the whole planet is the mechanism..."
"And the treasure is buried in the center of this planet?!" Jim said, completing Siria's train of thought.
The pirates gasped before they immediately started digging away at the hard ground with shovels, picks, and even bare hands. They only stopped when they realized it was impossible.
"And how in blue blazes are we supposed to get there?!" Silver shouted, continuing to angrily press different buttons.
Siria stepped forward and quietly answered, "Just open the right door." She gently touched the miniature Treasure Planet with a dot in the center. The portal closed again before it opened up to reveal a dark chamber with lasers poised on the ceiling.
Jim pushed his hand through the thin sheen seperating the outer planet from the center. He stepped through and Siria followed up behind him. Silver pushed through using the two teenagers' shoulders for support. He took the first step past the portal, unaware that his cyborg leg triggered a security laser a few inches off the ground.
"Wait for me, wait for me!" Siria heard the woman pirate whine, but she was too caught up in her surroundings to care. She, Jim, and the pirates walked a few feet forward before they stopped in amazement, their initial shocked silence changing to cheers of joy.
"The Loot of a Thousand Worlds!" Silver breathed out in disbelief, looking all around him.
"Ahaha! We are going to need a bigger boat! Ahaha! Ahahaha!" the lookout cried.
Silver slowly approached the area where his crew was, leaving Jim, Siria, Ben, and Morph at the entrance.
Jim felt more accomplished than happy, having found what he had been dreaming about since he was little, but aware that with that many pirates around, he may not get to keep it. He glanced over at Siria, who let out a deep breath before she gave a small smile of regret, but not a single tear in her eye.
"You alright?" the boy asked.
"Yeah," Siria answered with a sigh. "It's just...you'd think I'd be feeling ecstatic like the others, this being my life goal and all, but...it just doesn't feel right. I mean, I would give all of this up," she said while gesturing with her arm to all of the gold, "if it meant just a little more time with my parents. Does that sound stupid?"
"No it makes total sense," Jim assured the girl.
Siria looked around in uncertainty at how unprotected the loot was. "This, however, does not make sense. Flint would not spend a lifetime stealing from planets and ships all over the galaxy and just leave it here for grabs. There has to be some security, and my guess is that we already activated it!"
Ben, who had not paid attention to their conversation, confirmed Siria's suspicions. "This is all seeming...very familiar," Ben stated, scratching the top of his metal head. "I-I can't remember why." While the robot continued, Jim noticed an abandoned pirate ship off to the side and nudged Siria in the side. She saw it and understood exactly what he had in mind.
"Ben! Come on. We're gettin' outta here and we're not leaving empty handed," Jim instructed the robot. The four of them slid down and hiked up a pile of gold coins and other expensive trinkets.
"But-but Jimmy, Cici!" Ben tried to warn them, but they were too focused to listen.
Siria looked over at her former guardian and narrowed her eyes as she watched him delight in the jewels and riches he was finally able to touch. "Disgusting. And to think I used to defend, love, and trust him!" she thought bitterly. She and Jim hopped up on to the old ship before they pulled up Ben, who had started rambling again about knowing this place.
"You know what's strange? I can't tell you how frustrating this is, guys, cuz there's something that's just, it's nagging at the back of my mind. Aah!" Ben shrieked as he crashed onto the deck. The teens whipped their heads around to see what had freaked the robot out, and were horrified to find the answer.
"Captain Flint?!" they both questioned at the same time.
"In the flesh! Well...s-sort of. Except for skin, organs, anything that-that-that resembles flesh, that's not there," Ben babbled.
"The years have definitely not been kind to him," Siria cringed. "Yuck! But I was right about one thing. Skeleton arms do look better than Pruney's."
While the other two stayed back, Jim stepped up to the skeleton with a curious look on his face.
"It's so odd, you know. I remember there something horrible he didn't want anyone else to know, but I-I just can't remember what it was."
Jim scanned the decayed pirate until a small piece a brown metal clenched in Flint's hand caught Jim's eye. He grabbed the skeletal fingers and snapped them off, picking up the piece of metal and holding it up so he and Siria could examine it.
"Oh a mind is a teribble thing to lose!" Ben sobbed, turning around and giving them a perfect view of his stray wires where the part that contained his memory was missing.
