Chapter 12: Stand Up and Fight
Sancturia, in the past...
Mew's roughly scratching the back of his head and shaking off a bit of shock so he could think straight for one damn second.
"Ok I'm sorry can you repeat that?" He asked of Auris as she leaned against the back of her couch. She didn't take any time to repeat herself.
"Kairi has left for space to get her sister back." Her tone now a little more biting.
Mew raised his brows and glanced up from the corner of his eyes to say, "Well you can't just drop a bombshell like that and not tell us WHERE. Space is huge! ASTRONOMICALLY huge."
Mew cracked a slight laugh while Joe Dark groaned behind him. Auris creased her eyes shut and dug her fingers into the fine leather, tapping them along one at a time.
"I won't tell you." She said firmly.
"Keeping secrets again?" Riku said, casting judgment upon her with his tone.
Auris shook her head slowly and clarified, "This is something Kairi must do herself. Its a family matter."
Joe Dark dug his hands into his pockets and grumbled with a forced attempt at caring, "Well you heard the woman, its not our business."
Mew swayed to the right and wagged his finger in Joe Dark's face like he was reprimanding a puppy, "You don't get to decide that buster."
Joe Dark narrowed his eyes and grumbled loudly to himself for a bit and then turned his gaze to the right and remarked, "Kairi's that girl who fought Justek right? She seemed strong."
Joe Dark sneered and glared at the back of Mew's head, "Stronger than you even."
Mew glared out from the corner of his eyes and then turned to Auris and came across a little more strongly asking, "Come on Auris you know we'll wear you down eventually so just save us the time and tell us."
"I will not budge." Auris said, coming across a bit like a child.
"Ughhh..." Mew threw his arms down and head back and groaned. Joe Dark, meanwhile, pulled out his dagger and pointed it at Auris.
"Perhaps this'll make you talk..." Joe Dark's eyes narrowed aggressively but when he took one step forward Mew weakly pushed his wrist down and sighed.
"No, Joe Dark, no," Mew gave a tired look at Auris' teeny smile, "It doesn't work on her anyway..."
Joe Dark lowered his dagger and was suddenly made to stand aside when someone entered the front door.
"I sensed a disturbance, is everything alright?" The firm voice belonged to one Gabriel, who was soon caught in the gaze of the four presiding in the house.
He glanced at them all and paused upon Joe Dark with a wary look and his hand motioning towards his sheathed katana. Joe Dark glared back, with this itch in the back of his mind that they'd encountered each other before.
Before this could be pursued Mew started wagging a pointer finger at Auris and exclaiming, "Gabriel! Kairi's gone off to space and Auris isn't telling us where she went!"
Gabriel paused towards Mew and started closing his eyes. His deep breathing signified he was bothered about something.
"I should've known there was more to her being there," Gabriel creaked his eyes open slightly and muttered, "Especially with Catherine in the area..."
Mew dropped his hand and remarked, "You saw her today?"
Gabriel gave a quick nod but remarked with confidence, "But I wouldn't fret over it. Kairi's just getting her sister back at long last. It won't require a fight."
Mew's arms slumped and Joe Dark gave him a snide remark of, "Told you so."
"I can't shake the feeling that she's in trouble though..." Mew mumbled to himself while rubbing the back of his head.
He then happened to look up and see Gabriel glancing across the room, prompting him to then look where he looked and see that Auris was quietly averting her gaze towards the ground.
But Riku caught on to this faster than both of them and was thus quick on the draw to ask, "Auris, where is Kairi's sister?"
Auris clutched tighter onto the leather couch and then gave half a look up towards Gabriel. The subtle quiver of her lower lip restrained what she was about to say for just a moment...
"She went to the Cosmic Cage at the center of the universe."
Those few words shifted the atmosphere in an instant. Gabriel tensed up with a look of pale-faced horror the likes of which made even Mew get goosebumps. The man tightly clutched the handle of his katana and trembled.
Then, without moving his eyes, he said in a quiet, but panicked haste, "Mew, take your friends, and go find Catherine at the Pyramid..."
"...Gabri-?"
"Now. Mew," Gabriel firmly assured this would be the last word on the matter, "I will catch up in a moment..."
