Note: Most
persons places and things in this fanfic are probably owned by
Squaresoft inc.
so please don't sue.
The road to the Mt. Ordeals was one
just like any other. The only
difference was the fact that it was surrounded on both sides by a forest, that
stretched as far as Naxos could see. It
was a very boring ride. Suddenly the
ground transportation cruiser (or gtc) stopped right in front of the complex
area. A loud voice came over the
intercom and said, "All right everybody, this is the end of the line. So get off, or you'll be stuck on here for a
good ten hours." Naxos looked at his
two traveling companions, he had been disgusted by the way Phantine had slept
in Dekan's lap, but at least now he finally had an excuse to wake them up.
"Hey, come on you two. We have to get off now." Phantine and Dekan slowly woke up, and
realized they were at their destination. Naxos got up and began looking around at the other people inside of the
gtc. Ever sense he had left the land of
the summoned, he had become more and more disgusted by humanity. Every second that he looked around and
viewed the disgusting creatures he could fell their corruption, their greed,
their arrogance and ignorance. At least
the two that sat across from him were not exactly ignorant.
Naxos grabbed his small bag from
over his seat and hung it on his back, then he pulled down his two companions
bags as well and handed them to them. The three walked off of the gtc and looked around at the countryside
that surrounded them. "Just think this
is one of the only major forests left standing." Phantine said and then gazed up. "I've never seen so many trees in my life, and they're so huge." And soon Dekan took her lead and looked up
at the trees himself. Naxos began
walking toward the complex ahead of them.
"Hold up Naxos!" Dekan nearly shouted while he and Phantine
ran to catch up with Naxos. When they
finally caught up with him, Dekan stopped Naxos by grabbing his shoulder. "Naxos, you have to enjoy life more. I mean look at these trees. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful,
or unique in your life."
"I don't know; I've never really
paid much attention to beauty."
"Why not?" Phantine asked him, sounding rather upset.
"I don't know; I just have never
really looked at things in that way before. I prefer, looking at things through the eyes that cannot see beauty or
anything superficial like that, that way my view of what is going on is
unblemished by opinion, I see only truth."
"Well." Phantine sniffed.
The three of them walked together
towards the complex so that they could get their bearings straight and find a
map of the area, or two and supply themselves for the journey up the
mountain. Naxos was walking next to
Dekan when he whispered. "Phantine
seems a bit more feisty then usually, is anything wrong or should I even ask?"
"You shouldn't." Dekan said with a wink and smile that made
Naxos realize that nothing, terrible unusual was wrong with Phantine, only
something that seemed to happen every month.
Inside the complex Dekan and
Phantine went to a very small restaurant/grocery store, to buy food for their,
"little outing" as Phantine put it. While they were stocking up on supplies Naxos visited the visitors center
and after a long conversation with the lady behind the desk about how maps of
the area should be free, gave here three coins for two maps. After that he began to walk towards the area
where he told Phantine and Dekan to meet him. Once he got there he made sure he was always watching to make sure he
could see when Phantine and Dekan were coming towards him. Suddenly, Naxos heard footsteps behind him,
and without thought or pause, a spell was on his lips and ready to jump from
his fingers and deal death by his bidding. Though when Naxos had turned around he saw a small girl behind him,
obviously lost and whimpering softly.
"What's the matter their, little
one." Naxos said in a calm not
necessarily friendly, but polite voice.
"My mommy, I, I, I, don't know where
she went." The little girl
replied. She sounded very afraid to
tell Naxos, but she also must have realized that she could do nothing else.
"Where and when did you last see
her?"
"In the woods up there." She said pointing to into the thick of the
wooded area. "And it was about, an hour
ago, maybe." Naxos looked down at this
small six maybe seven year old and realized that he had no idea what to
do. The mother was obviously looking for
her, so wandering around the woods himself would, if anything else, decrease the
chance of finding her. He couldn't just
bring her along to the Mountains. Naxos
realized also that the spot where he was, was exactly where he had told
Phantine and Dekan to meet him. ["When
you're done you will find me three hundred paces into the forest, start walking
from that tree over their dead-east and you will find me. Or probably more likely I will find
you."] Naxos now felt as lost and
confused as the child, because if his two companions saw him with this child
and figured out that he did not know what to do, they would laugh at him. No! He could not allow that to happen he was superior to them, not the other
way around.
