Chapter 21
"Da-Da daaaa!" Ruby exclaims, throwing her arms out in the Ta-da position. "The wolf temple!"
"It's pretty big. How many floors?" Link asks.
"About 30. Five floors for each dungeon I had to go to turn everyone back to normal." Ruby says, beginning to walk towards the temple. Beck was next to her, holding her hand.
"Then why did you complain when I told you the Ocean King Temple had 13 floors?" Link exclaims.
"I don't like long temples. My max for number of temple floors is 7." Ruby says.
"Then I'm confused." Jolene puts in. "The wolf Temple is 30 floors."
"Well, it's not like I can say, "oh this temple has to many floors. I'm just going to quit here and hope the wolf king will spontaneously combust.' And each dungeon was a spate set of 5 floors." Ruby says, rolling her eyes.
"That sounds like the Ocean King's temple." Link says, frowning.
"But unlike the King's temple, I had a door that would unlock to a portal- you know what? You'll see what I mean when we get there." Ruby says, waving a hand at Link.
"It's almost over." Ayrll realizes.
"What is?" Linebeck asks.
"Our quest. We only have Ruby's temple to go through then defeat the major Villains. Then it's done." Aryll explains.
"You're right. And I guess that Prince Link, Ru and Myself will be coming back to this time period." Beck says.
"We'll miss you guys." Jolene says. "Never thought I'd be saying that to a Linebeck."
"Hey!"
"And us as well." Ruby quickly puts in, then frowns. "I wonder if we will be able to remember this."
"I'd hope so. I won't want to wonder what I had been doing for the past month and why I can't remember it." Catrain says, laughing.
Linebeck and Link pale. "A month?" Linebeck repeats. "It's been a month?"
"Almost a month." Catrain confirms. "Why-ohhhh." Her green wings droop some. "I'm sorry. I tend to blurt things without thinking."
"Tetra, Ciela, and Prince Link's been trapped for over a month." Link gulped. "What they must be going through."
A silence fell over the once merry group as they continued walking.
"Well, if Ciela and Tetra anything like what these two have been telling me, then I bet, they're giving their jailers Hell right now!" Ruby exclaims, letting go of Beck's hand to emphasise points.
"And Prince Link is definitely giving the Hell." Beck chimes in.
"Yeah! And I bet they been plotting on ways to escape or have already tried to escape." Ruby continues. "And Tetra and Ciela are probably thinking on how to greet these two over here." She grins slyly at Link and Linebeck, who blush.
"So don't worry! A month in captivity is no skin off their backs! They'll be fine." Ruby finishes, confident.
"You're right!" Link says. "Tetra's been in worse scraps."
"And Ciela is one not to just lay down and be a pawn." Linebeck stated.
"Right!" Ruby says. Then sprints for the castle. "Come on!" She calls over her shoulder.
"No fair! You have wolf powers!" Aryll calls after her, running.
"To bad suckers!" came Ruby's distant reply.
Linebeck laughs as the rest of the group chases after Ruby. But he couldn't shake the felling something was wrong with Ciela. Something bad had happened to her. And Linebeck couldn't figure out why.
...
"Interesting way of traveling through out the temple." Link muses. "So you're able to travel to each part of the temple by a portal?"
"Yup!" Ruby says, nodding rapidly. Beck takes hold of her head.
"I have told many times before, Ru. You are going to give yourself brain damage if you continue to do that." Beck says.
"Anyway." Ruby says, rolling her eyes and squirms out of Beck's hands. "Each portal is a different color for each temple. For example, a purple-black is for the spirit temple."
"Interesting. So what one do we go to first?" Aryll asks.
Just then, all of the portals go out except for the green portal. Everyone blinks.
"Well that solves that dilemma." Jolene says.
Ruby walks in, floats up, and disappears, closely followed by Beck.
When Ruby straightens, she feels Beck's arms wrap around her waist. She turns around and softly kisses Beck on his lips.
