Okay it's 6AM here on the east coast. I've got a great deal of homework and a mess of grocery shopping to do, not to mention a grad seminar in ten hours. And I haven't yet been to sleep. I spell-checked this puppy, but haven't run it through Ultra-Hal (the only way to edit). Let me know if you find any singicifant erorrs, and I'll fix 'em right up!

Note: Edited at 9:10 PM 12 Sept 2006 (to expand the scene, not to fix any errors).

Note: Edited at 5:31 PM 15 Sept 2006 - I was unhappy with the scene as first posted. I have retained the first version of the chapter and posted the second version below it. Which do you prefer?

Note: Edited at 6:13 PM 06 Oct 2006 - I removed the first version. The second, better version remains.

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TheMaskedReviewer and Kai-av-rani, this one's for you:


Peter Parker growled in frustration; he was out of web fluid again. The chemicals he needed to whip up a fresh batch could be found under any kitchen counter, provided that kitchen counter was located in a reality similar enough to his own. Depending on how and when a particular reality diverged from his, those contents could be quite...exotic. In the world his group had just slid out of a society hyper-keen on herbal remedies had outlawed what he needed. Sure, he could have gotten them on the black market, but who had the time?

He often fought the urge to strangle Quinn Mallory for getting him mixed up in all this. He missed his life. It may not have been perfect—if he weren't duking it out with the animal-themed baddie of the week, he was vacillating between the two ladies in his life, the nigh unattainable Felicia Hardy and the sweet and sassy Mary Jane Watson—but it was his life. What he wouldn't give to be back in his beloved New York exchanging blows and biting sarcasm with Venom or, better yet, patrolling with the alluring Black Cat, who seemed at once so familiar and so mysterious.

Not that aimlessly traveling the multiverse had left him wholly without female companionship. He'd had liaisons with doubles of MJ and Felicia and an intriguing young beauty named Gwen Stacy. There was also Wade Wells, one of his fellow travelers. The spunky brunette was fun to be around, a true pal—but that was all. She seemed to have a major unrequited hang-up on ol' Q-ball. It sort of reminded Peter of his feelings for Felicia—only in reverse. Whereas he was the nerd crushing on the popular, beautiful girl, Wade was beauty crushing on the nerd.

Peter's ruminations were interrupted by the sudden end of their journey through the wormhole. As agile as he was, he still landed in a heap atop one of his companions.

"Mr. Parker, would you mind getting off of me?"

"Sorry, Professor," Peter said and helped the portly Prof. Arturo to his feet.

The Sliders found themselves behind a one story building, quaintly designed, functional not aesthetic. Peter turned to ask Quinn how long they had until the timer reactivated, but he halted at the sound of Wade's scream.

Quinn was at her side in a moment, and Peter was reflexively reaching into his coat for his mask and gloves.

"Bodies," Wade explained, pointing at two pairs of armored corpses. The armor was a mixture of plate and chain mail. Jagged, blood-stained spikes protruded at various points from their bodies.

Chain mail? Peter had thought the architecture old-fashioned, but not medieval.

Wade began gesticulating wildly toward a window. She was also shouting something about a little boy needing their help, but Peter could barely hear her. His spider sense ripped through his mind so severely it drove him to his knees. What could be dangerous enough to provoke such a reaction? He slammed his eyes shut and, when he opened them, noticed a large blue X painted across his chest.

He looked up. Wade was pulling at the window, and Quinn was pulling at her. "We can't help him," he was saying. "We've got only ten seconds."

It was a lucky stroke. The other Sliders had the same blue Xs across their chests, and Peter was getting the sneaking suspicion they had something to do with that rather large meteorite he just noticed hurtling toward the building.

At the push of a button, the timer breached the fabric of space and created a temporary portal to another reality. Quinn, aided by Prof. Arturo, dragged Wade away from the window, and all were sucked through the portal.

Struggling to his feet, Peter followed. He cast a glance through the window as he passed. More armored soldiers were advancing on the boy, who sat unmoving on the floor. They were going to kill him. You know what you have to do, Uncle Ben's voice seemed to tell Peter. He nodded. With great power, there must also come great responsibility. Though it meant never seeing home again, Peter had to help. But he had ventured too near the wormhole, and invisible tendrils drew him in, whisked him away to another world, and left the boy to fend off the soldiers on his own.

Well, not entirely on his own.

...Come, my friend. Let's kill these inferior beings together...

---

Sliders is copyright NBC Universal Television. Spider-Man and all related characters are copyright Marvel Entertainment Group. Used without permission

Enough of this drivel. On with the story...