Mew slowly turned to Riku and Joe Dark and waved his hand towards the door a few times, "Well you heard the man, the fight's back on!"
Riku moved without hesitation but Joe Dark dug his feet into the ground and said with disinterest, "Well good luck you two, I guess I'll man the homefront."
Mew spun back through the door and said, "You're coming with us Joe."
"Ugh, why? I have nothing to do with any of this!"
"...He has a point." Riku admitted.
Mew shrugged his shoulders and said, "We probably shouldn't be butting in, but my heart's telling me its the right call. And besides..."
Mew got a tinge more serious in his eyes as he remarked, "I owe it to Alex to help save the girl he loved the most."
Joe Dark's eyes perked up behind Mew and Riku's notice. After they were a few seconds away he clutched his fists deep in his pockets, deafening the crunch of his knuckles.
"Ghhh...! You two dunderheads can't do this without me and you know it!" He screamed as he hurried out the door after them.
Gabriel had kept his eyes on Auris the whole while. She retreated from the couch and turned her back on him, but that could do so little to avert his judgmental gaze. He reached deep inside of himself, fighting back a yearning sense of confusion, for what ultimately boiled down to one, single word.
"How?"
Auris folded her arms under her breasts and gripped the sides of her body. Her stance was discomforting and distant, like she was standing a mile away.
Gabriel curled his lips and placed a hand against his chest, pleading to Auris with his heart, "This was meant to be a secret I'd carry to the grave, Lady Auris."
"I know," Auris tightened her fingers' grip and coldly looked over her shoulder, "But it was never meant to stay a secret forever. At one point in time, you slipped...And that's all I needed."
Gabriel opened his eyes at a snail's pace and shook his head. He shaped his hand into a fist and dragged it out in a swift, angered swing.
"Shina was only supposed to meet with Alex Whiter. If I had known you were going to go further than that, especially in this manner, even I would have opposed you on it."
"I know." Auris repeated even quieter than before.
"Is that all you can say? As if the burden of foreknowledge makes your decision any less baffling?" Gabriel's voice bore the weight of his and Auris' guilt, which he then pushed on her like a father would their child, "You sent your daughter to Hell with no guarantee she'd return."
"I had faith in the strength of her heart." Was Auris' defense.
"Strength?" Gabriel scoffed and swung a firm pointer finger towards the door, "That thing your ancestors sealed away doesn't care how strong your heart is. I am living proof of that."
Auris looked back ahead, hiding an uneasy expression behind a drape of shadow.
Gabriel stood tall and his glare never waned in intensity. He shook his head and could only express himself with sorrow and disappointment.
"I stood by your side all this time. I may not have always agreed with your decisions but I had faith that you thought of everything but this...?" Gabriel taking one step forward put Auris on edge, and even the samurai had to withdraw his foot in realization that he could not go as far as his emotions wanted him to.
"..." Gabriel closed his eyes and breathed deeply from his nose, "I saw your hidden room in the Ten Sages' temple."
Auris quivered as her most loyal ally left her feeling bare, "Cinder altars to dedicate the fallen. One hundred and twenty in total."
Gabriel punctuated his point with the toughest question she would ever receive, "How many children did Gravitus force you to bear?"
Auris turned around one firm step at a time and with her eyes slanted raised her voice, "Get to the point Gabriel."
"I want to believe that you loved each and every one of those children equally, even as you watched them die or be turned against you..." Gabriel clenched his fists and leaned forward with a shout, "So how...how could you bring yourself to dig Shina's grave, and then bury Kairi alongside her?!"
Auris' eyes widened and her body lost its firm, imposing stature. She slumped down, appearing as half the woman she usually was. And gently, with a hand on the side of her face to hide her distraught eyes, she murmured, "I...don't know anymore."
Her body trembled with a cold as Gabriel watched on. He was mad. But he wasn't heartless. This was the worst he had seen Auris appear in two-thousand years.
"...Lady Auris, what's going on?" He felt was the only thing he could ask.
Auris split her fingers and Gabriel got a good look into her eyes. Though watery, it was clear that there was something different about them. She pulled her hand down and murmured, "I...lost my clairvoyance."
"Lost your...?" Gabriel gasped and shook his head in disbelief, "But the Anti-Genesis Theorem still persists. If it didn't, you'd be dead."