"We have a few more minutes until the rest of the group will come." Beck whispers in her ear.
"Perfect." Ruby purrs.
By the time everyone was in the little entrance area, they were all staring at the engaged couple steadily making out.
"Ahem." Aryll coughs.
"Allow me Aryll." Linebeck smirks. He walks over and quickly grabs Ruby and Beck's collars and drags them away from each other.
"Plenty of time for that later." He reminded to the blushing Ruby and Beck.
"I am so mortified" Ruby moans.
"Think how I fell being dragged away by my 4 times great grandfather." Beck mumbled.
"Mumbler!" Linebeck calls. "Now will you two come on! This is supposed to be your temple, anyway!"
"Coming!" They chorus together and hurry out of the room.
…..
"30 freaking floors." Jolene gasps.
"Unlimited monsters." Aryll says, nursing a cut on her arm.
"I do really think it was all that bad." Catrain muses, bobbing by an exhausted Ruby.
"That's because you're a fairy and is able to fly above the enemy when needed." Beck snapped.
"Whatever." Catrain replies. "Just because you can't fly, doesn't mean that that's the only way to take a break from monsters."
"Now just wait one moment you little piece of green light!" Beck storms.
He's interrupted by laughter from Link and Linebeck.
"Now who does that remind you of?" Link mock-wonders.
"I really can't be sure but I knew it had something to do with the fairies." Linebeck replies.
"What are you talking- oh, haha very funny." Beck says. "You're basically comparing me to Grandpa and Grandma."
Ruby chuckles, then stops and grabs Catrain by the wings.
"Ow, ow, ow! Wings are off-limits remember?" Catrain protests.
"Remember Catrain. Beck is mine." She told the green fairy darkly then lets go of her.
"Dude, I know!" Catrain says, flying above Ruby's reach. "He's not my type anyway."
"Good. Because I will find you and rip your wings off and into tini-tiny pieces." Ruby threatens. Catrain stares at her in mock horror. Ruby snorts then doubles over laughing. "We are such good friends." She says, wiping her eyes.
"Wait that was fake?" Aryll asks. "I seriously thought you were threatening her."
"Nah, Catrain and I are such good friends that we know when we're being weird to when we're being dead-serious." Ruby explains.
"After learning that bit of information why don't we head to the boss room." Link said, pointing to the door.
"I wonder what kind of boss we'll have this time?" Aryll wonders.
"The bosses have been pretty random so I have no idea." Jolene shrugs.
They walk into a small room. A gray portal shimmered in the middle.
"That's... a disappointment." Link says, bluntly.
"I think it transports us to the boss's battle room." Linebeck muses, examining the portal in his usual pondering pose.
"Well, only one way to find out." Ruby says, then walks straight into the portal.
Beck faceplams.' "Ruby..." He mutters, the follows her.
Once the whole group makes it to the real boss chamber, they noticed the sound of wind whistling through the air.
"We're on top of the temple." Ruby realizes. "I always wondered what was up here."
Before anyone could reply, a muffled crash is heard. Then, a silver streak flies up into the air and crashes onto the battlefield.
A great silver dragon stares at them then roars into the sky, dark gray fire emitting from it's mouth, it's tail swishing around the ground
The dragon takes off while the group stares at the scaled beast.
"A FREAKING DRAGON?" Ruby shrieks.
"Go for the wings!" Link calls. "Arrows at the ready!"
"Alright big bro!" Aryll calls over the roar of the dragon.
She knocks an arrow and lets it fly as the dragon swoops over head. It passes cleanly through and the dragons flying speed slows.
"More!" Jolene calls.
"I can't do this on my own!" Aryll yells back.
"Anyone else here- AUGH!" Beck was interrupted when the dragon swooped close to the ground and swung out it's tail to slice open Beck's leg.
"Beck!" Ruby roared. She turns to the dragon. "BIG MISTAKE!" she snarls.
Another roar from the dragon and it falls to the ground with an earth-shaking crash. Aryll had manged to seriously wound it's one wing.