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Namco Tales Studio, Ltd. holds the exclusive rights to all characters and story elements appearing in the video game Tales of Symphonia. The following story has been created for entertainment purposes only, and no profit has been made by the author.

The Swordsman and the Summoner

Chapter 21: The Ogdoad and the Earth Elemental Part 4: Everything you ever wanted to know about Summon Spirits but were afraid to ask

Section 1

Templeof Ice

"Good to see you again, Master Summoner."

"You too, Celsius."

A third voice: "Are we here to fight or have a tea party?"

"Ugh! Don't tell me I have to fight him again."

"'Fraid so, Celsius. Yuan is strong, and he offered to help."

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Earlier that day

"Right now, at this very moment, there are people who are suffering," Sheena said. "I vow to save those people."

"Chief?" Fukuro said, "Are you well?"

"Hmm? Ah, I lost myself in thought." Her teacup, which she had been absently tapping against her lower lip, she set aside. Back to business. She looked at each of the three ninjas seated around the table and frowned. Not because she doubted their abilities—she'd seen them in action and could attest that they were excellent warriors. You'll not find a better squad in Mizuho than my son's, Washi had said. Fatherly pride no doubt accompanied the statement, but Sheena could not deny its truth, nor apparently could the rest of the Council, who unanimously declared their approval.

So she had selected three from Fukuro's squad, including Fukuro himself. But she was second-guessing that decision already. Key to a squad's effectiveness was its cohesion. Could they act as one, direct their individual efforts to a common goal? In the case of this squad: seamlessly. Their defense of camp last night reminded Sheena of a performance by the Meltokio Symphony Orchestra. Like flutes and horns and cellos, the scrape of blade and manriki against scale and the dragon's bellowing and straining against its bindings melded into a grotesque harmony so that, even in the sheer ugliness of death, there was a kind of beauty. Sheena told Washi the squad was magnificent, and she meant it.

But there was a problem. This orchestra already had a conductor. They knew Fukuro and could often anticipate his commands before he gave them. She had no such rapport with them, nor time to develop one in light of the urgency of their mission. (Her elevation to the chiefdom had already caused a week's delay. She could not have abandoned her people so soon after commanding them to leave their ancestral home, even if she were the only person capable of re-forging her pacts. To ease her mind, she had sent warriors to guard the temples of those spirits that still answered her calls. That she had yet to hear back from those warriors made her nervous.)

That was not why she was second-guessing herself, though. In choosing Fukuro to be on her squad, had she not, in a sense, demoted him? He didn't deserve such treatment. Still, she supposed the greater insult would have been in not asking him to take part in such an important mission. And indeed it was important—not only to combat the threat the king of Meltokio posed to the world, but also to restore the pride of Mizuho. When Sheena failed to make a pact with Volt all those years ago, in addition to the deaths of half its adult population, Mizuho suffered deep humiliation, which only worsened a decade later when a group consisting of mostly untrained warriors won pacts with all the summon spirits. Now that the pacts were expired, it was only right that Mizuho re-forge them.

"Right now, at this very moment, there are people who are suffering. I vow to save those people. I validated my first pact on Sylvarant with those words. If I had spoken more shrewdly, it would still be valid. They all would. And we wouldn't be in this mess." She paused to allow the obvious question to be posed: "What do you mean?" But no one spoke. Mizuhoans stood on ceremony. They would hold their tongues until certain she had finished speaking. For Fukuro to have spoken up at all, even to voice concern, showed brashness uncommon among his people. Sheena liked it.

...Do you now?...

Ignoring you.

...Did you notice he's still wearing that cape you gave him? It sets off his eyes in such a lovely manner...

Shut it.

"Funny thing is, at the time, I thought I was being shrewd. Or at least cautious. Assassination had gone from my primary mission to my last resort. But a last resort is still a resort. So I left my vow vague: People are suffering right now. But which people—the victims of Sylvarant's human ranches or my own people, whose fragile relations with Meltokio now rested in my hands? The vow would have allowed me to turn Undine's power against the Chosen's group—the very people who helped me gain it..."

Before her appeared Colette's face, smiling and bright until its color faded and its skin stretched taut. Dark circles discolored her eyes, and her lips twisted into a grimace as she spoke. "I love him." Sheena almost called out Colette's name but stopped herself in time to allow only a small cough to escape her throat. She sipped her tea before continuing.

"...Thank God I never had to.

