This is just a reminder for those who might be confused and would prefer not looking up which character is which:
Lyssa = Mandy Noros = Joel Morpheus = Andrew Aite = Alchemy
Charon = Peter Siren = Cassidy
Apate is going to be used interchangeably with 'Dea Eppson' which is her alter ego. (And a hint to the ones who haven't noticed: try saying 'Dea Eppson' out-loud multiple times :} )
Clash of Interest, Part One
On Earth:
"Hey, you look nice." Sylla held open the passenger side door for her. Apate blushed, adjusting the strap of her purse.
"Thanks, so do you." For one moment, she debated changing her mind (like she had been doing ever since she had initially accepted the date) before shoving it to the side. She could afford to have one night to herself, after all, since her creator refused to take her back.
Neither noticed they were being followed.
On Meridian:
Lyssa and Aldarn ended up falling down a short incline- one of several leading to a small lake. Lyssa had stopped spraying the liquid that had affected Tynar. The two combatants glared at each other.
"Why are you attacking us? What does your 'father' want?"
"Shut up!" Lyssa, either because of her madness or because she had just forgotten, tackled Aldarn without forming into liquid or trying to splash him. Aldran hadn't been prepared for such a move, and his sword was knocked out of his grip as they fell.
Blunk, who had been busy with his usual trade of items and junk, had been fairly ignorant of the goings on of the worlds after taking Caleb to earth and then returning Sandpit to Meridian. So when he saw Aldarn and something strange tumbling towards him, he did what any passling smuggler would do.
Panic and use the tonga tooth to get the heck out of the way.
Aldarn and Lyssa were so caught up in their wrestling match, they didn't notice the fold, or that they had entered it.
The fold closed, leaving no trace that it had even been there.
Raythor, meanwhile, was having a hard time defending against Tynar. In terms of skill, Raythor was probably the better of the two, but because he was trying to not seriously harm Tynar- who currently had no such thoughts about Raythor- it gave him a serious handicap. "Tynar, snap out of it!" Raythor grit his teeth as Tynar's sword caught his side. He was getting tired by just defending, and Tynar seemed to have no limit on energy. "Alright, I'm sorry to have to do this . . ." Raythor surged forward, surprising Tynar. "But I'll ask your forgiveness later!"
Gargoyle sent Moros flying back, stunning the troll as it shrank to normal size. Morpheus promptly appeared at Moros' side, quickly vanishing through a dark fold that appeared. Sandpit formed next to Gargoyle, looking up at its friend.
"RRrrr . . ." The two saw Tynar and Raythor fighting, and without a word went over to find out what was wrong.
On Nimbus:
Eric and Halidan emerged into a chamber, with the scepter from Eric's 'vision' on a pedestal in the center.
"So, now what?"
"It's the heart of your world, and right now, I'm pretty sure all the salamanders need someone to rally around." Halidan nodded, and moved forward reaching out.
After the searching, it was almost anti-climatic the way the scepter started to glow red, and shot into Halidan's outstretched hand. 'Almost', because once it was there, red energy started to shoot out and the ground started to shake.
Above them, the rest of the guardians and sentinels had regrouped just as the earth started to shake.
Mount Thanos:
"Whoops!" Blunk landed in a deep snow bank, the wind quickly depositing even more snow on top of him. A moment later, Aldarn and Lyssa landed in the snow as well, the sudden cold shocking both of them out of their fight.
"What the?" Aldarn blinked. "Where are we?"
"I don't know." Lyssa shivered. Then she started to cry. Several different thoughts were swarming in her head, and the pain they caused was pushing her back into insanity.
Aldarn stared at his opponent for a moment. She'd gone from trying to attack him to sitting in the snow and sobbing. She obviously wasn't stable, and for a moment he softened.
"We're not going to be able to do anything here, we should call a truce until our respective teams find us." Aldarn held out his hand. Lyssa stared at him. "I promise I won't hurt you while it's just the two of us, okay?"
A faint memory flashed in Lyssa's mind, and wordlessly she took his hand. As he pulled her to her feet, the pain and confusion began to fade away. It was a wonderful feeling, the closest thing to bliss that she had felt since coming into existence.
"C'mon, let's find some shelter." Lyssa just meekly shifted to Aldarn's side, gripping onto his shirt like a child. Aldarn blinked at her in confusion, but chose to let it go for now. Wordlessly the two moved off, searching for shelter.
It was just their unfortunate luck that Blunk pulled himself out of the snow bank a moment after they were gone, and used the tooth to fold to earth.
On Earth:
'Dea' had enjoyed the dinner, and had enjoyed the date. It was something she couldn't quite understand, either, as before the thought alone had made her nauseous. The two had spent most of the time talking about common interests and a few differences that they had. Now they were walking the two blocks back to Sylla's car- parking had been the only hiccup in the progress of the date.
"I can't see how you like dogs, they're either big and drooling, or small and high pitched." Sylla shook his head.
"They're loyal, and not all dogs drool . . . I don't like small dogs, so I'll give you the small and high pitched." 'Dea' smiled, "Now, cats on the other hand, I don't see the appeal- I swear you look at them and you can tell they're trying to figure out the best way to kill you." Sylla laughed at that. "What?"
"So, a cat's tried to kill you?" He was smirking at her.
"Key word tried." She sulked, "I was coming down the stairs and it had been laying on one and it chose the moment I stepped over it to hiss and attack my legs, I almost broke my neck!"
"That was just one time, I'm sure not all cats are out to get you."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that." Both whirled at the sound of a gun's safety being turned off.