Ruby races over and slashes at the silver dragon, absolute furious.
"You! Will! Never! Touch! Him! Again!" She spits, emphasising each word with a slash from her sword.
The dragon roars in pain and swipes it's claws into Ruby, slicing open her arm. She screams in pain and backs away, towards Beck. She stands over him, holding her sword in her wounded arm while clutching at it with the other. A feral look is in her eyes. She growls low when the dragon looks at them, smoking rising from it's nostrils.
White blood runs down the face off the dragon. One eye was closed, a white pulpy mess. It studies the girl hero with it's head cocked. It seems to decide that trying to attack Ruby and Beck would be a mistake, if it's now ruined eye is any indication.
It huffs and turns it's gaze to easier prey. It finds Link and Aryll racing towards it. It opens it's mouth as if to torch the siblings.
But instead, it finds cold steel in it's top part mouth while having it's throat slit by Aryll.
They skitter backwards as the dragon trashes around in blind pain. It staggers towards the edge and falls off the side. It's heard bellowing in pain before it was cut off when the beast hit the ground. A blue portal appears in the middle of the area.
Ruby sheaths her sword then helps Beck up with her good arm and they walk over to the rest of the group.
"Linebeck, take Beck for me please. I need to grab the Wolf Sword." Ruby explain. Linebeck shakes his head.
"We need to bandaged your arm first. You might have not noticed but it's bleeding pretty badly." Linebeck orders.
Ruby nods "You're right." She looks at Aryll. "Can I borrow your dagger?"
Aryll hands it over and takes Beck from Ruby. Ruby takes the dagger with her good arm and slices off the ruin sleeve. It drops to the ground.
Linebeck quickly bandages her arm and Ruby races to grab her sword, after quickly giving Aryll back her dagger. Like the others, it was just lying on the pedestal, just waiting to be picked up by it's wielder.
Ruby sighs as she picks it up. "I hope this is the last time I have to use this goddesses forsaken sword!" She thinks.
Ruby jogs back out and takes Beck again.
"Let's head out, everyone." Jolene calls. "We have a five day journey back to the Trading/sword Post to reach the ship." She walks into the blue portal.
"Come on Beck." Ruby mummers. She and Beck disappear into the portal, followed by Linebeck. Link and Aryll were left behind. Aryll sniffs.
"What wrong, sis?" Link asks, his big brother instincts kicking in.
"I just hate all this killing! I don't know how you could have handled it, Link." Aryll confesses, tears shining in her eyes.
"That's because I had a wonderful Grandmother, an amazing wife and the most toughest little sister I have." Link jokes, gently punching Aryll's shoulder.
"I'm you only sister." Aryll reminds.
"Exactly. Me, Grandma, and Tetra will always be there for you. We're your family." Link says.
"What's Linebeck? He's part of the family too." Aryll asked.
"He's your crazy Uncle." Link decides after a short silence.
….
Wow... It's been a year since I first posted my very first (though not very good) Chapter of Is It Really You? By then, I thought this was only going to be a two or three chapter story. And Now look at it! It's almost going to be 30 chapters long! And I'm glad. Speaking of Chapters, I'm re-doing the first three. Chapter one has Already been posted. Chapter 2 is almost completed and chapter 3 is complete in my notebook.
Another thing. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU ICEARROWS 1200! You have stuck with me this last year, waited long times for chapters, helped me sometimes (even though some of them was unknowly). You have been the Best reviewer a girl could ask for. I don't know how to put in words how much I'm thankful for you being my sole reviewer. Without Icearrows, I don't think IIRY? would be celebrating it's first anniversary. You have been a tremendous help to me. You are GIVE ICEARROWS A ROUND OF APPLAUSE EVERYONE!
Anything else... nope! That about sums it up. OH, Guys and Gals, my pole is still up for who you think is going to die. For some reason it was in the category for it to not show up. But that has been fixed so that's all good.
I'll see you in the next chapter!
~8 Navy Roses