A Tale of Two Torrents

By Dixxy

Chapter Nine: Pieces of the Puzzle

(Cye)

Once we were certain that Sue Lee was asleep, Sara began to relay exactly what had happened to her from the time she left the garden to the moment I chased the man out. She paused numerous times in order to keep her composure, each time getting a comforting hand squeeze from me and sometimes and whimper of affection from the Gruff.

"It was weird, though," she said. Despite her mentally reliving the experience, she seemed much better. I gave her a quizzical look- what was she getting at? "When he tried to touch me, you know, down there, something sent him flying into the wall. It was like some sort of a force field."

I blinked. "That's weird," I said.

"Why, though? Was it my armor or what?" she asked.

"The Torrent armors, in a sense, are considered the purest of the armors. Think about it. Water is seen as a healing agent and something used to purify. Yeah, you get the occasional sacred rock or sun shrine, but pure water is very clean. Maybe your armor didn't want you tainted from that," I said.

"No," said Sara, shaking her head. "Two Torrents of the past were both molested by Sehkment and Vanessa according to Anubis. If it was that, then he might've have me by now. Cye, I'm so confused right now. I'm glad that whatever it was that happened occurred, but, I don't like not knowing what it was." She sulked, sighing heavily.

I nervously placed an arm around her shoulder. "We're going to figure this out, all right? We'll be back home soon enough. Tomorrow, I don't care WHAT Termini says, we're going to be going home. And he's NOT skirting around it this time, because we aren't going to let him."

"I agree with you on that. He's-"

Click.

We turned to see Termini had stuck his head inside our room. Sara chucked a pillow at him, an undignified look on her face. Termini blinked in sudden confusion. "How DARE you!" she hissed, careful not to awaken Sue Lee. "You knew we were in here, it is night, and-"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but I didn't hear anything aside from conversation and assumed you weren't occupied. One of the nursemaids went to check on Sue Lee and she wasn't in her room. Do either of you have any idea where-" Termini began. I held up my hand. "Yes, Cye?"

"She's in here," I said. Termini's face took on a look of shock. I could do a better job at lying then you're doing, Termini. You either knew about this or you just don't care. "Someone, presumably one of your men, tried to rape Serena. I didn't want Sue Lee to be at risk to that so I brought her and the Gruff in here to keep her safe."

Termini raised an eyebrow. "Do you know who it was?"

"No," said Sara. "And now that this has happened, we want to go back to the Mortal-"

"Now, now, now, I will find out who did that and give him the most severe punishment for going near you, Sara, so please relax," he said. "Just enjoy your stay here and don't worry about any more of my servants bothering you. I promise it will not happen again."

"No, I'm NOT relaxing!" she said. "I want to go home!"

Termini ignored her and closed the door, leaving my partner in arms beyond pissed. I could understand her anger. We had a damn good reason to be getting home and he still wasn't letting us get there. The Gruff growled at the door, but made no motion to do anything aside from sound offended.

"Of all the nerve!" said Sara. "He's treating us like prisoners here!"

"I'm beginning to feel that myself," I said, crossing my legs. "Why won't he let us go? If your 'guests' want to leave, you let them leave, and if they need to stay for something, they'll tell you about it whether it be bad weather or helping with the dishes. We ARE prisoners here, Sara, and I don't think he's going to help us out at this point."

"He isn't normal." The two of us saw Sue Lee was up. "Something isn't right about him."

Sara turned to Sue Lee. "Sue Lee, please, get some sleep. We all need it."

"Okay, Sara," she said. "But. . . the weirdness I felt last night came back."

"How long have you been up, anyways?"

"When Sara chucked the pillow at Lord Termini," said Sue Lee. Her eyes narrowed at the statement. We both knew why. She must've heard us discuss the attempted rape. "And then he said that I was missing and then you silenced him, and he said 'Yes, Cye?' and then-"

My eyes widened. Something about what she had said suddenly rung a bell. A bell similar to the one that had been rung the previous night at dinner. That weird thing is back again! "Wait a minute," I said. Sara and Sue Lee looked at me curiously. "Repeat what you just said."

"I said that he said I was missing?" asked Sue Lee, crawling onto the bed.

"After that," I said.

"You silenced him?"

"After that," I said. "Keep going."

"He said 'Yes, Cye?'"

"That's IT!" I said, jumping to my feet and snapping my fingers. Both females in the room jumped as well. The Gruff lifted its head and raised one furry eyeball, as if he were wondering what had come over me. "THAT'S what isn't right about this fellow! Now I get it!"

"What?" asked Sara, staring at me through bewildered eyes. "What's so. . ."

"He knows who you are," said Sue Lee, her eyes widening in realization. "He called you Cye at dinner, too. AND he just called Sara by her name, too." She stood up, turning to Sara. "I heard what happened to you, Sara. But don't worry, Cye's gonna go beat him up."

"So he knows our real names. But WHY?" I asked.

"That's a good question," said Sara. She lowered her eyes, her arms folded. "We've been using Calvin and Serena for most of our stay here, right from when Termini picked us up and you came up with them. He must've picked it up when one of us slipped or something."

"Lets hope he doesn't put two and two together about our names and our powers," I said. "That would be bad, especially where our powers are most likely still limited." I sighed in frustration. "I wish I could armor up. If I could, we would've been out of here already. But, I can't."

"I bet they're better now," said Sue Lee.

Sara looked over at Sue Lee. "Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Because before you ran off, Cye accused you of not being able to trust your own partner in arms. And Sara said some mean stuff about you, Cye. You didn't trust each other. And your virtue is trust. Your armors weren't working because you weren't trusting someone who you're SUPPOSED to trust," said Sue Lee.