"Ben, I think I juat found your mind!" Jim beamed. The robot apparently did not hear him as he continued to cry.
"Ugh! Ben, just hold still!" Siria ordered, snatching the hardware from Jim's hand and rushing over to Ben and grabbing hold of the back of his head.
"Ah! Cici! Your hands are very very hot!" The wires seemed to jump out to plug into their circuits, snapping the piece into place. Siria jumped back in surprise. "Whoa! Hello?!" Ben exclaimed, his neon green eyes changing to an icy blue color as he whirled around to face the others. "You know, Jimmy, Cici, I was just thinking...I was just - Think! It's all coming back! All my memories! Right up until Flint pulled my memory circuit so I couldn't tell anybody about his BOOBY TRAP!" At his last words, the room started to shake as machines began to explode. "Speaking of which. Flint wanted to make sure nobody could steal his treasure, so he rigged this whole planet to blow HIGHER THAN A CALYPSIAN KITE!"
One of the giant lasers dropped from the ceiling and plunged into the ground, opening a chasm and sucking the gold around it into a pit of boiling magma. The repercussion was a purple laser wall chasing after three of the retreating pirates.
"RUN JIMMY! GO CICI! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Ben screamed, tugging on Jim's baggy shirt and Siria's arm, but they kept staring forward, not budging an inch,
"You guys go help the captain and Doc!" Jim commanded as he hurried under the pirate ship's rusty control panel. "If I'm not there in five minutes, leave without me."
"I am not leaving my buddy Jimmy!" Ben refused, yanking on Jim's boots to pull him out from underneath. But he was met with a face that said "Do what what I say or else!" and two sparking wires that could easily be used to short-circuit the robot. "Unless he looks at me like that. Bye Jim!" Ben sped off toward the exit.
But that was only one step of footsteps. Where were Siria's footsteps? "Not again," Jim groaned mentally. He slid back out and he too was met with a threatening face. "Siria, please, for once in your life can't you just do the smart thing and listen to me?!" Jim begged.
"Nope!" Siria replied in a perky voice, her arms crossed as she gave an innocent grin and shook her head in dismissal.
"Siria, I'm not gonna let you risk your life for me!"
"Who says you have to let me?! We've been through this before! If you don't go, I don't go! And besides, I think I know a little more about ships than you do."
"I know enough! Now go!" Jim demanded.
"NO! Jim, when I first got on that boat with Silver, I knew there would be adventure, but adventure and treasure come with danger! When I met you, I started to learn that treasure was not the only thing in my life that mattered. You gave me the gift of love, and **** it, I'm not giving that up again!" Siria forcefully grabbed Jim's shoulders and brought his lips to her's, kissing him as passionately as she could. She pulled back after a few seconds, still gripping the boy's shoulders, and ordered, "Now come on! We've got a ship to fix!" (AN No this was not THE moment, because that comes at the end if this chapter. This was just A moment)
Siria retreated to start rewiring the control panel while Jim just stood there, his body rigid with shock. He had not seen that coming, but he couldn't wait until they were safe so he could give her a proper sign of affection.
Meanwhile, Silver screamed as he clawed at his precious treasure, the jewels and gold sliding right through his fingers into the fiery pit, along with two members of his crew and their treasure chest. Three other crewmates ran as fast as they could out of the room. "Come back here, ya blighter!" Silver yelled at them, but potential death won out over Silver as they kept sprinting.
The sound of an engine trying to start of echoed from a corner and Silver focused his cyborg eye on the source of the noise. He zoomed in and saw Jim rushing around Flint's broken ship, obviously attempting to jump-start it. "Hehe, he'll never get it working," Silver thought evilly, a smug smirk on his face which soon dropped when he noticed Siria rewiring the power source precisely how he had trained her. "Dang! Why'd I have ta teach her so well?! Hmm, actually, the lass might be useful." Silver's smirk reappeared.
*longboat, 100 meters from portal*
Apparently, Doctor Doppler had picked up a few tricks from Siria as he tricked their guard into releasing him and Captain Amelia using a little bit of trash-talk and a threatening gun to the belly. Moments later, Ben showed up all ready to play the hero, a little disappointed that the doctor had already done so. The three of them managed to tie up the huge pirate and the other three, who had come about the same time as Ben, and flew up to the R.L.S. Legacy so they could go save Jim and Siria.