"...I don't want to explain it to you." Auris firmly remarked, and Gabriel, respectfully, left it there.
"Hrrmm..." Gabriel closed his eyes and took on a more empathetic tone, "I understand now. You're scared."
Auris retreating her face away from his sight was enough to confirm that.
"You had no choice but to rely on that for so long just to survive. So without it, you think it makes you useless...?" Gabriel shook his head even as Auris continued to give him the cold shoulder.
"I watched you grow from a baby to adulthood. You were a strong woman even before you had clairvoyance. If you wanted something, you'd go for it. If you felt adventurous, you'd go as far as to disobey your father. And if something was on your mind, you'd say it."
Gabriel opened his eyes and glimpsed at Auris. She curled her hands under her elbows and briefly glanced over her shoulder.
"But more importantly, you've always been kind underneath it all. Its the part of you Sarajin was most attracted to..." Gabriel put a hand on his katana's hilt and turned sideways between Auris and the door, "And I know that's why you'll make this right, Lady Auris."
Auris grimaced as the clacking of Gabriel's armor drew her towards his departure out the door. With one last turn back he said, "We no longer have to cower under Gravitus' shadow. Me, you, Kairi, Shina...We can finally be the family you've always wanted."
He laid one hand against the side of the door and kept his head turned over his shoulder to say, "But, only if that's what you want, Lady Auris."
He quietly stepped out the door and in seconds the sound of his armor left Auris' ears.
Silence, a time to recollect. Alone, yet again. Auris turned around and surveyed the room. Her eyes rested upon the stairs, watching as the phantom of her first child walked down and left the door. She could barely recall their face, or their name...
A second child descended. Then a third. Then a fourth. They continued in a line that grew less blurred over time, culminating in Shina, and then Kairi. Those who left feeling hatred towards Auris for being lied to outnumbered those who never even got the chance to do so...
Auris walked over to the drawers beside the stairs, parting her way through the phantoms like they were a mist of snow. She reached for the top drawer and pulled it open, finding a photo from two years ago of her with Shina and Kairi.
She pulled it out and stared deep into the vision of the past. Her eyes dripped tears onto the glass not long after.
"...I was never that girl, Gabriel." She whispered.
As she started getting misty-eyed she sought clarity in her memories, setting her mind back fourteen years ago...
Auris sat on the couch, cradling a sleeping baby Kairi in her arms while keeping her warm with a blanket. Her tiny mouth was open to breathe and her eyes was shut in bliss.
Auris stroked her daughter's tiny hairs with the back of her hand and smiled without knowing it.
"Mom mom mom!" A young Shina bounded into the room, barely able to peek over the arm of the couch. Auris propped her finger up to gently quiet her.
"Shhh, your sister's sleeping..." She turned her doe-eyes upon the baby, unaware that Shina was climbing over the arm of the couch to plop down on her knees next to her.
Shina leaned over Kairi and grinned, "She's so cute when she's asleep."
"She looks a lot like you Shina," Auris brushed Kairi's hair again, "Her soft hair, her bright eyes..."
She reached over and pinched Shina's cheeks, "Her pinchable cheeks."
"Hahaha, stop it mom that's ticklish!" Shina tried to retreat but Auris pinched just a little bit harder. A tinge of pain suddenly struck Auris' chest, and she withdrew her hand slowly.
She set it to rest on her lap and looked at Kairi's face. She smiled, ever slightly, ever subtly...
"...You'll be a good big sister to her one day Shina." Auris murmured.
"Uh-huh!" Shina childishly nodded her head up and down repeatedly, then laid her hands flat on her knees, "I'll feed her, play with her, love her with aaaaaaaall my heart, and do everything I can to protect her!"
That same pain hurt deeper in Auris' chest, and her eyes began to sag. Shina closed her eyes and happily declared, "Cause that's what family does mom!"
That voice echoed in the present, and Auris closed her eyes to force more tears free onto this fabrication of happiness in her hand. She raised a sleeve to wipe her face dry while pulling her head up, and laying the photo atop the drawers.
She withdrew her arm and behind them lied eyes slanted in determination, with a fire burning behind them.
"...But maybe now, I can be." Auris turned aside and for a brief moment, felt goosebumps all up her arms. The wind quietly blew through the house.