Nimbus:
"What the heck?"
"Look out!" Matt grabbed Caleb before a wall fell on him and quickly hovered above the ground.
"Where's Eric?" Hay Lin was frantic.
"Where's that lizard is what I want to know!" Cornelia glared up at the sky. The lightning had suddenly gotten worse, and none of them could risk flying any higher.
"Cornelia! Can you do anything?" Will pulled Taranee and Martin away from another crumbling wall.
"I can't!" Cornelia dodged a falling stone, before halting the fall of several rocks that had almost hit Nigel and Irma. "It's got to let off this energy! I could make it worse by trying to stop it!"
"Well, we don't want that to happen." Irma quipped.
Mount Thanos:
They found a cave, and Aldarn quietly led them in. Lyssa seemed to have forgotten the fact they were formerly fighting, and stayed close.
"This should do for now, we'll wait for the storm to stop before trying to find a way out." He sat down, and was unnerved as Lyssa sat next to him, putting her head on his shoulder to look up at him. "What-?"
"I don't have pain . . . things aren't so confusing when I'm touching you." Lyssa blinked. "The only one who's done that before is my father . . . and while I recognize my siblings, they aren't as calming. So why are you different?"
"I don't know." Aldarn absently wrapped his arm around her. There was something eerily familiar about the girl's eyes . . . it was like he'd seen her before. "Have we ever met before?"
"I think so . . ." Lyssa only had faded memories, but they weren't clear and she could hold them for more than a moment. "But I can't . . . I can't remember." Another tear leaked out. "I can't remember anything for very long, except what my father tells me."
Earth:
"Mr. R? What are you doing?" Sylla looked between the two, but the gun in the older man's hand remained steady.
"Making sure you don't make a mistake- the woman's a witch."
"Excuse me?" Dea blinked, pulling off a confused and offended look.
"I checked your background- found some irregularities."
"Yeah, I don't doubt it." At Sylla's look, she gave a sigh. "Like I said I took the long route. Fell in with a bad crowd in college, dropped out, did drugs, became homeless- Finally was able to turn it around and get back on track, but still not the easiest thing."
"Except it wasn't your life you turned around!" Mr. R growled. "You're a changeling, and I won't have you messing with his head any longer!"
"Don't!" The gun went off and Sylla crumpled to the ground, having taken the bullet. Dea didn't hesitate a moment after that- she turned back to Apate and in a second Riddle was on the ground, a small trickle of blood coming from both ears and his nose. Apate ignored him, kneeling next to Sylla who was struggling to breathe.
"You, changed?"
"Like I said- those with magic get desperate to hide it." Apate really didn't know what to do- Sylla was human, and she didn't know how to heal him.
"Your name isn't- he was right, wasn't he?"
"My father kicked me out. I found her brain dead from an overdose- I needed a normal life." Apate wondered why she didn't just tell him the truth- he was obviously dying, and would never be able to stop her. "You're dying." He just coughed up blood in response, and a sense of panic shot through her, along with a realization.
She didn't want him to die.
Nimbus:
The quake stopped as suddenly as it started- and a second later, Eric and Halidan joined the others, Eric looking bruised but triumphant.
"Halidan got the heart to accept him!" Will smiled at that while Cornelia, strangely enough, looked relieved.
"That's wonderful, Danny! Now you'll be able to stop the war!"
"Hey, you're right." Halidan blinked, staring at the lightning rod in his hands. "I better get started before things get much worse . . . you all better go."
"Why?"
"Most Salamanders aren't that open to strangers . . . alright if I visit you guys on Earth? I really like your music."
"Sure!" Matt looked a little ruffled at his girlfriend's attention on another guy. "But you'll have to give some advance notice, make sure we're not too busy with our boyfriends." Will winked at Matt- apparently, she had noticed his annoyance.
"Sure thing!" He hugged her and a split second later he had shot off, presumably to get the other salamanders to stop fighting. Will calmly moved over to Matt, hugging his arm.
"There's something I don't get." Martin spoke up, surprising the others. "If Oizys and the others' goal was the heart, why aren't they here? Why didn't they try to follow us, since that would have been our 'common' goal?"
" . . . You're right . . ." Will's eyes widened. "I didn't even think of that . . . they should have attacked us here."
"Apate said the Heart of Arcgen was their goal in the beginning, but they haven't tried to take it from me yet." Nigel looked at the metal orb in his hand. "Does the book say anything, Martin?"
"Just that Arcgen was a key world to Nyx's plans of ruling, but it doesn't say why or what other key worlds Nyx planned on attacking." Martin frowned, trying to remember what else the book had said. "Alectra or Aesop would be able to tell us more, I think."
" . . . You remembered that without looking at the book?" Nigel blinked at his comrade.
"Yes?" Martin got ready to go on the defensive- just because everyone was nice to him, didn't mean that they wouldn't make fun of him.
"Cool." Well he hadn't expected that, Nigel and Eric both looked impressed.
"Alright, let's go back to Candracar and talk to the Oracle and Fables-" Will earned several strange looks and felt her boyfriend's body shake in silent laughter. "What'd I say?"
"It's a valid mistake! I thought it when I heard the name!" Hay Lin defended Will, Caleb just looked on confused at the amusement all those from Earth began to grin.
"Hay Lin, it's a valid mistake if she had used another name, this is . . . I don't know what to call it, but it's not a valid mistake." Irma shook her head.
"Aesop is also the name of an Earth storyteller. The book of his stories is called Aesop's Fables." Taranee explained to the confused Caleb. They then headed through the fold.