*inside the exploding treasure room*
Siria managed to hotwire the boat, much quicker than Jim would have, as the pieces of the planet's centroid began to split apart, just like the map.
"Yes! Jim, we are so outta here!" Siria cheered as the engine fired up. Morph giggled victoriously as Jim grinned proudly and turned the wheel.
"Ah, Jimbo! Siri! Aren't you the seventh and eighth wonders o' the universe!" Silver complimented as he stepped up on to the ship, walking forward to congratulate the teens some more.
Jim and Siria spun around. Jim drew a pirate sword out of the floorboards and Siria armed herself with her knives, glaring at the man she once thought of as a father. "Get back!" Jim retorted, emphasizing each word as he pointed the sword straight at Silver's stomach. The cyborg looked to the girl for some sign of softness, but her face only reflected the boy's hatred.
"I like ya, lad," Silver responded with narrowed eyes. "But I've come too far to letcha stand between me and me treasure," Silver threatened, stepping even closer to them.
Jim's tough facade was soon replaced by one of fear. This adventurer could actually hurt him, but he would rather die than let any harm come to Siria, who also understood the gravity of the situation.
Fortunately, the unspoken question of who would die first was interrupted by a laser blasting the side of the boat. The three of them were shot off the boat. Silver was able to catch on to the side, but Jim and Siria were not so lucky. Morph flew after them as they slid down a ramp, grabbing for any rock sticking out of the cliffs, but missing until they were partway down on the opposite side of the chasm.
The laser began to destroy the side of the ship and the treasure in its way, but Silver was not gonna let that happen. "Oh no ya don't!" Silver bellowed, using all of his strength to pull the boat away from the laser and up against the ramp. As he held back the treasure he could get away with, Morph rushed over and blubbered nervously.
Silver craned his neck and focused his eye to see Jim holding on to Siria's leg and Siria with a weak grip on a skinny piece of metal protruding from the walls of the pit. "Siri!" he said in a concerned and caring voice. Silver looked back to the ship and shifted his arm into a vice-like grip that could extend hopefully far enough to reach his cabinkids. "REACH FOR ME NOW! REACH!" he called out to the girl.
Siria's head whipped around in shock, but she obeyed, stretching her hand out as far as she could, but it wasn't close enough. "I-I CAN'T!" she yelled, her voice tight from the pressure of holding a full-grown teenage boy and a piece of metal while sticking out her arm that far.
Suddenly, the metal that Siria and Jim's live were depending on snapped flat into the wall, causing them to drop even farther to another piece that was slowly shrinking under Siria's hand.
Silver grimaced, looking between his treasure and his treasures. He started breathing quickly as he mentally debated the two options. He was running out of slack on his grip, but a plea for help instantly set Silver's priorities straight.
"DADDY!" Siria screamed, not able to look anywhere but forward. Silver's eyes snapped up. His little girl had never called him anything other than Silver before, but it was high time for him to start acting like the dad Siria deserved.
"OH! BLAST ME FOR A FOOL!" Silver shouted before he let go of the boat and the treasure he spent decades searching for. He slid down the ramp and caught Siria's hand before she and Jim plunged to their deaths. Both of their heads snapped up to look at the old cyborg, who winked at them in assurance. Silver swung the teenagers up on to solid ground before he pulled himself back up. The three of them looked at each other before they watched their only means of escape blow up in their faces.
Bits of treasure showered down on them before they got up and ran for the portal. They jumped through the door, a cloud of destruction following close behind them.
"Silver! You gave up-"
"It's a lifelong obsession, Jim. I'll get over it," Silver dismissed.
"Aloha, Jimmy!" Ben called down from the descending R.L.S. Legacy. "Hurry people! We have exactly two minutes and thirty four seconds til planet's destruction!"
Those on the ground glanced at each other before they rushed to board the boat.
"Ok, you're doing fine, Doctor. Ease her over now gently. GENTLY!" the captain instructed from the foot of the mast. The doctor, who had obviously never steered a ship before, bumped into the cliff where Jim, Siria, and Silver were standing.
"AAH! We were better off on exploding planet!" the lookout shrieked from the brig.
Jim and Siria helped Silver board the ship before the captain commanded, "Take us out of here, Metal Man!"
