Those who reviewed:mandrakefunnyjuice, freakyanimegal456,Rini Tsukino, Jenova Remnant AKA Fishie, Amekoryuu, and Canada Cowboy; thanks a bunch.
Link: "Thank you!"
Coming up: the continuation of the situation brewing inside of the Fire Seal. But first, Link's going to say the disclaimer.
Link: "Always with the disclaimer. I.K.A. Valian doesn't own Zelda or Tales of Symphonia."
- - - Hyrule - - -
The excitement of hours earlier had passed with the swiftness of an unladen Swallow. The ruined Market being what it was, it was fairly easy for Colette to disappear in the early morning shadows. By the time the Angels and Desians gave up searching several hours later, Colette, the kids, and the Sheikah were miles away.
They stopped at a stream that cut into the countryside, resting and drinking. Colette sat on a rock, going over the events of the morning. The Sheikah, the only thing that she could get the man to tell her about him, had remained fairly silent and distant the entire time. He kept to himself, which didn't bother her any since she'd had enough adventure as it was already.
She looked up, getting bored of staring at the springy green grass, and watched Colin and Rutina play in the water. As far as streams go, this one was deep enough for the water to go up to one's waist and so clear that you could see the rocks on the bottom as clearly as if they'd been sitting on the shore.
Colette turned her head to the left and found that Sheikah again. He was quietly leaning against a tree. It took her a few seconds to realize that Rath was sitting on the other side of the mysterious man. They weren't talking, just sitting there with their eyes closed. She shook her head, knowing that it was probably best left alone. A sudden whacking drew her attention to her right.
There, Colette saw Ubella, whacking away at a hapless sapling with a log. With a series of yips and cries of rage, Ubella flipped into the air and brought the log down on the poor adolescent tree, snapping it in half from the brute force.
"Hey, what'd you do that for?" shouted Rutina. She dove under the water and several seconds later erupted back out, landing neatly on the shore with practiced ease. "That tree didn't do anything to you!"
"What's it to you, fish-face?!" growled Ubella.
Rutina stopped in her tracks, as if hitting a barrier. "I… I… I was j-just…" she stuttered.
"Yeah, that's what I thought, freak."
"Hey!" shouted Colin, stepping in front of Rutina, still dripping from the stream. "Don't shout at her!"
"Do you want me to shout at you then, Stupaka?" Ubella shot back vehemently. A piercing whistle cut through the air, followed by a thud. Ubella looked down at the log in her hand, and then at the small, slender kunai knife sticking out of it. Colette followed the trail of the knife back to the mysterious Sheikah, who sat calmly in the same position he'd been in before.
He wasn't even looking when he threw that knife, Colette realized.Even I'm not that good.
"That word will never again pass your lips," said the man in his falsetto voice, turning and leveling a steady stare at the Gerudo, "or it will be the last thing you say."
Ubella, though just threatened with her mortality by a highly trained assassin, snorted indignantly. "Do you think I fear you, Sheikah?" she asked haughtily.
The Sheikah continued staring at the Gerudo, not even in the least intimidated by the little girl trying to fill her heritage's oversized shoes. Colette looked back and forth between the two, startled by the sudden hostility.
Standing up, she cleared her throat and said, "Well, wasn't that fun." She walked forward a few feet, feeling the grass part outside her particularly comfortable boots. "What are all of you going to do now that you're free?"
"I'm going to go looking for my parents," Rutina said very quickly, happy to have a change of subject. "I don't know where to look for them though, so… the only place I can go is back to the Zora Domain."
"Zora Domain has been destroyed," the Sheikah said flatly. "All the survivors are headed toward Hyrule Castle. For some reason the King of Evil has disappeared and the Invaders don't seem all that interested in it. You four should head there."
"But there's five of us," said Colin.
"Would you really bring one of the enemies back with you?" asked the Sheikah. "Even if you four have some sort of loyalty toward her, others would certainly put all the blame of recent events onto her and kill her."
He's talking about me, Colette realized. "I wouldn't hurt anyone… at least, not until they hurt me or my friends."
"That doesn't matter," said Rath, jumping into the conversation. "When people are living in a state of panic, they'll blame anything and everything if it will make their lives easier. It's sad that group mentality like that exists, but it does."