Suddenly he realized his own
stupidity, put his bag down from his back and wrote on a piece of paper. "I'll be back in a short while, sorry. I have 'errands' to run." And with that he took the girl's hand and
led her off towards the complex. Though
he first walked about 50 paces to the north in order to avoid Phantine and
Dekan.
When they finally reached the complex
Naxos handed over the little girl to the information center woman that he had
argued with before. Now though instead
of yelling, she praised him for his valor. Naxos had no time though to sit around while women enlarged his
head. So Naxos retreated back to the
woods as soon as he could in order to meet up with Dekan and Phantine in hopes
that he hadn't kept them waiting to long.
Naxos ran through the forest trying
to find where his companions were. He
began to make out their figures in the distance and so he decided to slow to a
jog. When he finally came to them Dekan
looked up from the ground he had been staring at, and asked. "Where the hell have you been Naxos? Me and Phantine have been waiting nearly
twenty minutes."
"As I wrote down, I had some errands
to run." Naxos said trying to give away
nothing that had just happened. "Now,
are you two ready to continue?"
"Of course, Naxos." Dekan said insultedly. Naxos began to wonder if it was his time of
the month as well.
* * *
The mountain paths of Mt. Ordeals
were not completely treacherous; they were however near completely clogged up
with ice and snow. This was very
unfortunate because no one had realized just how cold the weather actually was
on mountaintops and all three had come grossly unequipped and grossly
unprepared.
"Naxos." Phantine said as loudly and quickly as her near frozen mouth
could say. "Can't you use some kind of
warmth effect magic or whatever you would call it so that my legs don't fall
off." She demanded.
Naxos wanted to laugh at the
comment, but then his common sense kicked in. He wanted to laugh at her because she was so weak in his eyes. Naxos on the other hand was taking his time
up here in the freezing mountains to help him deal with the cold better. "Very well," Naxos said after a couple of
seconds; it did upset him though that he had to try to keep his teeth from
chattering. "Pyinargeo, nin alou
mintep. Areualooy di yahsin a
grossbour." And with those arcane words
the air around Phantine and Dekan rose in temperature by quite a bit.
"Thanks." Phantine said with relief.
"I didn't ask for your warmth,
Naxos." Dekan said quite bluntly.
Naxos turned around to face Dekan
only to see a light appearing behind from him. "Both of you, duck!"
All three of them dropped to the
ground, as an opening appeared about fifty feet behind where they were
standing. No one said a word as three
men with large rifles came out of the opening and looked around in the party's
general direction. Naxos whispered to
his companions. "They must have some
kind of thermal scanners."
"No, ya think." Dekan said as silently as possible, while
also as sarcastic and insulting as possible.
Naxos watched as the three men took
out binoculars and at that moment he decided to act. "Shiva, mis keld yallen turan sa voll. Adie muen."
With the release of the final word a
shimmering blue, beautiful woman clad in only ice, appeared before Naxos and
said. "Naxos what is your will."
"Freeze those three soldiers down
there."
"As you will." And with that more ice began to form from
her hands, only this ice was not ice, but more of ice like energy. The energy swirled and convulsed, growing
and growing. Suddenly one of the three
soldiers noticed what was going on above him and signaled to his companions,
but it was far too late for them. The
ice energy had grown to its peek and now it was released. It shot out from Shiva's hands; Naxos could
feel from as far away as he was from the energy that it was a blizzard, to
chill the heart of winter, flew towards the soldiers and engulfed them in ice
and snow. Within moments the three were
completely frozen, and the ice that now made up their bodies was beginning to
crack. Suddenly one of the soldiers
exploded and sent shards of blood and ice everywhere into the snow, then a
second sent his remains throughout the region and then finally the last. Naxos considered them lucky though, by the
time the blizzard hit them they were dead.
Shiva, with her duty done, blinked
out of existence and back into the realm of the summoned. Naxos looked at his companions ready to run
and lead them into the opening. He saw
the look in their eyes though and that paused him for a moment. Absolute horror was frozen on both of their
faces. They had never seen anything
like that before, Naxos realized. Though he knew they still didn't have time to sit in horror. He stood up and nearly pulled both of his
companions to their feet and whispered as loud as he could "Come on. We have to get down there now before more
come, or they close the opening." Dekan
nodded back to him, and Phantine, though looking about to cry, nodded as well.
All three ran down to the opening
fighting the chilling winds as they ran. They finally reached the opening and entered into the underground
complex.