"Aye, Captain!" Ben replied, pulling down on the start-up levers. The boat shot off in the opposite direction of the open portal of hot, fiery death.
"Cap'n, ya dropped from the heavens in the nick o'-" Silver started to kiss-up as Siria and Jim ran past him to the upper deck.
"Save your clap-trap for the judge, Silver," the captain stated.
Silver chuckled nervously after hearing those words, but Siria put her arm around his shoulder and pat it in comfort.
Suddenly, a piece of debris broke off the main sail before it landed on the main engine, crushing it and turning off the rest of the engines.
Ben used his navigator/calculator to rapidly read off a bunch of statistics, which all translated to not having enough power to escape in time.
Jim looked back to where they had just come from and then down to where the bisted engine still had a little bit of spark in it. "We gotta turn around," Jim said out of the blue as he hopped over the rail to the lower deck.
"WHAT?!" Siria and the captain both exclaimed.
"There's a portal back there," Jim pointed toward the triangle door. "It can get us out of here."
Silver zoomed in on the portal while the doctor questioned the boy's sanity. "Pardon me, Jim, but doesn't that portal open onto a raging inferno?!"
"Yes!" Jim grunted as he pulled a large chunk of wood out of the side of the boat. "But I'm gonna change that! I'm gonna open a different door!"
"Listen to the boy!" Silver ordered the other adults.
"ONE MINUTE TWENTY NINE SECONDS TIL PLANET'S DESTRUCTION!" Ben recited.
"Whatcha need, Jim?" asked Siria as she kneeled down next to him.
"I just need some way to attach this," Jim answered as he tried to use a rope to secure the engine to the board.
"Gotcha!" Siria confirmed before she whistled for Silver to toss her a blowtorch. She used the flame from it to melt the two pieces together. "That should do it!" she nodded. Silver and Morph helped Jim to lift the makeshift surfer on top of the ship's side. Jim hopped on, followed by Siria. Jim didn't even try to argue this time.
"Now no matter what happens, keep the ship aimed straight for that portal," Jim instructed Silver.
"FIFTY EIGHT SECONDS!"
Silver pressed his lips together and nodded grimly. Siria turned around and blew her father a kiss before Jim stepped in the accelerator and sped the two of them off towsrd the portal.
"Well you 'eard 'im! Get this blasted heap turned 'round!" Silver hollered at the captain as he swung his arm around.
The captain looked taken aback, not used to being ordered around, especially by a pirate, but she complied. "Doctor, head us back to the portal."
"Aye, Captain."
Over on the board, Jim and Siria managed to dodge and weave through the constantly moving parts of the planet. It turned out, Siria's balance, agility, and acrobatic skills were useful on a surfer.
The doctor did his best to follow Jim, but it was harder to maneuver an entire ship through obstacles than a solar surfer, especially with the captain backseat-driving.
But, all of a sudden, the engine on the board died and wouldn't start back up right over the second-to-last chasm before the portal. "NO! NO, NO!" Jim repeated as he kept stepping on the trigger.
"Come on, lass!" Silver said through clenched teeth, waiting for his baby girl to save them.
Siria thought fast, but the panic was messing up her rationale. She looked behind her at the metal wall, and then to the metal engine at her feet. "Hold on!" Siria cried. She swung her weight backward to drag the generator along the side of the wall, causing the end of the board to spark and soon, light up. They shot straight up, both with huge smiles of relief.
But, a piece of debris came out of nowhere and knocked Siria right off the board, sending her plummeting straight down to the pit of boiling magma.
"JIM!" Siria echoed as she dropped.
"SIRIA!" Jim screamed back. His heart told him to fly down there and save her, but he knew he wouldn't be able to reach her in time. And if he wanted the others to survive, he had to keep going. That's what Siria would have wanted him to do.
*in Siria's mind*
Siria shot up, taking in her surroundings. The last thing she remembered was falling into a pit of lava. She rubbed her head before she noticed she was wearing different clothes too. Siria was dressed in a strapless, knee-length purple sundress with black sandals and a gold bracelet on one arm and a silver armlet wrapped around her bicep on the other arm.
However, what shocked her the most was where she was. Siria stood up and looked around. The little spring, the field of flowers, and her house. Her house?! This was she and her parents' special spot when she was little.