"Yeah," Colette said, sighing. "I guess you're right. You know, you remind me of one of my friends back home. He's really smart too." Rath coughed into his hand, trying to hide his smirk.
"Couldn't you just hide the fact that you're an Angel?" Colette turned toward Ubella, her eyes widening in slight shock from the actual concern in the Gerudo's voice. Ubella looked almost shocked at herself, but she quickly composed a look of contempt on her face. But she didn't retract her idea, leaving it out to stew.
"I guess I could," Colette said. "I mean it's not like I don't appear human right now, is it?"
"What is it you plan to do once you get there?" asked the Sheikah.
"I want to look for my parents," said Rutina. "They might have gotten away from the Angels."
"I'm going to see if my parents are there too," said Colin. "I also have an uncle who lives there, so I know I can stay there."
"Hmph," Ubella huffed, "I'm just going to get some steel. A Gerudo can't survive in the desert without it."
"I've got friends I can stay with," Rath said.
"I want to try and find a way to fight Cruxis and the Desians," Colette said, "and then maybe find a way home."
"Hmm." The Sheikah stood up and dusted himself off. "If that is your intent then I will take my leave of you here. I assume one of you knows how to get there from where we are." Both Colin and Rath nodded. "Good," the Sheikah said, "then farewell."
The Sheikah reached into his back waist pouch, pulled out a small seed, and then threw it at the ground. The seed exploded into a shower of light, blinding the five for less than a second. Once they could see again the Sheikah was gone.
"Not very subtle is he?" asked Rutina. Colin and Colette nodded in agreement.
- - - Sylvarant - - -
They'd be dead soon, so he watched them with great interest.
"Fantastic!" Raine shouted, running toward a wall and then further into the room. "This room is utterly fantastic!"
"Uh, Professor, do you think we could just get the Proto-Triforce and get out of here?" asked Lloyd. "It's really hot down here and we don't have much water left."
"Yes," the silver haired half-elf acquiesced. "I suppose you're right, but first, let me just study this room for a few minutes! It's the most important discovery of all time!" Raine went back to zipping around the room, babbling like a kid in a candy store. This left the rest of them to wander about the large domed room.
Somewhere, high above them, light was shining from an unknown source onto the ceiling. This light, as dim as it was, reflected down onto the ground where they stood and allowed them to see with a healthy amount of squinting.
Lloyd yawned and sat down in the middle of the floor, his eyes slowly lowering until he jerked back awake several seconds later. Genis soon joined him, and before long, they were both out like a light and snoring lightly. This left Zelda and Link as the only two awake, aside from Raine, who still flitted joyfully about the room writing crazily into a notepad she pulled from under her coat.
"Princess, what do you think is happening back in Hyrule?" Link asked.
"I don't know, but I'm sure it can't be good. Actually, I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm… Look out!" Zelda lunged toward Link, grabbed him, and threw him as far as she could. Link barely managed to see a ball of blue light hit the Princess before he slammed into the ground and slid a few feet away. When he looked back he found Zelda encased in a giant diamond. Behind her, another diamond cocooned Genis and Lloyd, and a third a short distance away held Raine, suspended above the ground mid-skip.
"So you managed to escape my attack." Link looked up, toward the ceiling, and saw a strange shadow floating there. A chill went down his spine when he only saw one glowing, red eye.
"What have you done to the Princess?" Link shouted upwards. His voice echoed throughout the tall chamber.
"That doesn't matter, since you'll be joining her soon," said the strange shadow. Oddly enough, his voice did not echo.
"Oh really? I think I'm going to beat you and set her free!" Again, Link's voice echoed loudly throughout the room. The shadow's eye widened, surprise emanating from his lone pupil.
"You… you can hear me? This… this is… You… you must be…" The shadow then disappeared, but his voice remained, wavering in excitement like a man who'd found water in the middle of a desert after suffering dehydration for several days. "I've… I… waited so long. Time lost its meaning while I waited. I… wait still." And then the voice fell silent as well.
Link stood up and looked around the dim room, expecting something to jump out of the shadows, but nothing happened. Satisfied that the threat was gone, Link walked slowly up to the enormous diamond that was holding the princess and pressed his face up against it. Her face was frozen in a grimace of pain.