She steeled her fist against her chest and after closing her eyes to smile, she turned to face the door and rushed out at blistering speeds.
No person or place would be an obstacle in her path towards the temple her father once called home. Though its dusty halls were empty, there were many secrets Auris had hidden away inside. Gabriel had merely found one of them.
She forced open the rusted doors with her palms and traversed the dust filled floors without breathing a breath. She laid her hand upon the secret door on the opposite side and strolled down the dark, damp hall at a fevered pace.
Her eyes stayed wide and focused on the straight and narrow. As the embers of her fallen kin lit up her surroundings she reached towards the brightest flame in the center of the room and, for a brief moment, hesitated.
She then curled her hand and dug it into the flame. Her skin burned to black in seconds but she kept her strength going forward to reach a hidden switch underneath. Her hand healed the moment she pulled out of the flames, and the large altar began to hiss.
It uprooted a large, rectangular glass case from the ground. Inside rested a brown and gold coffin untouched by the hands of time. But that wasn't her target. There was a dark gray, lifeless cube with straight lines etched in an undefined pattern around it lodged into the side of the case.
Upon reaching out for it she hesitated again, then snatched it in her hand with incredible force.
"No more graves." She murmured, closing her eyes as she turned around and departed the room with the cube tucked under her sleeve.
Meanwhile, with Mew's group...
Mew, Riku and Joe Dark waited outside the portal to Saturn's place for Gabriel to catch up with them. Mew leaned against the wall and impatiently tapped his toes on the floor. Fortunately, it was only a few minutes later that Gabriel came up the stairs.
And his first response was to ask, "Why are you still here?"
Mew shoved off the wall and declared, "Well I ain't dealing with Saturn alone!"
"...I suppose you're right," Gabriel sighed, never stopping for a second as he quickly passed the group by with a stern look in his eyes, "But we can't waste anymore time."
He entered through the portal and the other three followed after. Even upon reaching Saturn's base of operations Gabriel continued walking forward. His aura was so tense that Mew kept his distance, and easily imagined him slanting his eyes.
Saturn was pacing about in the garage while looking at a clipboard. It was impossible to ignore all the noise Gabriel was making for long though.
She sprung to face him and had a brief look of shock as he asked, "Huh? Gabriel? You never barge into my HQ like this!"
She had a wry smile that lasted about as long as Mew and the others escaped her notice. She tilted her head towards them and said with mild disdain, "Huh?! Why're you back ag-"
"This isn't the time to fool around Catherine." Gabriel stopped a couple feet away and propped a hand up to the hilt of his sword.
Saturn threw her hand out towards the others and declared, "Don't tell me you let them conscript you into begging me for another ride into-"
"CATHERINE!" Gabriel's roar shook the very foundation of the space station, and dropped Saturn's jaw to the point that her glasses nearly slid off her nose.
"This is a Protocol ENIGMA level threat." He said in a much, much quieter but firmer tone.
Saturn slowly nudged her glasses up into place and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. She dropped her clipboard, rushed for her wristband and resumed her high-energy attitude.
"Well why didn't you say so sooner?!" She tapped a few keys on here holographic keyboard faster than the human eye could catch and then slid across it to shut it off. She turned to the left and a garage larger than the last few Mew had gotten rides from slid out.
Inside was a ship similar in build to the Saggitarius Arrow Mk IV, but bigger and with more jets and wings to help it out. The color was also black and yellow.
"Presenting the Saggitarius Double-Shot Mk III! Bigger, better, faster, strong..." Saturn's enthusiasm deflated with the sagging of her shoulders and she sheepishly nudged her glasses up, "Ah forget it. We ain't got time."
She then looked up at Gabriel and firmly crossed her arms before her chest, deferring leadership right over to him, "So where we going boss?!"
"The Cosmic Cage." He said without hesitation.
Saturn's eyes bulged all the way out and she forced a couple coughs. Pinching the side of her glasses she remarked, "T-There?! Oh for the love of cookies and milk, what'd I send Jupes into this time?!"
She bounced straight over to her ship and used her wristband to force the door open and the ramp to slide down. She climbed to the top, grabbed one of the supports and spun back to face the others.
"Is this our full group? I'm counting one, two, three, four, five..."