"I made the same vow to all Sylvarant's summon spirits, except Luna and Aska. By then, Mizuho had allied itself with the Chosen's group, freeing me to follow my heart. So I vowed to germinate the great seed to truly regenerate both worlds. It was a good vow, honorable, but too specific. Once Lloyd germinated the seed, the pact was fulfilled. Like a..." She scrambled for a suitable metaphor. Ah, perfect! "Like a wish tag is broken once God answers the prayer, a pact is broken—no, fulfilled—once the conditions it was made under no longer apply. This doesn't mean the spirits have been unfaithful or the pact-maker. Actually, fulfillment is a sign of faithfulness on both sides.

"As for Undine, Efreet, and Sylph, the people who were suffering when I made those vows were no longer suffering when the worlds were reunited—at least they weren't suffering from the same things. Those pacts were fulfilled. The same rule applied to most of Tethe'alla's summon spirits. To Gnome, Celsius, and Shadow, I vowed to create a place where the two worlds need not sacrifice one another. Since there is now only one world, those pacts have been fulfilled."

She took a deep breath. Confession time.

...Hold on. Let me get popcorn...

"I made the pacts the way I did because I was focused completely on the crisis at hand. Yggdrasill and Cruxis were the worse threat the world ever faced—"

...Flatterer...

"—and the prospect of a world without them was too good to hope for. I never thought I'd live to see it. More than once, I nearly didn't."

Sheena remembered hanging on to the side of a rock face, exhausted and begging Lloyd to go rescue Colette, part of her wishing he'd leap into the chasm to save her, and her heart breaking a little when he didn't. And then falling, falling into darkness. Only to be saved by that pervert Zelos, who, to his credit, didn't even try to cop a feel.

"But if that world could exist, I believed peace would come. It would take time, but it would come. Or maybe I just needed to believe. Even when a great threat did arise, the spirits still answered my call. During a lull in the battle against the radical Martellites near Iselia, Undine explained everything to me. Because most of the pacts were fulfilled, only two of the spirits still owed me their allegiance. But most of the others agreed to answer my calls anyway—at least until another summoner secured pacts with them. Neither of us thought that likely. Believe me, if I had, I would have made it a point to re-forge the pacts months ago. Heh, Lloyd and I could have taken care of it over a weekend. We—"

Idiot! You just implied Lloyd is a better warrior than the three of them combined. Don't trivialize this!

"The legends tell of a time when the world was young and the spirits walked with the other races and taught them. Don't ask me why, but I got the feeling that Undine was testing me, gauging my reaction to see whether such a relationship would be possible again. So, on behalf of the world and for me personally, I thanked her. I'm closer to them than anyone else, and I never felt anything close to affection from them, not how we would define it anyway—"

...They seemed to like me just fine...

"—but I think my gratitude impressed her. They took Mithos's betrayal hard—"

...Only because they liked me so much...

"—but I get the feeling something worse happened to sever their connection with the races. I refuse to allow the king to jeopardize the renewal of that connection." She slammed her fist onto the table, and then blushed. "Eat up, we need to go."

"Chief?"

The fellow to her left had spoken. What was his name again? It started with an N. Or was that his secret name. If she addressed someone by his secret name in public...ooh, very bad. How had Grandpa kept all this information straight?

"Yes?" she said.

"You said you still have pacts with two spirits, but there are three you haven't mentioned: Maxwell, Origin, and Volt."

"Ah, of course. Forgive me...Naoki." No reaction. Good. "My pact with Origin remains. The actions of Genis Sage proved it. I also retain my pact with Volt. It took me ten years to get that one, and now I don't seem to be able to get rid of the guy. It's Maxwell that I've lost. And I intend to get him back. With your help I intend to get them all back."

With that she stood, and the others with her.

"We'll head to the ice temple first. I had considered making Exire our first destination, but we have no reason to believe the king's forces have located it yet."

"I'd feel better if we had a bigger force," Fukuro said.

"Me too. But the spirits will accept only four challengers at once. Besides, we only have two rheiards."

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Templeof Lightning

"Care to translate that?"

"Volt said, 'I am one who is bound to Sheena the faithful.'"

"Tell him that the terms of their pact have expired."

"You may tell him yourself. He understands our tongue; he only refuses to speak it."

"All right, the—what did he say that time?"

"He said that, though the terms have expired, he still wishes to retain his pact."

"Volt, I ask that you annul your pact with Sheena and establih a new pact with me. What's he say to that?"

"He says, 'No.'"

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To be continued

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Last Modified: 26 October 2006