"I'm sorry, Princess," the boy croaked out. Tears welled in his eyes and a lump formed in his throat as the pain of loss, failure, and a host of similar emotions filled his heart. "I was supposed to protect you and instead you protected me. Some hero I am…" Link slid down the side of the diamond and crumpled into a pile on the ground.
Link… Don't give up…
Link looked up quickly, his tears dripping from his chin. "Princess…"
Link… Fight!
Link nodded and slowly stood up, wiping his tears on his arm. Then he looked up into the cavern and shouted, "Hey! Release my friends! Now!" But the only response he heard was his own voice. However, as he looked up, he did notice something that he hadn't before. A crystal switch, glowing yellow from within, was embedded in the ceiling. Thinking quickly, he pulled out his boomerang, took aim, and threw the mighty weapon with all his might.
The crooked pieces of metal sailed end over end through the air and completely missed the switch. Instead, the weapon bounced off of the wall and flew straight back toward Link, who had to dodge to the side to avoid having his head lopped off. Link picked up the boomerang and tried again, with the same results. This went on until during his twentieth attempt, the boomerang bounced off of the wall upwards and accidentally hit the switch, turning it a dark purple. Link again had to dodge out of the way as the weapon returned, but when he stood back up, the ground started to shake.
Link looked to the right and a part of the wall crumbled to reveal a dark cave that glowed from within. Link ran up to the cave entrance and then ran back to Zelda. "I'm going to go and see if I can find anything in the cave," he shouted.
Link… Be careful, Zelda said telepathically and he ran and jumped into the cave.
The cave was short and very hot, but it was very straight. Diamonds were sticking out of the walls, ceiling, and floor all over the place. But they didn't impede Link's progress and he eventually came to the end of the cave and was confronted with an even bigger problem, a room almost filled completely with magma. In the center of the room was an island of solid land that had an enormous diamond embedded in it. The diamond was about the same size as the one that encased the Princess. And sitting on top of the diamond was the mono-eyed shadow.
"I've come to a decision," the shadow said. "You must be tested by this dungeon to be worthy of the prize at the end. Also, consider your friends a part of the test, because if you want to save them, you're going to need the sacred item stored deep in this dungeon. If you truly are the one we've waited for, Traveler from afar, then you'll succeed in saving your friends and claiming the piece of power I guard." The shadow jumped into the air and floated there for several seconds. "I should warn you that those diamonds that your friends are encased in will in several hours consume their bodies completely. You don't have much time." And then the shadow vanished.
"Wait," Link shouted. "Where is this sacred item and what does it look like?"
But it was too late, the shadow was gone. Great, Link thought to himself, now I have to hurry and find this sacred item and then hurry back. I hope this place isn't too big.
Link looked around the room, forcing his eyes to penetrate the heat warped air. On the opposite side of this room appeared to be a door on a ledge cut into the wall. In the corner to his right was another island covered in boulders and in the corner on the other side of the room was another island, without rocks. On his left, on the other side of the room from the island without rocks, was an opening into the wall that magma slowly oozed out from. And just to his right on the outcropping of land he stood on, was another yellow crystal switch.
Link whipped out his sword and slashed at the crystal. The gem reverberated, and like a tuning fork, produced a low tone. Then the light from inside of the crystal changed from yellow to dark purple and a loud whooshing sound filled the room. Link turned and watched the magma drain quickly from the room until a string of stepping stones appeared. Once the magma had cleared those, it stopped draining and a loud ticking filled the room like that of a clock from hell, someplace Link guessed was not that far from here.
Link counted in his head and watched as the timer stopped ticking twenty seconds later. Faster than it had drained, the magma rose back to its previous level. Okay, Link thought, I have twenty seconds to run across all of those stepping stones to get to the other side of the room. This should be fun.
Slashing the crystal again, Link ran to the opposite edge of the outcropping and waited until the magma had drained far enough for him to start. Once the first stepping stone appeared, he jumped out. What he didn't expect was for the stone to start sinking the moment he landed. Like a panicked rabbit evading a ravenous wolf, Link hopped from stone to stone as fast as he could. Sadly, he'd only made it half way when twenty seconds had passed.