"Six." Auris' soft voice spooked Mew and slowly turned the others' gaze towards the portal as she walked in, strutting with an air of confidence the boy Overlord was a little more familiar with.
Riku was stunned silent while Joe Dark couldn't help but comment, "Heh, you sure you're up for this granny?"
Not a second later Auris flicked her wrist towards Joe Dark and a circular shield rammed into his gut, grounding him on his back another second after. The shield flew back in a perfect arch and Auris raised and slid her arm through the lace straps, a perfect fit.
She then lowered the shield by her hip and walked right by Joe Dark without pausing for a second, "Try and keep up, Joe Dark."
Joe Dark laid there with his arms sprawled out and grumbled, "I don't like her."
Mew bent down to help him up while joking, "Heh, join Riku's club then."
Joe Dark helped himself up and the three of them ran ahead past Auris to enter Saturn's ship. Gabriel lagged behind momentarily. A proud smile swiftly turned cautious as he looked down and saw a cube hiding in the shadows of Auris' left sleeve.
He closed his eyes and whispered, "You don't need to go this far, Lady Auris."
"..." Auris closed her eyes and continued walking, "This is what I want Gabriel."
Gabriel remained uneasy up until they took off from Saturn's station. Saturn helmed the ship's controls and after regulating all the systems she spun around in her chair, the only one with a comfy back mind you, and addressed her small crew.
"Alright if we blast through at full power we should catch up with the others before they get in trouble!"
Everyone else sat on their mildly comfy floating chairs. Auris stayed detached from the others, secretly eyeing the cube she brought along. After a short period of silence, during which Saturn confidently crossed her arms and smiled, Mew raised his hand.
"Yeah actually speaking of that," He looked over at Gabriel and leaned down, planting his hands over his knees, "What kinda trouble are we talking about here?"
Joe Dark grit his teeth and growled, "I still don't even know what a goddamn Aurian is."
Mew waved his hand aside and murmured, "We'll get you up to date later, this is more important."
Gabriel closed his eyes and an unsettling atmosphere permeated the enclosed shape in seconds. He held his hands together above his legs and waited until all eyes were on him to speak.
"Years of Aurian history has been lost to time, including our origins. But there is one being who exists as possible proof of what we used to be..." Gabriel spoke in a grandiose, yet ominous tone, "The Grand Cosmic Aurian Sage."
"He is beyond and by far the oldest living Aurian, dating back millions of years ago...And it is no exaggeration to say that were it not for him, Sancturia as we know it now would never have existed."
"He sounds...pretty mystical," Mew remarked with a mix of confusion and awe, "But...is he our enemy?"
"...His motives are complex," Gabriel gave Mew a direct glance and answered properly, "But they are not selfless. In pursuing his goals he inadvertently created the Planetary Aurians and tormented the Ten Sages three generations prior to Auris' time."
Mew widened his eyes but it was Saturn who got the leg up on him in expressing shock, "Whoa whoa WHOA!"
Gabriel faced her as she snapped her fingers up by her face and declared, "THAT guy was the Grand Cosmic Aurian Sage?! Really?! Why's this the first I'm hearing of this?!"
"Because," Gabriel hung over and let out a long sigh, "He had a hand in the crime I swore my eternal servitude to atone for. And that vow forbade me from speaking of his existence."
"The crime you committed?" Mew hadn't forgotten the vow Gabriel had mentioned when they fought.
"...It is my greatest shame," Gabriel laid a hand on the side of his head and gave it a rough shake, "The fiend swayed me with honeyed words of fixing the universe and making things perfect for Aurians again. I tasted some of his power, and it cursed my body with immortality...And this green skin."
"Hmph, I wondered what was up with the Jolly Green Giant shtick." Joe Dark remarked.
Mew crossed his arms and in his head flashed the appearances of the other Planetary Aurians, Neptune and Uranus in particular.
"So this curse affected everyone else?"
"Yes, but of our group only Mars and Pluto retained their normal skin color."
Mew blinked a couple times then slowly swerved to look at Saturn. Saturn fluttered her eyelashes and crossed her arms over her body, feeling like Mew was undressing her with his eyes.
In reality Mew stuck to her normal skin color and remarked, "So what's up with you?"