"I'm on...Elementia?!" Siria said in confusion.
"Where else would you be?" a familiar voice behind her asked.
Siria whipped her head around and started crying tears of joy when she was greeted by the two people she had been dreaming about for ten years. "Mama?" Clytie smiled kindly at her daughter, the twinkle in her silver eyes unmistakable. "Papa?" Castor grinned, the energy of fire radiating from his entire body. Siria ran forward into their embrace. After about a minute, she looked up at them. "Am I dead?" Siria asked. "What's going on?"
"No, sweetheart, you're not dead," Clytie insisted. "You're merely frozen in time. This is all happening inside your head."
"That's right," Castor agreed. "We came to tell you something."
"What is it?" Siria questioned, growing slightly nervous.
"It's time," Clytie answered.
"You mean..." Siria knew what her mother meant, but she couldn't believe it.
"Yes, my little star. It's time for you to use your powers," Castor informed the girl.
"Really?" Siria responded in excitement.
"Really," Clytie affirmed. "Now go. You've waited long enough and we don't want to keep you waiting any longer."
The three of them hugged again, Clytie kissing Siria on the forehead and Castor kissing the top of her head.
Siria stepped over to the little pool and looked at her reflection. Right next to her eyes were the silvery blue and golden red designs of a full powered Water and Fire Elemental. She tore herself away from the rippled mirror to sadly gaze back at her deceased parents. "I just wish you were still alive, so I could make you proud."
"You already do make us proud," Clytie promised. "We've always been, and we'll always be right there in your heart!"
"And don't feel bad about calling Silver daddy," Castor assured Siria, pretty much reading her mind. "But right now, go out there and be the best Siria you can be!"
Siria stepped back and everything started to fade away.
"We love you!" Clytie called out to her daughter, Castor's arm draped over his wife's shoulder as he used the other arm to wave goodbye.
"I love you, too!" Siria called back.
Siria's eyes snapped open and she noticed that she was floating in burning lava, but it didn't hurt at all. "This is it," she said to herself. "Let's do this!"
Tears stung in Jim's eyes as he continued forward. Why couldn't it have been him?! Why Siria?! His guilt was interrupted by a stream of fire shooting up out of the lava. At first, Jim thought nothing of it...until he saw a familiar head of blue and red hair riding on a board of fire. "Siria?!" he whispered.
Siria beamed at Jim as she surfed across a wave of fire and jumped back on to his board. "Did you really think I would go down that easily?" Siria questioned teasingly. "Now, before one of us get hit again." She moved her arms in an upward circle, clapping her hands together over her head, and out of nowhere, a bubble-shaped shield of water surrounded the solar surfer. Jim opened his mouth to comment but Siria cut him off, "I will answer any and all questions, but I prefer to do it when we're in a safe place and not about to die!"
Jim nodded and they flew straight at the globe.
"SEVEN!" The ship passed over the board as the surfer popped up out of the chasm.
"SIX!" Morph began to squeel in absolute terror.
"FIVE! FOUR!" The doctor winced as the ship neared the flaming lights.
"THREE! TWO!" Siria dropped her arms and the water shield dissolved.
"ONE!" Jim and Siria both pushed the crescent moon symbol on the portal key.
The door opened to reveal Montressor Spaceport as the surfer and the ship just barely made it through, a large explosion right behind them. But they survived. Siria and Jim whooped and cheered as Silver said to Morph, "Didn't I say the lads had greatness in 'em!" The doctor and the captain hugged, the first step in a long and loving relationship for the canine and the feline.
Out on the solar surfer, Jim turned around to face Siria.
"So how many times have we saved each other?" Siria asked, not sure of what their score was anymore.
Jim laughed. "I think we can call it even." He cupped the side of her face with his hand and leaned in gently. Their lips met. It wasn't rushed or rough like earlier, but it was affectionate and loving, and that was what they wanted. Jim and Siria continued to kiss as they floated in the stars. That moment alone, that sign of love...to Siria, it was greater than any treasure in the universe.
Awwwww! Now was that worth waiting for? I apologize for the cliche moment with Siria's parents if you're not into that kind of stuff, but I just felt like it had to be there. Only one more chapter left, and then the epilogue, and then - drumroll please - the sequel! I'll see you all soon. Don't forget to review!