Running on suicidal instinct, Link jumped from the stone he was on directly into the tunnel that the magma oozed from just as the timer stopped. He ran as fast as he could away from the quickly rising white hot magma. He made it to the end of the short hallway and found that there were large depressions carved into the back wall, as if stair had been planned but never fully completed. Climbing as quickly as he could, Link made it to the top of the wall just in time to prevent becoming roasted Hylian. He could smell his thick, and now thoroughly burnt, leather boots cooking the entire time.
Climbing to his feet with a resigned grunt, because time was of the essence, Link turned from the magma pool and moved deeper into this unseen and much darker tunnel.
- - - Elsewhere - - -
"Wow, I never knew tunnels like these existed." Sheena walked steadily behind Zelos. He'd earlier tried to grab her in an inappropriate place. After several hard beatings by Sheena, Kratos had separated them and made clear in no uncertain terms that he'd have no trouble tying them together and dangling them both over a bubbling pit of magma. Since then, they'd both been fairly quiet.
"These tunnels look hand carved," Zelos observed, "How did people get down here to carve them out if it's so hot?"
"This place wasn't always as it is now," Kratos said. "Thousands of years ago, it wasn't even a desert. The city above used to be a major religious center for the Balacruf Kingdom before it fell apart. After Efreet lost control of his powers, the city was laid to waste, the desert formed, and these tunnels became too hot to live in."
"Wow, how do you know so much, old man?" Zelos asked Kratos. Kratos didn't answer. "Ohh, all quiet now. Don't like being called old man then do ya?" This time Kratos did respond.
"If you insist on being an annoyance, I will remove the offending muscle which allows you to speak." Kratos let that sink in for a few seconds before he continued. "After all, you don't require a tongue to open the seals." Zelos quickly stopped talking. "That's better."
"How much longer until we reach the Efreet's Chamber?" Sheena asked.
"We must travel for a few more hours until we reach our destination. This tunnel will take us most of the way there, however, I'm sure there'll be some cave-ins that will have to be circumvented."
"What makes you so sure," asked Zelos. Just then, they rounded a corner in the tunnel and came face to face with a wall of rocks, boulders, and pebbles. "Oh…"
"This isn't good," Sheena said, voicing the obvious.
"The ceiling here is unstable at best," said Kratos. He moved toward the pile of rocks, tugging on his gloves to tighten their fit on his hands. "Do your best not to disturb it as you remove debris."
"Oh joy," said Zelos, "manual labor. My favorite. I am going to need at least ten showers and baths to clean myself after this. Why oh why does this happen to poor little old me."
"Zelos, just shut up and work," Sheena grunted as she heaved a boulder away from the cave in.
"Anything for you, babe," Zelos sang, hopping and skipping toward the rock piles with all the excitement of a five year old. Sheena groaned in annoyance.
- - - Elsewhere - - -
Link clutched the small silvery key tightly to his chest as he crawled. He had scrapes and bruises all over his body, as well as a fair amount of burns. Not to mention one of his eyebrows was now half singed off.
That dark room hadn't stayed dark for long. More Keese than he could count dropped from the ceiling and spontaneously combusted. As one giant, living, coordinated flying swath of fire, they all attacked him. That though wasn't the half of it. As he did his best to dodge all the swooping fire-enshrouded bats, he kept tripping over slugs that were also on fire. Needless to say, it took more than a few minutes to take them all out. Finally, after an arduous battle, he'd defeated them all and retrieved the small key he now held tightly in his grimy hand from a treasure chest.
When he looked for a way to exit, he found no way of making the magma retreat again. He did, however, find a small tunnel that he barely fit into. After what felt like an eternity of scrunching up and stretching out, Link's head popped out of a hole. The hole sat in the center of the wall that was conveniently part of the niche that held the door he'd tried to get to in the first place.
Link fell to the ground and caught his breath. His lips were cracked and his throat was raw from all the heat given off by the magma. He took a drink from his canteen in an attempt to ward off the soreness.
"Hey Link, aren't you thirsty?" They'd stopped for a drink of water at a stream while traveling toward Iselia. Link had just joined up with Lloyd and was still getting used to the new environment.