"Hahaha!" Saturn couldn't stop herself from showing off when science was involved, "Its a simple matter of camouflage! Check THIS out!"
With one quick slap of her wristband Saturn's skin pigment swiftly turned lemon yellow. Mew nearly reeled back out of his seat and dryly chuckled.
"Ha...ha..." Mew fished his brain for some kind of compliment, "H-Hey, yellow compliments...violet?"
Saturn lowered her head with a bit of red in her cheeks and while hastily turning her skin back to normal she proclaimed, "Not fair, you tricked me cretin!"
"Cut the tomfoolery!" Joe Dark exclaimed and burned his gaze at Gabriel while aggressively summoning his dagger, "So long story short, we got to kill an old man to rescue those idiots?"
Gabriel glared at Joe Dark to restrain his temper with some success, "It is not that simple."
"What I don't get..." Riku remarked, "Is why this Sage did that to you."
"...Whatever motivations the Sage had, only the Ten Sages at the time knew," Gabriel slowly shook his head and gave his utmost honest recollection of events, "The Sage was incredibly powerful. Even the ten strongest Aurians alive working together stood no chance. The threat he posed necessitated the creation of the Neo Drive in the first place."
"The Neo Drive?" Mew remarked with a tilt of the head.
"Yes. Its power specifically countered the Sage's Cosmos Drive."
Mew rubbed the back of his head and murmured, "Then...shouldn't Kairi be ok?"
"..." Gabriel closed his eyes and the mood in the room got a little more dire feeling, "The Sages could obliterate his body, but not his spirit. He was driven by a powerful motivation that warped the very fabric of the world around him."
"Thus the Sages used their powers to seal his spirit away within his own Cosmos Drive, then broke it into five pieces, scattering them across the universe so they'd never be reclaimed. But miraculously...Shina did."
"I see," Mew paused with his eyes closed, and after a long drawn out time thinking about it his eyes slowly opened, his pupils shrank, and his skin got colder, "Oh. Ooooooh..."
"You understand now?" Gabriel murmured.
"Crap. Talk about bad luck for us. The Sage got the perfect body to keep his one weakness from beating him to double death."
Gabriel glared over his shoulder at Auris.
Mew punched his fists together and exclaimed confidently, "Well don't worry about it Gabriel! With all us working together we'll beat that old man and get the sisters back home again!"
Meanwhile, in the Cosmic Cage...
"S-Shina how can you say that...?" Kairi flubbed her words trying to convince her sister to see the truth.
The girl's glimmering eyes burned fiercely, loathing the presence of the two in her way. As Kairi tried to take one step forward but Jupiter waved her hand back and then tucked her fists close to her chest, eyeing Shina with a fighter's resolve.
"You're being a terrible big sister right now you know."
"Aren't you one of Gravitus' goons?" Shina remarked.
"This woman is one of the nine I tried blessing for a higher purpose. A pity that she intends to turn her gifts against us in betrayal..." The Sage murmured behind Shina's ear.
"Its fine!" Shina spoke confidently, spreading the individual pieces of her wings to increase their width, "I feel at my best now! So let Gravitus send his whole army here! I'll take 'em all on!"
Before Shina could make the first move her and the Sage reared their head back and zipped twenty feet backwards without leaving anything behind. A bombardment of dark orbs exploded like land mines upon hitting the ground. A wave of pressurized wind zipped through the smoke and Shina destroyed it with a flash from her eyes.
Then, a huge blast of darkness exploded point-blank in her face, kicking up a wind that blew the Sage's robes back and forced him to acknowledge the pressure it exuded.
"M-More intruders?!"
Shina narrowed her gaze and purred like a curious cat, then let out a loud gasp as the smoke parted.
Kairi's eyes froze in shock as she eyed the backs of five warriors standing in a unified group. Gabriel, Saturn, Jupiter, Riku and most unexpectedly, Joe Dark, were ready for battle.
A second later Mew dropped out of the sky in Dark Form in front of the center of the group and cracked a grin. He then happily stood up and glanced over his shoulder.
"Kairi, what did I say about doing stuff alone?" He joked.
"Right?!" Jupiter chimed in with a chuckle.
"M-Mew...Gabriel...everyone..." Kairi was at a pure loss for words.
