Disclaimer: All the rights to the Professor Layton belong to Level 5 games, not me! I would never own ANYONE of that amazing franchise.
The legend of the Dragon sapphire
Dawn was beginning to spread across the land. The surrounding area was dark and almost completely void of light and very little colour, covering the world below in a near complete darkness that would frighten even the humblest of Achluophobic people everywhere.
Professor Layton and Emmy Altava walked through the town, gazing around with interest although a very unsettling silence had actually loomed around them both.
The Professor didn't say a word although he constantly felt a very familiar pain attack his anatomy on all angles and sides. He couldn't explain how it felt but it felt like all the dragon parts were all wanting to jump out and make themselves visible and shred away at the flesh that covered him now. He would constantly give a dulled groan or a grimace at the tugging at his shoulders, hands and spine but he fought hard to ignore these waves of pain and make sure that Emmy didn't worry.
Emmy seemed to have noticed one time when the Professor was fighting against the pain and a concerned expression washed over her facial muscles and she frowned.
"Professor, are you alright?" She asked.
The Professor didn't answer her. He just grit his teeth and fought through another pulse of agony pounding through his body, screwing his eyes shut tightly. He would have spared a moment to tip his hat to disguise his pain-contorted face but he just couldn't find the energy to. He could only move and even that was getting harder and harder to do with his body going through waves of pain.
What was happening?
The pain was just like the one he would get during transformations but different.
Finally the pain subsided suddenly, catching the gentleman archeologist by surprise, and he gave her a forced smile and nodded.
"I...I'm fine, thank you." The Professor secretively rubbed at his back with tender roughness so his spinal cord could be soothed yet massaged from the pain it had been going through.
He didn't want Emmy worrying over him and he couldn't allow it, either.
The Professor shook his head quickly, hoping to shake off the remnants of pain he felt, and he walked at a leisurely pace alongside his former assistant. He smiled softly at the gentle breeze brushing against his face and tussling the short amount of chestnut brown hair that covered the back of his head.
It was relaxing to have the wind blow in your face, as well as to have some blowing beneath a pair of wings. All in all the feeling of the breeze was a comforting feeling.
As the pair walked quietly once again, neither Layton nor Emmy spoke a word.
They didn't wish to speak about something meaningless and waste the limited time they had before a certain event happened at the stroke of dawn. However it was just plain awkward that the silence was so long.
Emmy decided to start up a conversation "Do you think Luke will be alright?"
The Professor nodded, smiling at the woman wearing yellow "I am certain Luke will be alright, however he may have a horrid headache whence he awakes." His voice was light and conversational but his eyes were filled with concern for his young apprentice -something which Emmy didn't take notice of.
Emmy shrugged her shoulders playfully as she acted somewhat relieved. She continued to stroll relaxedly alongside the top-hat-wearing-gentleman and she closed her eyes with a small lax grin. Everything about her screamed 'I-am-relaxed'.
She said more to herself then the Professor "Well I'm glad I don't have to listen to Luke mumbling about the tower, eagles and statues..."
The Professor stopped dead in his tracks with his eyes wide and his face frozen. What did Emmy just say? Did he hear her just right? He just watched with stilled eyes as Emmy wandered a few steps ahead of him before she realised he had stopped in the middle of the path and she turned around to look at him with confusion.
Emmy knitted her brows in worry, let her smile fall into a frown and she asked "Professor? Did I say something wrong?"
Professor Layton simply stood there, ignorant to what was going on around him. Time had almost come to a complete halt and the pieces of what he had just been thinking about began to click into place, the riddle of what the Bartender (the nicer one) gave him.
But he needed to be absolutely sure he heard her right.
Adjusting his top hat quickly, Layton blinked and requested while he stood as still and recumbent as a statue "...Please repeat to me what you just said."
Emmy was reluctant and fear built up inside her heart. Was Professor Layton angry? What was he going to say? Why did he want that repeated? She calmed her nerves a bit through a blink of the eyes and she repeated what she had just said with her voice becoming wobbly, not liking the look on the gentleman's face at all:
"I-I'm just glad I don't have to listen to L-Luke mumbling about statues and eagles and the tower of the king of Duriun."
Her voice was no longer relaxed and she looked really nervous now, very uncharacteristic behaviour of Emmy Altava, but with Layton constantly flitting from dragon and man anything could happen...even anything bad.
The atmosphere was grim and dark but the display of emotion the Professor shown next was anything but.
His reaction was mildly delayed and his face was still frozen into a frown of shock but then he actually began to look joyful and ecstatic by the news. He rushed forwards and swept Emmy off her feet (metaphorically) and proceeded to run off and drag her behind him whilst he ran towards the castle.
The Professor was stunned.
How could he have not seen it before? He never even thought of it but he was in a mix of pride and embarrassment over this whole thing! Luke had solved the puzzle despite being drunken out of his mind!
His mind was yelling in triumph and it was yelling a thousand praises for his wonderful apprentice who had actually solved the puzzle before he did!
He wanted to just jump for joy but he knew that doing so would be very unbecoming of him so he just kept quiet about it.
Emmy, startled by the Professor's behaviour, exclaimed with increasing confusion boggling her mind "Professor, what's the matter?! What's going on he-" Before she could say the word "here" to finish her sentence, the Professor had decided to go even faster.
The puzzle-loving gentleman of archeology used a free hand to fiddle with his top hat quickly before he continued to whisk his cousin down the streets of Duriun, his speed going so great that he left a trail of dust behind him that evaporated into thin air before the smoke beside that one begun to evaporate as well.