Link looked at Lloyd and nodded his head. Then he held up his hands showing that he didn't have any kind of container to put water in. Lloyd saw this and thought for a few seconds. Then the red clad boy threw his own canteen at Link.
"Here, you can have mind. Don't worry, I'm sure I can get Genis to buy me another one."
"Are you sure," asked Link.
"Yeah, don't worry about it."
Deciding that drinking all the water at once was a bad idea, Link reluctantly closed the canteen and stood up. He stepped up to the door, fingering the key he hand, and looked the locked entrance over. There were four bars extending from the walls, ceiling, and floor respectively to meet at the center of the door where a blocky square lock mechanism sat. Link looked down at the key in his hand and shrugged.
He lifted the key, shoved it into the keyhole, and turned it. The mechanism at the center glowed for a bit and then fell to the ground with a thud. The four bars slunk back into stone surrounding the door, making a grinding sound the entire time. Finally, the large stone door slid upwards into the ceiling, revealing another dark tunnel. Cool air flowed quickly out of the tunnel as the pressure equalized.
Nodding to himself once, Link moved forward into the new tunnel. This tunnel, unlike the first one, was more curved and only smaller diamond formations showed up. Still, it was much cooler than in that last room, something Link was very grateful for. The tunnel ended not long after it began and Link was confronted with another, much more confusing circular room.
Unlike what he'd seen up until now, this room was completely covered in ice, from floor to ceiling. All around the walls, torches were set up, making the room look more like a slip'n'slide arena than a room. There was a diamond or two sticking out of the ice, but other than those, there was nothing but the smooth as silk ice. On the opposite side of the room was another tunnel and to the left, one more.
Carefully walking into the room so that he didn't slip, Link moved on. When he was at about the center of the room, the ice rumbled slightly and then with a loud whoosh, the entrance to the cave he'd just come from was blocked off by a stone door that slid down faster than the eye could see. The tunnel in front of him did the same, as well as the tunnel to his left. He was now trapped in this room of ice.
Before he could do anything though, a loud thud and the sound of ice cracking drew Link's attention toward his right, where a giant armor clad lizard had appeared. The Lizalfo bent forward and thrust its head toward Link. It opened its mouth, revealing a set of very sharp small teeth made just for rending flesh, and loosed its primal roar.
Link, having no time to think, fell to the ground just as fire erupted from the beast's mouth in a plume that would have hit him squarely in the chest. Once the flames died down, Link scrambled to stand back up, but every time he tried, his feet and hands slipped on the ice, freshly melted from the fire breath's heat. The Lizalfo took this as its sign to go in for the kill and jumped into the air.
Sword in claw, the monster put the blade between its legs with the tip pointed downward, intending to dive the blade into Link's skull. Link saw this and got an idea. He pulled one of his swords out and stabbed it into the ice. Then he used that as leverage to sling himself away from the impact zone just at the last moment.
When the creature saw that its quarry had evaded its attack, it roared again, jumped into the air, and attempted to execute the same move again. By this time, Link managed to get back onto his feet and ran out of the way as fast as the slippery surface would let him.
This time the oversized lizard's sword got stuck in the ice. When it finally managed to get it free, Link had retrieved his own sword from the ice and was charging forward. The lizard blocked all of Link's attacks, which weren't very powerful due to the lack of traction, and pushed the boy back with a kick to the chest.
Link, somehow managing to stay on his feet, slid all the way across the room. He came to a stop when he bumped into the wall, which he immediately had to push off from again to avoid becoming shish-ke-bob. Once again, the lizard's sword got stuck in the ice. Link used the small amount of time he gained to try and figure a way of defeating this thing.
Maybe I should try jumping like that thing does… No, I can't jump that high. Agh! I can't think of anything! There's got to be something!
Link's feet suddenly fell out from underneath him, tripped up by a diamond sticking out of the ice. Using his sword, he stood back up and then a plan formed in his head. The Lizalfo wrenched its sword from the wall, turned around, and saw Link mooning him. This simple, very childish act infuriated the beast to the point of no return.
It roared and pushed off the wall. Link pulled up his pants, turned around and laughed, only serving to infuriate the beast some more. Like a professional speed skater, the lizard pushed itself faster and faster toward Link, who was now flopping his tongue at him.