"Its ok now Kairi, we're here," Gabriel calmly drew his katana from his sheath and pointed it towards Shina with a narrow gaze, "And this time, we will finish what our ancestors began."
Shina tightened her fists and floated upright. Mew stared her straight in the eyes and curled his knuckles a couple times. His heart beat fast, and he was already sweating.
"What's up all this power? Its unreal..." And briefly, he couldn't help but notice Shina's...gifts, "...And so is that body. Gee, talk about good genes..."
"Y-You...?" Shina shivered looking towards Mew in particular.
"That's right, its me! The big hero here to rescue the princess from the evil wizard-" Mew glanced behind Shina and saw that the spirit of the Sage's robe had been blown back...into a lovely set of feathery moth wings with an azure shine.
And not only that, he had compound eyes and an elongated abdomen. But that was where the similarities to a moth ended. He had eight spider arms with mantis pincers at the ends. On his back was the sturdy shell of a beetle that covered up to the back of his head. His thorax had been replaced with a wasp's stinger, and the general shape of his head and body resembled a human's. His mouth, in particular, opened like a humans but was filled with slimy, wormy tongues.
"Bug...man...?" Mew narrowed his eyes and puckered his lips.
"..." A LOT of thinking happened in Mew's head at that moment.
"Grand Cosmic Aurian Sage = Origin of the Aurians. Grand Cosmic Aurian Sage = Creepy Bug Man. Modern Aurians = Humans. Bug Men Become Human? Kairi =? Bug Girl?"
Mew's jaw slacked and he spun back to Gabriel to ask in a moment of hysteria, "Gabriel explain."
Gabriel shuddered as he closed his eyes and said with genuine sincerity, "That IS the Grand Cosmic Aurian Sage."
"That doesn't explain anything!" Mew exclaimed.
"Devimoth...?" The curious whisper of the Grand Cosmic Aurian Sage got Mew tilting his head back and going "Huh?"
The Sage clicked his many tongues and rubbed his slimy chin deep in thought, "No...you're not him. You're merely a human that somehow managed to seize that sinner's power for your own."
Mew propped a hand on his hip and swung the other out, "Look bug man I didn't steal this power from a guy named Devimoth. It belonged to a guy named..."
The longer Mew glared at the Sage, the more his mind started superimposing the last appearance of "D." over him. The resemblance was more than a little uncanny...
"Oh god damn it..." Mew gasped that out while slapping the side of his face and feeling a massive headache coming on.
The Sage swung his arms out and remarked, "It matters not! You are a blasphemer all the same!"
Shina flinched as the Sage ground his mantis blades together to make a sharp sound, "But this'll make for a perfect demonstration of your power."
"You betcha!" Shina was raring for a fight and wiggled her fingers in anticipation.
Gabriel and the others raised their guards with him commanding, "Everyone! Be careful!"
"STOP!" Mew suddenly threw his arms in the air and then brought them down to make a "T" out of his hands, "TIME OUT!"
Everyone, including the spirit of the Sage, froze up on the spot.
"WHAT?!" The Sage exclaimed in bewilderment.
Mew turned aside and thrust his finger out to imitate a certain famous lawyer, "There is a LOT going on here and I need some answers!"
He firmed his finger and glared at the Sage, "One, who are you? Two, how do you know 'D.' or Devimoth or whoever the hell he was? Three, how are Aurians BUGS?! Four, why do you want Shina? And five..."
Mew glanced around the area and proclaimed, "Why does this place look EXACTLY like Sancturia?!"
And nearing defeat in his tone of voice he muttered towards the wild, "And...and is that Sonic the Hedgehog running around over there?"
"W...What manner of creature ARE you?" The Sage's bewilderment grew.
"Actually..." Shina tilted her head back and perked up with curiosity, "I don't know a lot about you Mr. Sage. Can...can you tell us real quick? Please?"
"Yes yes I suppose you don't remember much about our past. And perhaps with our story, these ignorant whelps can find enlightenment." The Sage was surprisingly quick to please Shina's request. But hey, better than nothing!
With a wet cough the Sage composed his wings around his body like a robe and muttered, "This is the only time I will say this so pay attention, blasphemers. For mine is a tale older than the oldest worlds...It is the origin of Aurians, and of our slow descent into sin."
Next Time: The Revered One