"I bet she's right," said Sara. She sighed heavily. "Of all people that I'll ever meet in my life, and all the people I will meet, you're one of the few who I'm supposed to be able to trust unconditionally. And I didn't trust you. Hell, I violated your trust by slapping you like that."

"You should always be able to trust the other Ronins, any allies we have like Anubis and Mike, and most of all, your family outside of Trevor," I said. My Sara laughed at the comment about her brother, but she did make a back-handing motion at me for it.

Sue Lee began to nod enthusiastically. "Cye said that he rescued you, and I think it was probably from that guy who tried to do the bad thing to you. He looked really worried when he got me, and I bet that when Cye rescued you it brought the two of you a lot closer together, am I right?" she said.

I thought about that. When I'd freed Sara, she clung to me immediately, bawling her eyes out. She should've been trying to get away from me (since I was a male, after all, and a male she hadn't been very happy with in recent days), but she instead embraced me. Sara DID trust me again. "I guess that make's sense," I said. "So maybe we can use our armors again. Still, we shouldn't use them. Yet. I still have two unanswered questions, one of which is how Termini knows our real names."

"And why he won't let us leave," said Sara. Actually, that made THREE questions, since I was confused about the force field that protected Sara. I hadn't heard of such a force before, and I'd read through the Torrent spell book cover to cover multiple times.

"Let's all sleep on it," I said after some thought. The girls looked at me in interest. "Tomorrow, I'm confronting Termini man-to-man. If he doesn't let us out peacefully, then we'll have to leave by our OWN means. Even if it means Sara and I have to armor up and storm out."

The following morning, I got up before the girls, though the Gruff was awake and looking out the window. He turned to me, tongue lolling out happily. I smiled weakly at it. "Don't wake the girls up, they can both be dangerous," I whispered. I grabbed my Mortal World outfit, then went into the bathroom to wash and dress, not wanting the girls to wake up to something unpleasant.

I walked out, seeing that Sara and Sue Lee had both awoken, Sara yawning and stretching over by the Gruff while Sue Lee was trying to get back to sleep. "Morning, Cye," she said, yawning. She looked me over. "You're dressed. . . normally. You're not going to Termini right now, are you?"

"Yes. Get dressed and washed up," I said, jerking my thumb towards the bathroom. "If we're lucky we can get home in time to get the rest of our homework done and make school tomorrow. IF we're lucky. But be ready to go, because one way or another we're leaving."

Sara stuck her tongue out. "Homework evil, bad, no homework," she said.

I laughed. "Yeah, yeah, I know, but unless you want to be asking successful people if they want fries with their Whopper, I'd pay attention to your studies," I said. Sara looked ready to chuck a pillow at me, but just smiled and wished me good luck with our "host".

"Be careful," she said. I nodded, turning the doorknob. "Don't do anything too drastic, now."

"I won't," I said, stepping out into the hallway. I closed the door behind me, composed myself, and began to walk to where I thought I might find Termini. As I walked, I thought about what I was going to say. How was I going to confront the man, anyways?

"Ah, Cye, how are you this morning-" I looked up to see our "host" was standing before me, a confused look in his eyes as he noticed what I was wearing. I smiled smugly. He slipped again, I thought to myself. "I see you're wearing the clothing from your home world. Is something wrong?"

"Actually, Lord Termini, I would like to speak with you," I said.

"Oh? About what?" he asked. He put an arm around my shoulder and began to lead me along. "We can talk in my study. You seem to want privacy. Is this about your wife? I found the one who tried to touch her and had him thrown into the basement with other problem servants."

That quickly? He'd found him that quickly?

"I assure you that nothing will come to harm you or Sara again," he said.

I didn't say anything as he opened a door to a small office like room with a desk, a few chairs, and a shelf full of books. Termini closed the door behind us and offered for me to sit down in front of the desk while he took a seat behind it. He folded his hands, placed them on the hardwood surface, and smiled. "Yes?"

"We know that you know our real names," I said. Termini paled. Oh yes. I was right. He was up to something and whatever it was couldn't be very good. "You've been calling me 'Cye' and my wife 'Sara'. How could you have known that? We told you our names were 'Calvin' and 'Serena'. Where did you learn our real names?"

Termini's expression darkened. But he said nothing.

That got me angry. So I continued on with my confrontation, standing up and leaning against the desk. "And second off, ever since we've gotten here, you've given us the cold shoulder when we ask you to get home. Please, we have family and friends back home, Sue Lee, too. You've been treating us like prisoners. So, tell me this, Termini; what the bloody devil is going on around here!"

Termini rose from his seat and walked around to my side of the desk. I stared at him, seeing he was NOT happy with me. His eyes had narrowed, his lips were pulled into a nasty sneer, and he knew I was onto him. "Perhaps I was careless in letting my knowledge of your names slip, Child."

I froze. Oh dear God. . . not this. . . He knew. He knew exactly who we were. He knew we were Ronins. I wasn't sure why or how, but he knew who we were. And further more, he knew that I was the Child of Destiny. Suddenly I wasn't so sure about my idea on confronting the man. "What do you want with us?"

Termini cracked a grin that I didn't trust. I backed away from him, the man walking me straight into a corner. But I knew I was dangerous. I kept defiance in my voice as I spoke to him. "I'm warning you, Termini. If you know I'm the Child of Destiny, then you know I'm dangerous and that you shouldn't try to screw with me, because the only one who'll get screwed is you."

"That, my dear Child, is what you think," he said. He raised a hand in the air, closing his eyes. He began to murmur a chant, his fingers emitting a strange black energy. Dark energy. I tried to back away to the door, but Termini pointed to me with his free hand, an unseen force slamming me into a bookshelf. A large volume fell of the shelf and landed on my head, causing everything to go suddenly black. . .