At the last moment, just as the lizard was about to crash into Link, the boy pushed off of the diamond that tripped him moments before toward the crazed lizard. Just as they were about to crash into each other, Link dropped to the ice and tripped the monster. The claws on his feet left deep, bloody gashes across Link's torso and right arm as they passed over them.
Link slid to a stop, his torso and arm burning like crazy. He looked down at his wounds and figured that they weren't too serious; at least his main sword arm was still working. With great difficulty, because every labored breath he took caused his wounds to scream out, he stood up and faced the lizard. The monster had fallen straight onto diamond face first, making it very dead.
"I do not want to do that again," Link said aloud. The stone doors that once trapped him inside of the room had retracted, leaving him two directions that he could go down. He chose to make his way slowly down the tunnel opposite the one he entered. A short ways down that tunnel, he came to a crossroads of sorts. To his right was another tunnel that led to a door with another four beam lock over it. In front of him was another passage blocked by a humongous diamond. And to his left was a stone door like the on that trapped him in the last room.
Unable to open the stone door and keyless, Link headed back to the ice room and took the last remaining unexplored tunnel. He had more luck this time, luck that made him groan aloud. "Another lava room?!" he shouted.
From the outcropping that he stood on a thin, winding path lead across the room toward the other side. Deciding to see what he could from the other side of the room, Link started out across the very narrow piece of dirt. The whole time he could smell his boots cooking some more and his feet felt like they were on fire. Meanwhile, the tremendous heat made his chest and arm wounds hurt even more.
By the time that Link reached the end of the little path, he was almost sure that his feet were on fire, even though they weren't. From the end of the path he quickly spotted another locked door, across the lava, and a tunnel on the opposite side of the room from the door. Behind a wall that made it invisible, a crystal switch sat upon a round pedestal.
Hoping that his aim was good enough, Link pulled out his boomerang and let it fly. Like before, it missed the crystal on the first pass. Luckily for Link, the weapon tapped the crystal on the return trip, activating another timer and draining the magma from the room to reveal a hidden pathway that stretched from the tunnel all the way across the room to the locked door. Link caught the boomerang with surprising ease that surprised even him.
Since Link still did not have a key, he decided on the path that led to the open tunnel. When he got into the mouth of the tunnel, the ticking stopped and the magma filled the room once more. It looked like his luck was looking up.
This tunnel was just like the rest of them, diamonds sticking out of the walls and such. He even found another crystal switch buried in the wall in such a way that he was unable to see it from the other room. When he hit it experimentally, the crystal turned dark purple and the magma once again drained to reveal the path.
So that's my way out, he thought, that makes things easier.
Hoping that the harder part of his ordeal was over, Link moved ahead, intent on finding that sacred item. Maybe this is it, he thought as he stepped into the cool room. It was dark, but not too dark to see, and several steps into the room, he heard the tell-tale splashes of puddles. There was water coating the entire floor of the room. In the center of the room, on a raised pedestal, stood a large and ornate treasure chest with gold lining and silver plating that shone in the dim light like a beacon.
"Yes, it looks like I found it." Link said as he approached the chest. With a heave he pushed the lid open. "Hang on guys; you'll be diamond free in no time." But when Link looked inside of the chest he found it empty. "What?"
"Hey, over here dummy!" Link whirled around just as the light level went up, another stone door slid shut, and the walls disappeared. Link now stood in an endless pool of reflective water and standing in front of the door was himself, only his skin was much darker and his outfit was black instead of green. "Thanks for letting me out of the box, stupid," his clone said, "Now die!"
There ends the second part of the Efreet Dungeon.
Link: "What in the world is going on? Who's that guy?"
Dark Link: "I'm your shadow, idiot."
Link: "How did you get in here?"
Dark Link: "I'm a part of you. Duh!"
Link: "Grr…"
Okay, stop fighting. Save it for the next chapter. DL, you go back to your shadow realm, okay.
Dark Link: "Fine… fine. See ya later, dorkwad!" (Poof)
Link: "Why did you invite him into here?"
I didn't, he just showed up. Anyway, please review.
Link: "And thanks for reading!"