Inside of the complex, Naxos looked
around at everything that was inside. They were in a small room with three seats; next to the seats were a
vast array of computers, keyboards, phones, and other technological objects. Naxos looked at the screens. On them he could make out other parts of the
complex: corridors, elevators, what were probably barracks, what looked to be a
small hospital, a gym, several of them were focused on the outside of the
mountain itself, and there was also a host of other things that a person could
probably find in a small town. Though
after a few seconds of looking a screen the screen blinked and showed a new
location. "This is either a control
center or a security position. Either way, this is a lot better then coming in
through the garage like we originally planed." Phantine said with relief heavy on her breath.
Dekan pressed a button next to the
entrance that closed it. Suddenly
warmth filled the area and everyone finally felt the ice on their bodies
begging to melt off. Suddenly a voice
called out from something that looked like a microphone standing up out the
controls. "Hey you guys back? What did you find out there, I told you it
would be some rabbit or something, was I right or what?" The voice on the other end asked impatiently
and in a very unintelligent accent.
Dekan nearly ran over to the
microphone and spoke into it while pressing down a control. "Yupp." He said in a voice that sounded very generic.
"Not talking much now are you, well
I wouldn't be either if I'd just lost 10 coin on a stupid bet! Well I gotta talk to the commander so I
collect that from you later, all right." With the end the voices taunting Dekan pressed the button again and
began to crumble inaudibly into the microphone. The voice came back again only this time all it did was laugh and
then vanish.
"You changed your voice very
well. How did you do that?" Naxos asked Dekan.
Phantine answered for him. "Well Dekan here was always a fan of
television and always use to pretend he was the characters on them. So he got real good at controlling his
voice." Naxos nodded at that; it was a
very good skill to have in situations like this. One that Naxos would like to have had as well.
"Well are we going or not." Dekan said in a voice that reminded Naxos of
his own. Which earned him a cold stare
from Naxos and a fit of laughs from Phantine. "Seriously, what do you guys want to do?"
After a fairly long conversation it
was determined that the first step would be opening the door to next room,
however arguments persisted after that. These arguments steamed from what they could understand from the screens
being shown before them. Though only
Naxos and Phantine really watched the screens, Dekan started to look through a
computer directory before him. "It's like trying to put together a giant jigsaw
puzzle that won't stand still." Phantine said.
"Look there it is again," Dekan said
with the glory of being right in his words. "On two different screens and both looked very different. Two reactors. Now we just have to guess which on holds the crystal of fire."
"Could they have broken it in
two?" Phantine asked.
"No." Dekan said with the force of order behind him. "I don't think it's possible, from listening
to Kain, I got the impression of impossibility when it comes to a crystal's
destruction."
"No." Dekan said. "Look at this
panel. It says right here about a
primary control reactor at the peak. And it also talks here about a primary energy coupler at the base."
There was a pause and then Phantine
said. "If we have to split up...I don't
want to have to split up Dekan."
"I don't think we are going to have
much of a choice. Naxos doesn't know
technology and computers like we do. One of us is going to have to go without him. And it's not going to be me Phantine, you and him are going to go
to the one in the that is in the base of this mountain. I'm going to the one at the peak. Now get some uniforms from out of that
closet and let's get going. No, don't
say anything Phantine, I don't want to think or say anything more on this,
okay."
"I understand." She said in a very sheepish voice that
touched Naxos's heart with sorrow and sympathy. She went to the closet like opening and pulled out three uniforms. "I doubt they're our exact sizes, but I
don't see anything more that we can do." Phantine said trying to remain calm and quite. Though Naxos saw a small tear drop from her eye and slide down
her cheek. She was thinking that Dekan
was most probably not going to survive.
Dekan must have seen the tear as
well. "Now look, Phantine I have to go
and deactivate that reactor. Look
here." Dekan pointed down at the
control panel that he had been reading from before. "It says here that the peak reactor must be shut off in order to
move the 'fire reaction coupler chrysalis' and something tells me that I know
what this, fire reaction whatever is." Dekan paused and looked at Phantine eyes. "And don't you dare try and think that I won't make it out of
this alive. Kain told me that I was to
be a Dragoon; that he would make sure of that. Well, I can't be a Dragoon if I'm dead now can I. Me becoming a Dragoon was also a promise
that I made to Kain. And you know that
I keep every single one of my promises."
"Then make me a promise,
Dekan." Phantine begged him quietly.
Dekan was looking deep into
Phantine's eyes. Then he gave her a
promise that Naxos could tell by the way that he said it, not even the grave
itself could keep a promise like that from coming true.
"Those who write
reviews shall be Karmicly rewarded."
-Kain DeLuman