To Professor Layton, Emmy was actually and biologically his cousin -no matter how strange that sounded- since she actually called Leon Bronev (Layton and Descole's biological father) "uncle" and, after getting some info on the matter and researching his family tree, the Professor uncovered that Emmy was actually his mother's sisters daughter, thus making her biological family as well.
It was true he felt very uncomfortable by referring Descole as "brother" but he was willing to put up with it for now.
It took a lot of sprinting and a small jolt of sharp pain until Layton had finally stopped running the fastest he could go. He released Emmy's hand and bent down to rub at his swollen and aching ankles that were still clothed inside his olive green slip-on shoes and he gave a small sigh of exhaustion through the nose whilst he breathlessly panted and huffed for precious oxygen that started to fill his dangerously deflated lungs.
While the Professor was still catching his breath, Emmy took the chance to look at their surroundings.
They were just outside the castle of King Mortimer and the walls were very high and very sturdy yet they seemed to have been standing beneath one of the balconies that the castle had adorning the outside, jutting out so the person living in the ivory palace would be able to see into the world up high. The castle was huge and tall with two spires poking out at the top to form twin rooftops and there was many, many windows on the thin long necks of the roofs.
The shadows of dawn painted a large section of the castle a grey-black colouring while the rest of it retained its snow white stone stature. The tower was so high that it made Emmy begin to get a crick in her neck from looking up so much.
Rubbing the back of her sore neck, Emmy looked back down and to the side towards Professor Layton yet she arched a confused brow at him as if to signal that she didn't get the reason for the puzzle professor's overwhelming desire to speed along the road and pull her all the way out here.
"What was the point of bringing me out here, Professor?" She asked.
Smiling, Professor Layton casually walked over to her with one hand grabbing the rim of his top hat and the other hand was stuffed lazily in his pocket. He walked to her side and removed the hand that wasn't gripping his treasured top hat before pointing it up towards the tower.
"'The one you seek shall be at the starting point, they keep an eye on all the kingdom from high up with an eye of the eagle.'" He quoted what the Bartender told both him and Luke earlier and lifted his gaze "Now the first place Luke and myself was, in fact, here and I would like to direct your attention up towards the balconies."
Emmy obeyed and lifted her gaze as well up towards the balconies. They looked so grand and magnificent in architecture yet there was something about them that caught her interest.
Professor Layton continued, smiling wider "Do you think there is something about those balconies that strike you as odd, Emmy?"
Emmy thought deeply as she squinted her eyes and studied the balcony hanging above them. It was true that there was something about them each that bore a strange resemblance and it was something that matched up with the riddle that was received in the bar that was recently burnt down.
She hummed thoughtfully and stroked her chin. Just what could it be?
Her face lit up when she instantly realised something: the balconies had been fitted with stone eagle heads at the edges of each one!
That meant the oracle had to have been someone who lived in the castle!
The Professor must have realised that Emmy caught on and tapped his own nose with a grin sharper than a blades edge. He winked "Indeed, Emmy; It seems that Luke had given us the answer!"
The both of them smirked cheerfully. At least it was good to know that Luke was still amazing despite being drunk and it was also a great thing to acknowledge that the Oracle just might be found. The Professor already seemed to know who it was but before anything else could be done, things took a very dramatic turn.
It wasn't a good one, either.
The Professor gave a sudden moan in pain as he plummeted to the floor below with his body breaking into violent shakes and his hands trembling as they latched on tightly to the cobble stone flooring.
"Professor!" Emmy yelled, rushing to action and kneeling down to the Professor's side.
She took one look up into the skies and realised something was very wrong because the sun wasn't even up yet!
Planting a hand on Layton's back, she felt the strong vibrations under the fabric of the gentleman's jacket and she could most definitely feel something burst from his back...two things, actually, and it didn't take long for two long wings to rip out from the top hatted archeologist's back and take shreds of his clothing with them.
The Professor's breathing became frantic as he tried to calm himself but to no avail. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as the pain flooded throughout his entire body, shaking it like an earthquake, and he felt sweaty when his skin began to change but this time it felt oddly different in a way. He also felt his spinal cord stretch as well as an extra attachment burst along with his tailbone.
A tail appeared and curled along his feet.
He was now yelling in pain with his voice going deeper in tone.
The poor Professor's skin also turned a touch darker, turning into a very light shade of brown. It was also apparent that his teeth were changing shape as well while they became pointy and sharp inside his gums, arranging to be in a predatory alignment inside his mouth.
Professor Layton collapsed in a heap to the floor with his transformation only done for the halfway point in a way that scared Emmy.
Other than the darker skin tone and scale like qualities it possessed, sharper teeth, tail and wings, the professor hardly changed at all in appearance but because he had changed so early and only halfway through when it never happened like this before was already scary beyond imagination.
Reaching down and picking the Professor up, Emmy assisted the gent in walking back towards the Bostonious. She had both arms wrapped around his chest and shoulder to keep him standing up as she helped him hobble along in the growing daylight.
"Come on, Professor Layton, let's get you back to the Bostonious..." Emmy told him, smoothing the fear from her voice.
This was a dramatic turn that somehow managed to scare her beyond belief as this had never happened to the Professor as far as she knew. She didn't know what was going to happen now but she now knew that the urgency to find the Oracle had escalated rapidly.
A/N: Cliffhanger!
Professor Layton seems to be getting worse with his transformations and he looks to be just getting worse in general. At least the riddle was solved but we also still need to find out who the Oracle is...I think you know who it is, though.
Lets see where the next chapter goes.
Please be patient and also please review.
-Chloemcg
